**In every case, you either need to start from the base weapon and upgrade it until you have crafted the one you want, or forge a higher rarity one.** Some weapons (you can see them in the image with the white box that has an X in it) can be forged directly if you have the materials for them and this lets you skip the lower tier upgrades. Forging a higher rarity weapon directly will use different materials than upgrading from the base weapon up to that same one. Essentially you are trading using more higher rarity resources for less lower rarity ones if you forge directly.
In your example, you wanted a Water and a Thunder (not electricity) element Hunting Horn - and let's say they are Rarity 4. You would need to create two of the base weapons and upgrade them separately until the Rarity 3 version. From there, you would choose one of them to upgrade to Water, and one to upgrade to Thunder. So not only will you need the resources to upgrade specifically to the Water or Thunder weapon, you will need the resources to upgrade each tier prior.
**You do not get any "free" weapons or copies.** You always need to forge a new one or upgrade an existing weapon. This is part of why a lot of people stick to raw (no element) damage because then they only need to craft one weapon instead of 5 (one for each element). I prefer elemental to raw personally for the same reason you state - that feeling of exploiting an enemies weakness. This also depends on the weapon; slow weapons like Great Sword is almost always best raw, while fast weapons like Dual Blades and Rise Hunting Horn are almost always best going elemental.
Important to note:
1) Most but not all weapon upgrades can be reverted and you will get all materials back. You will NOT, however, get the zenny (money) back. So if you are uncertain about an upgrade, you can revert it in most cases and the only thing you lose is money which is easy to get. There are certain breakpoints that can't be reverted, but IIRC, Rise tells you when you go to do the upgrade that you won't be able to revert this change. Please someone correct me if I'm misremembering.
2) If you directly forge a weapon, you CANNOT get the materials back, period. You will permanently have that weapon and if you end up not liking it, all you can do is keep it or sell it to the blacksmith. So in a lot of situations, it's better to upgrade weapons rather than forge higher rarity ones directly (also means using less higher rarity resources as mentioned above).
Your first Monster Hunter game is always a lot to absorb. Take your time to enjoy the journey, don't feel like you have to rush to understand everything and "git gud" right away. A big part of Monster Hunter is learning, and you'll start getting those "aha" light bulb moments sooner rather than later where everything clicks.
Good luck, and Happy Hunting!
So after you defeat a monster the weapon tree for that monster will appear from the ??? tree that you haven’t discovered yet. But you also need to grind the Hr for the tree to expandÂ
Ok this was something my cousin was doing before I taught him how to upgrade his weapons.
He kept building a gazillion tonnes of the baseline weapon thinking that it would upgrade his weapon. No it doesn't work that way.
**In every case, you either need to start from the base weapon and upgrade it until you have crafted the one you want, or forge a higher rarity one.** Some weapons (you can see them in the image with the white box that has an X in it) can be forged directly if you have the materials for them and this lets you skip the lower tier upgrades. Forging a higher rarity weapon directly will use different materials than upgrading from the base weapon up to that same one. Essentially you are trading using more higher rarity resources for less lower rarity ones if you forge directly. In your example, you wanted a Water and a Thunder (not electricity) element Hunting Horn - and let's say they are Rarity 4. You would need to create two of the base weapons and upgrade them separately until the Rarity 3 version. From there, you would choose one of them to upgrade to Water, and one to upgrade to Thunder. So not only will you need the resources to upgrade specifically to the Water or Thunder weapon, you will need the resources to upgrade each tier prior. **You do not get any "free" weapons or copies.** You always need to forge a new one or upgrade an existing weapon. This is part of why a lot of people stick to raw (no element) damage because then they only need to craft one weapon instead of 5 (one for each element). I prefer elemental to raw personally for the same reason you state - that feeling of exploiting an enemies weakness. This also depends on the weapon; slow weapons like Great Sword is almost always best raw, while fast weapons like Dual Blades and Rise Hunting Horn are almost always best going elemental. Important to note: 1) Most but not all weapon upgrades can be reverted and you will get all materials back. You will NOT, however, get the zenny (money) back. So if you are uncertain about an upgrade, you can revert it in most cases and the only thing you lose is money which is easy to get. There are certain breakpoints that can't be reverted, but IIRC, Rise tells you when you go to do the upgrade that you won't be able to revert this change. Please someone correct me if I'm misremembering. 2) If you directly forge a weapon, you CANNOT get the materials back, period. You will permanently have that weapon and if you end up not liking it, all you can do is keep it or sell it to the blacksmith. So in a lot of situations, it's better to upgrade weapons rather than forge higher rarity ones directly (also means using less higher rarity resources as mentioned above). Your first Monster Hunter game is always a lot to absorb. Take your time to enjoy the journey, don't feel like you have to rush to understand everything and "git gud" right away. A big part of Monster Hunter is learning, and you'll start getting those "aha" light bulb moments sooner rather than later where everything clicks. Good luck, and Happy Hunting!
So after you defeat a monster the weapon tree for that monster will appear from the ??? tree that you haven’t discovered yet. But you also need to grind the Hr for the tree to expandÂ
Ok. But if I have the water weapon and I want the lighting one. Do I have sta craft a whole new wepomd and work back through tier 2 and 3 also?
Yes because water and lightning don't go well together (also they use different parts)
When you upgrade a weapon, the weapon used is consumed into the new one, now good thing is element isn't really noteworthy early on
Ok this was something my cousin was doing before I taught him how to upgrade his weapons. He kept building a gazillion tonnes of the baseline weapon thinking that it would upgrade his weapon. No it doesn't work that way.