Bow
A potent weapon for those willing to play in full gyro. The strongest weapon currently available if played to perfection. The only drawback is a lackluster Special.
Notes
Armor marked by a 🔸 indicate that the piece is optional, and adds either minimal power to your set or has strong competition in the slot. These sets are created to maximize offensive firepower without many difficult-to-activate conditional skills. The listed grades will be the minimum required to obtain the offensive skills, and it is recommend you upgrade them further than listed if you find the need for more defense.
Other weapon builds
Early Game (Pre-Anjanath)
| Head | Pukei Hood (Grade 2) |
| Body Armor | Leather Mail (Grade 2) |
| Vambraces | Girros Vambraces (Grade 2) 🔸 |
| Belt | Leather Belt (Grade 2) |
| Greaves | Jyura Greaves (Grade 3) |
The Jyuratodus Greaves are the only permanent fixture so far. The Pukei hood is for a temporary bit of Focus, which is better than Crit Eye from the Leather Headgear. Use Kulu Greaves before you unlock Jyura.
Mid-Game (Pre-Diablos)
| Head | Pukei Hood (Grade 2) |
| Body Armor | Pukei Mail (Grade 4) |
| Vambraces | Kulu Vambraces (Grade 4) |
| Belt | Jagras Coil (Grade 4) 🔸 |
| Greaves | Jyura Greaves (Grade 3) |
The Pukei Mail provides a third point in Focus, a nice place to be at. Jagras Coil is interchangeable for Tobi, Legiana, or a defensive coil like Lumu.
End Game (Pre-Rathalos)
| Head | Rathalos Helm (Grade 5) |
| Body Armor | Rathalos Mail (Grade 6) |
| Vambraces | Kulu Vambraces (Grade 4) |
| Belt | Rathalos Coil (Grade 5) |
| Greaves | Jyura Greaves (Grade 6) |
This is a bread and butter set for bow. Focus 3, Weakness Exploit 2, Attack Boost 2, Crit Eye 1. A solid balance of charge time and damage output.
Bow Weapon Choice
| Blooming Arch (Pukei) | a strong early game choice, with good raw and poison on top. The arrow types are also desirable. |
| Aqua Arrow (Jyura) | the water bow. A strong candidate for forging, as it beats up Kulu, Girros, Tobi, and Anja. Be aware that a Water Attack 5 set will have you down to Focus 1. |
| Blazing Bow (Anja) | the fire bow. Another strong candidate for forging as it beats up Jagras, Barroth, Paolumu, and Legiana. Unlike Water, a Fire Attack 5 set lets you keep Focus 3 and even Weakness Exploit 2. |
| Glacial Arrow (Legiana) | the only Ice bow. With desirable arrow types and good stats, the only thing holding it back is that we are limited to Ice Attack 3 at the moment. Good for slaying Diablos. |
| Diablos Bow (Diablos) | The undisputed generalist king of this weapon class. High raw, desirable arrow types, and no negative affinity. Heroics is also a strong innate skill, there are almost no downsides to this weapon. It can easily take you to 8* by itself, with maybe a bit of assistance from the elemental bows if you can't clear certain monsters. |
Footnote:
Just like LBG, the Anja bow is better than Rathalos. In this case, it's because Rathalos has an undesirable Lvl 4 charge type (pierce). Why is pierce bad? Its inconsistency and piercing nature cause it to often not only hit less than spread or rapid, but to hit in poorer hitzones giving you generally less damage output. It's so bad to the point that people fight Rathian and Rathalos (thunder weak monsters) with the Diablos Bow instead of the Tobi-Kadachi Bow (pierce).
Elemental Set for Bow Build
Element is practically forced upon you once you hit your wall in either 8-star or 9-star content. Monsters have increasingly absurd attack requirements that Element is the only thing that can keep up. A 9-star Legiana wants you to have over 2400 Attack! Keep in mind, there's no reason to immediately go for this until you're stuck. Raw takes you quite far.
Fire Bow Build (Anjanath Bow)
| Head | Anja Helm (Grade 4) |
| Body Armor | Rathalos Mail (Grade 6) |
| Vambraces | Anja Vambraces (Grade 6) |
| Belt | Rathalos Coil (Grade 6) |
| Greaves | Jyura Greaves (Grade 6) |
No changes to be made, Fire is bow's strongest elemental spec at the moment.
Water Bow Build (Jyuratodus Bow)
| Head | Kulu Headpiece (Grade 4) |
| Body Armor | Jyura Mail (Grade 3) |
| Vambraces | Jyura Vambraces (Grade 6) |
| Belt | Rathalos Coil (Grade 5) |
| Greaves | Jagras Greaves (Grade 6) |
Not very flexible. Kulu Helm wins over Rathalos Helm by 4 effective damage at G8 1/5. Can unfortunately only reach Focus 1.
Thunder Bow Build (Tobi-Kadachi Bow)
| Head | Rathalos Helm (Grade 5) |
| Body Armor | Kadachi Mail (Grade 4) |
| Vambraces | Kulu Vambraces (Grade 4) |
| Belt | Kadachi Coil (Grade 6) |
| Greaves | Jyura Greaves (Grade 6) |
This set is currently capped at Thunder Attack 3. There is an argument for Kulu Head/Rathian Vambraces to keep 10% affinity while also abusing Burst given pierce's (theoretically) abundant hits.
Ice Bow Build (Legiana Bow)
| Head | Legiana Helm (Grade 6) |
| Body Armor | Rathalos Mail (Grade 6) |
| Vambraces | Kulu Vambraces (Grade 4) |
| Belt | Legiana Coil (Grade 5) |
| Greaves | Jyura Greaves (Grade 6) |
This set is currently capped at Ice Attack 3. Pretty fine, if you're just gonna kill Diablos.
