How to equip and get decorations in Monster Hunter Wilds

Decorations play an important part in finessing your Monster Hunter Wilds build.

The secret to success in Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t strictly lie in building the best armor (and then hiding it behind the coolest layered armor). It lies in the fine-tuning. The only downside to the decorations system is that it is entirely random. While there are things you do to improve your chances of getting the right decorations, you will have to cross your fingers and pray for good luck if you’re hunting for a specific decoration.

In this Monster Hunter Wilds guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about decorations, including how to unlock decorations, how to equip them, and, naturally, how to grind them. This is Monster Hunter, after all.

How to unlock decorations in Monster Hunter Wilds

Decorations unlock automatically once you complete the final main story mission of Chapter 2: Long-forgotten Flame. This involves completing the quest “The Black Flame Quietly Manifests,” which will have you search the Oilwell Basin for a brand new monster, Nu Udra. 

Take down this spicy cephalopod and you will be greeted with a new tutorial screen, informing you about Appraisal Items. 

This is an instance where the game is needlessly confusing: It states that these Appraisal Items are unlocked when you complete a High Rank quest. This, however, was a Low Rank quest (as noted by the fact that it is a three-star mission, the stars are blue, and, most importantly, the weapons and armor you unlock are Low Rank weapons and armor). Getting to High Rank is a little more complicated.

Appraisal Items work the same way they have in previous Monster Hunter games: You pick them up as quest rewards, where they are appraised on the spot. The resulting items — including but not limited to decorations — have special properties that you will want to keep an eye on.

So, in short, you unlock them automatically as you play the game, and then continue to automatically collect them as you play. All you need to do is do what you do best: Slay (monsters), Queen!

How do decorations work in Monster Hunter Wilds?

Once appraised, your new decorations will be sent to your trunk in your tent. They are split into two categories: weapons and armor. 

Within each category, decorations are ranked in several ways. The first is their rarity — not all decorations are created equal, and some are definitely better than others. It’s also important to note that the rarity of the appraisal item is not the same rarity of the resulting decoration. Our rarity 5 Appraisal Items regularly turn into rarity 3 decorations. It’s all luck-based.

The second way decorations are ranked is more important: by level. As you can see in the screenshot below, the Udra Mirebraces have an open slot. This is signified by the jewel silhouette under the defense stat. In this case, there is what looks like an exclamation mark.

It isn’t actually an exclamation mark — it’s a skinny gem floating above a single dot. The dot is the important bit: it means that’s a slot for a level-one armor decoration.

A level-two slot has two dots and a level-three slot has three dots. As you move up the scale, the width of the jewel increases, too. You can see an example of this in the screenshot below:

These dots are seen on the corresponding icon when you unlock new decorations, so it’s easy to see the level of what you’re picking up.

Next, there are a couple of bits that are worth noting when it comes to decorations.

For one thing, armor decorations buff your defense and provide bonuses that affect your body, such as Free Meal (which allows you to drink potions without consuming the item) and Mushroomancer (which allows you to heal by eating mushrooms).

By the same token, weapon decorations buff your attack power. If you’re looking for things like decreased reload speed or increased weapon sharpness, those will be your weapon decorations, obviously. 

Second, be aware that you can equip decorations that do nothing. You can equip something that increases your reload speed despite having never touched a ranged weapon. The game won’t stop you. More importantly, this applies to decorations that increase your weapon’s elemental powers. If you put a decoration that increases your water elemental damage on a water sword, it will deal more damage with each hit. But if you put the same decoration on a fire sword, it will do nothing. 

So, if you match your decorations to your armor and weapons, you can start pushing beyond what your equipment normally allows for, whether that’s reducing your elemental weaknesses and boosting your defense or ramping up your elemental power by 20% with a 60-point boost.

Lastly, you can add and remove decorations at will at your base or pop-up camps without destroying them, so feel free to experiment and — if need be — swap your decorations to whichever weapons and armor need them most.

How to equip decorations in Monster Hunter Wilds

To equip your decorations, simply visit your tent and go to your “Change Equipment” screen. 

From here, check the right-hand side of the weapons and armor you currently have equipped, and you will see your decoration slots. To edit them, simply hit right on the D-pad.

Depending on your preferences, you can swap between the name of the decoration and the effect it has by hitting the button prompt at the bottom of the screen (Square on a PS5).

One thing to note is that since decorations affect weapons and armor, it might make sense to talk to Gemma about equipping them. While Gemma is happy to will show you your decorations, and offer to buy them, she won’t equip them for you. 

Remember: Never sell your decorations. You have virtually unlimited space to store your decorations, so don’t worry about inventory. Instead, save them for melding — a mechanic that takes your old and useless decorations and refines them into something you specifically ask for. 

Melding is a destructive process that requires multiple components to make something of equal rarity. While you’re getting a good deal in that you get the decoration you want, it can feel like a raw deal if you’re short on useless decorations. Since you’re going to need a lot of spares to fuel your melds, never sell your decorations!

How to grind decorations in Monster Hunter Wilds

Monster Hunter Wilds’ open-world system comes with a handy new feature: seeing the bonus rewards a monster offers before you start fighting it. Whether you’re looking for rare decorations or simply a huge amount of them for melding purposes, start by heading to your map and finding a monster. We have a worked example for you below.

As you can see, this Rompopolo offers four bonus weapon and armor decorations, guaranteed. However, these are rarity 4, which means they are going to be fairly basic at best… Instead, there’s a Rathalos here that offers six decorations, two of which will be rarity 5. It’s better to hunt that instead, since there’s a chance that they will be higher-level decorations.

After hunting the monster, you can see these Appraisal Items on the rewards screen. 

In total, in this example, we got five rarity 5 Glowing Orb Sword, and two rarity 5 Glowing Orb Armor. Here’s the kicker: as mentioned, this is still based on luck and does not guarantee seven rarity 5 decorations. Instead, each one rolls individually to become a new decoration. 

In this case, we got four rarity 3 decorations and three rarity 4 decorations. Of these, we only wanted two, which means the other five are being fodder for the melder Vio!

Good luck on your quest to unlock the best decorations for your build!

Our Monster Hunter Wilds guides can outline your progress with our main story walkthrough and monster list ahead of reaching High Rank, help you settle on an armament with our weapons list and best weapons explainers, uncover ores, bones, and monster tails, and teach you how to join friends in co-op multiplayer.