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Weapons
Topics: Weapon TypesWeapon MechanicsSharpnessElementStatus

Weapon Types:
Sword and Shield Icon WhiteDual Blades Icon WhiteGreat Sword Icon WhiteLong Sword Icon WhiteHammer Icon WhiteHunting Horn Icon WhiteLance Icon WhiteGunlance Icon WhiteSwitch Axe Icon White
Charge Blade Icon WhiteInsect Glaive Icon WhiteTonfa Icon WhiteMagnet Spike Icon WhiteAccel Axe Icon WhiteLight Bowgun Icon WhiteMedium Bowgun Icon WhiteHeavy Bowgun Icon WhiteBow Icon White

Light Bowgun Weapon Trees and Lists:
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Weapon Overview[]

LBCustom

Light Bowguns can have additional parts that can be added or removed for improved effects. Left is a Silencer Part, and the right is the Long Barrel Part

The Light Bowgun (ライトボウガン Raitobōgan) is a bowgun that allows you to move around at a normal running speed. You can unsheathe/sheathe it much faster than a heavy bowgun due to the clear weight difference. Due to its compact size, it does not come with as much firepower as its larger counterpart. Most hunters prefer light bowguns because of the fast movement and reloading speed. Light bowguns are usually easy to make and master.


There are several monsters that are more easily killed by using the bowgun. Diablos are killed much more efficiently using a bowgun's Ice shots (however pellet shots work better). Kirin are also killed more efficiently using a spray of pellet shots since they rarely stand still long enough for blademasters to deal consistent damage. Yian Kut-Ku is easily beaten by rapid fire, but be careful: while in the middle of a rapid fire burst you cannot move.

The light bowgun has the advantage of being easy to handle without restricting the movement of the user during combat. However, bowguns are limited by the type of bullets they can equip. It is best to suit the bowgun that utilizes the kind of bullet that would deliver the most damage to your specific opponent.

2ndGen-Light Bowgun Equipment Render 001


Weapon Traits[]

The Light Bowgun is more elemental than its counterpart, the Heavy Bowgun. Heavy Bowgun is usually used as a "Main Gunner", while the Light Bowgun is a supporter. With light bowguns you can fire a plethora of elemental damage such as Thunder, Ice, and Water. With the Heavy Bowgun, you use Crags and Clusts, the main "Powerhouse" bullets. The Light Bowgun is capable of using these too, but many prefer Heavy Bowgun over Light for these ammos.

Also, you need to look closely at the stats of your Light Bowgun before you craft or buy it. If you are fighting a fast wyvern, look at your reloading and recoil speed. They stay in the same general area (Very Fast reload, Moderate Recoil, etc.), but change slightly depending on your bullets. With elemental shots and Normal, Pierce, and Pellet shots, you stay exactly the same as it says under "Equipment Detail". If you are using Crag, Clust, or ailments shots, your reload and recoil is slightly higher than the labeled.

You can also add mods like Long Barrel, or Silencers, or change Fixed Scope out for Zoom Scope to modify the stats of your Light Bowgun.

These are important things to take in mind when heading off to hunt certain monsters.


Notable Skills:

1. Rapid fire is a skill that the bowgun has (not your armor) that fires several of a specific type of bullet in succession, using only one shell from your inventory. You cannot move during a rapid fire burst, so do not use it on a fast-moving monster unless you are sure you will have enough time to use it and avoid the next attack. Rapid Fire cannot be redirected when an enemy moves, and also decreases the percentage of your shot's damage, which translates to less damage over time. In other words, Rapid Fire makes you something like a stationary turret.

1.1. There is a variant of rapid-fire for a few select bowgun sets in Monster Hunter Frontier, that upon being fired unloads the entire magazine at a rate much faster than normal rapid-fire. Unlike normal rapid fire however, the amount of shots fired are equivalent to the amount of shots stored in the magazine.

2. Depending on what type of shot you are using, Auto-reload can be quite a good skill. With this skill, reloading is no longer necessary as long as you have the bullet in your inventory. The only downside to this is that it increases recoil by a large amount, making it take longer between shots. The increased recoil does not affect normal or elemental shots and will significantly increase your damage over time. This skill does not apply to bullets under rapid fire.

3. Another useful skill is Loading. This allows you to load an extra shell when you reload, which opens more opportunities for the hunter to attack. There are no downsides to this ability.

4. You can also use a melee attack with light bowgun. Press triangle+circle when the weapon is drawn.

5. Quick draw and reload - R + triangle + circle, you pull out the light blowgun (in unsheathed) and reload (if you can)

6. Aiming down sights in a first-person view can be done with the R button by pressing it once. Press and hold it to aim down sights in third-person view. This allows you to aim at a monster and still retain the ability to move around.

Bowgun combination guide[]

Please refer to the Combination List for all the combinations.


Bowgun Damage Formula[]

--------------
   POWER
   --------------
   
   
   Normal S Lv1: 6
   Normal S Lv2: 12
   Normal S Lv3: 10
   
   Pierce S Lv1: 10
   Pierce S Lv2: 9
   Pierce S Lv3: 8
   
   Pellet S Lv1: 5
   Pellet S Lv2: 5
   Pellet S Lv3: 5
   
   Crag S Lv1: 3
   Crag S Lv2: 3
   Crag S Lv3: 3
   
   Clust S Lv1: 6
   Clust S Lv2: 6
   Clust S Lv3: 6
   
   Flaming S: 7
   Water S: 5
   Thunder S: 5
   Freeze S: 5
   Dragon S: 1
   
   Recover S Lv1: 0
   Recover S Lv2: 0
   
   Poison S Lv1: 10
   Poison S Lv2: 15
   Para S Lv1: 10
   Para S Lv2: 15
   Sleep S Lv1: 0
   Sleep S Lv2: 0
   
   Tranq S: 0
   Paint S: 0
   Demon S: 0
   Armor S: 0

Advantages[]

  • Can easily keep distance from a monster.
  • Different attachments can be used to upgrade weapons, such as a Silencer, Power barrel, Variable zoom scope and more.
  • Can inflict status ailments in addition to dealing extra damage from exploiting elemental weaknesses.
  • Swift movement speed compared to a Heavy Bowgun, on par with a Sword and Shield, or Dual Blades.
  • Rapid Fire which increases the damage output of that ammo types.
  • Generally large ammunition variety to be used in each Light Bowgun, as well as the Rapid Fire to compensate for low damage compared to a Heavy Bowgun.
  • In multiplayer, Light Bowgun wielders can easily provide supports for the team, whether through the bowgun itself or carried items.
  • Some Light Bowgun (also extended to Heavy Bowgun) can utilize multiple elemental ammos a monster is weak to, thus, if one wish to use elemental ammo as a main damage source, matching the Bowgun with the monsters with multiple elemental weaknesses can save up resources. For example, utilizing a Bowgun that can use both Flaming and Thunder Ammo against a Plesioth, which is weak to both Fire and Thunder element.
  • Light bowguns are arguably the safest way to kill certain monsters that possess a very fast speed (such as Tigrex, Nargacuga, Rajang, Blangonga, Bulldrome, Mono and Diablos etc), or those that Blademasters would have difficulty attacking (such as Gypceros, Khezu, Kirin, Plesioth, Basarios, Gravios etc). It is also possible to slay a Cephadrome when it's still in the sand, or a submerged Plesioth that hasn't jumped onto the ground.

Limitations[]

  • Gunner armour has lower defense than Blademaster armour. Or from 5th Gen onward, doesn't have physical damage reduction like Blademaster weapons.
  • Need to invest money and resources for ammunition. In older games, resources for additional ammunitions must be carried in the same bag as the other important items. However, starting from 4th generation, an Ammo Pouch is introduced, which stores Bowgun's Ammunition and Bow's Coatings, erasing the problem of slot shortages.
    • Some actions, such as tail severing, inflicting status and/ or elemental damage, knocking out monsters etc, require specific type of ammo and not every Bowgun is able to fire every single ammunition type - in other words, each weapon has a particular type of round it can fire.
  • Rapid Fire, once fired, cannot be redirected to account for monsters moving away, nor can you evade mid-salvo. Although damage per bullet hit is decreased, overall damage is increased when compared to the same ammo type with single-fire. However, due to this, you want to aim so that all bullets in the salvo hit. Or at the very least, as many shells as possible connect with the monster.
  • Be wary of inflicting a killing blow on a monster out of bound, as you will lose all of the carves for that quest.

History[]

Light Bowguns, along with Heavy Bowguns, face many drastic changes in its creation and upgrading system. This becomes stable after Monster Hunter Portable 3rd.

General Notes


  • Light Bowgun is one of the first weapon types added in the first game, the Monster Hunter
  • Light Bowgun is one of the three "Gunner" weapon types in Monster Hunter series, the other being Heavy Bowgun and Bow, with bow joining the roster from Monster Hunter 2 and onward.

Monster Hunter 3


  • Light Bowgun, along with Heavy Bowgun, faced a drastic change from the second generation system. Instead of its own weapon type, both the Light Bowgun and Heavy Bowgun is now a single type of weapon called "Bowgun" which is divided into three subtypes determined by "Weight" of the weapon: Light Bowgun which weigh 29 unit or less, Medium Bowgun which weigh 31 to 70 unit, and Heavy Bowgun which weigh 71 unit or more. The creation system of the weapon itself is also drastically changed. Instead of one whole weapon, the bowgun is created by assembling three bowgun parts which are consisted of Stock, Frame, and Barrel which have its own weight.
    • The Bowgun Barrel contains usable ammo, Attack stats, Affinity, Range modifier, decoration slots, Deviation modifier, Rapid Fire capability, and Shield mod installing capability.
    • The Bowgun Frame contains usable ammo, Attack stats, Affinity, Range modifier, Reload modifier, Recoil modifier, and Deviation modifier.
    • The Bowgun Stock contains usable ammo, Affinity, decoration slots, Reload modifier, and Recoil modifier.
  • Bowgun received new ammo type: Wyvern Fire, Sub Shot, Exhaust Shot, and Slicing Shot.

Monster Hunter Portable 3rd


  • Light Bowgun and Heavy Bowgun received a new creation and upgrade system, which unlike Second Generation's separated, incapable of upgrade individual weapon, or Monster Hunter 3's Stock, Frame, and Barrel assembling system. Light Bowgun and Heavy Bowgun is now separate weapon type once again with the upgrade system now being similar to other weapon types' Weapon Tree system. Later games also use this Weapon Tree system for Bowguns.
  • Sub Shot and Wyvern Fire ammo type removed.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate


  • New ammo type added, Slime shot. While reintroduced Sub shot back into the game.

Monster Hunter 4


  • Introduced "Critical Distance" mechanic, which is a distance where the shot deals the most damage, not too close or too far. Different ammo types have different critical distance.
    • If a bullet hits a monster in a critical distance, the screen will shake slightly as an indication.
  • Sub Shot removed once again.
  • Slime Shot renamed to Blast Shot.

Monster Hunter Generations


  • Light Bowgun now uses a new upgrade system, like all other weapon types in Monster Hunter Generation.
  • Light Bowgun, as well as Heavy Bowgun, now has new "Internal Ammo" which once used up in a quest, can no longer be used for the entire quest and refill at the start of a new quest. There are large varieties of Internal ammo, such as Stone shot, Flash shot, Piercing Elemental shot, Demon Affinity shot, etc. Many ammo types, such as Slicing shot, Demon shot, Armor shot, are now an Internal Ammo.

Monster Hunter: World


  • Ammo system is similar to that of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate's ammo rather than that of Monster Hunter Generations and Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate.
    • Some ammo types are slightly reworked.
      • Elemental ammo is now piercing, with larger intervals than Piercing Shot, however.
      • Clust ammo is now exclusive to Heavy Bowgun.
      • Reintroduced Wyvern Ammo, which is now exclusive to Heavy Bowgun.
    • Removed Paint Shot.
  • Critical Distance indicator now appears as the second circle of a reticle when aiming.
    • The reticle when aiming now also indicates the "Out Of Range" distance.
  • New mechanic, "Wyvernblast", added. Which is a bomb that can be planted into the ground, detonates when attacked, whether from hunters or monsters. The Wyvernblast ammo automatically replenishes over time. Max at 3 charges for all Light Bowgun.
  • Recoil, Reload, and Deviation slightly reworked.
    • Recoil: while still indicating the kick-back strenght of a shot, the hunter can move while firing an ammo type with Recoil of +2 or below, otherwise the movement will be stopped.
    • Reload: hunters can now reload Bowgun ammo while moving without getting interrupted if Reload stat is low enough.
    • Deviation, while in the older games, deviation indicates the direction which the bullet will drift toward, whether left or right. In Monster Hunter World, however, deviation now indicates how much the aiming reticle is kicked out of the previous position after each shot.
  • Both Light and Heavy Bowgun acquired new mods, Close Range Up mod and Range Attack Up mod.

Videos[]

Video
Monster_Hunter_4_Ultimate_Light_Bowgun_Tutorial_MH4U_Basics
Title MH4U Light Bowgun Tutorial
by Arekkz Gaming
Video
MH4G_MH4U_Light_Bowgun_Tutorial
Title MH4G/MH4U Light Bowgun Tutorial
by gaijin hunter

See Also[]

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