Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Guide: Beginner Advice and General Tips/Tricks

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is the latest in the Monster Hunter series and for new players, things might be confusing. The good news is that you don’t need to play the previous games to catch up. I’m also here to help get you started.

If you haven’t already, download patch 1.1 from the eShop to get the Starter Pack from now until March 15th. Check out the full details here.

This guide will cover the basics in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate including:

• Getting Started – What you should do first.
• Combat Tips – Extra things to help in combat.
• Items – Tips on useful items.
• Armor – What you should focus on first.

Getting Started

Once you go through the first two fetch quests, you’ll have access to multiple missions from the Guildmarm. I highly suggest doing the training quests for each weapon. This will get you familiar with each weapon so you can choose one you’re comfortable with/like using. You’ll also get 150 z each time you complete one.

There are 14 weapons in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and they are split up into two categories: Blademaster and Gunner.

Blademaster

• Insect Glaive
• Great Sword
• Long Sword
• Sword and Shield
• Dual Blades
• Hammer
• Hunting Horn
• Lance
• Gunlance
• Switch Axe
• Charge Blade

Gunner

• Bow
• Light Bowgun
• Heavy Bowgun

After going through each one, Gunner weapons are definitely for more advanced players. I suggest saving those for later, once you are more familiar with the game.

Each mission tells you the basic controls of using the weapon and has you fight a Great Jaggi to practice. These are great introductions, but you’ll need a lot more knowledge and practice to master any of them. You can do each training mission multiple times.

Combat Tips

The whole game is about hunting monsters so combat is everything. Some things come naturally, but here are some tips for new players.

• Evade Cancel – Right after landing an attack, you can evade while the animation is ending. This helps escape quicker for heavy weapons.

• Paint the monster – You have a paintball item, so always take it. This marks the monster so you can easily find it.

• Dive – If you dodge/roll while running, your character will do an extravagant dive. 
• The animation is so awkward I thought I was being hit, but it’s the exact opposite. This prevents you from taking damage while the animation goes on. 
• Stay on the ground when knocked down – As long as you don’t get up, the monster can’t hit you.
• This stops being chained attacked. Wait for the monster to stop attacking before getting up.
• Use items far away from monsters – There are animations for using items so make sure you have plenty of time to finish them before the monster attacks.

How to Capture Monsters

Capturing monsters is tough if you don’t know how to do it. There are a few things you must know before trying to capture one.

• You must trap the monster, then use a Tranq Bomb or Tranq Shot.
• It takes 2-3 Tranqs to capture.
• Wait until the monster is close to death, it will limp away.
• After it limps away, wait until it goes to an area to sleep, then trap it.

Make sure you are close enough to use the tranqs because if you run out, you can’t capture the monster.

Items 

There are a lot of items, but a few stand out when you first start playing.

• Whetstone – These sharpen your weapon if it has become dull. If your weapon loses sharpness, it deals less damage.
• Paintball – As I said before, keep these. You want to mark monsters you are hunting.
• Potion – This should go without saying, but they heal you. You’ll want to have plenty on hand. 
• Ration – This gives more stamina. You need stamina to run and attack so these are pretty important as well.

When doing missions a blue chest will have items for you to use at the start.

• Use these because they are free items.
• Don’t take too many items with you on a mission because you won’t have room for items you find.

When it comes to gathering materials, crouching makes gathering faster.

Armor

Armor is very important because it can mean the difference between life and death. You’ll want to get new armor as soon as possible.

A good armor set to get at the beginning is the Jaggi armor.

• Having a full set speeds up your sharpening if you’re using a Blademaster weapon, or reload speed for Gunner weapons.
• This makes a huge difference.

You can get this set by killing the lizard enemies called Jaggi in the first area, A. Steppe.

• You also need materials from the Great Jaggi enemy. 
• The Jaggi Alliance quest requires you to fight one, so you can repeat that to get it easily.

That’s all for my Beginner Advice and General Tips/Tricks for Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. If I find any more useful things, I’ll be sure to update this guide. Let me know if you have any questions or tips of your own!