Bow/gun user, a little stuck.

The thing about bows and bowguns in general is that they are balanced around hitting weak points frequently in order to do competitive damage.

Tigrex Bow / Bowgun are both really solid and should be able to take anything down with good times, but it's a matter of getting the most out of every shot.

I don't know where you are in the game, but let's say you're using the Tigrex Whisker, the first upgrade of the tigrex bow in high rank. It has 220 true raw, or 211 effective raw counting the affinity adjustment. You also should probably eat for the felyne attack skill (if you're not eating for defender Hi) and also using a powercharm. That would put you at 221 effective raw.

With Rapid 4 you have an expected motion value of 21% assuming all 4 arrows hit. That's a "base" damage of 69 (counting the charge 3 multiplier).

Now, let's say you're fighting Zinogre. His head has an amazing 70% shot hitzone, while most of the rest of him is ~30% shot. Critical Distance is also another 1.5x multiplier, and power coat is a 1.5x multiplier.

So what's the difference?

  • Hitting Zinogre in the body, outside critical distance, no power coat: 20 damage
  • Hitting Zinogre in the body, outside of critical distance with power coat: 31 damage
  • Hitting Zinogre in the body in critical distance with power coat: 46 damage
  • Hitting Zinogre in the face outside of critical distance with no power coat: 48 damage
  • Hitting Zinogre in the face outside of critical distance with power coat: 72 damage
  • Hitting Zinogre in the face in critical distance, with power coat: 108 damage

I don't know if this was obvious, but the moral of the story is this: If you want good clear times you need to aim well and have a good position, and it's best to make sure you have your mats to make more power coats. From this example, a worst case scenario for hitting zinogre in the face is still better damage than the best case scenario of hitting zinogre in the body. That's how important aiming for the right hitzones really is with a ranged weapon, and it's doubly important while you're using power coat. Do you want to waste your power coat on mediocre hitzone hits? No, because they will only be giving you about 15 damage, whereas hitting in the face power coat accounts for about 30 damage.

Aim is critically important for these items in order to get good times. Exploit that and learn to aim quickly.

Also offensive skills like Attack Up are also pretty good for reducing time to kill enemies as well.

/r/MonsterHunter Thread