Armour, Decorations and Skills

Making armour

When you have a Partner, the Blacksmith first asks whether you are making equipment for them or for yourself. You can tell which you chose at once: your Partner takes your place on screen when you craft for them.

At the Blacksmith, open the Armour section and pick the kind of armour to make. The main Blacksmith menu is Weapons, Armour, Decorations and Pugi Cuffs. Menu names may differ slightly in our client.

Upgrading armour

All armour made before G Rank works like the current mainline games. You craft the base armour from materials, then upgrade it with Armour Spheres. At level 7 you may be able to move to a second tier of the same armour (F, FX, HS and so on). That tier uses items again, but levels 2 to 6 always use Armour Spheres. You find Armour Spheres by hunting or by mining.

G Rank armour uses materials for every upgrade. There are no Armour Spheres to make it easier.

Armour stats and skills

Each piece shows its rarity, defense and the five elemental resistances (fire, water, thunder, ice, dragon).

To see a piece's skills while crafting, press Square on a PS controller or Z on a keyboard, then change pages with L1/R1 or F/C. The skills are on about the third page. The number of decoration slots is on the second page of an armour or weapon's information.

To work out what a skill tree does, look it up in the skill reference below. The original guide's author also made a Skill Hunter tool that identified most skills from a screenshot, which we do not link.

Armour types

Standard armour

Standard armour is the same as in the mainline games, except that you both craft and upgrade it with materials instead of Armour Stones.

SP armour and SP gems

SP armour is mostly out of date. Its main use now is collecting sets. At HR5 you can craft SP armour and SP gems. They are meant to be used together: SP armour has no natural skill points, so it needs SP gems to be useful. It has a single decoration slot for these gems.

SP gems usually give many points in a few skills, such as +10 Hearing Protection and +15 Psychic, which switches on Autotracker and Earplugs at once. You craft both from the normal armour and gem menus. They need materials that only drop in HR5 quests.

Each SP piece comes in several colours. The colours are cosmetic and need coloured grasses to make. You can trade grasses to the Veggie Elder (in the Gorge) for colours you are missing.

HC armour

HC (Hardcore) armour is an upgraded version of standard or Premium armour. It is mostly the same, but on any HC quest it regenerates health while your health bar is above 50%. It also needs some stamina, depending on how many pieces you wear.

HS armour

HS (Hunting Safeguard) armour is an upgraded HC armour. It has every HC effect. On an HC quest with either an HC weapon or a weapon of Heavenly Storm or higher, it also adds defensive buffs.

G Rank armour

G Rank armour is the standard armour of G Rank. It works much like standard armour, but gives two bonuses based on how many G Rank pieces you wear. A higher skill limit is how you fit 11 or 12 skills on one set.

G Rank armour is also the main source of G Rank decorations. When a piece reaches level 7 in its upgrade tier (G, GF or GX) you can convert it into a decoration. See G Rank decorations below and G Rank.

GS and GP armour

GS, GP or G Hunting Safeguard armour is the G Rank upgrade of Premium armour. Only Premium armour can take this path, such as armour from Premium Kits or lotteries. These pieces keep every advantage of HS armour (same table as above) and also count as normal G Rank armour pieces for the G Rank bonuses.

GP armour is usually a little worse than standard GX armour in defense, but it makes up for it with a wider choice of skills and is easy to fit into "clownsuits" (sets that mix pieces from many families).

Gou armour and its upgrades

Gou (Goushu) armour opens at HR5. Every piece needs proofs from its monster (a ticket you get each time you slay a Gou monster) and 1x Gou Elder Dragon Gem (the Chinese name is 古龍種的稀玉). The gem comes from Gou Rukodiora breaks and tail carves, at 10% each for tail carves and horn breaks. Some quests that cycle in give the gem 100% of the time, which is ideal for making Gou armour. You also get 3 of the gems when you make your first Gou weapon.

Gou armour gives a Boost (or Muscle) effect. While it is active, certain skills go up one full level. For example, 50 points in Attack give Attack Up (Very Large); with the Boost it becomes Attack Up (Absolute), worth 30 free points of Attack. Not every skill can be boosted. A skill that can be boosted shows a light blue arrow next to its name on your Guild Card. See also Muscle Boost.

The Boost needs a certain amount of health (and 26 stamina), depending on how many Gou-line pieces you wear.

Gou armour itself has no extra effects. Its upgrades add buffs, as described below.

• Heavenly Storm (Tenran) opens at SR100. It is an upgraded Gou piece.
• Supremacy opens at SR300. It is the same as Heavenly Storm, but the Boost needs much less health.
• G Supremacy opens at GR1. It works like Supremacy, with higher defense, and its upgrade needs G Rank materials.
• Burst is the second G Rank upgrade of Gou armour and opens at GR1. Its upgrade needs materials from G Rank Burst monsters and GHC materials.
• Origin is the third G Rank upgrade and opens at GR1. Its upgrade needs materials from G Rank Origin monsters and GHC materials.

The extra buffs below only work on Gou HC, Supremacy and G Rank quests when you use a Gou or higher weapon. They also lower the rarity needed for the HC multiplier on HC quests.

• Blademaster weapons: sharpness goes up one colour level (green becomes blue, white becomes purple, and so on). This needs 2 or more pieces (1 piece at Origin level).
• Ranged weapons: Critical Distance multipliers go up (by +0.3x), so shots at the right range hit harder. This needs 2 or more pieces (1 piece at Origin level, on all weapon types).
• Bows: Power Coatings are stronger. The guide gives 1.7x, up from 1.5x, which is +0.1x on the coating multiplier. This needs 2 or more pieces (1 piece at Origin level).
• All weapons: more attack and attribute, and a lower rarity requirement for each piece.

Tenrou (Tower) armour

Tenrou (also called Customisable Tower armour) is made and upgraded with items found only in the Tower (Sky Corridor). It works much like standard armour and upgrades all the way to GX. The big difference is that you can slot special Tower decorations into it. They give the properties of other armour types.

Tenrou pieces do not count as real G Rank pieces at GX level, even though they carry G Rank skills. To make them count you must use a Tower decoration slot on the G Rank Armour decoration. If you plan to use them at endgame, build around three other real G Rank pieces.

Exotic armour

Exotic armour is imported from the mainline games. Each piece has a skill built in that is always active, whatever your skill limit or other factors. You need GR500 to upgrade an Exotic piece to G or higher, because Exotic monsters are GR500 in G Rank. When upgraded to G or higher, Exotic armour counts as a standard G Rank piece for the skill limit and for the extra raw.

Zenith armour

Zenith armour comes in two kinds, Standard and Premium. Both carry a Zenith skill (see Zenith skills).

• Standard Zenith armour is made from a specific monster (such as Khezu Z Series) or from certain events (such as Katante Z Series from Diva Defense). It has four tiers. Z and ZF have one upgrade each, and ZY and ZX have 7. The letters match the GR rating of the Zenith monsters you hunt to make them: GR200 for Z, GR400 for ZF, GR600 for ZY and GR800 for ZX. It has its Zenith skill from Z on, but only reaches maximum skill points at ZX.
• Premium Zenith armour is made by upgrading Premium pieces past GP to ZP. Every ZP upgrade needs Zenith Hypnoc parts. Lottery armour needs 2 extra tickets, which you must have kept from earlier lottery rolls or win again. The gain varies from a complete rework (Lien GP to ZP changes every skill and becomes one of the best kits in the game) to simply adding a Zenith skill while keeping the old stats (Cielo ZP).

Premium Zenith armour cannot be turned into decorations. Both kinds also give the biggest Origin benefits for gunners: with 2 or more pieces, Critical Distance multipliers go up on all ranged weapons, and bows get Power Coatings of 1.7x, up from 1.5x.

Transmog

MHF-Z lets you apply the look of one armour piece to another. Talk to the Blacksmith and give the items for the exterior you want. What you need varies. Standard armour wants monster materials (G1% items, normal carves and so on). Some exteriors are tied to events, and lottery armours are tied to lottery rolls.

An armour in the "Billing" list is not necessarily for sale. Some premium exteriors are limited to events, and others came only from timed lotteries that may never return (for example the Nier 2B exterior).

An armour with a transmog applied shows a new green medal symbol, so you can tell it has been reskinned.

Armour and icon colours

In Frontier you unlock armour colours by doing various tasks. The colour is also the one shown behind your weapon icon in town. Colours other than Green, Red and White need at least HR3 to use.

The colour menu itself unlocks when you make or get any armour piece that lets you set its colour. The easiest is the T-shirt sold by the NPC with glasses in the Blacksmith.

Short unlocking guides

White, Red and Green. Green is easy while you work on your Caravan Gem: delivering 3 iron ore counts the same as killing a monster and takes seconds, and all deliveries count, so about an hour is enough. Red you will almost certainly unlock just by playing. It is likely your first colour. White is hard now, because newer content is all monsters you cannot capture. The best route is to buy 2x Capture Gem G (捕獲珠Ｇ) from the Road store. They give Capture Guru, which makes monsters blink on the mini-map when they can be captured. You can also get Autotracker from 3x Insight Gem G (洞察珠Ｇ), but that is much less practical. Paintballs and psychoserums work just as well.

Blue. The friend list is one-sided and does not send a prompt, so you can add 50 random players and delete them afterwards. Do delete them, or you will spam them with messages whenever you sign in.

Dark Blue. You must craft 20 Rare-7 weapons of each type to unlock the Weapon Maniac titles. Duplicate weapons do not count. G Rank weapons do not count as over Rare-7, and the tonfa and switch axe titles are not considered. Pure raw SP weapons upgrade to Rare-7, and bowguns can be made at Rare-7 or higher, unlike most other weapons. Make whichever type you have the most materials for.

Light Green. Make 35 of the Chef chest piece (廚師服飾). It needs only raw meat and items from the Pugi Farm store:

Purple. You need a pet monster. Talk to the Blue NPC in town and choose Hunter Dojo, then Select Training, then Arena Training (獵人道場 > 選擇演習 > 鬥技演習). This lists Arena quests with preset gear. Do the first 3 to unlock pets: hunt 2 Velocidromes, hunt 1 Gypceros and hunt 1 Rathian.

After that you can keep certain monsters as pets by capturing them while you host the quest. You then get a "do you want to keep this monster" screen and choose one of 3 slots. Dromes have a very high capture rate, and many other monsters are fairly easy.

When you and another player both have a pet, choose the Arena Tournament (鬥技大會) at the same NPC to set up a fight. After you win one match you get Purple.

Yellow. Hunt monsters until it unlocks. There are so many monsters that trying their normal and HC versions makes it likely.

Grey / Black. Eat in your house a lot. There is no way to speed it up.

Pink. Take part in the festival. Cappuccino needs 5000 Souls, which is the amount required for this colour.

Decorations

As in the mainline games, decorations give points in armour skills and fit in any armour piece or weapon with a free slot. You create them at the Blacksmith. The decoration menu has Create Decorations, Insert Decorations and Remove Decorations.

Standard decorations

Standard decorations are the most basic kind. You make them at the Blacksmith from normal materials. They usually give about 5 points in total and may have negative points in some skills. For example, the standard Artisan Deco (匠珠) gives +2 Artisan, +2 Auto-Reload and -1 Adrenaline.

Many have more than one recipe. The Artisan Deco can be made from 1x Rajang Fur and 3x Monoblos Horn, or from 2x Lunstra Horn and 3x White Monoblos Horn. You will rarely need standard decorations beyond HR7.

G decorations

G decorations are stronger standard decorations. You make them by improving existing decorations, or by collecting special materials made just for them.

When a G decoration needs a special jewel item, that item exists only to unlock the decoration. For example, the Dodging Sword G Deco appears in the crafting list as soon as you have the 15 jewels, and the jewels have no other use. Each special jewel has its own quest. The one above comes from an HR5 Kushala Daora quest, which usually gives between 2 and 8 of the jewel.

G Rank decorations

Most G Rank decorations can be crafted directly from a handful of materials: usually a couple of lower-percentage standard carves and a GHC carve. They are almost always available from sources such as the Road, Festival or GCP stores. A few need you to craft and upgrade armour, such as White Fatalis, Keoaruboru or Hiden decorations, but they are a small minority. Even event decorations now use only their base materials. G and GF decorations can still only be made from armour pieces, but you are unlikely to use them in a modern G Rank set.

The G decoration crafting menu has sections to make a specific decoration easier to find: Direct Crafting, Show All, Monsters, Hunter Festival, Regular Event, Event and Other.

Making G Rank gems from armour

The older way to get G Rank gems is to refine level 7 G Rank armour. Each piece gives a single gem and is destroyed. You will only rarely need to do this, as most gems can be made from the menus above.

• A level 7 G piece refines into one G decoration.
• A level 7 GF piece refines into one GF decoration.
• A level 7 GX piece refines into one of GX1 to GX5, depending on the piece: helmet GX1, chest GX2, arms GX3, waist GX4, legs GX5. This matches the order at the Blacksmith.

A few armours have more than one G or GF gem. They use the same numbering, so a GF3 decoration needs level 7 GF arms of that armour.

The skills of a gem are roughly based on the piece you convert. The Inagami GX Blademaster helmet itself gives Stylish +4, Issen +3, Expert +7, Three Worlds +4 and Adaptation +3; the gem it makes is shown here.

As an example of every gem one monster gives, here is G Rank Silver Rathalos armour:

Most armours follow a similar pattern: GF is a straight upgrade over G, and GX has the same points as GF plus a couple of points in an extra skill. Some gems differ. On G Black Fatalis, the last two skills change per GX gem. Gougarf armour has a GF1 gem for helmets and a GF2 gem for all other pieces at GF level.

G Class decorations

Some G Rank level decorations can be made straight from monster materials that are not tied to one monster. You can get most from the 7-star Elder Dragons or the 8-star GR100 Exotics. Two Hypnocs under 1 star give materials for two of these decorations. They are easier to get than Gurenzeburu decorations and are excellent for a Rasta once armour stops being useful. New monsters from Amatsu onwards give materials for newer versions that go beyond standard GX decorations.

Most of these are low-effort, G Rank level decorations. Their main use is in a Rasta, because of the skill sets they give.

The names above are the Chinese names, as no English name was given. Our client may show other names.

Other kinds

Gallery gems are not crafted. You get them as rewards for a good gallery layout, by trading tickets after the Furniture NPC at the Combiner evaluates it (the guide had no walkthrough for this), or from quests.

Building sets

Set building matters mostly in G Rank. Sets you use before then are not very important or long-lasting.

Unlike the mainline games, skills in Frontier are very important. You are expected to carry a certain core set of skills to clear normal content in a decent time. The original guide had a separate page on picking skills for each weapon type, which we do not link; our armour set builder finds sets for the skills you pick.

The sets in the original guide are old, built for the Z1 release, and the guide says better and more modern ones exist. They covered every weapon except Hunting Horn with varied decoration set-ups, a Hunting Horn set with Encourage+2 and Horn Maestro, a generic bowgun set and a generic bow set. Bows always want Auto-Reload, which is terrible on bowguns, so never use a bow set with a bowgun.

Skills

Skill basics

Skills switch on when the points on your armour pieces and decorations reach a threshold. The default limit is 10 active skills. In G Rank it can rise to 11 or 12, depending on the armour you wear (see G Rank armour).

Every skill has a hidden priority that decides whether it activates. You can check what a set will really give in the MHSX2G Set Generator. Priority matters late in the game, because it is easy to switch on skills you do not want. This is especially true of sets with Focus (Quick Charge), which has the lowest priority of all skills: nearly anything else pushes it out.

Hybrid skills

As in the newest mainline games, Frontier has skills that combine other skills. If you have one of the skills that a hybrid gives, it shows grey on your Guild Card. A grey skill is disabled but still uses one of your 10 to 12 skill slots. At G Rank you normally run 11 to 12 active skills, so a wasted slot is very bad: avoid it.

Sometimes a skill is grey in town but still works on quests. That happens when you have the real skill and a boost on it, and also have it inside a hybrid. For example, with Sword God +1 and Fencing +1, Fencing +1 shows disabled in town. On a quest the Muscle Boost raises Fencing to +2, so it is active. Boosts are explained below.

Exotic, Tower and weapon skills

Exotic, Tower, Burst and Origin skills are not shown on the Guild Card. They are always active, and they can make skills on the list look greyed out. From Z1 on they appear in a new section of Hunter Status.

• Exotic armour pieces always activate a certain skill, with any number of pieces equipped. A Zinogre Helmet always gives Thunder Attack Up (Large), ignoring skill limits and every other piece, and wearing all 5 pieces still gives it once.
• Burst and Origin weapons have fixed skills that work the same way. They are fixed versions that higher versions replace, and extra skill points do not add to them. A weapon that gives Issen +2 simply gives the skill, not 20 points, so you still need 30 points in your skills for Issen +3: you cannot just add 10.
• Tower weapons take decorations that add armour skills in the same fixed way. You choose which skills to slot instead of the base weapon deciding. These skills still add no points. Even with Good Luck slotted, you would still need 20 points in Fate to get Great Luck.

Other sources of skills

Outside equipment there are two sources: Skill Fruits and Guild Cooking.

• Skill Fruits are a premium item. Eating one activates a skill for the whole quest, and it ends when you finish or fail the quest. Retiring returns the item, as with all others. You buy them with Lottery G Coins from the Pink Shop NPC at 30 fruits for 3 coins. Events and other purchases can also give them. They are not worth going out of your way for, unless you are a speedrunner at a fully maxed endgame who wants to shave more time.
• Guild Cooking opens to guilds once they reach a certain level. You use ingredients in a cooking minigame to make food that gives the skill you cooked for, on every quest you take during its duration. Easy recipes include Wide-Area +3, Adrenaline +2 and Goddess' Embrace. See English Guild and Guild Hall.

Muscle Boost

Gou armour and its upgrades cause a Boost (or Muscle) effect. It raises a skill by one level. With Evasion +1 under the Boost you would have Evasion +2, saving 10 points. If you wear the right armour type, a skill that can be boosted has a light blue arrow next to its name on your Guild Card. It goes up a level on a quest while you meet the armour's conditions, and the skill's name turns blue while it is really boosted. In the example, Martial Arts and Fencing are boosted. Fencing was grey because another skill gave +1, but it becomes active on the quest as +2 overwrites it.

The conditions are health and stamina amounts that depend on the armour type; they are in the Gou armour table above. The Boost needs 26 or more stamina.

Its upgrades also add, per piece, Attack +15, Attribute +2% and HC rarity requirement -1 (Origin: Attack +20, Attribute +3%, rarity -1). For the sharpness, Critical Distance and Power Coating bonuses, see Gou armour and its upgrades.

Skill reference

Each table lists the skill tree, the skill you get, the points needed and what it does. A negative number of points gives the penalty skill. Names are as in the English version of the guide, so menu and skill names in our client may differ slightly. Skills the guide marks as changed in the ZZ update say so in the effect.

Health and stamina

Vampirism notes. Vampirism adds attack for each leech, by weapon type (the number in brackets is how many leeches reach the maximum buff of +80): Dual Swords, Tonfa, Light Bowgun +3 (27x); Sword and Shield, Long Sword, Lance, Gunlance, Switch Axe, Heavy Bowgun, Bow +4 (20x); Hammer, Hunting Horn +5 (16x); Magnet Spike +6 (14x); Great Sword +7 (12x with Vampirism +2, 11x with +1). The attack buff resets when monsters damage you, apart from small hits like vespoid stings. Every hit of a motion can leech, including the extra hits from Fencing +2 and every hit of a single Pierce Shot or Pellet Shot. At maximum buff the leech animation is red instead of green. Health recovered is based on true damage dealt and is about 2 to 4% of it, with a minimum of 1 HP. The bigger the hit, the less you leech, and you leech less against tankier monsters. Vampirism +2 only raises the leech chance and the health recovered. It does not raise the maximum attack or the amount added per leech, so going above +1 is optional if you want it for attack. Vampirism does not heal or add attack with Dual Swords in True or Extreme Demon Modes (until Z2.2).

Offensive

Point Breakthrough. Duration, then hits needed for the first activation and for repeat activations. The number in brackets applies with Fencing.

Defensive

Blademaster

The Sword skills (Bomb, Poison, Paralysis, Sleep, Fire, Water, Thunder, Ice and Dragon Sword) all let you use the matching sword crystals for your weapon. While crystals are loaded, sharpness is used at 3x the normal rate.

Gunner

Hiden skills

Each weapon type has its own Tech skill tree with four levels. The top level (30 points) is the Hiden skill. The top level of each also gives Super High-Grade Earplugs.

Resistances

Resistance skills have positive and negative levels. All gains and penalties are in resistance points.

Statuses

Protection

Items and combination

Map and detection

Gathering

Rewards

Other skills

Zenith skills

How Zenith skills work

You get a Zenith skill by equipping a piece that carries it. Zenith skills mainly buff existing skills. Apart from Skill Slots Up, they have no effect of their own. They are added on top of the normal skill points: a maxed Zenith armour piece has its usual points in 5 skills and a Zenith skill as well.

Zenith skills appear on Cuffs, weapons and armour pieces. Both Premium (ZP) and normal Zenith (Z, ZF, ZY, ZX) armour have them, and you always have to hunt real Zenith monsters to get them. Cuffs are standard cuffs, so you can use them without a Premium Pugi outfit.

Having more than the limit of a Zenith skill adds nothing. Dissolver Up has only 1 level, so having it on 5 pieces is the same as on 1. Hybrid skills count as their parts: Fortification +2 counts as Guard +2 for Guard Up, and Three Worlds Protection +3 counts as the maxed Wind Pressure, Hearing Protection and Quake Resistance. There is no limit on how many different Zenith skills you can have: with 7 different ones across your cuff, weapon and armour, you get all 7 as long as the skills they buff are active.

Example: Guard Up +1 raises Guard by one level, and with Guard +2 already active it adds the extra Zenith effects shown below. With no Guard skill at all, Guard Up does nothing.

Skill Slots Up

Skill Slots Up is always active, on top of any other source of extra slots. Pieces of Z, ZY, ZX or ZP level count towards the G Rank piece requirements for slots. You can find it on armour pieces, weapons and cuffs, for a maximum of 7 extra slots. It stacks with the +1 or +2 slots from having 3 or 5 standard G Rank pieces (Z, ZF, ZY, ZP and ZX included).

The 2 extra slots that do not come from armour pieces come from a Zenith weapon and cuff. Realistically you will not get a set with 19 skills. For early Z sets, expect a practical maximum of about 15. Gunners benefit most, because they still want the single Origin piece for the +0.3x Critical Distance and +0.2x Power Coating multipliers.

Zenith skill list

Z1 First Update (February 2017) Zenith skills

Z1 Third Update (April 2017) Zenith skills

Z2 / Anniversary Update (July 2017) Zenith skills

Z2.2 / Anniversary Second Update Zenith skills

Z2.3 / Anniversary Third Update Zenith skills

ZZ skills

ZZ January update skills