Monster Hunter Stories 2 tips and tricks for beginners

Monster Hunter Stories 2 is fun RPG that’s suprisingly complex.

I absolutely love the complexities provided by Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin. However, I fully understand that it can be a daunting game for anyone who hasn’t played a Monster Hunter or Monster Hunter Stories game before. Here are some Monster Hunter Stories 2 tips and tricks that will help you become stronger and defeat enemies faster.

Here’s a tip right off the bat: Monster Hunter Stories 2 is a larger Nintendo Switch game that takes up 13.5GB of space. As such, it’s a good idea to make sure you have enough memory on your microSD card before downloading it.

Use the Attack Type system to your advantage

The battle system in Monster Hunter Stories 2 follows a Rock, Paper, Scissors system. Every monster you encounter will have one of three Attack Types, which beats one of the other attack types and gets defeated by another. When you’re in battle, make sure to select the right Attack Type and Monstie to take down your opponent.

Power beats Technical
Technical beats Speed
Speed beats Power

For additional fighting assistance, check out our Monster Hunter Stories 2 battle guide.

Elemental weakness chart

Every weapon, armor set, and monster has weaknesses and resistances that typically follow this chart below. While there are elements in Monster Hunter Stories 2, there are many exceptions to this chart. You’ll need to check the stats of each weapon, armor set, and monster in the game to see if it’s one of the anomalies to this system.

Element
Strong against
Weak against

Fire
Ice
Water

Water
Fire
Thunder

Thunder
Water
Dragon

Ice
Thunder/Dragon
Fire

Dragon
Dragon
Dragon/Thunder/Ice

Battle hotkeys

On your turn, you can always swap out your Monstie and your weapon before either using an item or attacking your enemy. Instead of navigating the convoluted menus, use these quick keys:

Y Button: Brings up quick Monstie Swap menu during battles.
X Button: Brings up quick Weapon Swap menu during battles.
ZL + ZR: If opposing monsters are low-enough level, you’ll defeat them instantly.

Have one of each Weapon Type

There are six different weapons in Monster Hunter Stories 2, two for each of the three weapon types in the game. You should have one of each weapon type on you at all times.

Weapon Types:

Blunt: Hunting Horn, Hammer
Pierce: Bow, Gunlance
Slash: Great Sword, Sword & Shield

Different monsters can be hurt more quickly with specific weapon types. Additionally, some weapon types will help you break rare monster parts off faster ensuring that you get a part you need to upgrade your armor or weapons.

To know which weapon type to use in battle, look at the weapon symbols that appear under a monster’s health bar. You won’t know if a weapon type is effective unless you use it first, but then every time you encounter that same monster species after that you’ll know what weapon types to use.

Best Monster Riding Actions in the overworld

Every Monstie has special Riding Actions it can use while exploring the overworld. However, some are far more useful than others and allow you to get to places you couldn’t reach otherwise.

For this reason, I suggest you have Monsties in your party that can Swim, Ivy Climb, and Jump at all times as these were the most frequent skills I needed on my journey. Near the latter half of the game, Rock Break, Fly, and Ground Dive also became important.

Win those Head-to-Heads

You can tell who a monster is going to target based on the line that appears between them and their target. If the line is yellow, that means a monster is attacking you. If you target an opponent who is targeting you, you’ll launch into a Head-to-Head sequence.

This is where the Rock, Paper, Scissors system comes into play. Whoever chooses the winning Attack Type will do a lot of damage while only receiving a small amount of damage. If there’s a tie, both sides will receive damage.

Plan with your Monstie

Similar to Head-to-Heads, if you and your Monstie attack the same monster while choosing the winning Attack Type, you’ll land a Double Attack. This makes it so you don’t receive any damage while landing a lot of damage on your foe. Be careful as the reverse is also true. If a humanoid enemy and its Monstie use a winning Attack Type against you, it will hurt a lot and negate your attack.

At the start of each turn, analyze your opponent, determine which Attack Type will likely defeat them, swap out your Monstie for one with a coinciding Attack Type (if necessary), and then go for the kill.

Fill that Kinship Gauge fast!

There’s a circular gauge near the bottom of your screen known as the Kinship Gauge. As you and your Monsties land successful Head-to-Heads and Double Attacks on your enemies the gauge will fill. You can use these Kinship Gauge points to perform special rider Skills or if you wait until the gauge fills to the top, you can use a Kinship Skill to Ride your Monstie and land a powerful attack.

Target the monsters that are targeting you and use the right Attack Types to fill that gauge up faster.

Use Kinship Skills strategically

Kinship Skills are valuable for two reasons. Whenever you get on your Monstie, you and your Monstie will regain a decent portion of health. Then, when you actually use the Kinship Skill attack it completely cancels out your opponent’s attack. So it’s a good idea to save your Kinship Skill attacks for when your health is getting low or you can tell your foe is about to use a powerful attack that you might not survive.

Your humanoid teammates can also perform Kinship Skills. You can tell they’re about to do this if they get on their Monstie. This will help heal your friend and will also cancel out the attacks of the opponents they attack. Keep your eye on your friend to know what kind of attack or moves you should be doing to build off their attack.

Lastly, if you and a humanoid teammate use a Kinship Skill at the same time, your attacks will merge together to create a much more powerful attack. For that reason, it’s often a good idea to wait and use your Kinship Skill when your friend is about to use theirs.

Get eggs for days in monster dens

You’ll find monster dens scattered throughout the map as you explore. Entering these locations allows you to find a nest where you can search for eggs. Every monster has a specific pattern and color associated with it and you’ll often find more than one egg type in a nest.

If a grown monster is in the den, you might need to defeat it before you’ll be able to take the egg away. Sometimes an adult monster will be asleep on the nest. You can snag eggs from under its nose, but if it wakes you might need to defeat it. It’s more likely to awake if you take longer to select an egg.

The heavier and nicer smelling the egg is, the better your chances are of it having rare genes to make it stronger in battle. It’s kind of confusing, but if Navirou says an egg doesn’t smell like much and it’s heavy, then that’s the egg to get. You can only bring one egg out of a den, but you’ll want to go egg hunting frequently as this can give you new monsters to fight with and makes it possible to do the Rite of Channeling.

Rite of Channeling help

If done correctly, Rite of Channeling allows you to basically make Frankenstein Monsties with abilities that normally aren’t seen in a specific species, like making it so an ice-covered Zamtrios has the ability to spew poison gas. All you have to do is talk to your farmer Palico at the stables to get it started.

A Monstie’s individual gene slots unlock as that Monstie levels up. You can only pull one gene from any Monstie and give it to another, just note that makes the Monstie you pulled it from disappear… which is rather ominous. Don’t think about it too much.

Genes are one of six elements as indicated by their color and sometimes they have an Attack Type symbol on them. You can either pull a new gene over that your current Monstie doesn’t currently have or you can stack the same gene on top of an existing gene your Monstie already has to make it stronger.

If three gene slots of the same color line up in any way, your Monstie gets a Bingo Bonus and becomes stronger. There are also Rainbow Genes that can work with any of the six elements to complete a Bingo Bonus.

Experiment around with the Rite of Channeling to get a better feel for it and then use what you’ve learned on your preferred party members. For more help, check out our Monster Hunter Stories 2 Rite of Channeling guide.

Constantly improve your armor and weapons

A blacksmith can be found in every village. Talking to them allows you to forge better weapons and armor or to upgrade them to become stronger. You will need to regularly improve your gear if you want to survive monster attacks.

As previously mentioned, every armor set and weapon has strengths and weaknesses. Use this info to determine what kind of gear you need. For instance, if you’re headed into a lava-filled area, you probably want something that deals a lot of damage to fire elemental monsters.

Make money fast!

Whenever you enter a village, check out the Quest Board and immediately accept every quest you see. You will complete many of these tasks without even trying and can earn money whenever you turn them in at the Quest Board.

Additionally, throughout the course of your journey, you’ll find or be rewarded with items whose sole purpose is to be sold at stores for Zenny (the in-game currency). Check your item list regularly to see what things you have to sell.

Collect everything you see

Items are very important in Monster Hunter Stories 2 and since you can’t run out of room in your inventory, you should be gathering everything you see. That includes treasure chests, plants, bones, bugs, and any available awards provided after beating a monster.

You’ll get more items after a battle if you broke parts off during the fight and if you score higher on the Results page. The highest score you can get is an S Rank, which is achieved when you get 500 points or more. Doing simple things like winning Head-to-Heads or using Kinship Skills earn you points each time you do them.

Use the Prayer Pot

In every town, there’s a large, creepy Prayer Pot usually located nearby the Quest Board. Interacting with this thing allows you to say a prayer and offer a charm to the pot. Depending on the prayer and charm you select, this will influence your stats. Additionally, the number of charms you offer increases how long the effects stay active for.

The more you use the Prayer Pot, the more prayers unlock for you to use. I suggest using this weird vase before setting out on any of your quests. It can really make a difference during a difficult boss fight.

Go forth and save Ratha

With all of these Monster Hunter Stories 2 tips and tricks under your belt, you’re ready to jump into Monster Hunter Stories 2 and see where the plot takes you. One thing’s for sure, those tricky monsters won’t get the better of you if you understand the Attack Type system and use Kinship Skills appropriately.

Fly like a Rathalos

Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin

$60 at Amazon
$60 at Best Buy
$60 at Walmart

Embrace the power of Kinship to save the world!

Rathalos all over the world are mysteriously vanishing, and the rest of the monsters are going berserk, attacking anything in sight. Through the power of Kinship, you and your Monstie will travel far and wide to save the world from these disasters.