Last updated: 26 June 2026

How to Craft and Upgrade Weapons in Monster Hunter Wilds

Every hunt in Monster Hunter Wilds ends with the same question: what can you build next? Weapons are crafted and upgraded at the Smithy using materials carved from monsters, collected as quest rewards, and gathered from the environment. Understanding how weapon trees branch, where to farm specific parts, and when to push into the Artian endgame is the fastest path to meaningful power gains.

01The Smithy: Your Crafting Hub

Gemma the Smithy travels with you throughout Monster Hunter Wilds, setting up at every base camp — so you can forge and upgrade weapons between hunts without returning to the main hub. Open the camp menu and select Forge/Upgrade Weapons to reach the interface.

The interface offers three views. The Weapon Tree maps every upgrade path for each of the 14 weapon types. The Forge List filters to weapons you can build right now, and the Upgrade List shows weapons you already own and can improve. Beginners should lean on the Forge and Upgrade lists to avoid getting lost in the tree.

Upgrading costs both materials and Zenny. Each step increases raw damage and may change the element, sharpness, or decoration slots. Sharpness matters enormously — a weapon in blue or white sharpness deals significantly more damage per hit than the same weapon in yellow or green, so track sharpness alongside raw attack.

02The 14 Weapon Types and Choosing Your Path

Monster Hunter Wilds features all 14 classic weapon types, each with its own upgrade tree, playstyle, and skill synergies. Picking one to focus on early determines which monster materials you need most:

• Great Sword — slow, massive charge hits that reward precise positioning
• Long Sword — excellent reach and mobility, strong at targeting parts
• Sword and Shield — fast attacks and item use without sheathing
• Dual Blades — the fastest attack speed; excellent for elemental damage
• Hammer — blunt damage specialist, best for stun KOs via headshots
• Hunting Horn — blunt weapon that plays melodies to buff the party
• Lance — heavy defence and a counter-heavy style
• Gunlance — a lance with shelling that bypasses monster defence values
• Switch Axe — transforms between axe and sword modes for burst damage
• Charge Blade — stores phial energy and unleashes it in axe-mode explosions
• Insect Glaive — aerial specialist that harvests extracts for buffs
• Light Bowgun — mobile ranged weapon with diverse ammo
• Heavy Bowgun — slower ranged weapon with the highest ranged damage
• Bow — fast ranged weapon chaining coatings and charged shots

Each type shares the same tree logic — Bone and Metal base lines branch into monster-specific paths — but different stats matter per type. Hammers prioritise raw damage and affinity; bows look for element values and coatings; gunlances care about shelling level. Check the weapon description before committing materials.

03How Weapon Trees Branch and Upgrade

Every weapon originates from one of two starter lines: the Bone Tree or the Metal (Ore) Tree. Bone weapons are built from Bonepile materials found anywhere and are the cheapest start; Metal weapons require mining outcrops and tend to offer higher sharpness even at low tiers.

From those roots, trees branch into monster-specific upgrade paths once you hunt named creatures. Moving down a branch costs that monster's parts: scales, hides, claws, fangs, and rarer part-break exclusives.

A critical rule: branching never forces you to abandon what you have built. If you want to test a different elemental branch, craft a fresh base weapon and upgrade it independently — your existing weapon stays intact. Farming broadly across several monsters lets you develop multiple upgrade lines in parallel.

Weapons also have decoration slots that open up as they are upgraded. Slots accept Decorations — gem-like items that add skills — so slot count is as valuable as raw attack when comparing weapons at the same tier.

04Farming the Right Materials

Materials come from four sources: carves after a hunt, quest reward boxes, breaking specific parts during combat, and environment gathering (mining outcrops, Bonepiles, plants). Most early weapons need only Bonepile materials and common drops, but rarer components require deliberate farming.

Breaking a monster part mid-hunt is the most reliable way to access rare materials — tails, horns, wings, and claws each have their own loot table separate from body carves. The Large Monster Field Guide in your Hunter Notes lists which parts are breakable and which rare items appear from each break.

1. Check the weapon tree to identify the exact materials needed before the hunt begins.
2. Equip a weapon that can reliably reach the target part (Long Sword or Bow for tails; Hammer for heads).
3. Focus attacks on the target part until the break notification appears.
4. Claim all carvings from the corpse (body plus any severed parts) before the timer runs out.
5. Check the quest reward box at the end — some high-rarity materials only appear there.
6. Use Investigation quests for bonus reward slots and higher-rarity drop conditions, especially in High Rank.

Mining outcrops across the maps supply ores for Metal Tree weapons and upgrade ingredients. Gathering is fast, auto-collected by your Palico, and respawns between hunts, so a single pass through a zone keeps your ore stock healthy.

05Artian Weapons: The Endgame System

Once you reach the High Rank endgame, the Smithy unlocks a crafting tier called Artian weapons — among the strongest weapons in the game, operating under different rules than normal trees.

To forge one you select several Artian Parts of matching rarity that drop from Tempered Monster Investigations. The highest-rarity parts drop from the toughest Tempered Investigations, so farming those is the core endgame activity.

After forging, an Artian weapon is reinforced across several levels. Each reinforcement awards a random bonus from a pool that includes Attack, Affinity, Sharpness, and Element. The Sharpness bonus is considered near-mandatory by most players — base Artian sharpness depletes quickly without it, and two Sharpness rolls on one weapon is an excellent result.

Because reinforcement outcomes are random, building a strong Artian weapon takes several attempts. Treat it as a long-term goal once you are comfortably clearing the hardest available Investigations.

06Switching Weapons and Managing Your Arsenal

One of the most player-friendly systems in Wilds is the ability to freely swap weapons at any camp, including mid-expedition. You are never locked into a single weapon type for a hunt, so keep multiple weapon lines developed in parallel.

The camp Item Box also lets you reorganise loadouts, swap armour sets, and move decorations between weapons at no cost. Build several complete weapon-plus-armour-plus-decoration combinations and save them as Equipment Sets to switch entire setups in seconds.

• Save named Equipment Sets in the Item Box for quick swaps between hunts.
• Match weapon element to monster weakness — the Large Monster Field Guide and the monster weaknesses page list confirmed ratings.
• Keep both a raw-damage and an elemental weapon upgraded at each tier so you are not underpowered on resistant monsters.
• Check decoration slot count before discarding an older weapon — an older weapon with more slots can outperform a newer one with fewer.
• Revisit skipped upgrade branches when a monster becomes a target reward for a High Rank Investigation.