Do you want to become a Master Rank Hunter slaying everything in sight, monsters fleeing at the sight of you? Well then you're going to need to learn about abilities and the best ones to use.So hang onto your butts and behold the best Awakened Abilities from Safi Jiva’s weapon line that you’ll need to advance Master Rank quests and one day become perhaps even well I don’t know; Legendary Rank Hunter?
Oh I’m sure you’ll get everything you want. Just play for about 1500 hours, pretend you still have a life and are a valid contribution to society, sit back and marvel at your beautiful well-rounded and thought out arsenal so gruellingly grinded out at the expense of any social or personal career goal development. (We’re in this together. High Fives all around)
This list is compiled from overall usefulness, comfort of ease and how well it forms into a build without negating other more advantageous options. So regard to gem slotting as well as awakening stackability and percentage of actual increase for the given buff is always the MHW mathematical game. Alright now let's smash some monster heads in or delicately finesse them with ranged attacks with these Awakened Abilities that are all the rave.
10. Rathian Essence (Great for Buffing Poison)
Poison is overall a great abnormal status effect that will slowly drain a targets health. It is known to even affect monsters with strong poison resistance which cannot be said for any elemental damage or other status attacks. Because of this any poison buffing Awakened Ability or stapling builds with poison attacks is always good.
What Rathian Essence Excels In:
- Extends the duration of your poison effect on monsters.
- Poison; Well rounded known for procking on monsters with strong poison resistance
- Only two piece of Rathian armor set needed
Ability Details:
- Poison slowly drains health from your target
- Poison is found in weapons,ammo, coatings, smoke bombs and throwing knives
- Requires buildup or cool down before each poison use
- Effect is identifiable by purple saliva hanging from a monster’s mouth
9. Brachydios Essence (Maxes Agitator Level)
The Brachydios Essence effect is unlocked by equipping 3 pieces of Brachydios Alpha or Beta armor. This awakens the skill Agitator Secret which raises the maximum level of the Agitator Skill to Lv7. While active, Agitator increases your damage as well as affinity when monsters become enraged. This is a great addition to any build that relies on attack power and raw attack damage as well as crit hit percentage.
The extra damage when a monster is enraged is great because it is much harder to hit so higher damage hitting will compensate for hitting less. And higher crit percentage affinity is great for skills that rely on crit hits to proc such as Critical Status which increases abnormal status effect damage every time a crit is landed.
What Brachydios Essence Excels In:
- Boosts attack power so it’s great for attack builds.
- More crit hits potentially means more status effect procs; Crowd control.
- Pairs great with artillery; Blast being one of the better overall status effects.
- Notifies you when monster is enraged.
Ability Details:
- Attack and affinity slightly increase with each level
- Great gem slots in the armor set itself.
- Armor looks like an evil boss from power rangers.
- Commonly used with Charge Blade
8. Nargacuga Essence (Conserve Ammo/Keep Weapon Sharp)
The savage bloody Nargacuga will have you wanting to throw the towel in especially after getting pummeled with his tail made of sharp porcupine like quills. But his armor is worth the grind and activating Nargacuga Essence will grant you the valuable skill True Razor Sharp/Spare Shot which alternates for sharp weapons as well as bowguns.
True Razor Sharp greatly reduces sharpness loss while using sharp weapons and Spare Shot chances when unloading your clip for bows and bowguns that your ammo or ammo coating will not be spent virtually giving another bullet or bow. So keeping your weapon sharp is very valuable for attack damage and extending your clip as much as possible for bowguns is useful because the ammo in clip reserve is usually very low in MHW.
What True Razor Sharp/Spare Shot Effect excels in:
- Bladed weapons are sharper granting more attack damage
- Shoot bowguns and bows more instead of reloading
- Great for DPS build in both bladed weapons as well as bows and bowguns
Ability details:
- Optional for Bows, Bowguns and Bladed Weapons.
- Halves sharpness loss/Bows and bowguns have a chance not to expend coatings or ammo.
- Spare Shot proc rate is 20% for bowguns and 25% for bow.
- Razor Sharp chance per hit works exactly like Spare Shot chance per shot.
7. Namielle Divinity (Unlocks Weapon Hidden Element/Increases Ammo Clip Capacity)
Unlocking elemental power can be very powerful and totally change the game for some weapons. Although this skillneeds to be procked by attacking successively and doesn’t stay active the whole battle, it does still stay procked most of the time as when it does activate it will stay on 45 seconds with short cooldowns in between. Also elemental damage itself will be increased.
Bow or bowgun users will definitely want to keep an eye on the Ammo Up skill as it increases ammo magazine capacity by one or two for ammo making the clip last longer so reloads are less frequent. Ammo Up is a rare valuable skill but this Awakening is mostly used for its elemental buff.
What Namielle Divinity excels in:
- Increases weapons elemental damage
- Increase ammo capacity for Bows
- Reloading is less often
- Activate ability by equipping two pieces instead of the usual three.
Ability Details
- Two skills in one
- Unlocks weapon’s elemental power. Behold.
- Increases magazine capacity.
- Activate ability by equipping two pieces; More advanced with four pieces.
- Three levels of elemental power and ammo availability advancement.
6. Affinity (Great for Increasing Crit Chance)
It is often argued whether or not critical hits, affinity or crit percentage is better to use over base attack damage. Which one do you prefer? Crit hits or raw attack? I always go for attack.? CHARGE!!!!
With a limited amount of armor set ability selection per build and gem slots to equip skills it is wise to know which skills are better to leave out or weaken to make room for the more powerful skills. Crit or attack? Crit or attack? Wait I know. BOTH!!
What Affinity Excels In:
- Land more critical hits.
- Shines more with high-rank hunts.
- Buffs raw attack damage so great for DPS.
Ability Details:
- Higher the affinity percentage the more crits you land.
- Better to use with weapons already with high Affinity.
- Most bowguns have very low affinity.
- There are many other skills that boost affinity.
5. Gold Rathian Essence (Maxes Divine Blessing Skill and Increases Status Effect Damage)
Are you getting stomped on, flipped around then tossed up and hit like a grunting overhead Olympic skirt blowing tennis serve back to your tent? I mean do you die a lot? It probably means you need to chill on the attack builds and work on your defense. Yes it may mean your battle will last longer but that’s what we call patience. AHHHHH!! NO HE SAID PATIENCE!!!!!
Yes I did and Gold Rathian Essence with a two piece armor set raises the maximum level of the Divine Blessing skill which is a great defense perk and with four pieces gives True Critical Status great for buffing status damage which also is a patient ploy. AHHHHH!!! HE SAID IT AGAIN!!!! KILL HIM! (Ok yea I didn’t need to say it twice, kill me now.)
But please take your time young padawan, destiny cannot be rushed. AAAHHHHH THAT SON OF A &^%$#! KILL THE MONSTERRIGHT NOW ! RIGHT NOWWWWWAAAA!!
What Gold Rathian Essence excels in:
- Maxes Divine Blessing level.
- Divine Blessing really helps keep you alive.
- Behold the coolest looking gold knight armor Robocop set.
- True Critical Status gives more status damage, procking status more.
- More status damage pairs well with poison and blast.
Ability Details:
- Divine Blessing when procked reduces damage up to 60%
- Increases max level DB from three to five
- Level five DB procs almost every time you get attacked
- True Critical element greatly increases status effect damage.
4. Dragonvein Awakening (Increase Affinity)
The better than Kulve siege Safi Jiva comes in swinging fast dropping shinies and offering godlike equipment that just might be worth attempting getting fired from your job cheating unemployment so you have the time to board yourself up in your room to farm this monster a few months. (Does that sound really good to anybody else?)
The armor itself is styling red dragon leathery magnificence and the three-piece set grants a huge crit damage bonus with blight abnormal status resistance while the five piece has the same effect but enhanced. However and that’s a big however, you will receive small amounts of damage for each hit which does regenerate a good amount back but nevertheless the ability siphons your health and brings it back almost like some sort of HP gambling scenario.
What Dragonvein Awakening Excels In:
- Increase affinity percentage drastically
- Abnormal blight resistance boost
- Critical hit game potential for serious DPS
- Great endgame awakening for Master Rank Elder Dragons
- Risky health loss attack is no bueno
Ability Details:
- Affinity increase activate when unsheathing weapon
- Three piece and five-piece option
- Five piece enhances Affinity buff
- Elemental resistance percentage is low but still worth it
3. Teostra’s Technique (Great for Sharpness)
And what does every good boy need to do with his big sword? Keep it sharp, sharper and the sharpest and MHW is not playing around with this thing. Teostra’s technique grants the ability Master’s Touch which prevents your weapon from losing sharpness during critical hits. So a sharper weapon means more damage. It kinda makes sense. Ouch put that thing down. Scaring me.
This ability is granted when wearing three pieces of Teostra’s Alpha Armor Set and pairs well with two piece Safi Jiva’s Dragonvein Awakening effect which boosts affinity. This will give you mega meta DPS.
What Teostra’s Technique Excels in:
- Boost your weapon sharpness.
- Better weapon sharpness gives more damage.
- Will spend less time sharpening weapon in battle.
- Might actually make Elder Dragons want their mama.
Ability Details:
- Activate with three piece Teostra Alpha Armor Set
- Great to use with Safi Jiva’s Dragonvein Affinity boost
- Does not have a five-piece set enhanced option
2. Sharpness (Increases Attack Damage)
Ok so I’m a Heavy Bowgun user and I have to sit through two to five second animations everytime I reload which is often and very painful. So I definitely feel your pain blade sharpeners every time your blade goes dull and you have to stop to sharpen all while keeping an eye on an enraged monster and sometimes having to cancel or worse yet get smacked mid-animation having to restart the sharpening. (Oh the piercing agony.Ahhh, my PTSD…. just need…. ahhh… whiskey).
MHW is full of sharpening tactics and buffs and ways to use your blade anyway even if it's not completely that sharp. But it looks like just stacking the basic sharp Awakening Ability itself in your awakening build slots is mucho-grande powerful.
What Sharpness Excels In:
- Better sharpness gives higher weapon raw damage.
- Attack is less likely to deflect..
- Also gives better Elemental damage..
- Better for cutting off tails...
Ability Details:
- Bows and heavy bowguns do not have sharpness
- Sharpness of a weapon will degrade over a fight
- Whetstones to sharpen blade in battle
- Color scale meter from red to purple in screen hub indicating sharpness level.
1. Attack (Ummm Hurt Things More)
That’s right hunter boys and girls. Attack, attack, attack takes the main stage in MHW. With the ability to stack the Attack Awakening Ability in your build’s Awakening slots it makes room for some serious damage. So have at it.
Attack is just so important and versatile with so many builds. With impact builds it increases the chance of procking a KO; Blast builds it increases the chance of breaking parts. And I think raw power damage is just awesome for Heavy Bowguns.
So yea get in there and do some raw attack damage. Be dumb and have fun. There’s nothing wrong with that.
What Attack Excels In:
- Increase raw attack damage
- Increases KO chances
- Most builds rely on raw attack damage
- Will increase DPS
Ability Details:
- Stack up to five times in Awakening slots
- Upgrade with Decorations
- Several sets offer Attack level buffs
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- 10 Things We Love About Monster Hunter World
- Monster Hunter World Guide: 50 Tips and Tricks
- Best Monster Hunter World Tips, Tricks and Secrets
- Monster Hunter Live Action Movie Release Date, Cast, Trailer, Story, News
- Monster Hunter World Large Monsters List: Weaknesses, How To Kill, and Location
- MHW Tier List Iceborne (MHW Best Weapons)
