Monster Hunter Wilds: How To Upgrade Armor and Weapons
Monster Hunter Wilds’ game progression is tied to three different upgrade systems for High Rank: Armor Spheres, weapon tree upgrades, and Artian weapon reinforcement. You can turn in monster parts or clear quests to receive the materials for these. This guide will show you how to upgrade your armor and weapons reliably and the best strategies for them.
Table of Contents
Armor Spheres
When you reach Azuz, the Everforge in the Oilwell Basin, you can interact with the Smithing Foundry to obtain Armor Spheres. To use them, speak to Gemma and hover over the armor you want to upgrade in the crafting menu.
While in the Smithing Foundry, you can turn in monster materials to refine them for spheres. Each monster part contributes a set amount of points, the more rare the part the more points you’ll receive. When smelting, consider the costs of each Armor Sphere you get. For reference, here are each of their costs and point values:
- Armor Sphere (10 Smelting Points)
- Armor Sphere+ (50 Smelting Points)
- Advanced Armor Sphere (200 points)
- Hard Armor Sphere (1000 points)
If you wish to farm for them, quests can drop these upon slaying or capturing a monster. As you progress through harder quests, you’ll be rewarded with higher-quality spheres.
Alternatively, you can trade valuable items to certain villagers or Nata to receive them.
Weapon Crafting Tree
Unlike the Armor Sphere system, you can upgrade most weapons (aside from Artian weapons) by going through the crafting tree. To directly upgrade a weapon from Low to High Rank, you must progress through the main quests to unlock more monsters.
For example, if you want to upgrade the Lala Barina Dual Blades from I to II, you’ll first need to unlock Nerscylla, as one of its material requirements is its claw.
Artian Weapon Reinforcement
Once you have crafted your first Artian Weapon, you can reinforce it to give it randomized boosts for raw damage, Affinity, elemental damage, or Sharpness. To upgrade, you’ll need special ores from Azuz. To unlock Artian weapons, you must clear your first Tempered Monster quest.
These ores can either be obtained through the Festival Shares or smelted in the Smithing Foundry:
- Drearisite (20 Smelting Points)
- Specklite (100 Smelting Points)
- Argecite (200 Smelting Points)
- Oricalcite (300 Smelting Points)
Like Armor Spheres, you can smelt other materials to create these ores.
Best Armor Spheres and Orbs Farming Method
Monsters from Low Rank generally drop parts with a low smelting point value, but they become more valuable as you reach High Rank. As a rule of thumb, the parts you get from early monsters give fewer points than more difficult monsters like the Rey Dau or the Guardian monsters.
The best monster to farm is the High-Rank Arkveld, as all its parts can be smelted for tons of points. The Arkveld Gem, in particular, gives a whopping 1000 smelting points.
