The grind is just as important as the hunt in Monster Hunter Wilds. While we all want to grind away to make stylish armor, Artian Weapons are a huge focus for grinding in this installment. They’re a new customizable weapon type that functions as endgame equipment and they can come across as a little daunting between the materials needed for their unique forging process and their reinforcement system. Read on below to find out what makes Artian Weapons so special.
1. How to get Artian Materials
2. How to Forge Artian Weapons
3. How to reinforce Artian Weapons
How to get Artian Materials
The best way to gather and farm Artian Materials is to go out and hunt some Tempered Monsters. You’ll earn Weapon Shards as rewards for defeating these powered-up monsters, which are then immediately appraised as one of the following four Artian Materials:
- Broken Blade
- Cracked Disc
- Crushed Tube
- Rusted Device
Each of these will have a specific element type and Artian Bonus (boosting either Affinity or Attack) as traits. Both the type of material you receive from the Appraisal and its traits are completely random. The only thing that’s different across the Tempered Monsters is that tougher foes will grant higher rarity materials, similar to Hunter Symbols. My recommendation is to either hunt the strongest Tempered Monsters for rarer materials or take on quests that involve two of them so that you leave with double the amount of rewards.
Hunting strong enemies isn’t the only option to attain these rare items. Another way to get Artian Materials is to visit the Melding Pot in Suja to turn unwanted Artian Materials into randomized new ones. This works just like Smelting in the Oilwell Basin, with each material you use filling up a point gauge. The option is labeled as Meld Relics and will first unlock after completing the Chapter Five Storm-Cold Vortex quest. Once you reach hunter rank 100, you’ll also unlock the option to directly craft a high-rarity material of your choice.
How to Forge Artian Weapons
All of the above leads to finally forging one of these special weapons. You can do so by using the “Forge Artian Weapons” option in Gemma’s Smithy menu and offering up three Artian Materials. Not only does each weapon type use a different mix of materials, but they all need to be the same rarity to be forged together as well. Don’t be surprised if you need to hunt quite a few Tempered Monsters before it’s possible to create exactly what you want.
Selecting two materials with the same element type will grant that element to your weapon. If the third material also shares the element type, it will add an element stat bonus. Although this won’t apply when forging an Artian Heavy or Light Bowgun, it will enable the use of the corresponding ammo type.
How to reinforce Artian Weapons
We can still take it one more step after Forging. Choosing the Reinforce/Dismantle Artian Weapons option in the Smithy menu can increase the power of these new weapons with up to five Reinforcement Bonuses. This process requires materials you gain from Festival Shares or through smelting ore. The only wrinkle is that what you receive is randomly distributed among the following bonuses:
- Affinity Boost
- Attack Boost
- Element Boost
- Sharpness Boost
- Ammo Capacity (only for the Bowguns)
Technically, you can re-roll Reinforcement Bonuses until you have what you need for your dream weapon. There appears to be an internal seed list for these enhancements that are assigned to an Artian Weapon once they’re initially forged. That means you’ll need to forge and reinforce multiple trash weapons, preferably without saving, until you find the best set of bonuses.
Let’s say you want to make the dream Charge Blade, because who wouldn’t? You’ll have to keep maxing out these Artian Weapons until you discover that the sixth weapon will have the stats you want. Now you’ll need to exit without saving and reload your previous save. Forge five of those trash Artian Charge Blades again, and then finally forge your ideal Charge Blade that will pair seamlessly with the perfect Reinforcement Bonuses.
It’s a tedious process that can require a lot of money and a lot of materials. I would only recommend doing this if you’re super serious about min-maxing your stats. Unless the RNG completely screws you over with the bonuses, most of the time these Artian Weapons will be a beneficial option.
Monster Hunter Wilds is available now on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows PCs.