The Monster Hunter Rise Rampage tips the odds in your foes’ favor with scores of powerful enemies. Which is why I’ve concocted even more tips of my own, to make the experience just a little bit more pleasant — particularly when you run into Apex Arzuros and other truly annoying enemies. The Rampage can be a great, relaxing new mode that offers a lot of melding materials (partially in the form of Rampage Tickets). But it can also become a big, messy affair compared to the pitch perfect monster hunts found in the rest of the game if you’re not careful. Skip that hassle and jump straight into the fun with these useful Monster Hunter Rise Rampage tips!
Installations Follow Your Camera
Let’s kick things off with something small, but very useful. The animation to access an installation (i.e. the turrets you build and use) is a little clunky. It can take upwards of a couple seconds to actually get in position. Then you need to aim, fire, and hope the monsters don’t knock you back before you actually flinch them. You can make this whole process slightly easier on yourself, though. Just make sure your camera is already turned to face your target when you begin manning an installation. The turret (be it a ballista, cannon, or machinegun) will instantly face that same, exact spot when you’re finally settled into it. Then you can start firing immediately, or switch to first-person mode for extra precision. Either way, it saves you precious moments spent swiveling your turret to face incoming threats!
Turrets Have More Range Than You Think
Speaking of the turrets, don’t be fooled by the damage numbers. Ballistae in particular can fire much, much farther than you think — even if you don’t see numbers pop off monsters. Listen for audio cues instead. Landing shots on a monster will make a very distinct sound. This indicates you’re landing the shot. If you can hear this, it means you’re hitting the target, even if you’re out of range to see the number. This is useful for setting up manual installations much farther back than the automatic ones. You save space and increase your overall damage output!
Empty Your Clip
There is no manual reload for ballistae and the like in Monster Hunter Rise. On the bright side, ammunition is now unlimited, so you can go pretty wild. I’d even recommend totally emptying your clip into the dirt if you’ve spent any and have a few seconds between monsters. That way you’ll have a fresh, full stack of shots for the next wave. This is particular useful for slow-loading special ammo or machineguns.
Use Retreat Shot on Flying Enemies
Retreat shots are fantastic for buying space. They’ll cause crawling monsters to reel back for a second — often giving you an opening to stun them. What’s even better, though, is using them on those pesky flying foes. Prioritize your retreat shot on midair enemies. Hitting one will instantly drop them to ground, stunning them for a short duration.
Downed Enemies Aren’t Stunned
Did I say Retreat Shots “stun” flying monsters? Because the game doesn’t count it as such. Yes, they’ll be incapacitated for a few seconds, but cannon fire to the head will still add an extra stun on top of that. This extends how long flying enemies stay out of commission, adds progress towards any “stun X enemies” objective, and grants bonus XP to your installations since any stun awards a little bit of progress towards more upgrades.
Stun Thresholds Get Higher
One last stun tip: it gets hard over time. This is actually true outside of the Rampage as well. Status Ailments in Monster Hunter have “thresholds” that are unique to each monster and get higher every time you inflict them during a mission. For instance, it takes more poison damage to poison a monster the second time in a hunt than the first, and so on. The same goes for stuns. It doesn’t come up often during the Rampage, since monsters are usually repelled very quickly. But it will take more cannon shots to the head to knock a monster the second or even third time. On the other hand, that means monsters don’t become totally immune to it. If you’re blasting a monster more times than usual and not getting a stun, just keep at it. Aside from Major Threats you should either get a second stun or simply repel them pretty quickly.
Counter Signals Are the Best
No amount of artillery matches your trusty weapon. At least when the Counter Signal is active! This temporary buff triggers periodically throughout any Rampage. Notably, you’ll get an almost permanent boost against Major Threat (i.e. the boss) of each mission. And the amount of damage it adds to your weapon is staggering. It completely outclasses any and all of the hunting installations, besides the one-time-use Dragonator and the like. So make good use of it.
Here’s How Wyvernfire Artillery Works
This late-mission installation is the oddball of the bunch. It seems to function like a manual turret, but the second you try to fire, your hunter will disengage instead. The reason is simple (if poorly explained). The installation fires automatically, but must be aimed manually. Once you point it in a direction it won’t deviate from that angle, unlike the “defender” posts you set up with villagers. The flaming beam shoots in a straight line while the normal fire torches anything it sees with fireballs. Either way, this is great for igniting monsters with Fireblight, which makes them easier for any other weapon to handle.
Always Shovel Thrice
The Power Kiln is great for those times you don’t have anything better to do. Let’s say your teammates have most of the monsters on lock, or you have a few seconds before the next wave. You can prepare for the next, big threat — like that horrible Apex Arzuros you need to beat as part of the story — by reducing the siege weapons’ cooldown. Just run to the big furnace and start shoveling. Make sure it’s on cooldown, of course, by looking at the lanterns next to the kiln. If they’re blinking then you need to shovel. If they’re a steady, bright color then you’re already good to go. Just know that shoveling once or even twice and then stopping is useless! You need to perform the animation three times in a row every time. If you stop partway through that process, then pick it back up again, you’ll still need to shovel three times to get any benefit. Don’t waste your time if you can’t commit.
You Can Repair Installations
Here’s another simple one. It almost seems silly, in fact, but it works! You can remove installations at any point when they’re not destroyed. Just hold the A button (on a Nintendo controller) and they’ll sink back into… wherever it is the installations come from in Monster Hunter Rise. Then you can immediately rebuild the exact same thing in the exact same spot. Only with full health this time. It’s a roundabout way of manually repairing damaged installations. What’s more, it still counts towards “set up X number of installations” objectives.
Save the Villagers
Put another way, let your fellow villagers save you. The one-time use Kamura warriors you can summon into battle are tremendously powerful. They’re so powerful, in fact, that using them on anything but the Major Threat at the end of a Rampage is a bit of a waste. You shouldn’t have much trouble dealing with the riffraff on your own. But Apex monsters in particular skyrocket the difficulty of encounters. You might need any advantage you can get when they show up, so save those aces in the hole.
Rampage Tickets Matter for Melding
Melding talismans returns in Monster Hunter Rise. They were replaced by craftable “Charms” in Monster Hunter World, but now you must randomly roll for these key pieces of equipment, with their unique decoration slots and skills. That means you’ll be making a lot of them in the pursuit of the perfect talisman. Like… a lot, a lot. It’s a key part of the Monster Hunter Rise endgame. So it’s good to know which items are best for the melding process! At launch, that means Rampage Tickets.
Partaking in any decent number of Rampages will leave you with scads of these little vouchers and nothing to do with them. Except of course to meld. High level tickets in particular are worth tons of progress towards melding talismans. Though you can technically use any monster parts as well. The Rampage is also a great source of semi-random, midgrade monster pieces that you will eventually run out of uses for — except melding. In general, the Rampage is the absolute best way to build up your melding materials.
You Can Fast Travel to Save Time
Rampage arenas aren’t that big. You might be tempted to just chase after monsters if they break your first, main gate. In fact, they will break your first gate if the Major Threat is an Apex or an Elder Dragon. But there’s really no reason to just run in a straight line. Instead, you can fast travel back to camp, just as you would in any normal hunt. This tiny, tented area has two exits: one to the starting area and one to the final gate. Whichever one is under immediate threat will have glowing arrows marking where you need to go. This, too, functions a bit like fast travel since the correct door will instantly warp you to the proper area. You can use this to get a head start on Apex monsters and the like — as well as refill your items if you need it.
Siege Weapons Can Lie in Wait
The Dragonator saw one, small change from its MHW counterpart. It no longer automatically fires the second you grab its lever. Instead, your hunter will grip the massive trigger and wait for you to confirm the command. This is great news, since it makes timing your Dragonator spears much easier than in past games. The same is also true of the Splitting Wyvernshot (i.e. that mega-powerful artillery cannon). Though that’s a bit more obvious since you actually need to aim the damn thing in the first place. Whereas the Dragonator can be fired and forgotten — once you see the perfect opening, of course.
It’s Better with Friends
This is less of a “tip” and more of a “suggestion.” Rampages can get extremely hectic — even messy and, to be honest, not always that fun — played solo. Going in with a group makes a world of difference. It allows you to assign roles, split enemy attention, and try out different tactics than normal. The Rampage does scale to multiplayer, too, so it doesn’t necessarily make it a cakewalk. But it can turn the new event into a fun, frantic affair with friends rather than a chore.
