Skills

This page details vague skills effects.

For beginners, MV stands for Motion Value. It’s the numeric value tied to your weapon attack determining how much damage it will deal. For instance, the first hit of the SnS combo has a MV of 15 while the charged slash lvl 3 from a GS has a MV of 190. This value is a basis of damage calculation and thus is not impacted by skill effects. So for skills that rely on dealing a certain amount of MV, increasing your attack or damage won’t increase the MV dealt, aside from skills dealing additional hits on their own such as Reflect or Hellfire Cloak.

Attack VS Damage

This first part is important for understanding offensive skills and why skill A is better than B depending on your weapon

Attack buffs only increase the raw part of your weapon while damage buffs are reflected on both the raw and the element. Thus skills that buff attack such as Burst are less valuable on elemental builds.

Action Counting

Some skills will activate or reactivate based on performing a certain number of actions. Here are the rules regarding action counting.

On the defensive side:

Evades and perfect evades count as +1 action (rolls, sidesteps, etc)
Guards don’t count

On the offensive side:

Non damaging moves don’t count (entering/exiting demon mode for DB, IG jump, GL reload, etc)
Every regular hit count as +1, even if your attack miss
Synchronous hits count as +1 (first 3 attacks of DB Demon Dance are double hits that only add to +3, GL wyrmstakes tics are viewed as +1 only)
Hits from skills such as Reflect or Hellfire Cloak count as +1
Status hits (blast, poison) don’t count
For IG, kinsect hits don’t count

Regarding bowguns and bows:

Shots and arrows count as +1 (a Cluster ammo hitting 4 times or a Sticky ammo hitting twice are counted as +1)
There’s a bug on bow’s Rapid shots over level 1 that makes each arrow count as +1 action (a Rapid lvl 2 shot will be viewed as +3)
Each SP hit count as +1, making HBG Wyvernheart especially good for these skills as it will generate 30 actions in a few seconds

Offensive skills

Attack Efficacy

This skill increases your attack by 10/15/25%. While it seems simple on the surface, it’s quite unique actually regarding its effects.

Usually in the damage formula, percent-based bonus are applied first then additive bonus are applied. Attack Efficacy is applied after the additive bonus, meaning it also increases the bonuses from skill such as Attack Boost (Attack Boost 1 +50 attack becomes +55).

Ballistics

Range weapons base ammo/shots have a critical range. Shooting outside of the critical range nerf your damage by 60%. Ballistics increases this critical range.

For the following values, I tested each shot using LBG backwards dodge as a unit and high recoil shots as 0,25 units.

Bowgun Ammo Type	Base	Ballistics lvl 1	Ballistics lvl 2	Ballistics lvl 3
Normal	0 – 2.5	0 – 2.75	0 – 3.5	0 – 4
Spread	0 – 0.75	0 – 1	0 – 1.5	0 – 1.75
Pierce	0.5 – 3	0.5 – 4	0.25 – 4.75	0 – 5.75

Regarding bow, the Shot level increases the critical range depending on the Shot type. For the following values, I tested each shot using bow backwards dodge as a unit and forward dodge as 0,66 units.

Rapid lvl	Base	Ballistics lvl 1	Ballistics lvl 2	Ballistics lvl 3
1	0 – 1	0 – 1.33	0 – 1.66	0 – 2
2	0 – 1.33	0 – 1.66	0 – 2	0 – 2.33
3	0 – 1.33	0 – 2	0 – 2.33	0 – 2.66
4	0 – 1.66	0 – 2	0 – 2.33	0 – 3

Spread lvl	Base	Ballistics lvl 1	Ballistics lvl 2	Ballistics lvl 3
1	0 – 0.66	0 – 1	0 – 1.33	0 – 2
2	0 – 0.66	0 – 1	0 – 1.66	0 – 2.33
3	0 – 0.66	0 – 1	0 – 2	0 – 2.66
4	0 – 1	0 – 1	0 – 2	0 – 2.66

Pierce lvl	Base	Ballistics lvl 1	Ballistics lvl 2	Ballistics lvl 3
1	0.33 – 2	0.33 – 2	0 – 2.33	0 – 2.66
2	0.33 – 2.33	0.33 – 2.33	0 – 2.66	0 – 3
3	0.33 – 3	0.33 – 3	0 – 3	0 – 3.33
4	0.33 – 3.33	0.33 – 3.33	0 – 3.33	0 – 3.66

Burst

This skills grants you a 5/10/15/20/30% attack buff and procs after landing 10 attacks on the monster with next to no interruption (pausing for more than 2s will reset the count). Hits from skills like Reflect contributes.

Once the buff is activated, it will last until you stop hitting the monster for more than 4s.

Combo Master

This skill grants you a permanent 10/20/35% damage increase after 20 actions (action counting rules).

Critical Ferocity

This skill reduces your weapon affinity by 10/15/20/25/30% but also grants you a 30% of dealing a 150/175/200/225/250% damage attack when you deal a negative critical hit (who would have dealt 75% damage). It’s often paired on negative affinity weapons and can be reinforced by Raw Power who also reduces your affinity while increasing your attack.

Performance wise, if you reach -100% affinity, you deal on average 127,5% damage, making it slightly stronger than a 100% affinity build but luck reliant.

Hunter’s Unity

This skill present on Elder Dragon weapons increases your damage by 0/3/6/9% depending on the number of hunters having the skill in your group.

Latent Power

This skill increases your affinity by 20/30/40/50/60% and your Special Gauge fill rate by 10/20/30/40/50% after some conditions are met.

The conditions are after 48s, with every 100 MV of damage dealt reducing the countdown by 1s.

Power Prolonger

This skill increases the duration of weapons enhanced states. As each weapon is unique, I’ll make subsections for each one of those.

DB

Buff duration	Power Prolonger 0	Power Prolonger 1	Power Prolonger 2	Power Prolonger 3
Demon Mode	15s	20s	30s	40s
Feral Demon Mode	6s	8s	12s	16s

Power Prolonger increases Demon Modes duration by 33, 100 and 166% depending on its level.

Power Prolonger also decreases the gauge consumption of Spiral Slash Style Enhanced Spiral Slash attack.

Gauge consumption	Power Prolonger 0	Power Prolonger 1	Power Prolonger 2	Power Prolonger 3
Enhanced Spiral Slash	60%	45%	29%	21%

LS

LS Spirit Gauge is divided in two parts, the start of the gauge (0-70%) and the red portion (70-100%). Being in the red portion of the gauge grants you a 50% damage increase to most moves with a few exceptions:

Spirit Helmbreaker, Spirit Reckoning and Spirit Release Slash from Sacred Sheath don’t get buffed

Sacred Slash Counter gets a 25% damage increase

Power Prolonger only affects the red portion of the Spirit Gauge and not the rest of the gauge (who gets consumed in 15s if you don’t attack). LS also get a 2s time period after your last hit landed before the gauge starts to consume itself.

Buff duration	Power Prolonger 0	Power Prolonger 1	Power Prolonger 2	Power Prolonger 3
Red portion of the gauge	5s	6s	8s	10s

Power Prolonger increases red gauge duration by 20, 60 and 100% depending on its level.

With Power Prolonger 3, you can unleash a fully charged Spirit Release Slash while staying in red gauge.

Power Prolonger also reduces Spirit Helmbreaker and Spirit Reckoning gauge consumption. This can be important as it means you’ll be able to stay in your buffed state after one of these moves if you have enough Power Prolonger levels.

Gauge consumption	Power Prolonger 0	Power Prolonger 1	Power Prolonger 2	Power Prolonger 3
Spirit Helmbreaker	60%	45%	29%	21%
Spirit Reckoning	75%	56%	37%	28%

The skill has no effect on the passive gauge regen you get from some moves.

Lance

Shield Tackle Style can grant a temporary 30% damage buff when you block a hit using the move.

Buff duration	Power Prolonger 0	Power Prolonger 1	Power Prolonger 2	Power Prolonger 3
Shield Tackle [hit blocked]	15,5s	17s	20s	23s

Power Prolonger increases Shield Tackle buff duration by 10, 30 and 50% depending on its level.

GL

GL has two buffs linked to its styles. Ground Splitter from Blast Dash Style increases shot damage by 15% while Erupting Cannon from Guard Reload Style allows you to shoot while using thrusting attacks, also increasing said thrusting attacks damage by 20%.

Buff duration	Power Prolonger 0	Power Prolonger 1	Power Prolonger 2	Power Prolonger 3
Ground Splitter	25,5s	28s	33s	38s
Erupting Cannon	15,5s	17s	20s	23s

Power Prolonger increases Ground Splitter and Erupting Cannon buffs duration by 10, 30 and 50% depending on its level.

HH

Buff duration	Power Prolonger 0	Power Prolonger 1	Power Prolonger 2	Power Prolonger 3
Song	20s	23s	29s	35s

Power Prolonger increases songs duration by 15, 45 and 75% depending on its level.

Power Prolonger has no impact on the song you send to your allies (10s with Echo, 20s with SP). Having Power Prolonger on your hunter won’t increase the duration of songs sent by another hunter using HH.

SA

Gauge consumption	Power Prolonger 0	Power Prolonger 1	Power Prolonger 2	Power Prolonger 3
Sword attacks	100%	84%	63%	42%

CB

When CB charges its phials into its shield, it gets 2s + 8s per phial on Base Style and 6s per phial on Sword/Axe Boost Style without Power Prolonger. The skill increases the duration of the phial bonus but has no effect on the initial 2s duration.

Buff duration [Base]	Power Prolonger 0	Power Prolonger 1	Power Prolonger 2	Power Prolonger 3
1 phial charge	10s	12,6s	18s	22,8s
3 phial charge	26s	34s	50s	64,4s
5 phial charge	42s	55,2s	82s	106s

Firing Pin explosions from Sword Boost Style have a similar effect, granting some bonus duration for each individual explosion. It’s also worth noting that the 5 phial charge duration is a hard cap for the red shield buff. For instance at Power Prolonger 0, if you trigger a fully charged energy spot (6 Firing Pin explosions so +12s) with 28s left on the red shield buff, the buff will get renewed to 32s aka the 5 phial buff duration (and not 28+12 so 40s).

Buff duration [Axe/Sword Boost]	Power Prolonger 0	Power Prolonger 1	Power Prolonger 2	Power Prolonger 3
1 phial charge	8s	10s	14s	18s
3 phial charge	20s	26s	38s	50s
5 phial charge	32s	42s	62s	82s
Firing Pin explosion	2s	2,6s	4s	5,3s

Power Prolonger increases phials buff duration by 33%, 100 and 166% depending on its level.

IG

Buff duration	Power Prolonger 0	Power Prolonger 1	Power Prolonger 2	Power Prolonger 3
Full extract 1 segment	4s	5,2s	6,4s	8s
Full extract 6 segments	24,2s	31,5s	38,6s	48,2s
Full extract 8 segments	32,3s	42s	51,5s	64,3s

Power Prolonger increases full extract duration by 30, 60 and 100% depending on its level.

Reflection

Understanding what guard skills does implies understanding how guard itself works. Thus all guard related skills are explained on the Guard page: https://lescarnetsdelawycademie.fr/guard-now/#reflection

Rising Tide

This skill increases your attack and defense by 40/80/120/160/200 after 25 and 50s (meaning Rising Tide lvl5 grants a 400 attack increase after 50s).

Skyward Striker

This skill grants a 15/20/25/30/40% damage increase to aerial attacks. Aerial attacks are viewed as attacks that deal damage when both the feet of your hunter are off the ground. It’s a special property set on specific attacks of your weapon kit. For instance for SnS base style, it means the aerial combo but also the last attack of the SP where you grab the monster and jump out of it.

This also means that the skill doesn’t work with LS Spirit Helmbreaker as your hunter’s feet are on the ground as the multi-hit resolves. The skill also doesn’t work with IG kinsect hits.

Vital Element skills

These skills increase your elemental damage output based on your current HP. They’re pretty strong as they can be maxxed out with only 3 points allowing you to add more offensive skills on your set (Elemental Attack requiring 5 points and Advanced Elemental Attack 2 more points for a total of 7) but the fact that they’re linked to your health makes them only functional if you’re skilled enough obviously. Here are the main breakpoints:

Vital Element level	HP required to outperform Element Atk 5 [500 element]	HP required to outperform Adv Element Atk 2 [900 element]
1	Can’t outperform (max 300 at 150HP)	Can’t outperform (max 300 at 150HP)
2	126	Can’t outperform (max 600 at 150HP)
3	64	114

Status skills

Understanding what status skills does implies understanding how status itself works. Thus all status skills are explained on the status dedicated page: https://lescarnetsdelawycademie.fr/status-now/#skills

Self status skills

These skills are used in Resuscitate X Coalescence sets. Resuscitate grants you a 5/10/20/30/40% damage buff while under a status condition. Coalescence grants you a 15/20/25/30/35% damage buff for 20s once a status expires. Both synergizes as when Resuscitate expires, Coalescence takes the relay while you get the status back on you.

Bleeding Edge

This skill has various effects depending on its level. First let’s explain the bleed status.

Under the bleed status, you turn 4% of your current HP into temporary red health with every action. If you get hit by an attack under the status effect, you will lose the status effect, the red health accumulated and the damage from the attack. Bleeding is healed by not acting at all for 3s or after 20s, restauring instantly all your red health into regular health.

With the skill lvl 1, you turn 2% of your health per action into red health (instead of 4%).

With the skill lvl 2, you get a 50% affinity bonus while suffering from the bleed status.

The level 3 inflicts you with bleed at the beginning of the fight. Once bleed is cured (usually after 20s since you’re running this skill for its affinity bonus), it will take 15 actions to reactivate the status (action counting rules).

Blood Cloak

This skill inflicts you with bloodblight as the fight begins.

Bloodblight turns all your current health in temporary health (red health). When you hit the monster, you regenerate some amount of health based on the MV you deal. This means skills that adds hits such as Hellfire Cloak or Reflect also contributes to the health regen. This health regen can go above your current HP, granting you blue health (say you have 30 HP as the fight begins, you can get all the way back to 100 HP). Obviously blue health isn’t kept after the fight ends.

Blue health interacts with health related skills (e.g. Peak Performance and Vital Element skills).

After 5s, bloodblight will start consuming your health at the pace of 4 HP/s. It first starts consuming the regenerated health then it will start consuming your actual HP, meaning bloodblight can kill you if you’re not aggressive enough.

Bloodblight is healed after 35s or if you regenerate 100% of your max HP, whichever happens first. The blue health you have as the status expires is kept and acts as a shield for your current real HP.

Bloodblight will be reactivated by dealing 600 MV to the monster after its initial expiration. When bloodblight infects you again, you lose the blue health and get back to your current HP as red temporary health.

Higher levels of Blood Cloak grants you a 5/10% damage bonus when inflicted by bloodblight while also increasing your max HP by 5/15 when bloodblight first activates (meaning if you were at 100HP when fight begins with the lvl 3 skill, you HP will become 100/115). This max health increase allows you to get more blue health from the health regen.

Bubbly Dance

This skill has various effects depending on its level. First let’s explain the bubbleblight status.

While under bubbleblight, any evade you perform (roll, side step) will make you travel further while inducing a special animation for your hunter where he’s destabilized, preventing him from acting as he’s slipping on the ground. IG aerial evade is a special case as it still travels further but doesn’t get the special animation demerit. Bubbleblight is cured either after taking a hit or after 20s.

With the skill lvl 1, your evades will still go further than normal ones but you no longer suffer from the special animation.

With the skill lvl 2, your evades while inflicted with bubbleblight have increased iframes.

The skill lvl 3 allows you to trigger bubbleblight on your own after 3 evades. After the status initial expiration, you can trigger it again with only one evade.

Hellfire Cloak

This skill inflicts you with hellfire as the fight begins.

Hellfire latchs on your hunter. It starts purple, turns red after 12s and finally explodes after 3 more seconds, dealing 40 HP of damage. The status can be cured by performing 5 evades. It can also be turned against the monster by performing a perfect evade. Doing so will transfer the hellfire to the monster, dealing a 100 MV hit to the part it latches on.

After cleasing the status, Hellfire Cloak allows you to retrigger it by dealing 300 MV to the monster after the hellfire deals its damage, meaning some perfect evade actions are too fast to contribute to the 300 MV count.

Lvl 2 and 3 of the skill increase your attack by 150/250 and decreases your defense by 50/100. Losing 100 defense is like facing the monster with one more star rank, making you take around 33% more damage.

Defensive skills

Firm Foothold

Taking a hit results in a damage reaction from your character. There are usually 3 levels of reaction:

small flinch
fall on your butt
projected

Firm Foothold will reduce your damage reaction by one tier per level. Some attacks require the skill lvl 1 or 2 to go from ‘projection’ to ‘fall on your butt’. For instance, Nargacuga initial jump only require FF1 to make you fall on your butt while its following big tail spin will require FF2.

There are also a few alternative damage reactions such as being thrown in the air (Rajang sommersault for instance) that are not affected by Firm Foothold.

While reducing the damage reaction allows you to act faster after taking a hit, it does not reduce the health lost.

It can be useful for weapons who have hyper armor like IG under orange extract or HH with Knockback Negated songs who can power through and keep their combos going so long as they don’t get projected.

Elemental Resistance

These skills reduces all damage dealt by a monster of a specific element by 15/30/50%. For instance, a Legiana ground charge (an non elemental attack by an ice monster) will only 50% of its base damage with Ice Resistance 3.

Guard

Understanding what guard skills does implies understanding how guard itself works. Thus all guard related skills are explained on the Guard page: https://lescarnetsdelawycademie.fr/guard-now/#guard

Guard Up

Kushala Frostwind

This skill reduces strong and draconic wind pressures to weak wind pressure, allowing you to be immune to all winds with Windproof 1.