Best secondary weapon combos in Monster Hunter Wilds

Monster Hunter Wilds allows hunters to equip a combo of primary and secondary weapons, opening up the possibilities for new and varied tactics in the middle of a hunt without having to retreat to camp.

While you’re free to mix and match from the 14 different weapon types — once you’ve got your head around the best beginner weapon, of course — getting the most out of this feature is to try and pair armaments which offer different benefits and playstyles, such as switching from melee to ranged attacks.

In this Monster Hunter Wilds guide, we’ve selected what we think are some of the best secondary weapon combos for you to try out.

How primary and secondary weapons work

While they are referred to as primary and secondary weapons in equipment info, don’t let the terms confuse you. The primary weapon is simply the weapon you are currently wielding while the secondary weapon is carried by your Seikret, and you can change weapons while riding, in which that then becomes your primary weapon.

It’s a great way to diversify your playstyle if you had largely focused on just using one weapon. However, know you can also choose to double down by having two of the same weapon types, such as two great swords, one with high raw attack power while the other specialises in dealing bonus elemental damage.

Best secondary weapon combos in Monster Hunter Wilds

We’ve selected three weapon pairings that compliment one another in Monster Hunter Wilds:

Long Sword + Light Bowgun

Why it’s recommended:

• Agile melee and ranged attack options
• Craft special ammo to inflict status effects from afar then close into attack

Having a weapon combo so that you can switch between close-up melee and ranged attacks is fairly straightforward, but the Long sword and light Bowgun are also both weapon types that allow for mobile movement. While you could also opt for even more agile weapons such as Dual Blades, you ideally want a melee weapon with high damage to compensate for the light bowgun’s low attack output.

If you have a Light Bowgun that can use ammo that inflicts status effects such as poison or paralysis, you can fire at a monster while riding the Seikret, and once the ailments take effect, immediately swap to the Long Sword and leap off to focus on melee strikes.

Be warned that if you have charged up your Long Sword’s spirit gauge, that gauge will still gradually run down while you have swapped weapons.

While you’ll naturally want to forge Long Swords with increased attack power and / or ones with elemental bonuses depending on the target monster’s weaknesses, if you want to take advantage of using the Light Bowgun for inflicting status effects, then the starting Hope Rifle in the Expedition Tree will let you use poison ammo as well as recover ammo if you also want the option to heal yourself or other hunters in a group hunt.

If you want to use paralysis ammo, then you can forge Chain Blitz in the Ore Tree, Assault Conga in the Congala Tree or Rey Szelayta in the Rey Dau Tree.

Insect Glaive + Sword and Shield

Why it’s recommended:

• Covers both ground and aerial attacks
• Defensive on the ground and evasive in the air

Essentially, the Insect Glaive is well paired with any melee weapon, so you can also opt for a Great Sword or Lance for more power while sacrificing agility on the ground, but Sword and Shield will give you a balance of offense, defense and speed. This pairing means you can switch from ground-based to aerial attacks pretty easily depending on the situation.

While you can use your shield to guard from attacks on the ground, you’re not vulnerable in the air, since the Insect Glaive ability to vault your hunter in the air means it’s easy to evade ground-based area-of-effect (AoE) attacks, and you can potentially use attacks to continue bouncing the air multiple times to stay out of danger.

The aerial attacks are further enhanced when you have all three colored extracts, but be warned, this effect has a limited duration, and you may lose it if you switch to another weapon for too long.

With the Glaive’s aerial abilities, you’ll more likely be able to mount your target monster and then once you perform a mounting finisher to bring the monster down, immediately switch weapons that can exploit this for maximum damage. In that case, you might opt to not bring a Sword and Shield as your secondary, but something much more powerful like the Hammer — in which case, the Chata Clobberer can be forged after your first hunt.

Early on, upgrading the Hope Glaive is ideal just for increased raw attack as well as increasing your kinsect level, but after fighting Ajarakan in the story, it’s worth crafting Ajara Trident in the Ajarakan Tree for bonus blast damage, while also offering the Power Prolonger level 2 skill that keeps your extract power buffs lasting for longer.

Great Sword + Hunting Horn

Why it’s recommended:

• Slow but powerful pairing with sharp and blunt damage
• Offense and defense paired with support buffs

For hunters who prefer to take things a bit slower while packing a punch, the Great Sword and Hunting Horn is a mighty weapon combination.

The Great Sword offers power but still allows for defense and countering with offset attacks. The Hunting Horn can use offset attacks too, though requires a more complex melody combo first — but it also has other melodies you can play, with each attack playing a note with set sequences that will offer buffs such as increased attack or increased elemental resistances, which you’ll then retain when swapping back to Great Sword (there are exceptions, such as self-improvement, which is exclusive to when using the hunting horn).

While both are powerful weapons, they’re also different in that the Hunting Horn deals blunt damage, whereas the Great Sword relies on charged attacks, but its sharp attacks mean it can also cut monster tails. If you prefer to have a sharp weapon with more mobility, the Long Sword is also a good weapon to pair with Hunting Horn, and you’ll be able to get buffs to further enhance your spirit gauge.

Conversely, if you’re not bothered by buffs and just want high raw damage from sharp and blunt weapons, then a Great Sword and Hammer is perhaps a more ideal weapon combo for you.

For Great Sword in the early part of the game, you can focus on upgrading the Hope Blade or forging the Quematrice Espada in the Quematrice Tree, which has similar raw attack power as well as bonus fire damage.

For Hunting Horn, you’re not just looking at attack power but the useful buffs each weapon has. Although its sharpness is lower, the Bone Horn in the Bone Tree has high attack power to start with, and has melodies that can provide attack and defense buffs. For more recovery focus however, forging the War Bongo in the Conalala Tree has melodies for increasing defense and health recovery, and even one that recovers health while curing you of poison.

To get the most out of combat in Monster Hunter Wilds, learn how to mount, create wounds, capture monsters, cut tails and get fangs, and work around the ‘your item pouch is full‘ warning.