http://18.191.70.34/2020/05/09/mhw-lbg-build-best-light-bowgun-in-mhw-iceborneupdated-2020/

This guide was written and draft up during my playthrough on PlayStation 4 version of Monster Hunter World. The control scheme was explained using PS4 buttons and layout. Please replace that with the control scheme on your platform of choice. If you are curious about MHW Bowgun family, check my previous post for Heavy Bowgun here. There is also a personal list of Heavy Bowgun to pick on. With that heavy stuff out of the way, let’s try something new, lighter, faster and also flashy this time around – Monster Hunter World Light Bowgun.

MHW Light Bowgun Overview

MHW Light Bowgun – just like it’s name, is relative “Light” and faster to use compare to its brother – Heavy Bowgun. It doesn’t have any heavy hitting ammo like Cluster Bombs or Wyvern. Combine with several ammo attributes that empower the Light Bowgun greatest strenght – Speed.

Strength	Weakness
Lightweight, easy to use. Ammo types support Rapid-fire – allow the hunter to shoot in quick succession.	Require lot more tinkering to be powerful Wyvernblast requires more set up compare to Heavy Bowgun Special Ammo.

MHW Light Bowgun Basics

---

Like mentioned, shooting and aiming has never been easier in Monster Hunter series. With World, the control scheme of Light Bowgun (or any other ranged weapon) is similar to what you may see in Shooting genres. In which,  is used to aim and  is to fire. You can also shoot directly without these buttons, but this will help bring up the classic crosshair and also a good indication of the distance that the hunter can deal the most damages (More below)

• Aiming and shooting

 (Aim with right analog)   (Shooting)

Pressing  also

Note

• Changing Ammo Types

 or 

This combination allow you to change your current bullets. The catch is it does not require  to apply. (Compare to MHW Bow)

• Load Special ammo

Just like MHW Heavy Bowgun Wyvernsnipe and Wyvernheart. Light Bowgun also has a special ammo type of its own – Wyvern Blast. While Heavy Bowgun special ammo straight up turn the weapon into some heavy-hitting gun. Light Bowgun, on the other hand utilize its in a very unique way. We will discuss more about Wyvern Blast down below.

• Rolling

(During attack)

As the name indicate “Light” Bowgun allow the hunter more time to evade those deadly attacks. While using the Light Bowgun, hunters can evade effortlessly compare with the Heavy Bowgun

Tips:

• Melee Attacks

Another melee attack for the Ranged Weapon. Of course you are not using this to fight the that Deviljo, but it will help when you want to cause some damage on the terrain.

• Reload

You dont have magic bullet, so this is your main tool to reload. Holding  will result in hunter reload all ammo in sequence – this can be used when you have some room to breath.

Light Bowgun Ammo Types

---

Sharing the similar arsenal with Heavy Bowgun Ammo Types. Light Bowgun can utilize most of the ammo types of its brother, except the Cluster Bomb & Wyvern Ammo Types. Its actually make sense, as the shooting position for Cluster Bomb requires the hunter to sit and aiming for that mortar shot. You will also gain access to Recover/Demon and Armor ammo types, this, in turn, give you the ability to buff your teammates with a shot to their face!

Another thing to catch here is the level of these ammo types. Putting it easy, the level simply indicates how much damage and power of these ammo types. So your priority should be to utilize those level 3 Ammo at the right time.

Light Bowgun Ammo Attributes

With Light Bowgun, there is another thing to know before going all out. Aside from the ammo types supported, each Light Bowgun will also allow certain ammo types to be fired in a rapid-fire mode.

Even the Spread Ammo (Similar to shotgun blast) can also benefit from this attribute.

This can be checked by pressing L3 when choosing a Light Bowgun. This menu will show you which ammo types allow this Rapid Fire attribute.

Light Bowgun Modifications

---

Just as Heavy Bowgun, modifications is another critical part of the Light Bowgun.

• Recoil Suppressor   Reduce knockback when shooting
• Reload Assist Decrease reload time for certain ammo types
• Deviation Suppressor – Only applicable with bowgun that has deviation.

• Close Range Up Increase damage for close-range shots.
• Ranged Attack Up Increase the damage for long-range shots.
• Shield NA

Deviation vs Recoil MHW

If this is the first time you use Bowgun, these two will surely cause some head scratching.

Simply put, for Deviation, indicating the moving of the crosshair when firing. With Deviation mod of Bowgun, you can reduce this swaying while firing.

Recoil, on the other hand, is another term for the knockback whenever you fire a big shot (imagine firing a rocket compared to a pistol).

With that out of the way, choosing between Deviation or Recoil mod for MHW Heavy Bowgun is definitely depend on your choice of ammo types.

For MHW Light Bowgun, you may want to use the Recoil Suppressor when picking up those Light Bowgun that support Rapid Fire on Spread Ammo.

Light Bowgun Special Ammo Types

---

Last time we mentioned Wyvernsnipe & Wyvernheart – Two powerful abilities that allow your Heavy Bowgun to become the heavy hitter capable of dealing huge damage to monsters.

Check out my personal list for Top Heavy Bowguns – divided by the two Special Ammo Types.

While Light Bowgun doesn’t offer this kind of power, it keeps something up its sleeves.

Light Bowgun Wyvern Blast

---

Han, Put down some mines

Every Light Bowgun will come with three charges of Wyvernblast – a proximity mine that can be set up on the ground. These mines produce a cloud-like substance and detonate when someone hit on this smoke. https://gfycat.com/AdoredPreciousFox But it’s not just as simple as that, the unique trait of this ability is the way the damage is ramp up depending on what triggers the explosion. Below is the estimation of each type:

• Low Damage attacks (under 50) – Normal Explosion, explode 5 times.

• High Damage Attacks (50 and above – 1.75 Normal Explosion, can only explode 2 times.

MHW Light Bowgun Iceborne!

Make sure you check out the latest changes for Light Bowgun in Iceborne!

Light Bowgun Advanced

---

To master the Bowgun family, you will need to understand all the ammo types and when to use it.

It is easy to blast the monster with Heavy Bowgun as its arsenal is huge and contains different of hard-hitting ammo like Cluster Bomb or Wyvern Ammo. While not contain the same power, MHW Light Bowgun compensate that with the speed and the support of rapid fire mode.

MHW Light Bowgun tactics

If you are going in as a team, mostly you will have the time to reload and get yourself a reasonable distance to shoot to your heart content. With that advantages, your focus should be dish out the most damage (or elemental damage) to the monsters. As for the solo players, you can easily utilize Light Bowgun abilities to dash around and line up those shots. No matter of your playstyles, most Light Bowgun benefit from two main play styles

• Raw Damage – Similar to Melee Weapons, this playstyle focus in the base attack damage with no special status. Light Bowgun that support Rapid Fire on Spread or Normal Ammo Types and has high base damage is your best pick for this approach.

• Elemental Damage/ Abnormal Statuses dealer – There are many Light Bowgun that support element ammo types, some even come with the Rapid Fire! If you want to give this playstyle a chance, slot in those Element Jewel or Status build-up increment. You can also picked Critical Element (From Rathalos Set)

Light Bowgun Quick Guide

Remember to reload your Bowgun! Utilize the “reload all” (by holding the reload button) at the right time. While melee fighter need to sharpening, you will need that gun to fully loaded at all time. Practice to bring some Level 1 Ammo and Gun Powder (any level) in your inventory and assign it to your quick action slot for crafting. Always put up some back up in your stash and come back when you finish a fight.  You don’t want to use that normal ammo against those Arch Tempered Monsters… Know your Ammo! If your Light Bowgun support Sleep & Paralysis – use it! Your team mates will thanks you for that. Spread and Pierce are ammo that benefit from the Spread shot and Pierce Shot armor skills. Remember to check for Rapid Fire of your prefer Ammo Type. This special attributes will help you ramp up the damage in a short time. Wyvernblast can either be used actively, or set up as trap for monsters. You don’t have to use all three charges at once also! Choose wisely. Don’t forget those modifications! These can help ramp up your damage.

Light Bowgun Builds & Armor Skills

Starting off with the Attack Boosts as usual:

• Attack Boosts – Pretty straightforward, increase your attack damage by an amount, however, try to aim for the “sweet spot” Level 4 Attack Boosts will increase your affinity as well (Monster Hunter critical chance)

For Affinity, the below is a great (if not must) addition to the build

• Critical Eye – Increase Affinity directly (3% each level until level 4, after that it will be 5%)
• Weakness Exploit – 30% Affinity when hitting weak spots of monsters. With the tendency to hits a lot, this is a great addition for Insect Glaive.
• Critical Boosts – Increase Critical Damage by 30% (+5% each level, max 3 level)

All of the recommend Armor Skills for Heavy Bowgun can be used here. There are also players who alternate between these two during their play as well.

• Razor Sharp/ Spareshot – For bows and bowguns, shots have a chance not to expend coatings or ammo – Basically give you free ammo to continue the rampage.
• Spread Shot/ Power shot – Increase the power of Spread Shot and Power Shot.
• Normal Shot – Increase the power of normal ammo & normal shot

Normal Shot is a great addition to any Light Bowgun that support Rapid Fire for Normal Ammo. You can easily get some attack boosts with just this skills

• Pierce Shot – Increase the power of Pierce Ammo.
• Special Ammo Boosts – Increase the power of Bowgun Special Ammo (WyvernFire & Wyvernheart & Wyvernblast)
• Focus – This will help to reduce Wyevernblast cooldown – a great addition to any Light Bowgun build.

This time Artillery cannot be used as it’s only beneficial to Wyvern ammo type – which is one of the ammo types that Light Bowgun cannot use. 

While the first three armor skills are associated with the ammo types you are gonna picked. If you are just trying out the Light Bowgun, I suggest pick up Spread Shot & Special Ammo Boosts and an Light Bowgun that support rapid fire to Spread Ammo.

Bonus Armor Skill

• Peak Performance – Increase Damage when your health is full. This is recommended when you already augment weapon with health. Otherwise, it requires more skill to dodge and block.
• Agitator – Increase attack power when monsters become enraged – I never see any calm monsters when being poked in the ass. This will give you attack power (Start at 4 and increase by 4 per level) and affinity rate (starting from 3% and increase by 3% per level) This skill can be obtained from the infamous discs cover monsters – Nergigante or the Challenger Charm.

Support Skill

In previous Monster Hunter titles – . Seating along with the classic like Sword & Shield Light Bowgun also famous for their supportive native. If you decide to follow the tradition, below armor skills will surely needed.

• Wide Range – Allows the effects of certain items to also affect nearby allies. One of the must-have skill for support players.
• Speed Eating – Increase the speed of consumable items
• Free Meal – Gives you a predetermined chance of consuming a food or drink item for free. 25% – Trust me, this happens more than you think
• Item Prolonger – Extends the duration of some item effects.
• Recovery Up – Increases the amount restored when restoring Health.
• Earplug – This is actually the best skill in my opinion, both for the support players or the DPS ones. The downside is this have 5 levels, which require a lot of grinding for jewels (As the native armor come with this is limited)

Sharpness boosts

• Handicraft – Increase sharpness by 10 each level (Max at 50 – Level 5) This boost your damage by 32% (At white level sharpness) The more sharpness you have, the better. But not all weapons can achieve white sharpness even with this skill.
• Protective Polish – You get this from Odogaron set (4 pieces) or the Sharp Jewel (Level 2) The jewel is pretty hard to get thanks to RNG. This is a true end game skill.

Other Skills

• Critical Element – Can be obtained via Rathalos Set – This skill allows you crit with Elemental Attack – which is a play styles that sync perfectly with Light Bowgun
• Part Breaker – As you will probably aim for the head of the monster, why not add this to your skillset? That Nergigante’s horns will be no longer unbreakable
• Bombardier – If you are a solo player and want to maximize damage, sneak in this skill to powerup tose Mega Barrel Bomb!
• Non-elemental Boosts – This caused a little controversial back then, but it is confirmed that this skill increase damage for Light Bowgun that doesn’t use any elemental ammo.
• Razor Sharp/ Spare Shot – Free Ammo! This happens quite often than you think.

The Red Storm (LBG Sample Build)

This is how my armor skills look like

Armor Set

Start off is our classic Drachen Vambraces alpha again.

For Head Armor, I go with Dragonking Eyepatch Alpha –  a safe choice when it’s come to High-Rank armor, this provides you with one level 3 slot which can give you some more customization. Luckily, with Tenderizer Jewel 2 I can also maximize the Weakness Exploit armor skill. This give me the below:

• Weakness Exploit Level 3 – 50% Affinity when you hit weak spots.

Lavasioth leg will give you boosts in Spread Ammo

For the Waist, Nergigante Coil Beta is picked for the “safety” reason. This gives you two levels of Attack Boosts and completes the sweet level 4 ATK Boosts. Finally, the chest I picked is Kaiser Mail Beta (Crafting from Teostra Materials) This quickly gives you the maximum of Special Ammo Boost – a must-have skill for any Bowgun.

 

As all Light Bowgun come with he Wyvernblast ability. The choice here are pretty straightforward compared to Heavy Bowgun (when you need to decide which Special Ammo you wanna play) The focus this time will be what kind of ammo type you will pick to maximize the damage potential of your playstyles To me, I picked Karma – A popular choice with Light Bowgun users for its high base affinity stat.

Just like any other weapons make from Odagoron, this crimson red gun starting off with 30% Affinity – Combine this with the Critical Eyes & Critical Boosts from armor is enough for you to deal critical damage consistently. With the support of Rapid Fire on Spread Ammo 1, you can easily combine this with those Close Range mods and you got yourself a weapon of destruction! The downside of this is the fact that Abnormal Status ammo types like Sleep or Paralysis are only supported at level 1. This will cause some more time to make that big bad monster sleep peacefully. Another thing worth mention is that this one got low base damage. Your best bet to improve this is via Augmentation 

Charm and Jewel

For Charm, I personally used Master Charm. Crafted and upgraded by Odogaron parts, this little charm quickly give you 10% Affinity.

My Bow & Insect Glaive Builds is also utilize this charm. This is definitely your go to tool when you really need Affinity. 

Jewels are entirely depended on what you want to supplement this build.

• Charger Jewel 2 – This will help increase Focus reducing the cooldown of Wyvernblast
• Bombardier – Straight up increase Bombs damage by 30%

MHW Light Bowgun Meta Builds

---

This is updated on August 2019 with the upcoming of MHW Iceborne release in mind (26 – September – 2019) to make sure you are ready for the cold of the new map!

The above build is just a quick suggestion for players that just starts with the Light Bowgun. The MHW Light Bowgun right now is one of the most flexible weapon to play in Monster Hunter: World.

In my Long Sword guide (and almost all of the melee weapons) The Drachen set is dominating the current meta, this is because of the high Affinity focus armor skills of the set as well as other powerful skills for melee players.

For Light Bowgun and Heavy Bowgun (and probably Bow) the hunters have another powerful set to aim for.

Xeno’jiiva Gamma Armor Set

This is the most powerful set of the current meta for both MHW Light and Heavy Bowgun. The reasons? 

• Razor Sharp/ Spare Shot – This is activated when you wear three pieces of Xeno’jiiva Gamma Armor. With the introduction of Arch-Tempered Monsters, you will need the most ammo as possible. 
• Special Ammo Boosts – Your go to skill to powerup Wyvern Blast.
• Critical Boosts – Do I need to explain more?

Being a Gamma Set, the Xeno’jiiva can also be upgraded and give our gunner the highest defense possible. As you only need three pieces of Xeno’jiiva Gamma to get the most out of it, the remaining armor will depend entirely on your playstyle, check out the below builds from the Reddit Community.

MHW Light Bowgun Rapid Fire Build (Normal Shot)

Armor

Xeno’jiiva Gamma Hand + Waist + Leg – 

This is mainly for Razor Sharps/ Spare Shot and Critical Boost

Weapon

• Taroth Blitz “Support”

Jewels

• Attack Jewels x 4
• Tenderizers Jewel x 3
• Expert Jewel (Critical Eye) x 3
• True Shot Jewel x 1 
• Force Shot Jewel x 1

Charm

• Mighty Charm III – Maximum Might

Mods

• Recoils x 2 – Reduce swaying when firing.
• Close x 1 – Increase damage when possible

This is one of those jewel-hungry builds. One of the reason is because you don’t have the luxury of those innate Attack Up in armor (compare to melee set) If you can finish the builds, let us know how long did you get!   Did you know? You now have three attack jewels right out of the bat. One is get from finishing the story, the other is from Witcher Sidequest #2,and the last is from the anniversary of MHW! Other rarest decoration includes: Forceshot (for Normal Shot) & True Shot (For Critical Boosts) This is an end-game builds as you will need to manage your HP and get it full at all time (Peak Performance enabler) Even with Health Augment, this still require a lot of skills.

MHW Light Bowgun Spread Builds

 If you prefer to get close to the monster, there are several builds that utilize the Spread Ammo for Light Bowgun.

 

Armor

Xeno’jiiva Gamma Hand + Waist + Leg

Weapon

• Jyura Bullet III – For Spreadshot level 2

Jewels

• Attack Jewels x 6 – Yes, you read that correctly. This is because Jyura Bullet III damage suck
• Tenderizers Jewel x 3 – 
• True Shot Jewel x 1 (Special Ammo Boosts)
• Spread Shot Jewel x 1 (Spread Shot)

Charm

• Awakening Charm II – Free Element + 2

Mods

Close x 2 – To increase Spread Ammo damage

Recoil – Reduce the knockback of crosshair

This is relatively cheaper build compare to other (but look at those Attack Jewels!) Jyura Bullet III is featured in my best Light Bowgun list, with just Spread Shot level 2, you can enjoy a faster reloading speed while battling the monster up You will need to augment the weapon with Affinity and Damage to get the most out of it

---

 

Armor

• Xeno’jiiva Gamma Hand + Waist + Leg – This is mainly for Razor Shaprs/ Spare Shot and Critical Boost
• Nergigante Gamma Chest – For Maximum Might & Slots

Weapon

• Devil’s Madness – Spread level 3

Jewels

• Expert Jewels x 7 – Yes, again, you need all 7 to max out the Critical skill. Sigh
• Tenderizers Jewel x 3 – Weakness Exploit
• Release Jewel x 1 – Max out the ammo capacity of Spread 3
• Mighty Jewel x 2 – Increase Affinity 
• Spread Shot Jewel x 1

Charm

• Awakening Charm II – Free Element + 2

Looking at those jewels, you may want to turn back and stick to the Sword and Shield again 🙂 But wait, this is potentially one of the highest DPS build, because you are now 100% Crit with Spread shot! You will need to manage your stamina though, Maximum Might added 30% to Affinity when your stamina is filled. If you have a decent team, just find a good position and unleash those shots! It is also a down when you need to augment the LBG with two Affinity slots…

MHW Light Bowgun Builds – Elemental

This is a special build that can help you with that frustrating Lunastra…

I personally did not get all the builds. This is from the awesome reddit MHW Metabuilds post . The images are taken from LBG Metabuilds Librabry

Conclusion

Have you decided to pick MHW Light Bowgun for a change to prepare for the upcoming Iceborne Expansion? Since the release of Monster Hunter World, the hunters have been constantly proving that Light Bowgun is not just a support weapon. It’s capable in both ways and is super friendly to new user thanks to the intuitive control. If you played Bow or Heavy Bowgun before, why not pick this up for a change of pace? My Ranged weapon guide so far:

• Monster Hunter World – Bow Guide
• Monster Hunter World – Heavy Bowgun Guide & Best Heavy Bowguns list

Or Check out my guides on other melee weapons

• Monster Hunter World – Switch Axe Guide
• Monster Hunter World – Sword and Shield Guide
• Monster Hunter World – Charge Blade Guide & Best Charge Blades list
• Monster Hunter World – Gun Lance Guide
• Monster Hunter World – Insect Glaive Guide