You hunt monsters, get materials from them, then use those materials to craft new arms and armor that allow you to hunt bigger, badder monsters with more potent materials. That’s been good enough for Monster Hunter fans for years. With about 19 weapon trees per weapon type, you’ve got access to most anything you could want in a weapon in terms of elements, debilitations, sharpness profiles and so on, but if that’s not enough there’s a new, more customizable class of weapons in Monster Hunter Wilds: Artian Weapons. This page will discuss how to craft Artian Weapons, including where to find the materials for them and how to combine said materials to create the weapons of your dreams!

Page Breakdown¶

Unlocking Artian Weapons¶

Artian Weapons are unlocked fairly late into the main questline, but since most of the gameplay in a Monster Hunter game occurs after your Hunter Rank is uncapped, Artian Weapons start appearing just about when you might start getting antsy with the lack of customization with your standard weapons. Defeat the Guardian Fulgur Anjanath and the Tempered Lala Barina during the quest Wyvern Sparks and Rose Thorns, the latter of which is the first tempered enemy you’ll encounter in the game. After this quest you’ll unlock the ability to craft Artian Weapons.

Crafting Artian Weapons¶

It’s no coincidence that you’ll unlock Artian Weapons after hunting your first tempered monster, and that’s due to the fact that tempered monsters exclusively drop weapon sharps of varying quality that scales with the difficulty (★) of the hunt, as follows:

Weapon Sharp Quality by Tempered Monster Rank¶

Higher rarity materials will create Artian Weapons with higher stats - more Attack, Slots, Sharpness, Elemental effect, etc. You cannot mix and match components of different rarities - if you select a rarity 6 material for the first part, the other two parts you use must be rarity 6, making the lowest grade of Artian Weapon.

When you spot a tempered monster roaming about, check their bonus rewards to see how many Weapon Shards they’ll drop, which should give you a rough idea about how lucrative hunting said monster will be. Since tempered monsters don’t drop new materials compared to high-rank monsters, the Weapon Shards they yield is the primary purpose of hunting them. Only tempered apex predators - the Rey Dau, Uth Duna, Nu Udra, Jin Dahaad and Gore Magala - will drop top tier Weapon Shards… along with Tempered Arkveld, of course.

While it’s easy enough to ballpark how much you’ll get (and indeed, guarantee that you’ll get at least some Weapon Shards), everything else is RNG. Weapon Shards, like decorations, are identified upon acquisition, where they’ll convert into one of several types of crafting material exclusive to Artian Weapons - Broken Blades, Crushed Tubes, Cracked Discs, Rusted Devices. Each weapon needs three of these materials, albeit in different types and quantities:

Artian Materials Required by Weapon Type¶

The game doesn’t care what your preferred weapon type(s) are, but with only four types possible you’re 50-75% likely to get something useful to you every time you identify a Weapon Shard. That’s just the start of the randomness, however, as each material also has an element type (fire, water, thunder, ice, dragon, paralysis, poison, sleep, blast, etc.) and a bonus to either Attack or Affinity. In the case of Attack/Affinity materials, each Attack material you use will increase the weapon’s raw attack and each Affinity material will increase it’s raw Affinity - nothing amazing there. If you use two or more materials with the same element, however, the Artian Weapon you create will have that element, and if all three have the same element you’ll end up with a higher elemental value. Say you really want a Paralysis weapon - any Weapon Shards won’t do, you’ll need to wait until you get at least two (and preferably three) materials with the Paralysis element. If you don’t want an element, just ensure you use materials with three different elements on them.

Upgrading Artian Weapons¶

Still not enough randomness for you? Good news, then! The randomness persists even after you’ve crafted the Artian Weapon of your dreams. Artian Weapons can be upgraded at the smithy, just select the “Reinforce/ Dismantle Artian Weapons” option, at which point you’ll be able to expend more materials - namely rare minerals - to level up your Artian Weapon(s):

Artian Upgrade Materials¶

You’ll most frequently obtain these materials by visiting the forge in Azuz and claiming your festival share - these will be added over time (read: hunts), so check back every couple of hunts to claim your haul. Higher tier weapons will require more points (and hence, materials) to upgrade, and what upgrades you get are random. Upgrades include bonuses to Attack, Affinity, Element and Sharpness, and while it’s not possible to make a weapon worse by upgrading it, there are certainly going to be some stats you want more than others… if you care about Sharpness, for example, tier eight Artian Weapons tend to only have a sliver of white, and could stand to get a Sharpness boost rolled on them.

If you’re not happy with a weapon, you can always dismantle it. This will refund some of the Reinforce Materials spent on the weapon, but not the actual Weapon Shards. Those are lost when the weapon is created and cannot be refunded.