A Bowgun Handbook

By Meathouse

Version 1.0

Contents

Contents

Change History

Introduction

Controls

Light Bowgun

Heavy Bowgun

Strategy

It's a Turn Based System!

Light Bowgun

Heavy Bowgun

The Shots

Critical Distance

Weapon Statistics

Gear

Suggested Weapons

Armor Skills

Suggested Armor Sets

Monster Specifics

Close

Change History

version 1.0 4/5/15

Created guide.

Introduction

Hi there! This is my first guide that I've written up.

I wrote this since I've been playing with the Heavy Bowgun and the Light Bowgun for thousands (seriously) of fights over the years since the start in Monster Hunter Freedom and enjoy helping people out. The bowgun weapons are a very complicated series that are often hard to get into because of all the complex and small details that go into deciding what you want and how to use it for the weapons. Bowguns are considered to be a weapon that fulfills the glass cannon archetype in this game to the most by being able to put out some of the highest damage in the game while having very little armor. I hope that this helps someone new to the class or who dropped it because they were confused to pick them up and give them a try.

Controls

Bowguns have pretty simple controls that are almost exactly the same for both weapons. There are only slight variations that come with the specific quirks that the different classes have from each other. The important differences are when you remove a limiter on a weapon. Removing the limiter is something that you can do for any bowgun you have that is rarity 6 and above. Removing the limiter often changes the entire identity of a gun with some extreme examples in changing the way a gun is used entirely. Specifics will be covered later.

The first step in controlling your bowgun is something you can do before you even unsheathe your weapon. Controlling your ammo. Your ammo is held in your Gunner's Pouch. Unlike previous games, this pouch is always there, whether you are a blademaster or a gunner. You get 8 different slots to store different ammo types, and anything after that is stored in your normal Item Pouch. So be cautious of what you bring as on some guns you won't be able to bring everything you can fire.

In game you can change ammo the same way that you change Items. Hold (R) and cycle up or down through the (X) and (B) buttons. Let go of L when you are done with your selection. You are now selected on the shot type shown.

Bowgun weapons fire based on a clip size function. You have a certain amount of shots that you can fire for each specific ammo type. If you run out of ammo and try to fire again, your character does a long animation showing that you are empty. This roots you in spot and leaves you open to be attacked. To refill your clip with shots, you can reload. You can reload even if you have only used one shot out of a clip, or you can use it whenever empty. You cannot reload when the clip is maximized out. No animation happens when you try to do this.

Light Bowgun

The Light Bowgun comes with a quick sheathe and unsheathe time, and you jog at nearly a normal pace with your Bowgun unsheathed.

Firstly, you unsheathe your weapon through the (X) button.

Once your weapon is out, you can fire with the (A) button.

When your clip runs out, or simply whenever you want to, you reload with the (X) button.

Every time after you shoot, you can do a combination of two slides or backhops using the (B) button. You can combine these any way you want, with two left slides, a slide to the left then right to stay in place, or a slide then a backhop.

Any other time than just after a shot, you evade with a roll with the (B) button.

Weapon Modifications

Silencer: Slightly reduces recoil and makes monsters target you slightly less.

Long Barrel: Increases your bowguns damage. Its around a 6.5% increase in damage.

V. Zoom Scope: This makes your scope able to zoom in and out . 26

Rapid Fire

Rapid Fire is the unique concept to the Light Bowgun. Rapid Fire allows you to fire a certain type of shot, multiple times for the cost of only 1 ammo. You do reduced damage for each individual shot of the volley, but overall the full volley will deal more damage than the original single shot. Be careful with this as Rapid Fire roots you in spot until you finish firing the entire volley. It is very useful for conserving ammo and being able to specialize into a certain type throughout the fight such as using a certain element.

You can see what types of shot your Light Bowgun can Rapid Fire by scrolling over on its equipment details to the Rapid Fire page. It will tell you what shots it does, how many shots are in each Rapid Fire, and the recoil that you go under after each Rapid Fire. Be warned that you cannot change the recoil of a rapid fire on the gun. The value is static and will stay even with a silencer attached or the recoil skill is used. Also, each shot that you can rapid fire is colored green in the shot selection in a fight.

Volley sizes can vary from three shots to five shots. Recoil of a Rapid Fire can vary from Low, to Very High.

Limiter Removal

Limiter Removal on the Light Bowgun has some advantages and disadvantages to it. When you remove the limiter, the bowgun loses its ability to Rapid fire, and its ability to slide and backhop after a shot. Conversely, the Light Bowgun gains the ability to reload all of its ammo at once. This means that you are able to fire out all of a certain type of ammo, then switch to a new type, fire that, switch to a new type, fire that, and continue until you reload again, or you run out of shot for all types of ammo.

You reload all ammo types at once through the (X + A) buttons.

Reloading by the (X) button only reloads just that single type of shot currently highlighted.

Heavy Bowgun

The Heavy Bowgun comes with a sheathe and unsheathe times that are one of the longest in the game. Along with this, you can only move at a walking speed with your Bowgun unsheathed.

The controls are the same as the Light Bowgun.

You unsheathe your weapon through the (X) button.

Once your weapon is out, you can fire with the (A) button.

When your clipp runs out, or simply whenever you want to, you reload with the (X) button.

Every time after you shoot, you can do a side-roll directly after the shot with the (B) button. This is slightly faster in delay between when you shoot and when your roll, it is faster then shooting, waiting, then rolling normally.

Any other time than just after a shot, you evade with a roll with the (B) button.

Weapon Modifications

Shield: This gives your weapon auto-guard. It is not that strong

Power Barrel: This gives a boost to the weapons attack. Its an entire 10% boost so its pretty large.

V.Zoom Scope: This makes your scope able to zoom in and out .

Siege Fire

Siege Fire is the unique concept to the Heavy Bowgun. Siege Fire is a very risky, but very rewarding mechanic in place for the Heavy Bowgun that takes some practice to do. You enter Siege Fire by pressing the (X + A) buttons. When you Siege Fire, you crouch down and brace yourself with your bowgun. You can now fire the specific Siege Fire shots for your weapon in this mode. You can find what shots you can Siege Fire in the Equipment Details section for your weapon and scrolling over to the specific Crouching Fire page. Also, you can see what shots are able to be Siege Fired in a fight by their light green color in the shot selection, just like the Light Bowgun and its Rapid Fire. You exit Siege Fire by pressing the (B) button.

You can also roll into and roll out of your siege fire. You can do this when you have your weapon out by rolling with the (B) button, then mid-roll, press the (X) button. This lets you adjust your positioning faster and enter Siege Fire faster than you would when standing up. To roll out of Siege Fire, you exit just as you would normally with the (B) button but move the directional pad in the direction that you want to roll. You can roll forwards, or do a sideroll to either side of you. An interesting concept to use is to roll out of, then back into Siege Fire. You do this when you run out of shots that you can use for Siege Fire, and the monster is still in a position that you can use it. You do this by pressing the (X) button again when you roll out of the previous Siege Fire with the (B) button.

In Siege Fire, you are able to shoot constantly at a faster rate than you can outside of it. Along with this, there is also a massive boost to your clip size sometimes tripling it. This lets you put out an enormous amount of damage in a small amount of time. A third buff that happens during this is that you can hold down the (X) button to constantly fire rather than having to press the (X) button for every individual shot. Remember though that it takes you time to both get in and get out of Siege Fire. This means that you should only use the mode when you are confident that the monster has no chance of hitting you. This means using your Siege Fire when the monster is on the ground after a mount or leg break, or when it is paralyzed.

If you are running with a weapon that has a very high reload time, remember that going into siege fire reloads your weapon. On some weapons, it can be faster by rolling into siege fire, then rolling out, than it is to reload your weapon normally.

Unlike Rapid Fire, Siege Fire is affected by any recoil variations that you put onto the weapon. A skill that improves the recoil of the weapon when not in Siege Fire, will also improve the recoil during Siege Fire.

Limiter Removal

Removing the Limiter on your Heavy Bowgun takes away your Siege Fire capability, takes away your ability to side roll after a shot, and lowers your walking speed with the gun even further. Conversely, you receive a very large RAW damage buff for your weapon and gain a size increase to any clip that could previously siege fire a certain shot type. There is not much complexity to it really. Along with this, you are also able to fire Wyvern Fire shots which act exactly like the Wyvern Fire of the Gunlance, they do a large fixed amount of damage.

Strategy

It's a turn based system!

Gunning is often approached apprehensively by any person new to the playstyle due to how different it is to being a blademaster. One thing thing that I have found that really helps in learning the play style is to treat every fight you do in a simpler, easier way. Breaking a fight down into chunks helps you organize and plan your method of attack. The best way to explain this is to use a comparison.

So, when gunning, a great idea is to treat the game like a turn based game. This may seem like a strange concept as Monster Hunter is probably the least turn based you will ever see in a game with the intuitive movement and positioning that is absent in those games. But, the core concept of turns is still certainly present when it comes to playing. The general way to approach gunning a monster, especially a fast monster, is to obey “turns”. The core is simple. First, the monster attacks. You dodge, or get hit (preferably dodge). After this, it is then your “turn”. After the monster attacks, they leave a quick opening. This is the time when as a gunner you turn to the monster, and fire off a couple shots. A typical “turn” for a gunner is never more than 4 shots, if you try to get greedy and overextend your “turn” then you will be punished severely. Other things to do during your turn is to reload, sheath, or use a potion. Never try to mix different things into one turn such as trying to fire two shots then reload as you end up sitting there for too long and once again, get punished. Gunning turns into a very routine very intense back and forth of Monster, you, Monster, you, Monster, you.



Now, for the fast monsters such as Zinogre, Rajang, Tetsucabra even, you have to accept that after each monster attack, you will not have a turn. Think of it in a turn based way. They have Haste on, for every one turn you get, they get two, or three. Gunning fast monsters becomes all about evasion evasion evasion, opening, punish that opening, continue evading.

Light Bowgun

Light Bowguns are the more mobile and more versatile weapon out of the two options here. While the Heavy Bowgun may focus entirely on raw damage, the Light Bowgun tries to approach that through several different methods. Almost all types of of gunning with a Light Bowgun revolve around what the weapon rapid fires.

Normal Gunning

The concept of Normal gunning revolves around abusing the power and versatility of the Normal S Lv 2 shot. By having a gun that rapid fires Normal S Lv 2, you will be able to put out large amounts of damage all fight for a very extended period of time. By bringing a full stack of 99 Normal S Lv 2 along with a full stack of combines for the shot, you will never run out of this powerful ammo all fight even if you tried. Remember that Rapid Firing roots you into place during the full extent of the shot. Your best way to tackle this is to again revisit the "turns" concept. Image that one Rapid Fire is one turn. No more, no less. If you try to fire multiple, you can easily see a monster charging towards you. Most Normal Gunning sets bring all skills that boost their damage potential.

Elemental Gunning

Elemental Gunning runs on the same concept of firing a specific shot type as Normal Gunning, but it becomes slightly more specific. Every monster has an element that they are weakest to. Some have a pretty low weakness like Kirin, other have a very large weakness, like Gravios. What this comes down to is using sets that boost your elemental damage and using those specific elemental shots against the appropriate monster. The four main elements of Fire, Ice, Water, and Thunder all act on a principle of a very low raw damage for the shot, and a large elemental damage added in working similar to a Normal shot. Unfortunately, Dragon is unique and although it is stronger and works like a Pierce shot, you can only bring 3 with you for a fight meaning that Elemental Gunning is impossible with Dragon. Most Elemental Gunning sets bring skills that work on boosting your elemental power and any utility after that.

Status Gunning

Status Gunning is the odd one out of the three as it can be complicated to do, and hard to keep up with. Status Gunning runs on applying the Poison, Sleep, Stun, and Paralyze statuses to a monster. The most important of the three are first Sleep for Sleep bombing, Paralyze to keep the monster rooted for a large period of time, and finally poison to deal passive damage. Sleep bombing is the common practice of using barrel bombs to hit a monster once they fall asleep. When a monster is asleep, the next hit does three times damage, this means that when you stack many Large Barrel Bomb Pluses, you do a very large amount of damage. A common way to fight monsters when you run with Status gunning is to chain effects onto a monster. You can do this easily by putting them to sleep with sleep shots. Using Large Barrel Bombs. Paralyze with Paralyze shots. Place a trap underneath the second before the paralyze ends. When trapped, hit the monster with crag shots to the head until you KO it. When KO'd, use Clust rounds for Damage and to break a part, most likely back, that will flinch it. Finally, when the KO wears off, toss a flash into its face to stun it. At this point, you can repeat the process though at diminishing results. This overall gives almost a full minute while your teammates are hitting the monster the whole time. Sets for Status gunning often come with Status, Recoil to let you fire shots better, and trapping or bombing skills to let you do those faster.

Heavy Bowgun

Heavy Bowguns are the more powerful but slower brother to the Light Bowgun. Heavy Bowguns focus on one trait only, and that is dealing straight raw damage to a monster. Using element shots and using status shots only become things to use at your last resort if you are completely out of ammo. Heavy Bowguns works best when you "specialize" them. As you will never typically move beyond your designated shot type during a fight, it is best to get a Heavy Bowgun that is most optimally suited for that playstyle than to try to get ones that can do everything as you often find yourself limiting your damage and power to achieve that.

Normal Gunning

Normal Gunning for the Heavy Bowgun is very similar to Normal Gunning of the Light Bowgun. Again, this method is all about using Normal S Lv 2 to its fullest in hitting the weakpoints of monsters for large damage. Along with using Normal 2, you want to have access to Normal 3 since you do not have the benefit of Rapid Fire to conserve your ammo that the Light Bowgun has. Instead your goal is to simply fire as many shots into the monster at its weakest parts whenever you can.

Pierce Gunning

Pierce Gunning is the other form of using the Heavy Bowgun. This form revolves around using the Pierce shot. The Pierce shot works by traveling through a monster and as it goes, it does damage multiple times. If you shoot a monster and the pierce shot only hits once, then you are reducing your damage that you can get. On the other hand, if you shoot and you get all the hits in of the Pierce shot, you will do a very large amount of damage. Pierce Gunning is all about lining up your shots on a monster in a way that when you fire, the Pierce shot will get in all of the hits. Even though the spots you will be aiming for may not be its weakest points, you will get more damage out of getting all of your hits in on a strong point than you will getting only one or two hits in on a weakpoint. Because of this, you want to aim down the lines of a monster. This typically means going from head to tail or from wingtip to wingtip.

The Shots



There are many different types of shots for bowguns. They can all be grouped into several different categories. They are Normal, Pierce, Pellet, Element, Status, Explosive, and Special. Managing your ammo is one of the most important aspects of bowgunning. You cannot deal damage if you don't have the right shots. One important concept to always follow when going into a fight is to bring a stack of combinations for the main shot type you plan on using, along with any others you can fit into your inventory. This allows you to last longer during a fight and not run out of ammo and have to rely on Normal S Lv 1. If you are firing Normal S Lv 1, are alone, and the monster is not almost dead, it is most likely best for you to abandon the fight.

Normal

Normal shots are kinda strange in that all three act differently than each other.

Normal S Lv 1: This is a very weak ammo type that should be used only when you have run completely out of every other shot type. You have an infinite amount of this type of shot. It deals damage once to a certain part of a monster.

Normal S Lv 2: Works the same as Normal S Lv 1 but is not infinite and hits very hard. Deals damage once to wherever you hit the monster.

Normal S Lv 3: Lv 3 has a unique concept, the shots initial hit is actually lower than that of Normal S Lv 2, but out of every shot comes a ricochet that can hit the monster. Unfortunately, this ricochet is very unreliable and has the same chance to travel in any direction. This means that when you use Normal S Lv 3 you want to aim less for weakpoints, and more for places where you have a higher chance of that ricochet hitting. This means you want to place your shots in places like on its back in between the wings, or on its belly in between its legs.

Combinations and Locations

Normal S Lv 2: Huskberry + Needleberry = Both can be bought from the shop or can be multiplied with wycoon. Can buy shot from store.

Normal S Lv 3: Huskberry + Popfish = Popfish can be gotten from fishing in the wild or using the net on Sunsnug Isle. Can buy shot from store.

Pierce

Pierce shots all work the same way but with different stats behind them. The lower the shot level, the lower the number of times it hits. The higher the shot level, the larger the number of times it hits. This works the opposite way around for damage. The lower the shot level, the higher the damage for each individual shot, and the the higher the shot level, the lower the damage for each individual shot. This means that for a monster where you think you may only get a few pierce shots to go through on it, Pierce S Lv 1 will out damage Pierce S Lv 3. On the other hand, although an individual damage value is less, the overall damage of a higher level Pierce is higher than that of one below it. This means that you want to use Pierce shots that are appropriate for the monster that you are fighting. There is a general rule to follow for this.

You can use Pierce S Lv 1 for monsters Kecha Wacha size and larger.

You can use Pierce S lv 2 for monsters Rathalos size and larger.

You can use Pierce S Lv 3 for monster Diablos size and larger.

Combinations and Locations

Pierce S Lv 1: Huskberry + Latchberry. Latchberry can be multipled with wycoon. Can buy shot from store.

Pierce S Lv 2: Bone Husk + Bird Wyvern Fang. Both can be bought from wycoon for caravan points. Can buy shot from store.

Pierce S Lv 3: Bone Husk + Pin Tuna. Pin Tuna can be gotten from fishing in the wild or using the net on Sunsnug Isle. Can buy shot from store.

Pellet

All pellets work the same. They deal damage in a cone in front of them with the possibility of hitting a larger amount of pellets each time the shot level goes up. The closer or more centered the monster is on where you are shooting, the more likely you are to hit the pellets. This shot type was severely nerfed for Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate with the removal of a strong pellet "magnet" in previous games that attracted pellets to certain parts of a monster. Without this, most of your pellets are going to miss or hit parts that are not a weakpoint.

Combinations and Locations

Pellet S Lv 1: Huskberry + Scatternut. Scatternut can be multipled with wycoon. Can buy shot from store.

Pellet S Lv 2: Huskberry + Wyvern Fang. Wyvern Fang can be multipled with wycoon. Can buy shot from store.

Pellet S Lv 3: Bonehusk + Wyvern Fang. Can buy shot from store.

Element

Element works by doing a combined very minuscule amount of raw damage along with a large amount of element damage working together like a Normal shot. The one exception is the Dragon shot which does the same thing, but works on a Pierce concept rather than a Normal concept.

Combinations and Locations

Flaming S: Huskberry + Fire Herb. Fire herb can be multiplied with wycoon. Can buy shot from store.

Water S: Huskberry + Whetfish. Whetfish can be gotten from fishing in the wild or using the net on Sunsnug Isle. Can buy shot from store.

Thunder S: Huskberry + Flashbug. Flashbug can be multiplied with wycoon. Can buy shot from store.

Freeze S: Huskberry + Ice crystal. Ice crystals can be bought from wycoon for caravan points or found in the wild. Can buy shot from store.

Dragon S: Bone Hust + Dragonfell Berry. Dragonfell berries can be multiplied with wycoon.

Status

Status works the same way as element except that the raw damage of the shots is actually a decently sized amount.

Combinations and Locations

Poison S Lv 1: Huskberry + Toadstool. Toadstool can be multiplied with wycoon. Can buy shot from store.

Poison S Lv 2: Bone Husk + Ioprey Fang. Ioprey Fangs can be multiplied with wycoon.

Sleep S Lv 1: Huskberry + Sleep Herb. Sleep Herbs can be multiplied with wycoon. Can buy shot from store.

Sleep S Lv 2: Bone Husk + Sleepyfish. Sleepyfish can be gotten from fishing in the wild or using the net on Sunsnug Isle.

Para S Lv 1: Huskberry + Parashroom. Parashrooms can be multiplied with wycoon. Can buy shot from store.

Para S Lv 2: Bone Husk + Genprey Fang. Genprey Fangs can be multiplied with wycoon.

Explosive

Crag: Crag works by hitting the monster with a small raw value, then after a small timer, it explodes dealing both a combination of Fire damage and a Fixed Damage that is unaffected by a monster's defense, weaknesses, or weakpoints.

Clust: Clust works similar to crag in that it hits with a small raw value, after a small timer, it then separates into several different explosives that explode upon contact with monster, ground, or wall. These explosions deal a combination of Fire damage and a Fixed Damage that is unaffected by a monster's defense, weaknesses, or weakpoints.

Combinations and Locations

Crag S Lv 1: Huskberry + Nitroshroom. Nitroshroom can be multiplied with wycoon. Can buy shot from store.

Crag S Lv 2: Huskberry + Burst Arrowana. Burst Arrowana can be gotten from fishing in the wild or using the net on Sunsnug Isle.

Crag S Lv 3: Bone Husk + Bomb Arrowana. Bomb Arrowana can be gotten from fishing in the wild or using the net on Sunsnug Isle.

Clust S Lv 1: Huskberry + Bomberry. Bomberry can be multipled with wycoon. Can buy shot from store.

Clust S Lv 2: Bone Husk + Wyvern Claw.

Clust S Lv 3: Bone Husk + Scatterfish. Scatterfish can be gotten from fishing in the wild or using the net on Sunsnug Isle.

Wyvern Fire: Bone Hust + Burst Arrowana. Can buy shot from store.

Special

Slicing S: Hits with a small Projectile damage value, then hits several times with a CUT damage value.

Exhaust S Lv 1: Exhaust does a raw damage amount and adds an application to the Exhaust status meaning that they will tire out faster. If you hit the head with this, it will also apply KO status.

Recovery S Lv 1: Heals the target, this also means that it heals monsters. Can buy shot from store.

Demon S: Applies a demondrug effect to the target.

Armor S: Applies an armorskin effect to the target.

Tranq S: Acts like a tranq bomb. Deals 0 damage.

Paint S: Paints the monster like a paintball. Does 0 damage. Can buy shot from store.

Blast S: Deals damage and applies a value to the Blast status which explodes when fulfilled. Can buy shot from store.

Combinations and Locations

Exhaust S Lv 1: Huskberry + Mopeshroom. Mopeshrooms can be multiplied with wycoon. Can buy shot from store.

Exhaust S Lv 2: Bone Husk + Wanchovy. Wanchovy can be gotten from fishing in the wild or using the net on Sunsnug Isle.

Slicing S: Slicing S + Whetstone. Whetstones can be bought from a store. Can buy shot from store.

Blast S: Huskberry + Bomb Arrowana.

Recover S Lv 1: Huskberry + Herb. Herbs can be bought from the store. Can buy shot from store.

Recover S Lv 2: Huskberry + Potion. Potions can be bought from the store.

Demon S: Bone Husk + Demondrug.

Armor S: Bone Husk + Armorskin.

Paint S: Huskberry + Paintball.

Tranq S: Bone Husk + Tranquilizer.

Critical Distance



Critical Distance works by when you are an optimal distance away from a monster, you do bonus damage. Here is a chart for showing the different critical distance values for your common raw shots. A single box stands for one dodge roll away from the monster without any modifiers to the roll.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Normal S Lv 1 X X X X o l Normal S Lv 2 X X X X X o l l Normal S Lv 3 X X X X X X o l Pierce S Lv 1 o o o X X X o o l Pierce S Lv 2 o o o X X X o o o l Pierce S Lv 3 o o o X X X X X o o l Pellet S X X X

X = Critical Distance

o = Normal Damage

I = Reduced Damage

Blank = Severely Reduced Damage.

Pellet works on an interesting concept that there is a difference between Critical Distance and Distance for Number of Shots hit. You'll have to feel this one out by watching the monster.

Element and Status shots work in that as long as they hit the monster, they will always be Critical Distance. This means that you do not have to worry about how far away you are from the monster when firing.

Weapon Statistics

This can get pretty complicated on all the specific values for how the damage works in this game. If you're not interested in this stuff, its best to just skip to the next section.

RAW Damage (ATP X PWR X RANGE X CRIT X HITZONE) / MODIFIER +DAMAGE

ATP = The Raw value given to you on the gun and whatever skills you have boosting it. Can be seen on status screen.

PWR = Value of Damage for the specific shot type, given below

RANGE = the Critical Distance Modifier, can be 1.0, 1.5, 0.8, 0.5

CRIT = If the attack was critical or not, judged by your affinity. Positive is a 1.25 increase, negative is a .75 decrease.

HITZONE = The percentage of damage you do to a specific part of a monster.

MODIFIER = the class modifier that effects the weapon. For the Light Bowgun it is 1.3. For the Heavy Bowgun it is 1.5

DAMAGE = the extra damage value from WyvernFire, Crag, and Clust shots.

We'll use the Livid Griscannon in this instance. Pretend that we are firing a Normal 2 shot at critical distance on the head of a Rathalos. The stats of the weapon are 465 RAW with 15% affinity. The modifier for projectile damage on the head of a Rathalos is 55

First we want to find the Expected RAW that results from having affinity. The equation for this is ATP(1+0.25(Critical Rate/100))

So we'll do 465(1+0.25(15/100) = 482.438 Expected RAW.

Next we do the full equation of (482.438 X .12 X 1.5 X .55) / 1.5

This gives us a RAW damage of 31.8 approximately

Elemental Damage is calculated very similarly.

ELEMENT X HITZONE / MODIFIER

ELEMENT = The elemental damage of your shot

HITZONE = Same as above

MODIFIER = Same as above

With this example, we are not using element so this = 0

Finally, you add it all together to find the total damage against a monster.

This leads to (RAW damage + ELEMENT damage) * DEF

DEF is a modifier of the amount of damage you do to monsters depending on what rank they are.

Village = 100%

Low = 85%-95%

High = 75%- 85%

G = 70%

Along with this, you factor in any skills that you have that may effect the damage or element damage at this point and the effect that rapid fire would have on the shot.

For the example we will assume that we are in G-Rank, we simply have to run 31.8 X .70 which means that throughout a fight using Normal S lv 2, we will be doing approximately 22.3 damage for every shot we take on the head of the Rathalos.

Shot Damage Statistics

Shot Type Damage Number of Hits # You Can Hold Normal S Lv 1 6 1 ∞ Normal S Lv 2 12 1 99 Normal S lv 3 10 1+∞ (very unlikely) 99

Shot Type Damage Number of Hits # You Can Hold Pierce S Lv 1 10 3 60 Pierce S Lv 2 9 4 60 Pierce S Lv 3 8 5 60

Shot Type Damage Number of Hits # You Can Hold Pellet S Lv 1 5 3 80 Pellet S Lv 2 5 4 70 Pellet S Lv 3 5 5 60

Shot Type Damage Number of Hits # You Can Hold Special Crag S Lv 1 3 1(1) 9 Fire(30) KO(25) DAM(25) Crag S Lv 2 3 1(1) 9 Fire(45) KO(30) DAM(30) Crag S Lv 3 3 1(1) 9 Fire(60) KO(40) DAM(40)

Shot Type Damage Number of Hits # You Can Hold Special Clust S Lv 1 6 1(3) 3 Fire(25) DAM(2) Clust S Lv 2 6 1(4) 3 Fire(25) DAM(2) Clust S Lv3 6 1(5) 3 Fire(25) DAM(2)

Shot Type Damage # You Can Hold Special Recover S Lv 1 0 12 Restores a small amount of Health Recover S Lv 2 0 12 Restores a large amount of Health Tranq S 0 10 Allows you to capture a monster Paint S 0 99 Acts like a Paintball Demon S 0 11 Adds an attack boosting effect Armor S 0 11 Adds a defense boosting effect

Shot Type Damage Number of Hits # You Can Hold Special Exhaust S Lv 1 15 1 12 Gives 35 to Exhaust Status Gives 15 to KO Status Exhaust S Lv 2 20 1 12 Gives 70 to Exhaust Status Gives 20 to KO Status

Shot Type Damage Number of Hits # You Can Hold Special Slicing S 1(8) 1(3) 30 Alternate hits to Cut Damage

Shot Type Damage Number of Hits # You Can Hold Special Blast S 10 1 12 Gives 25 to Blast Status

Shot Type Damage Number of Hits # You Can Hold Special Wyvern Fire DAM(25) Fire (35) 2 10 Does 35 True Damage

Shot Type Damage Number of Hits # You Can Hold Special Poison S Lv 1 10 1 12 Gives 25 to Poison Status Poison S Lv 2 15 1 12 Gives 50 to Poison Status Para S Lv 1 10 1 12 Gives 25 to Paralyze Status Para S Lv 2 15 1 8 Gives 50 to Paralyze Status Sleep S Lv 1 0 1 12 Gives 25 to Sleep Status Sleep S Lv 2 0 1 8 Gives 50 to Sleep Status

Shot Type Damage Number of Hits # You Can Hold Flaming S 7 + 45 Fire 1 60 Water S 7 + 45 Water 1 60 Thunder S 7 + 45 Thunder 1 60 Freeze S 7 + 45 Ice 1 60 Dragon S 1 + 40 Dragon 5 3

Critical Distance Modifiers

Distance Multiplier Effect Close (Pierce Only) 100% Yellow Critical Distance 150% Yellow+Flash+Shake Kinda Distant 100% Yellow Distant 80% Orange Far 50% Spark

Rapid Fire Modifiers

Shot Type Number of Shots in Volley Modifier Normal S Lv 1 5 80% Normal S Lv 2 3 80% Normal S Lv 2 4 70% Pierce S Lv 1 3 70% Pierce S Lv 2 3 70% Pellet S Lv 1 3 80% Pellet S Lv 2 2 80% Crag S Lv 1 3 70% (Explosion damage 100%) Clust S Lv 1 2 70% (Explosion damage 100%)

Shot Type Number of Shots in Volley Modifier Flaming S 3 70% (70% Fire) Water S 3 70% (70% Water) Thunder S 3 70% (70% Thunder) Freeze S 3 70% (70% Ice) Dragon S 2 80% (80% Dragon) Exhaust S Lv 1 3 100% (100% Exhaust) Status S Lv 1 3-2 100% (100% Status) Status S Lv 2 2 100% (100% Status) Slicing S 2 90% (90% Slicing)

The general rule here is, if you go up a round in the rapid fire, you take off 10%. Kinda simple.

Other Modifiers

Skill Modifier Normal Up 110% Pierce Up 110% Pellet Up 120% (Element) +1 1.05 (Element) +2 1.1 (Element) +3 1.15 Artillery Novice 1.1 (effects crag, clust, wyvern fire) Artillery Expert 1.2 (effects crag, clust, wyvern fire) Artillery God 1.3 (effects crag, clust, wyvern fire)

Gear

Suggested Weapons

Bowguns are fickle weapons. Its difficult to find that exact gun that you want as there are so many different variables that go into determining what you want and what you don't. Here are some simple suggestions of bowguns that work pretty well at their respective areas in the game. Most of the time with a bowgun, you want to start with the end in mind. Every bowgun has their own personality and uses to them and no two work the same. Because of this its typically best to find a line that you want for end game, then stick with it all the way. Your damage will not suffer like this strategy does for blademaster weapons.

Light Bowguns

Low Rank

A great all around way to play in Low Rank with Light Bowguns are with Rapid Firing Normal S Lv2. Probably the strongest Low Rank Light Bowgun you will find is:

Normal: Rathling Doombringer. With its high raw, average recoil, and decently sized Normal clips, this gun made from Rathalos parts will easily help you fight anything.

At this point, going into elemental gunning is not the best option as that requires many different sets to grab. Nevertheless, you can grab an armor with Elemental on it and get all 4 different element types in one skill, it may not be as strong as a specialized element set, but its a great strategy for Low and High rank. For a gun that rapid fires a certain element, your most important attribute is raw, everything else is secondary to that. Following this some recommendations are

Fire: Rathling Doombringer (For Low Rank only) or Dios Blaster (With endgame in mind, made from Brachydios parts)

Thunder: Usurper's Crime (Zinogre parts)

Water: Royal Torrent (For Low Rank only, Ludroth parts, traded for Velocidrome from Wycoon) Shell Gatling (With endgame in mind, Seltas Queen parts, take note that it does not have Rapid Fire for water)

Ice: No good options

High Rank

Normal: Rasasa Bowgun (Made from Seregios parts). This bowgun is the king of Rapid Firing normal shots. Seregios weapons have a unique mechanic where whenever you roll, slide, or backhop, you reload one shot back into your clip. Not only does the bowgun have a very high damage to it, but this mechanic means you will almost never have to reload all fight. It and its later forms are often considered the best Light Bowgun in the game

Fire: Demolition Gun (Brachydios) at this stage in the game, you want to start focusing on what you will be using later in the game. High Rank is the part of the game that goes by the fastest for you and you might possibly want to sacrifice some power now for more later. This is not to say that the Demolition Gun is weak in fire, because it is not at all. This gun is beaten for high rank by 10 damage and a higher clip size by the Azurerathling Sunsear which is made from Azure Rathalos parts.

Thunder: Brimstren Drakevow (Made from Stygian Zinogre parts)

Water: Hornet's Nest while only slightly inferior to Maelstrom (Plesioth parts, continuation of Royal Torrent) it is much easier to make, as you will not even be able to make Maelstrom until the very end of High Rank, you'll most likely want to go with the first option.

Ice: Icesteel Wasp (Kushala Daora parts)

Normal: Vayu Sedition

Fire: Lightbreak Gun (Raging Brachydios Parts)

Thunder: Nether Phloxion (Abyssal Lagiacrus, trade Raging Brachydios parts with Wycoon)

Water: Battalion Strafer (Desert Seltas Queen parts)

Ice: Daora's Hornet (Kushala Daora parts)

Status: God's Archipelago (Ancient Shard line) Its at this stage of the game that you are able to really start a good status strategy. This unfortunately was not very easy to run in lower ranks because there were no guns distinctly devoted to applying statuses. Thankfully, this gun makes up for all of that. With the limiter off, you can switch between Sleep, Paralyze, and stun by crag shots to the head with rapid applications.

Heavy Bowguns

Heavy Bowguns can be a little bit more complicated than Light Bowguns. While Light Bowguns can focus on what they rapid fire and their raw, and almost nothing else, Heavy Bowguns rely on many different things that are all just as important from their RAW damage, clip sizes, and what they shoot. Here are some suggestions

Low Rank

Normal: Queen's Farflier (Rathian parts)

High Rank

Normal: Biting Blast (Najarala parts) Najarala just beats the Rathian line in many ways for Normal capabilities. They may have the same clip sizes for Normal, but the Najarala line does higher damage and is able to siege Normal S lv 2.

Pierce: Gravios Gigaroar (Gravios and Black Gravios parts)

Normal: Livid Griscannon (Molten Tigrex parts)

Pierce: Gravios Gigacannon (For when using Siege Fire, made from Black Gravios Parts) or Destiny's Arm (For when not using Siege Fire, made from Crimson Fatalis parts)

Armor Skills

Skills are a huge part of the bowgun weapons. Many blademaster weapons are able to get away with Sharpness +1, then whatever you feel like afterwards. Not so for the Gunner Weapons. Both have certain skills for you to be able to get your fullest function out of them and if you are missing just a few, your damage output may drop.

Light Bowguns

Elemental: This provides a very nice elemental boost to use when you do not want to invest in getting multiple sets for each element. It is equal to the corresponding level of Element Atk, but it can never reach +3 like Fire/Water/Thunder/Ice can reach.

Fire/Water/Thunder/Ice Atk: Amazing skills that boost your element by a large amount for each tier invested in. Highly suggested to use if going on an elemental gunning route

Evade Extender: Evade Extender is the more useful evade skill for gunners. It lets you get out of tight spots and always be in a good position ready to fire off shots. While Evasion is more for rolling through the quick attacks that happen under a monsters feet, evade extender is best for getting away from the large body charges that monsters do to a gunner that is a small distance away from them.

Evasion: Evasion is a good skill for Light Bowgunners to have. Although Light Bowguns are not often in a tight enough spot to need it due to their mobility, it still has its uses in rolling through beams and other monster attacks meant to close a distance. Evade Extender is more useful for a gunner though due to the nature of the attacks that you will see coming your way.

Constitution: Constitution is an interesting skill that lets you evade for half the Stamina that it would have taken normally. Its a great skill for using with weapons such as the Seregios line and other general uses, but its nothing to die for on your set.

Bonus Shot: Bonus Shot is another interesting skill that adds on one extra shot to the end of your Rapid Fire volley. This overall increases your total damage during a fight and is a good skill to look at for boosting that up. Problems come though with the fact that there are many other skills that you could get that will increase your damage more than this skill will. Finally, the kicker of the skill is that yes, the extra shot does more damage, but that extra shot also roots you in place longer for your Rapid Fire. You'll find that with this skill you have less opportunities to fire off a volley of Rapid Fire than you did before. you also may be getting caught many more times by monsters due to this skill.

Load Up: This skill adds an extra shot to each of your clips. Pretty useful for having to reload less, but nothing to aim for specifically, most of the time when you use the Light Bowgun you will be Rapid Firing meaning that even with a small clip, your reloads will be few and far between.

Recoil: Recoil is a fickle skill for Light Bowguns. Almost all uses of it from Normal to Element gunning don't need it at all, and its lack of effect on Rapid Fire hurts it even more. Where it really shines though is on status effect Light Bowguns without a limiter. This skill lets you fire off Poison/Sleep/Para S off like a Normal S round any time and get faster status applications.

Status: Same as Element, this skill boosts your applications up by a passive amount. While in a normal fight without this skill you may only see one to two applications of a status, with this skill maxed out and put into a status build, you can easily find yourself applying several applications each fight.

Earplugs: While this skill is a mainstay for blademasters, it has a lot less use for gunners. Many times you are outside the range of effect on a roar and won't even be affected by it. Along with this, even after a roar, you are most often far enough away that you are already moving by the time a monster has turned and targeted you.

Expert: Expert may be outshined by many of the other damage skills for bowguns, but its excellence really pays off when grouped up with Critstatus or Critelement in a status or element build. Along with this skill, you can apply massive amounts of Status or Element to a monster. This skill almost becomes necessary in most element builds due to this concept.

Critstatus/Critelement: These two skills along with expert are a mainstay in doing status or element. Element sees more use though due to the playstyle of wanting to deal as much damage as possible. Critstatus sees less use as there are several other skills that can see more use that are more appropriate for status runs such as skills to boost your trap setting or bomb power.

Heavy Bowguns

Evade Extender: This is your blood, this is your life. It is not even a joking matter, Evade Extender is made for the Heavy Bowgun. With your slow movement and sheathing time, this skill becomes your sole way of moving around. Thankfully, the speed which you can travel with this skill is about equal to that of a person sprinting with their weapon sheathed. Not only does this skill get you around a battle faster while fighting, but it is great for positioning to get the perfect lineup on a Pierce shot, or being in the right place to fire Normals at the head. Along with this, the skill synergizes with the typical fare of attacks you will see as a gunner as said before, while blademasters get short quick attacks, gunners get large body attacks. Evade Extender is next to necessary to avoid most of these.

Evasion: With Evade Extender, there will be almost no use for this skill, as you will be moving around with extender anyways, spending your limited points on getting evasion is not needed and can be better used on other skills.

Constitution: Same as with Light Bowgun, Constitution is an interesting skill that can get some use. Definitely more suited for the Heavy Bowgun than for Light Bowguns, this skill will get a lot of use as your main form of movement takes up a large portion of your stamina bar. On the other side, the optimal playstyle of a Heavy Bowgun is to stack as many attack boosts you can get, and trying to get this skill can bring others down.

Load Up: Load Up sees little use on Heavy Bowguns. Heavy Bowguns come with such large clip sizes already, that the small boost that Load Up gives is almost not even worth the skill.

Recoil: A mainstay on most Pierce Guns. To fire pierce effectively on this game, you need your Heavy Bowgun to have Some recoil or less so that you can fire Pierce like a Normal shot. Any more and you take a long pause after every shot. Almost all Pierce dedicated guns in this game require Recoil +1 to be used effectively. Recoil +2 is almost never needed as anything past Some is unecessary.

Earplugs: Same as with Light Bowgun, Earplugs see much less use on gunners as many times you are outside of the range of the roar

Steadiness: A kinda decent skill when paired up with Trajectory. Although the issue with this skill is that deviation in this game is completely predictable. All guns have deviation towards a certain direction and all it takes a little mindfulness and you will not miss a shot even with it. Along with that, once again this skill is outclassed by skills that boost your attack.

Expert: Expert sees very little use on Heavy Bowguns. You get a better damage boost out of skills that directly affect your RAW rather than trying to get Critical hits.

Sheathing: Sheathing is a next to useless skill for Heavy Bowguns but still should be addressed. Many people try to take this skill to evade the long sheathing time. Instead though, this problem is already solved, and more from the skill Evade Extender. Adding this skill to a Heavy Bowgun set with Evade Extender is more repetitive than helpful

Raw Damage Boosts

Damage Boosts are without a doubt, the most important skills to gunners. Period. Gunners suffer such terrible armor, that no amount of Guard, evasion +3, or any defensive or utility skill will do much in preventing you from being one hit killed. Rather, most gunners turn towards the other direction, in dealing as much damage as physically possible. These are some of the skills that you should be looking towards most when planning out your set after any essentials from above.

Normal/Pierce/Pellet Up: Your most important damage skill in the game. Normal and Pierce Up give an amazing 10% damage boost to any shot you fire that is of the respective type. Pellet goes even a step further and gives a huge 20% attack boost to all Pellet attacks. These will be the first skill that you get after the essential skills from above almost no matter what.

Attack: This gives a flat passive boost to your attack, is a great skill from Low Rank all the way to G-Rank. Small gives you +10, Medium gives +15, Large gives +20, and XL gives +25.

Ruthlessness: This skill is a combination of Critcal Eye +2 and Weakness Exploit. Whenever hitting a spot on a monster that has a hitzone weakness of 45, this skill adds on 5 to that multiplier letting you hit even harder on those points. Along with this the skill gives you 15% affinity. A very good pick in runs where a monster has an easily accessible weakpoint.

Peak Performance: Peak Performance runs with the the train that whenever you have full health, not damage at all, you get a free Attack Up (Large). This also stacks with Attack Up letting you boost your damage potential even more. The small chip damage you often suffer should not be too much of a problem if you bring enough potions with you since as a gunner, you will be getting hit far less than a bladedancer.

Challenger +2: This skill gives both Attack Up (XL) and Critical Eye +3 whenever a monster is enraged. Against monsters that are enraged very often like the Tigrex, Diablos, or Rajang, this skill is amazing in dealing huge amounts of damage. Take not though, that this skill does not stack with Peak Performance. If Peak Performance is activated, and then this skill is, then Challenger +2 will overwrite Peak Performance. This is why you don't want to use these skills together on the same set.

Trajectory

Trajectory is the most hotly debated new skill to this game. The concept behind trajectory is that it lets your critical distance be effective from farther away. This means that even when you are far away from a monster, you can still hit it with max damage. This lets you have much less downtime during a fight as you are almost always in range to hit with Critical Damage. Along with this, you have more time to react to a monster charging at you allowing for a higher chance of survival.

Unfortunately, this skill has quite a few downsides as well. First of all comes the fact that despite letting you be able to hit the monster from more areas, the skill itself does nothing to actually boost your damage potential. Most skilled gunners after experience with a monster will not need the skill at all as being constantly in critical distance becomes more of a habit rather than a forced nature. Being inside critical distance and outside of a monsters hitbox becomes second nature after extensive use of a bowgun and the skill goes from being something that helped you, to something that is holding you back. Along with this, there are some online troubles with the skill as well. Trajectory tends to make gunners try to hang back from the fight as much as possible so that they do not get hit. Unfortunately, while this is a positive note for them, this is a very negative note for any other player in online. When a monster singles out the gunner halfway across the area, it then takes that much longer for the rest of the team to catch up and get back to fighting. While it may increase your personal damage, it becomes a severe decrease on your entire teams damage.

Overall, use trajectory if you wish or not, its pretty hotly debated so its all down to personal choice. For an opinion, I would personally say do not take it as it only forms bad habits of being halfway across the map and learning normal critical distance is very easy.