Monster Hunter Now beginner tips tricks guide for new players

Step into the thrilling world of Monster Hunter Now, where augmented reality meets epic monster battles right on your mobile device. Whether you’re a seasoned hunter or a fresh recruit, mastering the basics-from weapon skills to strategic evasion-will transform your hunts and unlock powerful gear. Ready to track, fight, and conquer? Here’s your essential beginner’s guide to dominate the hunt and thrive in this dynamic mobile adventure.

Below, we list some tips and tricks that we wish we knew starting out to help get you up to speed.

Don’t bother completing armor sets – pick and choose based on perks

In Monster Hunter Now, there is no bonus for wearing a full armor set, so you don’t need to bother completing entire sets. Instead, focus on mixing and matching individual armor pieces based on the perks and skills they provide. Each piece offers different skills that can enhance your survivability and damage, so selecting armor according to the specific perks that suit your playstyle and the monster you’re facing is more effective than sticking to one complete set.

Each piece of armor has its own set of perks, skills that you get from upgrading your gear to certain tiers. Rather than completing an armor set and wearing a matching outfit, you should pick armor pieces based on skills that match your playstyle. For example, if you find yourself getting tossed around by monsters often, you may want to equip and upgrade the Jagras Helm, which gives you Firm Foothold, a skill that reduces knockback the more you level it up.

Progress through the story for more monsters to fight

As you progress through the story in Monster Hunter Now, you will encounter increasingly challenging monsters to fight. Advancing the storyline unlocks urgent quests featuring stronger monsters that drop better materials, allowing you to craft higher-grade equipment. After completing the main story, you can enter New Game Plus modes (NG+, NG++, etc.), where tougher monsters with more stars become available, offering even greater rewards. However, be cautious not to advance too quickly if you are not yet equipped to handle the higher-tier monsters, as this can limit your ability to successfully complete hunts. This progression system ensures a steady increase in difficulty and rewards, keeping the gameplay engaging and rewarding for hunters at every stage.

If you’re tired of taking out Kulu-Ya-Ku and Jagras, don’t worry – more monsters will unlock as you progress. You’ll be stuck with the same handful of beasts for a while, but just keep taking down monsters and collecting materials to complete your quests and you’ll see a larger variety of enemies in no time.

Elements matter most in combat

In Monster Hunter Now, elements play a crucial role in combat effectiveness. Each monster has specific elemental weaknesses, and using weapons imbued with the right element can significantly increase your damage output. Elemental damage is added on top of raw damage and becomes especially powerful when combined with skills like Affinity, which boosts critical hit chances, further enhancing elemental damage. Choosing weapons that match a monster’s elemental vulnerability and equipping armor that provides resistance to opposing elements are key strategies for survival and efficiency in hunts. Additionally, skills that boost elemental attack or trigger elemental damage bursts can provide substantial advantages during fights, making elements one of the most important factors to consider in combat.

When it comes to fighting larger monsters, having an elemental advantage can make a significant difference, especially at higher difficulties; we hit a brick wall during the five-star Rathian encounter in the story, which we able to eventually clear with enough paralysis weapon upgrades. Our recommendation is, once you have settled on your weapon type of choice, is to have a variety of elements at the ready, and to upgrade them up as much as your armor sets – making those leaps in difficulty much less daunting.

Remember to open the app, even if you’re not going to hunt monsters in the moment

Even if you’re not actively hunting monsters at the moment, remember to keep the Monster Hunter Now app open. The game often features real-time events and monster appearances that can happen unexpectedly, so staying connected ensures you don’t miss out on opportunities to join hunts or collect rewards. Additionally, keeping the app open helps you stay updated on nearby monsters and ongoing quests, allowing you to jump into action as soon as you’re ready.

You’ll need to collect lots of materials, both for your missions and to upgrade your gear. Even if you’re not feeling up to hunting a bunch of monsters, you should open the app occasionally so you Felyne friend can collect materials around you. It’ll only take a few seconds for your Palico to grab the nearby materials and you can close the app right after it’s finished.

Habitats around you change

Habitats around you in Monster Hunter Now change regularly, influencing which monsters and resources appear in your area. The game features different biomes-such as forest, desert, and swamp-that rotate daily or even multiple times a day, affecting the types of monsters you can hunt and the materials you can gather. This dynamic environment encourages players to explore different locations to find specific monsters or resources, adding variety and new challenges to the gameplay. You can check your current biome in the top left corner of the screen, which also provides information on the monsters and materials available, helping you plan your hunts more efficiently.

Don’t worry too much about being stuck in the same drab area just because you live in the suburbs. The habitats will shift often enough that you should be able to encounter a variety of monsters, even if you’re confined to one neighborhood.

Remember to do both your story and special quests

To progress effectively in Monster Hunter Now, it’s crucial to complete both your story quests and special quests. Story quests unlock new areas, monsters, and gear options, guiding you through the game’s main progression. Meanwhile, special quests offer additional challenges and rewards that can significantly boost your strength and equipment variety. Tackling both types of quests as they become available ensures you maximize your options and improve your hunter’s abilities efficiently.

Your story quests will unlock progression like new weapons and the like, but special quests are daily objectives you can complete for lots of HRP (experience) and crafting materials. most of them are easy enough to complete and you’ll get them done just by playing the game, so make sure to claim the rewards as you do.

Be within the radius of resources points before you tap

Before tapping on resource points in Monster Hunter Now, make sure you are within their radius to successfully collect materials. Being inside the radius ensures your hunter can interact with the resource node, allowing you to gather valuable items needed for crafting and upgrading gear. If you tap from too far away, the collection won’t register, so positioning yourself correctly on the map is crucial for efficient resource gathering during your hunts. This helps you maximize your materials without wasting time or effort moving back and forth.

Something worth knowing for those coming from Niantic’s other games, such as Pokémon Go, is that Monster Hunter Now is more temperamental about the game’s equivalent of PokéStops, called Gathering Points. Gathering Points will not register your current position if you interact with them a little too early, requiring you to exit and tap in again each time. A minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things, but does means resource gathering isn’t as quick fire as we’d like.

Small monsters are more useful than you think

Small monsters in Monster Hunter Now are more useful than you might think. While they are lesser threats compared to large monsters, they often appear in groups and can drop valuable materials such as sharp claws, wingdrake hides, and even rare items like raw meat, which can be used strategically to attract larger monsters. Engaging with small monsters not only provides essential crafting resources but also enriches the gameplay by offering varied encounters, occasional horde battles, and mini-boss challenges that keep the hunting experience dynamic and rewarding.

Small monsters – which take just a few hits of your weapon to defeat – will regularly litter the map, and you’ll be forgiven for ignoring them in favor of larger ones with more valuable crafting parts. But fighting them has multiple benefits: They have unique drops required for various armor and weapon upgrades (you’ll need these more often than you’d think!) and, perhaps more usefully, fighting them contributes to building your Special Skill gauge. This gauge persists between encounters, meaning you can activate a powerful attack right at the start of a challenging large monster fight.

Paintballs allow you to fight monsters later

Paintballs in Monster Hunter Now are a strategic tool that allows you to mark large monsters for up to 48 hours, enabling you to track and fight them later at your convenience. This is especially useful for tackling tougher monsters from the 6-star rank onwards, which drop higher-grade materials. Using paintballs wisely, such as marking different monsters before teaming up with friends, helps maximize their effectiveness and conserve resources. Additionally, enabling Adventure Sync lets Palico paintballs automatically mark monsters even when the game is closed, making it easier to plan your hunts and coordinate multiplayer battles within a certain range of your friends.

Paintballs are one of the smartest features in Monster Hunter Now, where monsters can be “tagged” to fight later at your own convenience. This can either be done manually with pink Paintballs, or automatically in the background via your Palico with a small pool of blue Paintballs you’re gifted daily.

Paintballs are useful if you haven’t got the time there and then to fight something, or if you come across something powerful and need more time to prep. You have three attempts to complete each encounter – any more than that, and the monster will disappear from your roster.

Is your game sluggish? Try downloading assets or tinkering with settings

If your Monster Hunter Now gameplay feels sluggish or laggy, consider downloading additional game assets to improve performance and reduce loading times. Additionally, tweaking the in-game settings such as lowering graphics quality or adjusting the camera zoom can help the game run more smoothly on your device. These adjustments can enhance your hunting experience by minimizing delays and visual clutter during intense monster battles. Experimenting with these options ensures a more responsive and enjoyable gameplay session for beginners and veterans alike.

Monster Hunter Now is a surprisingly demanding on older phones, to the point where it can impact how responsive combat feels – a problem for such an action-focused game that demands precision rolls and cramming in one final attack before the timer runs out.

If you’re in this position – and you’re not alone – our first recommendation is to download assets (found at the bottom of the settings menu), which will see encounters load faster. Next, try dialing down the graphics settings to Medium or Low, and turning off 60 FPS encounters, to see if that helps.

If you’re still struggling, it’s perhaps a sign your phone isn’t up to scratch. It’s quite a shock coming from Pokémon Go (a years-old game which can run on a potato at this point), and we’re not saying you should upgrade your handset specifically for Monster Hunter Now, but going from a 2020 iPhone SE that would lag during battles to a iPhone 15 Max that runs the game flawlessly on max settings made the game much more enjoyable.

What secret weapon combos can give me an edge as a beginner in Monster Hunter Now

As a beginner in Monster Hunter Now, leveraging secret weapon combos can give you a significant edge in battle. One of the best starter weapons is the Sword and Shield, prized for its balance of mobility, consistent damage, and defensive capabilities. A highly effective combo to master is using the Sliding Swipe frequently to evade attacks and stay close to the monster, combined with the Backstep + Scaling Slash to launch powerful aerial attacks that maximize damage and status effects. This combo is versatile and fast, making it ideal for beginners to learn and apply quickly.

Another beginner-friendly weapon is the Dual Blades, which excel in fast, continuous attacks. Staying in Demon Mode and repeatedly using the simple combo (Y, Y, B or Triangle, Triangle, Circle) can keep pressure on monsters effectively.

For players interested in pairings, combining the Hunting Horn with weapons like the Hammer or Long Sword can enhance KO potential and break monster parts efficiently, thanks to buffs and complementary skills like Slugger and Focus.

In summary, beginners should focus on mastering the Sword and Shield combos for balanced offense and defense, consider Dual Blades for rapid attacks, and explore weapon pairings like Hunting Horn with Hammer or Long Sword for strategic advantages.

What are the most beginner-friendly weapon combos for quick damage

Most Beginner-Friendly Weapon Combos for Quick Damage in Monster Hunter Now

• Sword and Shield
  This weapon is highly recommended for beginners due to its versatility and balance between offense and defense. Its combos are straightforward, allowing quick attacks combined with the ability to block and counter. You can perform fast combos and even use items without sheathing your weapon, making it ideal for sustained damage and survivability.

• Dual Blades
  Known for their fast-paced, stylish combos, Dual Blades excel at quick damage output. The key beginner combo is to stay in Demon Mode and repeatedly use the simple combo: Y, Y, B (or Triangle, Triangle, Circle). This combo delivers rapid hits and ends with a dodge attack, helping you stay mobile while dealing damage. Managing stamina is crucial, but the combo is easy to learn and effective for quick damage.

• Hammer
  The Hammer is beginner-friendly due to its simple, mostly one-button combos focused on charging and hitting the monster’s head for stun damage. Its hit-and-run style allows for consistent damage, and its combos are easy to execute without complex inputs. This weapon is great for players who want straightforward, powerful hits.

• Great Sword
  Although slower, the Great Sword offers high burst damage with simple combos. Beginners can repeatedly charge and release heavy attacks for significant damage. It also includes a guard ability for defense. This weapon suits players who prefer powerful single hits over rapid combos.

Summary Table

These weapons and combos provide a strong foundation for quick damage while being accessible to new players learning the game mechanics.