A lot of people are getting into Monster Hunter for the first time. A lot of them are questioning what they should and shouldn't be doing. A lot of them are experiencing the game without realizing everything you can do - because a lot of it the game doesn't really tell you all that often.

If you've any tips or tricks for new comers then put them in here. I'll get the ball rolling

• Use your armour spheres. They drop like candy, are infinitely available and the ones you're getting now are 100% useless for higher quality armour. Don't be afraid of using them.
• Having said that - you can only upgrade armour a set number of times. So upgrade whatever you have to it's max in one go instead of incrementally
• Don't just spam combos and hope for the best. Monsters are bigger than you. They'll knock you out of your combo and on your ass and you'll take a tonne of damage. Look for opportunities, get a hit or two in and then back off.
• Even after you eat a meal you can often a well done steak to increase your stamina even more. This is useful. Do this.
• You can enter into the tent at campsites to change your gear or get things out of your storage box.
• Open your monster guide and look at the monsters weakness and strengths. Usually if a monster is strong against an element it'll use attacks based on that element and equipping armour to defend against it will help. Likewise, using a weapon that is strong against an enemy will help make the fights quicker.
• You can trap monsters with shock traps and tranq bombs/shots or in the pitfall trap if you knock it out.
• Get used to using the shortcut menu. Even if you just start off using one or two shortcuts, get used to it. It's much quicker than trying to scroll through 30 items to get to your whetstone.
• Always use your whetstone whenever you get a chance if your weapon isn't sharp or will lose sharpness in the next fight.
• Don't be afraid to send out an SOS flair if you get into trouble and need some help.
• If you're on a mission that requires you to trap a monster, the box at the camp will contain the items you need.
• If you see a teammate is stunned, you can hit them with your weapon to break them out of it.

• Some combo imputs are not clerly stated, for example to charge the great sword by holding triangle/Y button, you need to press on the movement stick forward at the same time or your next button press will do a small combo ending hit. Experiment in the training area.
• If you need a specific monster part, do the optional quest ONCE to get the rewards and then look if you have an investigation for that monster, that will also get you the rewards at the end (instead of just carving the corpse)
• Read carefuly, there are a lot of terms in this game and not everything is what one assumes when quickly skimming the text. For example, Slay a monster means to kill it, Capture is to get it alive via a trap/tranq boms and Hunt means either of those

To be fair though the only time when it's a Slay quest as apposed to a Hunt is when capturing is literally impossible from a game mechanics standpoint. Which means it's specifically small non-threatening monsters like your regular Gagras and Girros, and also anything categorized as an Elder Dragon like Zorah Magadaros and Nergigante. There is no quest in which you'll be penalized for capturing instead of just killing the monster.

Some weapon attacks have less frames of animations when chained in different ways. The third triangle attack on the switch axes charge mode goes into a circle attack much quicker than the first or second triangle. Also you can go into an elemental discharge faster after a circle attack than from a triangle attack.

Other weapons have different animations that you can cancel or link easier in combos.

I so wish they would've called that system something else. It's not only for emergencies etc, it's if you want to play multiplayer. Want people to join your quest, send an SOS. Want to join people on a quest, join an SOS. It's how you play casual multiplayer in the game.

As for tips:

• Mostly very late game, but if you don't absolutely need to go back to town returning to camp allows you to access your next mission instantly. (which begs to question why there's a delay in town)
• Lifepowder will heal pretty much anyone in the same area as you, so it's great for when you see a partner getting worked over.
• Bring Flashpods, All the Flashpods, and Flashbugs, so you can craft more Flashpods. Make a shortcut in your radial wheel to craft Flashpods. Seriously, Flashpods. They are so freaking useful. While you obviously can shoot monsters out of the air, just using it on normal monsters will stop them from doing whatever big move they were about to do, and it blinds them and makes them stationary (usually) and swinging randomly for a few seconds. You can also stop monsters from running with well placed Flashpods.
• Which reminds me, you can put quick craft recipes in the radial menu. Also, learn to use the radial menu.
• At a certain point in the game you'll be able to buy a Power and Armor charm from the stockpile. These increase your damage and defense by 5% as long as they are in your inventory. Later on you will be able to upgrade them to 10% and you can stack them with the original ones for a total of 15%.
• Reasearch nodes (fruits, fossils, conch shells, oysters etc) gives you new food ingredients in the canteen for each unique one you find. There's two different types of nodes in each area, they start with two possible gathers each and a special one (which is a unique node that only spawns during upsurge/flourishing) and gain a third rare gather at high rank.
• Whenever you're climbing a wall look up and see if you can see a bright thing hanging at the top, that is a wedge beetle. Next time you want to climb that wall just aim up with your sling and hit circle/B. You can also swing from beetle to beetle once you learn where they are.

I didn't even realise that, cool.

Item Loadouts also save your radial menu and item bar customizations.

1. Customize your radial menus (start menu > items and equipment > customize radial menu). Add whatever item, crafting recipe, or gesture that you'd like to the four available radial menus. You can even rename the radial menus if you like.
2. Customize your item bar (start menu > items and equipment > item pouch > button for item bar). I tend to move my flashpods closer to my health potions, and my tranq bombs closer to my traps, for example. You can also reorder your coatings and ammo.
3. Add the items you want for whatever particular purpose into your item pouch (item box > manage items). I have three loadouts: solo, group (solo items plus AOE items), and gathering (potions only for maximum available space).
4. Save the item loadout (item box > manage items > manage loadouts > register loadout).

Now all three things (radial menus, item bar, item pouch) are saved to that loadout. The next time you use that loadout (item box > manage items > manage loadouts > use loadout) several things happen.

1. Any items in your pouch that are part of that loadout will be restocked from your item box.
2. Any items in your pouch that are not part of that loadout will be transferred to your item box. This is super useful for emptying your pouch of ingredients you've gathered while on the hunt.
3. Your radial menus and item bar customizations will be reloaded. So, if you made any changes to these and didn't save them by saving the loadout those changes will be overwritten by the customizations that were saved with the item loadout.

Bonus tips!

• Farcasters. Always have one in your item pouch, and configure your radials or item bar for easy access. Why? They can be used to fast travel to the nearest camp even in the middle of a fight! And even better - you're invulnerable the instant you activate it! Let's say you're low on health, the monster is still focused on you, and there's no time to drink a potion. Use the Farcaster to become invulnerable and save yourself. Once back at camp go into the tent to restock on items, and head back out there. Using up a Farcaster is much better than using up a continue!
• Demondrugs and Armorskin. Get into the habit of using one of each before leaving the camp. They boost your attack and defense, and they last the entire hunt (or until you faint). If you do faint use a Max Potion or Ancient Potion, Demondrugs, and Armorskin before leaving the camp. I've played with a whole lot of randoms and almost no one uses these two items!
• Use the SOS system to farm monsters. If you don't have any investigations or optional quests for the particular monster you want to farm respond to an SOS from someone who does. I often responded to someone else's SOS just by default since it can be faster than sifting through 250 investigations for a particular monster. You can also respond to an SOS from someone who's doing the quests that pop up randomly so, basically, you can do them whenever you want.

Flash pods are great. My favorite use of them is to stop a monster from running away while it's limping for a quicker capture.

If you're fighting a monster and another monster comes in the area and starts attacking you or the monster you're fighting use a Dung pod to scare it off.

The first time I was stunned (actually I think I may have been about to fall asleep) and my palico came up and thwacked me out of it was a real holy shit this game moment. Can't wait to try that on other players to keep the fight going or save em from a big hit. Stuff like that in RPGs where you can attack your teammate for a moment to shake em outta some status affliction always strikes me as a neat mechanic. Jolly cooperation and all that.

@ares42: Oh wow I completely forgot it let you put crafting on the radial menu! That'll save me some steps for making flash pods. Also I agree: Use flash pods! Solar Flare those monsters right in their eyes! I did an SOS investigation for a Pukei Pukei the other day and it never left the spot we found it in, or ever managed to fly up to eat stuff, because everyone had flash pods. It got hit with 3 at one time right before it died. Poor thing never stood a chance.

I also agree on the Wedge Beetles. There are a bunch of them set up in many different ways - some will get you into some side paths for extra materials to gather, some are positioned to allow aerial mounting attacks (or just to get out of the way), and some are there to make climbing things way easier. For instance, once you fight a Legiana and end up following it to it's nest, there's a series of beetles that will let you grapple up almost the entire way and shave off a good minute+. It's great to know if you don't have a certain tool to skip the climb.

As for some other tips, one of my favorite: Do you have one of those missions where you need to carry an egg (or something similar) back to camp? Pop on a Ghillie Mantle right before you pick it up. I never thought of it until I saw someone mention it, and wow. Just stroll past every monster without being hassled. You can also climb with the egg/item, and I think you can also do short falls too, but I don't know the height limit on that.

Here's one:

• Keep an eye out for walls you can run up and jump off of. Walls with what look like mushrooms growing on them or with roots going up them you can run up and leap off of for an air attack/mount opportunity, or to just get out of the way.

I think I've mounted more monsters with my Switch Axe character than my Insect Glaive character after I started looking out for those walls. Also helped a ton when a monster was flying and I didn't have any flash pods (and yeah you should totally have flash pods!).

You can also use the Wedge Beetles to get in the air and land an air attack or mount the monster. Also attacking while sliding does a pretty good air attack that seems different from regular air attacks. Not 100% sure on that though.

@theht: In addition, it might be obvious (there's a button prompt at the top right) but you can also bail off climbing vines for jump attacks. I missed that for the longest time.

Also yeah, a lot of sliding attacks are unique and some have you jumping and capable of mounting with it. I do it as often as I can when I have a Switchaxe or Hammer (for instance: the initial fighting area for Legiana is on a slope and I tend to be mounting or doing mounting damage constantly there). There are also tons of little ledges everywhere as well that you can usually jump from and get mounting damage with. I look for them whenever I can just in-case the fight gets close to one.

@bane: As a player new to Monster Hunter, #2 was a lifesaver when I was told about it over 100 hours in. Many times during that first 100 hours I was very upset wondering why my Item Bar seemed completely random. And being able to put stuff in a logical order (Healing items by healing items, buffs by buffs, and Capture items by Capture items) was a game changer.

I love your inclusion of Demondrug and Armorskin but I also take it a bit further and I think it makes me one of my friends favorite people to play with. Note: This isn't really a viable option until end game, but it honestly isn't really necessary until you are fighting Tempered Monsters anyways. (Most of this isn't directed towards you specifically, just to inform everyone of how great Mushroomancer is)

Mushroomancher

• First of all, a Mushroomancher build (stacking that perk 3x) allows you to eat the various Mushrooms in the game for various buffs. They are as follows...
  • Nitroshroom - Attack Buff (Demondrug, stacks with Might Seed)
  • Parashroom - Armor Buff (Armorskin, stacks with Adament Seed)
  • Mandragora - Max HP (Up to 50 above your character, so if food is 20 it gives you that extra 30, but if food is 50 it can't be used, and it stacks with Vitality bonuses for up to 200 HP).
  • Devil's Blight - Stamina Buff (Dash Juice)
  • Toadstool - Immunizer (Speeds Red Healing)
  • Blue Mushroom - Healing Potion (only useful if you actually run a Mushroomancer build, I do not)
  • Exciteshroom - Effect is totally random (I Do Not recommend)
• Buffs last for approximately 5 minutes, but can be extended by Item Prolonger (I use +3 for a 50% boost to about 7.5 minutes).
• You can also stack Wide Range up to +5, giving all allies withing a pretty large window, 100% of the buffs you give yourself.
• Keep in mind Might Seeds and Adament Seeds will work for the entire Quest, so you will still see the Attack and Armor Buffs until you die.

So likely at this point you are already stacking Power/Armor Charm and Power/Armor Talons like @ares42 said. So, for Mushroomancer, I have a Custom Armor Loadout saved, similar Bane's Item Loadouts. I start the mission with the Mushroomancer Loadout that has Mushroomancer +3 (Scary Pig Mask), Item Prolonger +3, and Wide Range +5. I wait until my entire team is located at the same camp (which usually isn't a problem since we are all in Party Chat), and then use all my buffs (Might Seed, Adament Seed, Nitroshroom, Parashroom, Mandragora, Devil's Blight, and Toadstool) of which I have easily farmed about 50+ of each and keep in a Mushroomancer Item Loadout. I then quickly go into the tent and swap to my actual Loadout while my Team heads to find the Monster, all carrying these same buffs (about 15% Attack, about 15% Armor, Max Health, Dash Juice Stamina, and Immunizer) I just gave them. The whole process only takes about 60 seconds if that. The hardest part of this is figuring out how to setup a build a Armor Set with those perks, and making sure you've completed enough Optional Quests to unlock farming of those Mushrooms.

A few other quick tips and tricks I found from GaijinHunter, so you can watch or I have his points listed below.

• Hold R1 to speed up Quest Book opening.
• Mantles negate normal Elluvia (not Vaal's).
• Like I talked about earlier, Health Boost stacks with Meals or Max Health and can give you up to 200 HP (I find it hard to play under 150 anymore, and am often at 200).
• Weekly limited Bounty Rewards are huge. Finishing all of them give you a free End Game Gem each week (I've used mine on rare Gems I couldn't get to drop so I could craft some awesome gear).
• Custom Dial, though I rarely use this feature as I'm generally in a party chat with friends, though I should probably use it more. Honestly I barely use the Dial itself as it is (even though not using it has probably caused more than half my deaths, haha).
• Sharpen with your weapon out using the Dial (again, as a Bow user this has no use for me, but hey it sounds cool).
• R3 on Maps to lock on to anything (This should be pretty easy to figure out, as I figured it out on my own as a new player).
• Kill bugs with the Net if you want their parts.
• Power/Armor Charms and Talons (which have already been discussed here).

As a new player, I haven't really discovered any tips or tricks on my own, but rather "stolen" them from others. A few of those I haven't seen listed on here are as follows.

• When trying to capture flying pets, you can throw Rocks at them to knock them out of the air and then use the Capture Net on them.
• Semi Spoiler Alert for those not between HR 29-49: When doing the HR 49 Kirin Quest, if you do not engage Kirin, you can just follow him around and gather footprints to accumulate a ton of HR 50 Tempered Elder Dragon Quests. These are very rare post HR 50, and doing this solo for 30 minutes or so for 10-20 Investigations is highly worth it.
• If Zeny is a problem either grow Might Seeds early on, or unlock the Bandit Mantle. Playing with other players frequently all using Bandit Mantles will rack up that 1,000,000z in no time. Also, if you've fought a certain Monster a ton of times, feel free to go back over your materials at the merchant. It really isn't necessary to have any more than 30 of any 1 item, but just to be safe I keep 50 of everything. But I noticed I had over 100 of some items worth 1,000+z, so selling those racked up a ton of z for me. Just glance at that stuff if and when you are selling your Bandit Mantle Scales anyways.
• You can actually get multiple Gold Wyverian Prints outside of the Weekly Quest. I believe these are rewards for finishing Optional Quest via the Researchers like Endemic Life and Picine (I probably spelled that wrong, oh well).
• You can Edit Shoutouts in the Gestures Menu to make them say whatever you want. So beware of all the obscure Movie Quotes that may now come your way...
• Some vertical spaces can be traversed via Slinger with a simple button press while looking at Shining Bugs on Tree's. This saves a ton of time for traversal on many maps.
• Pet your Poogie... If you pet him correctly he will fall in love with you and you can change his clothes and their color, you can also let him find new outfits around the base. You need a strong Poogie Game to be a Real Hunter...

Thanks for tips friend its really useful thread.

Oh, one thing I just remembered and I'm not sure if the game tells you - if you have your weapon sheathed and the monster starts running towards you, you can run away from it and hit the dodge button and you'll do this dramatic leap, during which you're completely invulnerable. I've found it extremely useful.

Here are some settings tips:

• You can switch weapon sheathing from Auto to Manual. I recommend manual for sure.
• Change your radial menus to Type 2. This means you have to click the stick to select something which cuts down on using the wrong item accidentally.
• Change the camera type to Target. This means you can select which monster to track by clicking the right stick, and the camera won't make any automatic adjustments until you press left bumper.
• Change camera targeting to Large Only. This removes all the small monsters from the right stick tracking list down by the minimap.
• Change the camera distance to Far. This makes is somewhat easier to see what's going on when you're close to a large monster.

I learned these from various sources, but shout out to this Reddit post for the reminder.

Bonus tip: you can use the minimap as a guide when mounting monsters. If the border around the minimap is white: attack! If it's red: brace! And it will turn more and more black the closer you are to doing your super move.

@bane: what are the benefits to switching to manual for sheathing?

Also, thanks for the bonus tip. Before, i was just waiting for the subtle camera effect that happens when theyre about to slam into a wall or something.

@travisrex: If it's auto, your character will sheath their weapon after a few second of not attacking. With manual, you'll only sheath when you hit R1 (or whichever you use to run) or other specific actions that sheath (like using an item/taking a potion). I found it very annoying on Auto, but it's really just a personal preference.

Like the Type 2 radial menu thing, I prefer whatever the default is - flicking to use an item. Just have to memorize which items are in what spots, and it's super quick to activate stuff.

Minimap thing is awesome though, I'll need to remember that. I also have been using the slight red tint around the edge of the screen.

Lot of good tips in this thread that are easy to miss. Here's a few that don't seem to be on here yet:

• While it's true that you can move while drinking a potion, remaining stationary will make you quaff it faster (i.e., your health will recover more quickly).
• Speaking of potions, don't ever use Antidotes: use Herbal Remedies instead. Like Antidotes, Herbal Remedies cure poison, but they take about half the time to work, and also restore a bit of health to boot. How to craft them? Just combine an Antidote with a Blue Mushroom.
• Currently there is no way to sort investigations by monster (they simply appear in the order you discovered them), and that sucks. However, if you go to the investigation management screen at the Resource Center, you'll notice that the Registered and Unregistered investigations tabs (as opposed to the "All" tab) at least organizes them by star rank. Better than nothing, though still a pain to find something specific when you've got a ton on your list.
• In the "craft armor" screen, you can hit R3 to search for armor with specific skills! Speaking of that, someone has already put together a crude armor set search. It ain't nearly as elegant as Athena's, but it's something: http://mhw.wiki-db.com/sim/?hl=en
• Reminder that if you want to join a specific friend's mission, don't use SOS flares. SOS flares open a hunt to the wider public. If you want to join your friend mid-mission, you should both start off in the same session (most easily done through creating a squad, but PSN invites will work, too), then use the "join quest" function, rather than "respond to SOS flare." They never really make they clear.

That's all I can think of at the moment that hasn't already been covered here. Happy hunting!

@travisrex: I think the first time the game auto-sheathed my weapon (and shield) at an inappropriate time and I couldn't block an incoming attack was the instant I turned it off. Plus, I just find it highly annoying.

@bane: makes sense to me, thanks.

• To pet him correctly, when you're in the petting process, don't listen to the music. Wait for the red exclamation mark to appear and then hit "pet".
• When you want to pet your Poogie, make sure your weapon is not too big, otherwise you won't see the exclamation mark. (I have to de-equip my Nergigante Gun Lance every single time because that thing is so huge, it actually blocks my view when I pet my Poogie.)
• Petting him more than once between missions adds nothing. Only the first time counts.
• When you get to the point where your Poogie is just exploding with love whenever you return to town, pick him up and walk around. When he's near something collectible, the controller will start vibrating. When that happens, put him down and he will dig something up. For example costumes (that frog costume is disgustingly adorable, I can't even...), ores, etc.

I'm here to provide important tips.

@whatshisface: I like your style.

One thing I will add, DO NOT ever take him to the fireplace at the Cat Cafe. He doesn't like it at all, for obvious reasons.

(On second though, go ahead and try it, it's kind of funny)

This a Good Thread