MH4G Hunters Guide

Opening Notes:
Hello everyone! I just want to state that I will not be rehashing anyone’s work for already created guides I will simply be providing links. All credit goes to the original authors. With that said, I hope you enjoy this guide, now let’s get to the good stuff…

Character Creation:
As in every other Monster Hunter there are a variety of options to choose from. Once you are finished creating your Hunter, you can now create your main Felyne companion! You can change his/her Species, Color, Ears, Tail, Undergarments, and Voice! After character creation you can change your Undergarments, Hair, Features, and Eye Color for your Hunter, and Undergarments for your Felyne in your room.

Quest Types:

Key Quests:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1438.html

A Key Quest is a mandatory quest relative towards progression. It will unlock your Urgent quest which is your passage to higher Hunter Ranks. It is important to know that when Online each individual Hunter will have to post their own quest for credit.

Material Exchange:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1551.html

Material Exchange allows you to trade in-game monster parts for parts of monsters not in the game. For example, Royal Ludroth is not fightable in this game, but I can exchange Velocidrome parts for Royal Ludroth parts allowing me to craft Royal Ludroth gear.

For those of you interested here is a list of who’s in…
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1430.html

Canteen Quest:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1547.html

Canteen Quests will unlock Liquor as a food option and level up your food options with the Felyne Chef. Never forget to eat when going on Hunts! Food will boost your HP and Stamina greatly and unlock secret Felyne food skills! I’ll discuss those later.

Delivery Requests:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1432.html

If you’re coming back from 3U you’ll remember these as Villager Requests you get from the Village Chiefs son. These are gather and turn in type quests that give your farm boots, unlock the Chefs giant B.B.Q., and various other things. Visit the Farm Elder to turn these in!

Unlock Hunt Quests:
These quests will unlock more monsters for you to hunt in the Mysterious Forest.
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1787.html

These quests will unlock more monsters for your Mon’nyan Corps mini game.
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1788.html

These quests will unlock more monsters for your Arena.
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1786.html

I will discuss these more in their appropriate sections.

Guild Custom Quests:
This is a list of all the lv140 Custom monsters. The ones marked red are monsters that have turned Extreme. I will get into that later in the guide. For now here’s the list…
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1784.html

When fighting a custom quest monster a successful hunt will lv up your monster. Running customs is best saved for end game as you can have your monster out lv your current rank. Failing customs will not down lv your quests, the only penalty is pride. These quests are your only source of finding excavated gear, I will get into that later in the guide as well. These maps will be random but do not cycle, they can also go Rare which will add a new section to your map. There are a few variants of these Rare Treasure Rooms, which adds to the challenge of getting that perfect custom quest.

Event Quests:
These are a new type of DLC quest that initiates a story chain. Activate these from the chamberlain in your room. These quests will unlock Guildie Girl replacements for your chamberlain, and various nostalgic gear from previous Monster Hunter titles! They will appear at the respective counter and be first on your DLC list, they will also show completed when done on your DLC list. It is important to know that like Urgent quests, they will not count unless you post them, so each must be done 4 times per group!
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1785.html

Pay attention to your quest objectives here! Most of these quests aren’t about slaying! This is probably one of my favorite new additions to the game, they really thought of everything!

Arena Quests:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1444.html

Not only will these make you a better player, they unlock some seriously cool head gear options and grant you coins for some particularly rare gears. Your Armor and Weapon will be pre-set for the type you choose! Truly a test of skill! I STRONGLY recommend you do this at some point in your game!

Challenge Quest:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1683.html

The DLC version of Arena quests. These will truly put you to the test! S ranks are extremely hard for some of these!

DLC:
A huge topic of debate since we truly don’t know what we will be getting, still here are the links to the current JPN version of DLC’s in game. Regardless of what the end item actually is, at least we know what were hunting.

Low Rank DLC.
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1490.html

High Rank DLC.
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1567.html

Grank DLC.
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1724.html

Basic Armor & Weapon Progression When Questing:

Armors:
Offline 1* - 6* & Online 1* - 3*: Tetsucabra Armor
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/ida/73549.html

This armor is EXTREMELY easy to make, really cheap, and good for both Gunner & Blademaster. This armor will get you through these ranks without need for upgrades and has a torso up piece to it.

Offline 7* - 9* & Online 4*-7*: High Rank Tetsucabra Armor
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/ida/73548.html

Again, most affordable and easiest to craft, be sure to collect bug spots for Hercudromes and gather/farm Might Seeds! While still focusing on defensive skills over offense skills you can blaze through the rest of High Rank worry free of death. A solid green sharpness and high raw is still viable at this level for your weapons, so there’s no need to worry about your offense.

Grank and Beyond: Seregios Armor
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/ida/130735.html

A wonderful balance of offense and defense with 10 empty slots to boot! The only negative to it is slow sharpening speed, which in my opinion is hardly noticeable. You will be sharpening during mounts or zone outs anyway so why not use those 10 slots for something awesome!

If you need a crutch between the High Rank Tetsucabra and the Seregios, the world is your oyster. You have a ton of high rank options to get you through the early stages of Grank as well as an easy starting roster for Grank armors out the gate. If you are going to start collecting all sets, G1 is the place to start. Keep an eye on your money though, as there are a lot of cash sinks end game!

Another noteworthy mention after completing your Seregios suit is Chameleos. It is an extremely easy to make, powerful status effect suit.

Mixing will always be end games best option, but it’s nice to see that there are a lot of complete suit options as well. Since there are so many options to mix sets at end game, I’ll save that for the forums.

Weapons:
This is a difficult topic as what is good for one might not be good for some, but I will do my best to explain.

When starting out, pick a weapon or two and go for it. If you notice after you complete the first two delivery quests in the 1* offline village, you will unlock a series of Great Jaggi missions. While you do not need these to get the completion award, they present a great opportunity to practice each weapon class before committing to something. If you are having trouble deciding what weapon type you like, this is a good start.

You will want to lv up whatever weapon you choose aiming for whatever gives you the best raw damage and sharpness for its type. Once you get to Gore Magala in the game, this is a great stopping point to farm a great weapon. Long story short they are all good and can carry you into Grank as they upgrade into Shagaru Magara weapons. After you get your Gore weapon, just go nuts, rush through the rest of the game or hang out and start farming. Combined with Tetsucabra Armor you are going to melt everything given your skill level.

Let’s get deeper into weapons…

Weapon Types & Usage

Weapon Tutorials:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT84SVapAfSSD_iMfpKbFbA
Gaijin Hunter

Support and Subscribe to him, he has been a great asset to anyone who imported and is very thorough in his guides. I STRONGLY recommend you watch these tutorials.

Great Swords:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1172.html

I use George’s for looks and sleep, Diablos for raw and that bada** feeling, and Crimson Fatalis for the base 1000 Fire.

Long Swords:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1173.html

I like Seregios and Dara Amadula which awakens to Para.

Sword & Shield:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1174.html

So many to love here, Plesi for sleep, Gobul for Para, and Crimson Fatty for Blast. Too many more to mention and let’s not forget the Master Sword!

Dual Swords:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1175.html

Brachy’s are still good, I love Kirin’s as well. Fatalis DS are awesome with Dragon and Blast, but the DLC isn’t out for the JPN version yet so we know we’ll be waiting on that for awhile.

Hammer:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1176.html

I love Seregios hammer, all the Fatalis ones as well, and surprisingly the Whale Hammer you get for beating the game. Hammers still look so damn cool!

Hunting Horn <3
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1177.html

Probably my favorite weapon next to SnS. Absolutely love Seregios HH, White Fatalis as well, I use a lot of excavated HH’s as there are so many variations. Such an amazing weapon type.

Lance:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1178.html

Crimson Fatalis is amazing! Seregios too. I still love my Skyscraper for looks!

Charge Blade
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1185.html

Teostras CB is my personal favorite here, Akantors is worth a look too! Hard to find an excavated though, it shares the drop with SA

Gunlance:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1179.html

Red Tiggy, Crimson Fatalis, Bamboo, George, Seregios… So many good options here, I love GL, strong as ever!

Switch Axe:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1180.html

Savage Jho SA is brutal, as well as Chameleos. The only thing I’ve found stronger than Jhos are excavated.

Bug Staff:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1184.html

Also check out this phenomenal guide on raising your bug by Gaijin Hunter!
http://gaijinhunter.tumblr.com/post/101073637097/mh4g-guide-to-the-new-rare-kinsects-glaive

After making Crimson Fatalis it was hard to look back at anything else. Diablos is a Raw Powerhouse and Daras upgrades into his subspecies, a close contender to Crimson Fatalis. Again I encourage you to look up Gaijin Hunters Tutorial on how to use this weapon properly!

Light Bow Gun:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1181.html

Seregios is OMG fun! I have only ever really used that and some excavated ones, as I prefer HBG.

Heavy Bow Gun:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1182.html

Red Tiggy, Crimson Fatalis, Ukanlos, and Black Gravios to name a few. Powerhouse speed run weapons.

Bow:
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1183.html

Seregios bow rules! I’m also a huge fan of Red Tiggy here. I’ve gotten some nice status bows through excavation.

I want to add that there are no best weapons in this game. As far as any Monster Hunter I have played, this one feels closest to a perfect balance, even over MH4, and really it comes down to the user. Skill will always be greatest in a Monster Hunter game, it’s nice to have this many options now. There are a ton of popular sets, but I’ll leave those for later discussion.

Skills:

A series of Combo skills have been added to the world of Monster Hunter, these skills are obtainable on Excavated armors and now more easily on Crafted Grank gear. Check ‘em out!
http://translate.aegil.net/index.html?l=http://wiki.mh4g.org/data/1446.html

Also check out Athena’s A.S.S.
http://forums.minegarde.com/topic/7348-athenas-ass-for-mh4g-and-mh4u/

A wonderful tool for helping create your sets! I highly suggest it, it helps me a TON with my vanity sets!

Talismans & the Talisman Kid:

I’m happy to say that Locked Charm Tables are NOT in this game! Looks like Capcom learned their lesson with that one. Instead Charm Tables are on the more traditional system, there are no more cursed tables, and if you are not on the table you want to be, simply quit and reload your save.

Again I refer you to Gaijin Hunter…

New Talisman types discussion.
http://gaijinhunter.tumblr.com/post/103111190652/mh4g-new-talisman-types

Charm Crafting.
http://gaijinhunter.tumblr.com/post/64668725526/charm-crafting-marathon-in-mh4

Manipulating the Talisman Kid.
http://gaijinhunter.tumblr.com/post/68362939883/mh4-charm-creator-trick-lock-2nd-skill

Damage Calculation & Moves List:

Here are a few sources…

http://gaijinhunter.tumblr.com/post/93477147957/mh4-damage-and-calculation-articles

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/762804-monster-hunter-4-ultimate/71036623

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/762804-monster-hunter-4-ultimate/71068422

Thank you to the contributors for your hard work!

Felyne Companions:

You get your main cat after the Offline 1* delivery missions are clear. He will be in your room, just walk up and talk to him. In order to activate your cats, simply walk up to the Felyne Bulletin Board, and activate them. From here you can manage your active cats, work them out, gear them, change their comments, and manage your DLC cats. You can have 1 sub cat that will come alone with your main cat when offline. Your main cat will only join Online if you go on 2 player hunts.

There are a few methods to finding Felynes. You can find some progressing through story, they are often hanging out in cat areas on your map when you’re out hunting, you can also find them through street pass, but the most common way is in the Mysterious Forest. Whatever the method, when you find the Felyne just talk to them and they will be in your quest rewards, here you can rename them if you wish and you’ll get a list of their stats.

Cat Stats:
Your Felynes stat cards contain a ton of information and every stat is rolled randomly, with a few exceptions to DLC and Storyline cats. The most basic information will be its general style, its bonus effects when using the Casting Net in the Felyne village, and its fighting style for Mon’nyan Corps fights. I’ll get into that as we discuss the town.

Cat Classes:
Finally the fun stuff! Felynes you find will have Job classes. There are 10 total and while you can’t change them on the Felyne itself, you can use them to influence the behavior of your main cat. So let’s say I have 5 Recovery cats. I need to assign at least 2 to my leader cat to train him to be a recovery cat and the more cats I add of the same kind, the stronger his recovery skills will be and it will unlock more moves for this job type. Since you can only assign 5 cats at a time to train your main cat, if I wanted to do a dual class main cat, I could assign 2 recovery cats and 3 trap cats. This would make my main cat focus on trapping while keeping an eye on my health. The combinations are endless, the skills are truly amazing, and they truly add some fun to your offline and 2 player online hunts.

Leader Cat! (Green Flag)
Leader Cat is amazing! Well balanced and never runs away in fear! This cat will do two things, Kick a** and be there for you! Only your created, main Felyne can be this. It is his/her default setting and to keep it this way, simply don’t have any other cat influence on your main cat. He will start using skills if the monster enrages or if you start taking enough damage and again will NEVER run away!

Fighter Cat! (Red Claw)
High attack power and great for taking down large fights! Fighter cats will panic when the monster enrages or is spending a lot of air time. It will start to use skills when the hunter is pinned down or has taken enough damage, as well as when the monster is dizzy, tired, ect.

Main Cat Influence:
2x Demon Flute buffs (atk up sml)
3x Adds Pierce to Boomerang
4x A stronger form of Demon Flute (atk up lrg)
5x Basically super attacks for your main cat, a berserk mode if you will

Defender Cat! (Blue Shield)
High defense taunting cat! Does a great job of distracting the monster and staying alive, he will panic however if it does take enough damage. He will start pumping out skills when the hunter takes enough damage, if a monster enrages or is in flight, and if multiple monsters appear in one area.

Main Cat Influence:
2x Armor Flute buffs (def up sml)
3x No skill triggered, but slightly better performance
4x A stronger form of Armor Flute (def up lrg)
5x Can block all attacks!

Assist Cat! (Purple Trap)
A Jack of all trades! Assist cat will heal you, lay traps down for you, and throw dung bombs if your pinned down, truly an awesome cat. He will start poppin out skills if the monster rages or when he starts getting hurt and will only panic if your hunter is taking too much damage or is pinned and he can’t get to you.

Main Cat Influence:
2x Shock Traps!
3x Psychic (shows monster location/status)
4x Speed Setup and will use more traps in a fight!
5x Increased recovery speed! (gets back into the fight quicker)

Recovery Cat! (Pink Heart)
My most used, and most recommended cat for starting out and soloing. They will often drop you healing items in the form of green “shinys” They will heal you hard and often and cure you of status effects. They start to shine when monsters rage, they will heal and buff you when the monster zones out, and of course when taking damage or status. They will panic if a giant monster (George) enrages or if 2 large monsters show up in the same area.

Main Cat Influence:
2x Recovery Flute (stamina recovery and heal recovery up)
3x Detox (poison and stink recovery)
4x Increased Health recovery, speeds up your health bar recovery
5x Gift boost, your cat will start dropping more mega potions

Bomber Cat! (Brown Bomb)
A Gunners best friend as bombs will knock you around if you’re a Blademaster. These guys will mostly throw bombs and go crazy when the monster enrages, your hunter takes enough damage, and your hunter is trapped. It will only panic when the giant monsters enrage.

Main Cat Influence:
2x it will start to place bombs where it sees traps set by you, or other players/cats
3x it will ONLY throw bombs
4x Kamikaze Large Barrel Bomb Rush Attack!
5x Kamikaze G Barrel Bomb Rush Attack!

Thug Cat! (Green Bandana)
A shady thief! This cat will mostly boomerang attack but can rush attack a monster and “mug” it up to 2 times! It’ll start using skills when a monster enrages, tires, or dizzies and if your hunter is trapped or it’s taken enough damage. Only panics if 2 large monsters appear.

Main Cat Influence:
2x Huge Boomerang! Power and K.O. boomerang!
3x It will ONLY Boomerang attack
4x Stealth Cat! Less likely to be targeted!
5x Mug improved! Success rate improved!

Treasure Hunter Cat! (Gold Chest)
A loot fiend that won’t attack at all! He will focus on gathering spots entirely and can carry more items back than any other cat. He will never panic and starts using skills when a monster enrages or is ground fighting, as well as when your hunter is trapped. Keep in mind, he only cares about gathering!

Main Cat Influence:
2x High Speed Gathering
3x You’re main Cat and sub-cat both will only focus on gather, they will never attack
4x Then now collect more out of each gathering spot
5x Will collect more times in a row and can reach spots from farther away

Jump Cat & Beast Cat! (Blue Arrow & Orange Teeth)
These two types are new to 4G and I have yet to find or translate their influence skills, fear patters, and skill activations. I can tell you this however…

Jump Cat will allow you to jump off of him. He will light up with an arrow and tiny paws and if you touch him during this point, he will launch you into the air similar to Dragon’s Dogma. I can only imagine he gives you some kind of mount boost, but again, have yet to translate or find translations.

Beast Cat is Awesome! It kind of acts like a bug staff bug and will drain stamina from monsters and give you the same effect as a dash juice! I did notice it seems to die fast for me but the buffs are definitely noticeable!

Double Cat Skills:

These usually initiate when the monster enrages, but you can manually activate them from time to time. If you assign your “Ping” button to your bottom load-out you will see a cat head appear allowing you to activate the double skill. These include…

Rocket Cats!
Cats will mount a tiny rocket that flys into the monsters face, knocking him down and acting as a flash bomb.

Tank Cats!
Cats will jump into a tiny tank and blast shells into the monster, knocking him down, breaking parts, and doing damage.

The Band!
Cats will play a special giant horn that heals the group. This cannot be interrupted and will usually trigger in critical situations. Can be a life saver!

On to your Felynes main home…

The Cat Beach!

This will unlock when you hit the 3rd town and as you progress through missions you will eventually unlock the Casting net and Mon’ nyan Corps mini game.

Casting Net:
Not much to say here, this is your main source of bulk fishing. You can hire up to 5 Cats to participate in the mini game and they will provide you with random buffs to enhance your fishing, I should also add that this is where Plesioth appears in the game and can be caught with the Casting Net. I strongly suggest you catch him whenever you see him, his Sleep SnS is AMAZING! Tired or Exhausted Cats are less likely to produce good results.

Mon’ nyan Corps:
A pretty awesome rock-paper-scissors style mini game. As you complete quests you will unlock certain monsters your cats can fight in this mini game and send them off! Pressing start while in the mini game will advance you to the end with your results if you do not wish to play the actual game, and you can also activate the game when Online through the use of Chamberlain in your room.

A few things I should add, when online you cannot access the cat beach, you will be cut off from Casting Net Fishing and can only participate in Mon’ nyan corps games via Chamberlain. Your cats will get tired from various activities. Bringing them on hunts, having them actively working out, having them Cast or play the mini game will all tire them out, so be sure to give them rests from time to time to produce better results. I should also mention that cats in your current party cannot participate in these events, only housed cats can be activated. You can store up to 50 cats.

Village’s and New Features:

Monster Hunter 4U features 5 Offline Villages, 2 Online Halls, and 3 Mysterious Forests. Let’s break it down…

Village 1: Main Town
This is your starting town, your Felyne chef is available immediately, as is the blacksmith, basic shops, your Caravan, and the Guildie Girl. Progressing through this town will open you up to the Mysterious Forest and unlock your Farm. I strongly suggest everyone unlock their farm before moving on offline or online.

Village 2: Dwarven Underground
Progressing here will unlock the ability to polish excavated weapons and armors, this really does nothing for you until end game. I will get into this later in the guide.

Village 3: Sunny Beach!
One of my favorite looking towns, the beach unlocks, well the cat beach! Home of your all 50 of your cats! They will hang out lazily in whatever gear you choose, I’m going for 50 Mega Nyans! :P

Village 4: Sky Village
Home of the Talisman Kid and beautiful, this is the beginning of your ascent to Grank!

Village 5: Grank Village
This is the newest town, home of the Grank Training Hall, Music Hall, Grank Guild Hall, and the Wyvern Research Facility. Let’s talk about the Wyvern Research Facility as it is the least obvious of what it does…

Wyvern Research Facility:
This is the home to your new Grank items. A series of Offline and Online quests is required to completely finish the facility and is considered a MANDATORY part of the game. Here’s the list…
http://gaijinhunter.tumblr.com/post/100066127137/mh4g-how-to-complete-the-wyvern-research-facility

So as you can see, this will unlock your Cleansing Stones and Dragon Coin for future end game and extreme quests. The new items are obvious as to what they do so I won’t get into it, I’ll cover the stones when I get to the extreme section of this guide.

Grank Training Hall/Music Hall:
A separate lobby from the Grank Guild Hall for Grank Arena challenges. There is also a stage where you can enjoy in game, storytelling music. You can initiate these both on and offline.

Low Rank and High Rank Guild Hall:
One in the same, this will house all your Low and High Rank 1 thru 7 quests. A new feature you might enjoy, the Guildie Girl by the Gong can change your room information so you will never have to remake rooms for hunts again! Just talk to her and change your rooms specifics and she will reflag your room for searches! A pretty sweet feature! Arm Wrestling mini game is available once again, only in this guild hall. The red counter girl will be your source for Low/High Arena.

Grank Guild Hall:
This will eventually be where you spend 90% of your time. The Meat and Potatoes of the game, it houses all your Grank quest needs! Talk to the little Wyverian guy to change room settings. Not much else to say here aside from Congrats for making it this far! You are now ready to experience the true game!

Three Mysterious Forests…

Low Rank, High Rank, and Grank. I will cover this more as I get to the forest and excavation.

If you find yourself stuck at any point in the game, be sure to frequent all your villages and check your forests, often times you will find quests you might not have known were there! Also don’t forget to check your room often when you hit Grank as Afro Cat will start to appear.

Extreme Monsters and Cleansing Stones:

Extreme Monsters:
These can be MAJOR brick walls for groups in the game. Extreme monsters are relentless. They do NOT stagger, flash, trap, KO, status, and are very hard to mount when in a full extreme state. It is very hard to land an attack even with ESP and they will often chain attack you in a nonstop, erratic fashion. Go for the legs and focus on using your cleansing stones!

Cleansing Stones:
These stones are MANDATORY for fighting Extreme Monsters. You will unlock them from completing the Wyvern Research Facility quests. You will have 4 to choose from and can use them infinitely but the is a cool down for each stone. Think of them as using regular whetstones that apply with only 1 swipe. You can use 1 at a time or 2 at the same time to maximize the effect. You will see the buff apply next to your health bar. The 4 types are Attack up, Defense up, ESP, and Status Up. Use which ever applies to your situation but the ESP stone is ALWAYS recommended as it will allow you to easier hit the monster. After hitting the Monster enough times with the buff unlocked you will eventually knock it out of the extreme state, this is your only opportunity to damage the monster as much as possible, as well as apply Status effects, traps, KO, and anything else the monster was previously immune to. After a certain period of time the monster will return to an extreme state and you will have to start the process over again. A good group can get a monster down with 1 cleansing, expect most fights to take you 2.

That’s about all there is to it. You can mount an Extreme monster though it is a lot harder than normal and make sure it times out well with your groups buffs so you aren’t wasting potential cleansing time. When fighting normal infected monsters the stones can also cleanse the virus, but they do absolutely nothing to a normal monster.

Extreme Monster Rewards:
So why bother with these terrible, terrible fights? Extreme Monsters are your only source of Extreme Forging Gems. They look like normal gems (rubys, bomb casing, ect.) and come in 2 forms, those that boost Rare 8/9 Weapons, and those that boost Rare 10. So what exactly is Extreme Forging?

Extreme Forging:
This allows you to level up your rare 8 through 10 weapons one more time after maxing them out through normal upgrading. You need 3 of the appropriate Gem as well as easy to get regular items such as Mega Demon Drug. You have 3 options of Extreme Forging Types…

Attack Boost : This will give you + 20 to the weapons Raw Power
Defense Boost: A bonus of 60 armor + Devine Protection (chance to lessen damage taken entirely)
Health Boost: Your attacks will heal you, every so often

These upgrades are game changers and put your crafted weapons easily on par with anything you can find through excavation.

And now the moment everyone has been waiting for…

The Mysterious Forest, Hunting Custom Quests, and the Excavation Process:

This really does deserve its own guide since it is basically an entirely different beast compared to the MH we all know and love. I have been trying to break down and understand the forest for over a year now. I will be as thorough as I can be, and provide source links for anyone willing to put in the work to help me translate and better help the community understand how this new system works. With that said, here is what I know…

Let’s start with the forest itself…

The Mysterious Forest:
As you progress both offline and online, you will unlock Low, High, and Grank versions of the forest. You will also unlock the respective monsters assigned to each forest.

How the Forest works…

Forest quests are Offline only, once you initiate them, you have an unlimited time to hunt and can die an infinite amount of time. Once you successfully kill a monster and collect its shinys you turn it all back into the guild and it initiates a lottery. This lottery happens during your normal quest ending sequence and will determine which (if any) monsters you are eligible for receiving based on what you hunted, and if the quest will be a single monster hunt or a double monster hunt.

You can increase your chances to receive a custom monster by:
Defeating 2 monsters and or picking up 6 shinys
Picking up 5 shinys is a 90% chance
Defeating 1 monster is an 80% chance
4 Shinys 60%
3 Shinys 40%
2 Shinys 20%
And 1 Shinys 10% respectively

The more monsters you kill per run will increase your odds of receiving a double monster quest. You can kill up to 5 Large Monsters per run.
Killing 1 monster is a 0% chance for a double
2 is 35%
3 is 50%
4 is 75%
And 5 is 100%

Double and Single Monster quests both have their perks. A single Monster quest seems easier to snipe a specific look to your weapons/gear, where as a double monster quests grants you the benefits of both monsters having less HP and more rewards. You still have a chance of guest monsters appearing in both types, during double monster quests, another monster may appear after the first is killed. Your gear appearance in double monster quests will reflect the 1st monster in the list.

Rare Maps in Forest, Rare Maps in Custom Quests:

It’s worth mentioning the Felyne food buff for Felyne Searcher here. Eating Fish/Veggie Fried or Steamed and Veggie/Liquor Fried will grant you this buff. This will increase the amount of skulls you get when completing a Forest run, speeding up the process of it becoming rare. 5 Skulls equal a Rare Forest quest. This does not in any way effect an actual custom quest, only the Offline Forest. Custom quests when completed or abandoned with give you a 10% chance of being rare. So what does this all mean?

Well a Rare map contains a treasure map. There are 4 variations and they are your main target when searching for excavated items. You will come to a small map randomly placed in your Forest which will contain a gathering room, you want to focus mostly on the light blue nodes, this is the main source of your Rusted Equipment.

One Trick people use often is repeatedly abandoning a custom quest until it goes rare, the player will then post the quest and hunt the monster with his team, if the main poster doesn’t get anything worth keeping, he can then reload his save file to keep the quest rare and try again. While this will more benefit his group as they do not need to restart, it is an effective way to better snipe what you are looking for. Most friend groups will form a rotation to keep the loot fair.

What to do with these Quests:
Each quest obtained comes at a certain lv. When shared with other players, it will revert the quest to the original lv it was when found for the receiving player, yours will stay the same. You can have 10 Custom Quests active at a time (essentially 2 full suits of matching armor) and store up to 99 on your back burner. Once registered as active custom quests can be initiated from the counter, much like DLC quests, and shared with other players. The most negative thing about Custom quests is that you cannot remove your quest from the active list without deleting it, so make sure your are absolutely done with it before replacing it with something else.

Some Side Notes on Custom Quests:
Depending on the monster most quests will lv up by 3 per kill until they reach higher lvs where progression slows down to 2 or 1 lv per kill.

Lv 1-30 is considered Low Rank
Lv 31-75 is considered High Rank
Lv 76-90 is considered Grank
Lv 91-140 is considered a Super GRank

After lv 76 you have a chance of other monsters showing up and you won’t start seeing most “Heroic” tier gear until your well past lv 91. Lv 140 obviously drops the best rare 9-10 gear. I should add that around lv 136 you will start seeing certain monsters go Extreme.

Custom Quests will be your main source of tru and heavenly armor spheres outside of DLC and Special quests.