Monster Hunter Rise and MHR: Sunbreak (PC) weapons guide: Full list of weapons and new moves
Learn how to tackle the biggest monsters with our Monster Hunter Rise weapons guide!
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Monster Hunter Rise takes place in a world populated with an immeasurable number of monsters, chomping at the bit to rip and tear you to shreds. Thankfully, you have access to a huge arsenal of weapons that are more than capable of slaying these beasties plaguing your home, Kamura Village.
Each of these weapons has a wide range of strengths and weaknesses that cater to different hunting playstyles. You can also customize your weapon’s moveset with Switch Skills in between missions so you can become more aggressive and more mobile in battle. Not to mention, in the expansion, Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, you will be able to switch between two loadouts of Switch Skills using the new Skill Switch Swap mechanic so you can adapt to any situation during a hunt.
As a beginner, you may feel overwhelmed at the staggering number of options from which to choose and are unsure which weapon is right for you. So, to help you decide we have put together a guide showcasing every weapon type, how they work, and the new attacks each weapon has received in Monster Hunter Rise. We will also update this list with new attacks these weapons will receive in Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak. This is our weapons guide for Monster Hunter Rise on PC.
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Great Sword
The Great Sword is a slow but effective hit-and-run-style weapon designed to deal big damage in a single hit. You can make precise cuts with its overhead slashes or clear out packs of smallermonsterswith wild horizontal swings to send them flying. You can also power up the strength of your overhead strikes by charging your attack and letting go at the right moment to unleash even more damage.
The Great Sword also possesses defensive options to avoid or endure incoming damage such as the ability to block or the Tackle technique. This move allows you to tackle through attacks, ignore monster roars, deal stun damage that can knock them out, and even activate shortcuts to your stronger attacks. The most powerful of which is the True Charged Slash, a devastating double-overhead slash that can cut off tails with ease.
New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Long Sword
At first, the Long Sword is a difficult weapon to get the hang of, but the rewards for doing so are worth the dedication. This weapon can cut through a monster’s tail like a hot knife through butter, bypass thick hides with Spirit Slash attacks, and grant the user a plethora of counterattacks that will leave enemies wide open.
Long Sword has a unique gameplay mechanic called the Spirit Gauge. When you attack with normal strikes and combos, the Spirit Gauge starts filling up with Spirit Energy, which you can spend to perform the Spirit Slash attacks. If you perform a Spirit Slash Finisher at the end of a Spirit Slash combo, the Spirit Gauge will level up. It has three levels — Lv. 1 (white), Lv. 2 (yellow), and Lv. 3 (red), and with every level increase, your attacks become stronger.
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New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Sword & Shield
The Sword & Shield is a versatile weapon featuring skills and gameplay mechanics that can be used for almost any situation. The sword can perform quick slash attacks to cut off tails and close the distance with jumping and sliding attacks. Whereas the shield can defend the user from attacks and inflict stun damage to knock out monsters by punching them in the face with it. The Sword & Shield even allows the user to use all their items without putting their weapon away, and it’s the only weapon that has this feature.
Monster Hunter Rise has given the Sword & Shield a new counterattack that only be executed while blocking. After using this counterattack, you can immediately transition into the Perfect Rush combo, a series of fast strikes that can deal a ton of damage if all the strikes are timed correctly.
New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guides: Dual Blades
The Dual Blades are the fastest melee weapons to use, and when mastered, allows you to dance circles around your foes while hacking them up. They possess quick, multi-hitting combos that pair with elemental and status effect Dual Blades and elusive mobility options to avoid dangerous attacks at the last second.
Dual Blades have a special gameplay mechanic called Demon Mode. When you activate it, you have more attacks at your disposal, your movement speed is increased, and your dodge roll is replaced with a dash. However, your stamina gradually drains away while Demon Mode is active, so you will have to make sure you don’t exhaust yourself while chopping up the monster. While attacking in Demon Mode, a small bar called the Demon gauge will begin to fill. When it is full, you will enter Archdemon Mode, a state which grants the user access to attacks from Demon Mode without activating it.
New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Hammer
The Hammer is the Great Sword’s blunt counterpart in terms of raw power. This bludgeon’s primary purpose is to KO monsters by inflicting stun damage when smacking them into the face, leaving them vulnerable for your teammates to wail on them.
You can also charge up each hammer strike to increase the damage output just like the Great Sword. However, the Hammer allows you to move around while charging up, so you can position yourself to hit a monster’s weak spot. The drawback to blunt weapons is that they can’t cut off tails.
New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Hunting Horn
The Hunting Horn is, without a doubt, the most bizarre weapon in the Monster Hunter series. It is a blunt weapon like the Hammer that also functions as a musical instrument. How this weapon works is that with every attack you execute, you generate a musical note. When you produce two of the same notes, the Hunting Horn activates a melody that grants the user and their teammates temporary boosts to their stats, restored health, and other benefits depending on what Hunting Horn they’re using.
When you collect the right combination of notes, you can initiate the Magnificent Trio, an ear-piercing soundwave attack that can KO monsters and activate all melodies simultaneously. The Hunting Horn also possesses another powerful song attack called the Infernal Melody. Whenever you attack or activate a melody, the Infernal Melody gauge will start to fill. Once it is fully charged up, you can activate Infernal Melody after the Magnificent Trio or the Slide Beat to let loose a hard-hitting song that not only blasts the monster’s eardrums, it also grants the whole party a 20% attack boost for a short time.
New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Lance
The Lance’s game plan is all about holding your ground and stabbing enemies in the face over and over again. It has the toughest shield out of all the melee weapons, capable of guarding against nearly every attack from a monster. The Lance also features a number of counterattacks with the shield, so you can continue attacking unabated.
The Lance has a slow walking speed but makes up for that with mobility skills. The Dash Attack has you running after a monster with your lance out to impale them like a jousting knight. You can’t perform dodge rolls with the Lance, instead you do quick side-steps or back-hops with your shield out so you can block attacks while re-positioning yourself.
New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Gunlance
The Gunlance is the Lance’s bombastic cousin, focusing on high-damaging explosions instead of precise pokes. It possesses a similar moveset and shield to the Lance, but with the added addition of Gunlance shells. These shells fire explosions that inflict a fixed amount of damage depending on the Gunlance’s shelling levels. Also, these shells completely ignore a monster’s defensive properties, making the Gunlance ideal for fighting monsters with hides as thick as rocks.
You can fire Gunlance shells individually, charge them up for bigger blasts, fire them between melee combos, or detonate them all at once after performing an Overhead Smash. Other tools in the Gunlance’s kit include the Wyrmstake Cannon, an armor-piercing and explosive drill that bores into a monster’s body before igniting. And the Wyvern Fire, an attack where you hold your shield up to block attacks while charging up the Gunlance to fire a massive burst of fire that will blow flying monsters out of the heavens.
New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Switch Axe
The Switch Axe is one of the crazier weapons of Monster Hunter Rise. It is a giant battle axe that can transform into a giant sword that lets out small explosions when you hit a monster. Learning the intricacies of each mode and alternating between them is the key to mastering the Switch Axe.
The axe mode features big meaty chops and evasive techniques you can use in the middle of combos to escape danger. Every axe attack fills a bar called the Switch Gauge, and when it is filled enough, you can activate the Switch Axe’s sword mode.
The sword mode deals more damage than the axe mode, but your walking speed is dramatically decreased, and you don’t have access to the Axe Mode’s evasion moves. When you attack in sword mode, it depletes the Switch Gauge, and when it runs out you will be forced back into Axe Mode with a lengthy reload animation that leaves you at risk to enemy attacks.
The secret weapon of the Switch Axe is its phials. Depending on the type of phial your Switch Axe is equipped with, it can augment the attack power of a Switch Axe’s raw or elemental properties, or even grant it the ability to exhaust or KO monsters. To activate the phial’s effects, you must enter the Amped State by attacking in Sword Mode. Once you have achieved the Amped State, both Axe and Sword Modes will become empowered by the phial, and you will gain a new Sword Mode attack called the Zero-Sum Elemental Discharge. This attack plunges your Switch Axe into the monster’s body and blows them up from the inside using the phial’s stored energy.
New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Charge Blade
The Charge Blade is the most complex weapon in a hunter’s armory as it combines the transformation mechanics of the Switch Axe with the jack-of-all-trades features of Sword & Shield. Like Switch Axe, Charge Blade has a Sword Mode and an Axe Mode.
Sword Mode functions similarly to Sword & Shield, except your movement speed is decreased, you can’t use items with your weapon out, and you have a stronger shield to block bigger attacks. How Charge Blade works is that you attack in Sword Mode to build kinetic energy within the sword, then transfer it into phials inside the shield. Once you have enough phials filled, you are ready to use the full might of the Axe Mode.
Axe Mode combines your sword and shield together to form a battle axe. In Axe Mode, you spend the stored energy within your Charge Blade’s phials to grant your axe the ability to cause a small explosion with every hit. You can also use all your phials at once to perform the Charge Blade’s ultimate attack, the Super Amped Elemental Discharge, to demolish all monsters within range.
There are two types of phials Charge Blades can be equipped with. There is the Elemental Phials, which inflict extra elemental damage, or the Impact Phials, which deal extra raw damage and stun damage if used on a monster’s head.
New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Insect Glaive
The Insect Glaive can be used to fight monsters on the ground and in the air without the need for Wirebugs. This weapon features fast ground-based combos and the ability to pole-jump to the sky and let out aerial attacks to bring down flying monsters.
It also includes its own bug companion separate from the Wirebug called a Kinsect. The Kinsect can be ordered to extract fluids from a monster akin to a mosquito. It then takes those extracts and transfers them onto you to increase your attack and defense power, heal your wounds, make your aerial dashes go farther, and even grant you new attacks to use.
There are numerous species of Kinsects you can bring to a hunt, each with their own attack types and secondary properties. Some Kinsects can cut off tails while others can KO monsters like a blunt weapon. Powder Kinsects will automatically extract fluids on marks you have planted on the monster. Assist Kinsects will attack monsters automatically once you have enough extracts. And Speed Kinsects travel the fastest and can be commanded to charge up for a fastball-like attack.
New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Bow
The Bow is one of three purely ranged weapons you can use to damage monsters at a distance. This weapon is all about dodging and weaving through attacks and letting loose a volley of arrows into the monster’s weak spots. You can charge an arrow for a big hit and launch a bag of dust that will grant buffs to teammates within range. You can also coat your arrows with special coatings that boost their damage output or enable them to inflict status effects.
The Bow’s biggest attack is the Dragon Piercer. This move attaches a couple of fireworks to an arrow and fires like a missile towards the monster, piercing its hide and ripping through its body. However, nearly every action with the Bow costs a huge chunk of your stamina. So you will need to use items or armor skills that will help mitigate the hefty stamina loss when using this deadly weapon.
New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Light Bowgun
The Light Bowgun is a giant gun that lets you fire bullets while on the move. You can load your Light Bowgun with different types of ammo to aid you in fighting any monster:
Light Bowguns also get access to ammo types that deal elemental damage or inflict status effects. Unfortunately, Bowgun ammo is not infinite like the Bow’s arrows. You will need to buy the ammo in shops or crafting materials from shops or gathered in the field to craft more ammo in the middle of a fight.
They also grant the user access to a special ammo type called Wyvernblast that can be planted on the ground. These landmines will detonate if a monster steps on them or if a player attacks them. The explosion will deal a fixed amount akin to a Gunlance’s shelling attacks.
New moves for Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise (PC) weapons guide: Heavy Bowgun
The Heavy Bowgun exchanges the mobility and Wyvernblast landmines of the Light Bowgun for more powerful ammo types and being able to attach a shield to block attacks. It has access to the same ammo types as the Light Bowgun and can charge up every shot for more damage. However, the Heavy Bowgun has a few unique ammo types that Light Bowgun doesn’t have access to:
New moves for Sunbreak
Which weapon will you take up in Monster Hunter Rise?
As you can see, there are many cool weapons from which to choose in this game. You can focus on mastering one weapon or go the extra mile and master every weapon to become the world’s best monster hunter. This game’s rich diversity of weapon options is one reason Monster Hunter Rise is one of thebest multiplayer games on PC.
Monster Hunter RiseandMonster Hunter Rise: Sunbreakis now available for Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam. There have also been confirmedreportsstating that Monster Hunter Rise will be coming to Xbox Series X|S,Xbox Game Pass, and PlayStation 5 soon in 2023.
Monster Hunter Rise
Monster Hunter Rise is the latest entry in Capcom’s action-hunting series, Monster Hunter. The peaceful village is under threat of being trampled underfoot by a horde of monsters, and it is up to you to save it. Forge powerful weapons and armor to hunt the biggest game and bring your friends in co-operative multiplayer to aid you in fending off the dangerous Magnamalo.
Buy from:Green Man Gaming|Xbox
Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak
Sail to distant lands to save the Kingdom from the malevolent Elder Dragon, Malzeno, in Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak. This gargantuan DLC expansion will bring new Wirebug actions to master, new gear to collect, and tons of new monsters to slay alongside your friends.
Buy from:Green Man Gaming
Alexander Cope is a gaming veteran of 30-plus years, primarily covering PC and Xbox games here on Windows Central. Gaming since the 8-bit era, Alexander’s expertise revolves around gaming guides and news, with a particular focus on Japanese titles from the likes of Elden Ring to Final Fantasy. Alexander is always on deck to help our readers conquer the industry’s most difficult games — when he can pry himself away from Monster Hunter that is!
