Heavy Bowgun High Rank and Endgame Builds for Monster Hunter Wilds

Welcome to our Monster Hunter Wilds build guide for the Heavy Bowgun in both High Rank as well as endgame. Listed below you will find the best builds for the Heavy Bowgun both for progressing through the earlier stages of High Rank as well as the best builds for Heavy Bowgun at endgame.

To skip straight to the endgame builds, click the button below!

This next set lasts from as soon as you hit High Rank all the way until around Hunter Rank 35 and requires you to defeat Guardian Fulgur Anjanath and Guardian Rathalos a few times to gain all the materials.

At this point in the game, decorations are not worth specifically farming so simply use what you have to either improve your current skills, add new ones or increase your defensiveness if you feel you are struggling with some of the earlier High Rank fights. That being said, if you are struggling that should go away over time, progressing through this part of High Rank unlocks passive resource farms allowing you to more regularly use consumables without having to actively farm them.

This early high rank set will use the Hope Cannon IV as weapon, as it is a great entry weapon with Normal Ammo level 2, and Critical eyes with Ballistics, greatly increasing both affinity and attack range.

This build will focus on combining Weakness exploit with high affinity and attack, as well as good stamina management in order to proc Maximum Might for even more affinity, while also having good defenses. This will allow you to progress through the early High Rank missions without having too many troubles.

• Weakness Exploit - Level 3 (5 with Charm)
• Ballistics - Level 2
• Maximum Might - Level 2
• Critical Eye - Level 1
• Intimidator - Level 1
• Agitator - Level 1
• Stamina Surge - Level 1
• Windproof - Level 1
• Rathalos's Flare - Level 2
• Guardian's Protection - Level 3
• Fulgur Anjanath's Will - Level 2

After rank 35 and 40, you will be able to hunt both Gore Magala and Arkveld. These 2 monsters are the main guys at endgame currently until future title updates and their gear is generally some of the best available.

While this set is still a progression set, this set allows you to more than comfortably farm decorations and any materials you may want while you work towards a true endgame set or even just to farm so you can play with builds and options yourself.

At this point, you are able to fully craft any weapon on the weapon tree. As soon as you are able to craft the Ableben Abzug from Gore you will want to switch to it. This weapon will grant you high raw damage, affinity, and a Level 3 Pierce Ammo which will be one of the best Ammo you can have on Heavy Bowgun. It also comes with a level 3 Critical Element, boosting your Elemental damage.

If you lower your FPS to 35, you can hit 7 elemental ticks instead of 5 when using elemental ammo. Using this technic makes elemental ammo better, but comes at the price of low frame rates, so this choice is up to you.

You will want to use the Wyvernheart Ignition and Wyverncounter Ignition as special Ammo on this weapon.

Your goal with this set is to maximize your Attack power and Affinity, as well as your elemental damage. Agitator, Maximum Might, and Tetrad Shot are a great combination to raise your affinity, as well as your attack.

If you have it, you can use the Corrupted Mantle as well, which raises further your affinity and attack under certain conditions.

Burst will increase your attack as well, however, compared to other weapons, it is not worth getting Burst to max as it seems less effective on Bowguns for now.

You want to use at least the Pierce Jewel Level 3 and Bandolier Jewel Level 2 on the weapon. You can fill the 3rd slot with either Critical or Precise.

You need to use the Challenger Charm II if you want to reach Agitator Level 5.

• Agitator - Level 3 (5 With Talisman)
• Critical Element - Level 3
• Burst - Level 3
• Maximum Might - Level 3
• Critical Boost - Level 2
• Piercing Shots - Level 1
• Tetrad Shot - Level 1
• Weakness Exploit - Level 1
• Adaptability - Level 1
• Constitution - Level 1
• Ebony Odogaron's Power - Level 2
• Jin Dahaad's Revolt - Level 2

Listed below you will find our currently recommended endgame build options for the Heavy Bowgun including their best weapons and best decorations to use on these builds.

The Artian Heavy Bowgun is currently the best Heavy Bowgun in Monster Hunter Wilds. This weapon comes with high raw damage as well as 3x Level 3 Slots with the ability to include an elemental status type. For the Heavy Bowgun Paralysis is the optimal element to use due to its ability to incapacitate the enemies. Picking 3 lots of the same elemental type will grant you Element Infusion increasing the element stat by 30. On the other hand, using 2 of the same element results in the weapon to be created with that elemental type.

Currently, the best Artian Weapon for Heavy Bowgun is the Greifen with there being a few good variations depending on Production and Reinforcement Bonuses. The Production bonus determines the element type as well as any additional stats such as Attack and Affinity. The Reinforcement Bonus is randomised when upgrading the Artian Weapon using reinforcement materials. You can quit to the title screen without saving in order to reroll the reinforcement bonus if you aren't satisfied with your outcome.

When picking Elemental Type you will want to look at Paralysis.

When looking at the Production Bonus for the Greifen the first production bonus we want to include is Attack Infusion. In addition to this, you will want either 2x Attack and 1x Element Infusion.

For optimal Reinforcement Bonuses, prioritise Attack and Capacity Boost in order to increase damage output, and ammo capacity which is important as it will allow you to reload less often, which means more uninterrupted damage.

The Artian weapon Greifen is the BiS Heavy Bowgun you can get, it is a very powerful choice for Heavy Bowgun since you can have high attack and affinity on it, and it provides with 3 very useful decoration slots. As for the Special Ammo, we recommend Wyverheart Ignition a s well as Wyverncounter, however, special Ammo is more up to your own preference. As for Mods, we recommend you use the Ignition Mode Upgrade as it will further boost your damage, and the Elemental Ammo Powder.

For the weapon decoration you will need a Level 3 Pierce in order to max out your Pierce ammo damage. For the other two we recommend you go for Opener and Bandolier level 3 so you can grab Opening Shot and Tetrad Shot who boosts your reload speed and affinity. You can either use the normal Jewels, or the double skill ones. If you go for the double, we recommend Precise for the second skill, to get points into Ballistics which increases your range.

If you do not want to go for the Artian Weapon, we recommand the Mizutsune heavy Bowgun Mountainous Roar. While its skill is less useful, it is currently the only Heavy Bowgun that can go up to 6 Capacity per magazine on Level 3 Pierce Ammo, making it really good. This means faster recharge on your special Ammo, making up for the lower raw damage compared to the Artian weapon. However, I would not recommand it for a Water Elemental weapon. It is really only if you want to go for the strong Pierce damage.

As for the rest of this set, the gear will focus on taking advantage of a maxed out Weakness Exploit with extremely high attack power. It also should have enough defenses to allow you to smash and guard through the toughest enemies! This build was updated with TU1 to combine a 4-piece Gore Magala, taking advantage of the Gore ability, together with one piece of Zoh Shia. It is basically a direct upgrade from the previous best Heavy Bowgun build. You can also go for a 2-piece Gore and 2-Piece Zoh Shia, by switching up the Head piece if you want to take advantage of Zoh Shia's recovery ability.

You will need the Exploiter Charm level 2 in order to max out Weakness Exploit. The Decorations on the gear we recommend you max out Weakness Exploit and get some points into Maximum Might. You also want to get two San Jewels to get antivirus to max.

• Weakness Exploit - Level 5
• Opening Shot - Level 3
• Tetrad Shot - Level 3
• Constitution - Level 3
• Antivirus - Level 3
• Ballistics - Level 2
• Evade Window - Level 2
• Agitator - Level 2
• Maximum Might - Level 2
• Piercing Shots - Level 1
• Coalescence - Level 1
• Divine Blessing - Level 1
• Peak Performance - Level 2
• Burst - Level 2
• Flinch Free - Level 3
• Gore Magala's Tyranny - Level 4
• Scale Layering - Level 3