Best Monster Hunter Wilds armor and list of all armor sets

What is the best Monster Hunter Wilds armor? It might be a little grotesque, but it wouldn’t be Monster Hunter if you didn’t craft armor from the parts of monsters you defeat. This colorful wardrobe of scales, leather, and fur is as important to your build as your chosen weapon, and equipping any old bit of kit only gets you so far.

Most armor sets in RPG game can help you decide what to craft or upgrade for your build.

Best Monster Hunter Wilds armor

Here are the best MH Wilds armor sets:

• Hirabami
• Rathalos
• Guardian Ebony A

The Hirabami armor set provides the Evade Window and Recovery Speed to extend your invulnerability window while dodging and cut down the time it takes for healing items to restore health. These skills are worthwhile regardless of your MH Wilds weapon and playstyle – after all, everyone needs to dodge and heal eventually. It has a decent base defense and a particular resistance to ice damage; however, it is susceptible to fire damage, so we recommending switching it in the Oilwell Basin.

The Rathalos set is a great alternative. It delivers the fire resistance that the Hirabami set lacks without losing the ever-helpful Evade Window skill. It also comes with the Constitution skill, which reduces stamina loss while blocking and evading. This makes it a particularly good armor set for the MH Wilds Lance.

The Guardian Ebony A set offers a different suite of utility with Divine Blessing and Earplugs. These two skills keep you on your feet in the face of the toughest monsters, soaking up damage and negating the daze effects of monster roars. It also offers the Burst skill, which bestows temporary damage buffs after five successive hits. Needless to say, this is a great option for the MH Wilds Dual Blades.

Ultimately, the best armor generally depends on what weapon you’re using, but the skills these armor sets brings to the table will be a benefit across the board. We happen to think they look pretty good, too. That said, if our choices don’t align with your fashion sense, check out our MH Wilds transmog guide so you don’t have to sacrifice your build for the rule of cool.

Best Low Rank armor

The best MH Wilds Low Rank armor sets are:

• Balahara
• Quematrice
• Rey Dau
• Guardian Rathalos

Low Rank armor is split into four different rarities, which you can easily tell by their defense stat. While you start off with basic armor, you’ll want to craft the Balahara set right away. This comes with the Evade Extender skill on its Arm, Waist, and Leg pieces to make you better at dodging incoming monster attacks.

You can take this further by mixing and matching armor pieces. The Balahara Head and Chest pieces have suboptimal skills (Hunger Resistance and Quick Sheathe) for most builds, so swap those out in favor of the Flinch Free skill from the Quematrice Head armor. This prevents knockback, allowing you to stay on your feet and finish lengthy combos.

When you get closer to the end of the story, we recommend tailoring your armor to better your choice of weapon. That said, either the Rey Dau set or the Guardian Rathalos set is worth grinding for due to their high defense score. They can also be upgraded in the post-game content with Armor Spheres.

Best High Rank armor

The best MH Wilds High Rank armor sets are:

• Hirabami
• Rathalos
• Guardian Ebony

While it’s possible to coast through Low Rank with any armor set, the best High Rank armor is highly dependent on your chosen weapon and build. Most armor at High Rank has an A and B set. The A set typically has more skills but fewer decoration slots, whereas the B set is the other way around. Neither variant is objectively better or worse than the other, but the latter gives you more room to shape skills to your preferences.

You can roll with the Rey Dau or Guardian Rathalos armor from Low Rank for a while in High Rank hunts. However, we recommend making the High Rank Hope set as it only requires Ore found in the Windward Plains near the base camp. If you have Armor Spheres left over from the main story missions, you can upgrade it to a decent level to take on the first half of the High Rank monsters.

The Hirabami and Rathalos sets both include Evade Extender, a highly valuable skills that imbues your dodge with more invulnerability frames. Furthermore, the Guardian Ebony set is all-around a great pick, especially if you’re using fast weapons, since a combination of Burst, Divine Blessing, and Earplugs offers great offense and defense.

While armor sets offer preset skill cohesion, you might find that many include skills that aren’t strictly useful for your build. Don’t be afraid to mix and match armor, and weigh the option of taking a piece with more slots if you already have the decorations to fit into it.

How to upgrade armor in MH Wilds

The best armor can give you a solid foundation of defensive stats right out of the gate, but if you want to survive tougher monsters at higher MH Wilds Hunter Ranks, you need to upgrade it.

You can level up armor with Armor Spheres, a rare material that you can get from MH Wilds quests or trading with Gawdygog at the Wudwud Hideout in Scarlet Forest. Armor Spheres offer a certain number of upgrade points depending on their rarity, and we recommend saving the ones that offer the most points for your best builds.

To upgrade armor, speak to Gemma at the Forge in any base camp and select ‘Forge/Upgrade Armor’ or ‘Upgrade from Box’ from the main menu. Select the armor you want to upgrade and then ‘Upgrade’ from the drop-down menu. From here, choose the number of Armor Spheres required to level up your equipment and hit the ‘Upgrade’ button to spend them.

All Monster Hunter Wilds Low Rank armor

Here are all the Low Rank armor sets in MH Wilds:

All Monster Hunter Wilds High Rank armor

Here are all the High Rank armor sets in MH Wilds:

Now that you’re up to speed with all the armor sets in Monster Hunter Wilds, check out the Monster Hunter Wilds review delves into how this sequel stacks up to the competition.

Additional contributions by Nat Smith.