Honestly this can be the longest part if you're sorta the type to drown in character creation like Dank Souls, Skyrim, etc.
Me? I just simply go for simple designs. No need to be too fancy as a male character as their faces get covered in helmets unlike female armors. (Damn their Fan-Service armor!)

Next would be to create your Kit-Kat, uh Palico, you can be simple with them if you think you're gonna just play multiplayer as you can't bring palicos if 3 or 4 players join a quest. But preferably make them the way you want 'em, I make mine like real life cats, well sorta if you exclude the fact they'll be swinging their tiny weapons.

Character creation is a no-brainer.

The real pain imo is the story cutscenes, though I'd admit you'll later have interesting stories to be heard but the first one isn't as much thing to be worth looking at, just get me into action!

Honestly you wouldn't be having trouble clearing the "tutorials" unless you have only one hand so I'll drop that.

At last you've made it to Astera! You find your cat that you've just lost during intro and you're going on your first Quest!

It's dangerous to go without a weapon, choose from these 14 varities of Weapons!

Sword and Shield(SnS)- Your default if you didn't choose one
Dual Blades(DBs)- "Is that a mutha ♥♥♥♥♥ 'Attack on Titan' reference?"
Insect Glaive(Glaive)- Floor is Lava
Long Sword(LS)- Unleash my inner Weeb!

Hunting Horn(HH)- Best way to say it's a musical abuse
Hammer- That's it I'm gettin' me Mallet!
Lance- I'm Fricking Indestructable!

Gunlance(GL)- It Attacc, It Protecc, but more Importantly It spray Lead
Switch Axe(SA)- Fast Axe, trans Great Sword, and explosive surprise!
Charge Blade(CB)- Trans Sword and Shield and Great Axe
Great Sword(GS)- "Is that a mutha ♥♥♥♥♥' 'Berserk' Reference?"

Light Bowgun(LBG)- Tiny Dakka with mines
Heavy Bowgun(HBG)- Large Dakka with more Dakka or Boom Boom
Bow- BFB MK I, Stamina killer

Holy shxx that's alotta weapons, we'll explain basics of controls for Mouse and KB users for controls

General Button press logic

Left click= Basic attack/shoot
Right click= Different Basic attack
L+R click= Special
R= Reload(obviously)

V= Aim
C= Toggle Aim
L Ctrl/ Mouse Side bumper= Block/Shoot
*DISCLAIMER: This is no in-depth guide for Weapons so recommended to look for a weapon guides in Youtube for proper learning

You thought I was gonna explain every weapon huh, well not now. M & KB users have to change their quick menu tab, it'll save you trouble

Originally you can go to quick menu by pressing 'Q' but the problem is the 'RS' is also affected by the movement key, which also doesn't go diagonal directional input. so you have to modify the quick menu to favor keyboard.

After so you can set crafting/items/ammo on each tab, it'll be helpful for those who are picking up Ranged weapons as they have ammo/phials that need to be crafted.

Store all items you aren't gonna use, i.e melee weapon user with ammo materials, ranged user with whetfish scales. You can find the box almost everywhere near the quest posts and near the Workshop and in the Canteen.

In Astera you'll eventually gain more passive resource gains and gain better bounty rewards.

There are things you should do before you start a quest.

Stock up on items via by buying or crafting in your item box.
*Buying regular potions are one good way to spare cultivation slots for Honey or etc.

Claim/Cultivate your harvest and give fertillizers.

Check bounties, you'll earn armor spheres, Wyvernian Prints, complete Deliveries, and manage Investigations for extra quest rewards.

Forge/upgrade armors, weapons, and charms.

Eat at the Canteen, or mess around and/or find a group to join in the Gathering Hub.

Most importantly, take care of your Poogie.

Melee weapons are your best choice if you don't want to go find materials to craft ammo for bowguns or just prefer an upclose and intimate stick to face relationship with your monster.

There are 2 types of melee damage

Blunt and Slashing

Weapons that deal blunt damage are primarily Hammers and Hunting Horns. However there are certain moves in other weapons that can deal blunt damage. Such as, Shield attacks from Lance and Sword and Shield, shoulder tackle or sword slap with the Great Sword. But the two weapons above mentioned that primarily deals such damage are more effective.
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Blunt damage is highly effective for hitting monsters in the head than other weapon types, even if if the head isn't their weakness(I'm looking at you Barroth). Also it's great for breaking parts of monsters. If enough damage is dealt the monster will flinch or even get knocked out for more damage openings for everybody.
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Slashing is pretty self explanitory and can cut off tails of majority of monsters. Nothing special.
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All melee weapons have a special meter called sharpness, performing attacks and blocking damage will deteriorate durability there are 6 colors of sharpness.
*Lower color of sharpness will more likely bounce off monsters.
*Higher Sharpness color will deal more elemental and physical damage

Red- All, if not most will bounce
Orange- Good amount of attacks will bounce
Yellow- Fewer attacks will bounce
Green- Certain attacks will bounce
Blue- Even less amounts of attacks will bounce
White- No attacks will bounce
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For certain weapons, such as the SnS, Lance, GL, GS, CB, and HBG with shield mods are capable of blocking. However depending on the amount of impact of the enemy's attack will cause different hit stuns, along with sharpness degradation. Impacts can be reduced with the skill [Guard] or the [Iron-wall] decoration

However certain attacks will ignore blocks, such as attacks that cause players to be pinned or unblockables. The unblockables are able to be blocked with Uragaan's armor skill set bonus, [Guard Up] or the [Shield] decoration.
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SnS: Pretty basic weapon, benefit from elemental damage due to high attack speed.

During mid combo you can press back (relative to where the character is facing) + RMB you can perform a special charge attack, once landing a hit you'll jump up to either do a normal airborne attack for mount or RMB to do a hard hitting shield dive doing 2 hits, from falling and impact.
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DBs: Focused on attack speed and highly benefit from elemental damage, has quite a handful of flashy moves.

Pressing block/shoot command will perform Demon Mode to increase attack speed and damage with increased evasion distance, but drain stamina while active, dealing damage and filling a meter underneath your Stamina bar will cause you to become Arch Demon mode when ending Demon mode to do a mixed varient of Demon moves
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Glaive: Capable of going airborne at the user's will, you will conquer the skies.
Aiming with your weapon drawn will prepare your Kinsect to collect extract Essense for buffs by launching them towards a specific part of a monster. Also when aiming you can release a dust, this will also automatically allow your Kinsect to attack the area after which will create a area of the kinsect dust effect.

Red: Damage boost
White: Knockback res
Yellow: Stamina reduction

FYI your damage is better on ground than doing helicopter attacks in air.
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Hammer: Great option for bashing heads, rather quick despite its appearance of slowness.

You can move while charging attacks. While holding charge, clicking RMB will power charge to imbue more flinch resilience, attack power, and stun power.

*This buff ends until you've been hit with a powerful attack to be flinched/knock backed or be interupted with roars & tremor if you have no immunity to those effects.

Charge Basics
1 Charge: Side Swing, great basic combo with follow up with LMB combo
2 Charge: Swift Upper-cut, great distance closer and teamate saving method. Can be follow up for Big Bang
3 Charge: Strong Dunk/ Big Bang finisher. Only best used if there is opening.

*Moving while at [3rd charge] will do Spinning Bludgeon that finishes differently depending on when you want to finish, pressing immediatly will cancel with a side smack but the longer you hold it you'll end it with a strong finish, but hold it too much and you'll be stuck in a hell'a long recovery that you can't quickly roll out of.
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HH: Attacking will play a note, there are 3 notes, every HH has unique buffs and notes required to play it, they will always play self improvement which needs 2 LMB combo to play, playing your music will allow you to encore granting more duration and stronger buffs of the previous.

Playing self improvement for the first time will boost movement speed while weapon drawn, second time will enhance your horn's damage and enhance your attack with deflection immunity.

Playing your music will also perform attacks that varies on the directional input before playing, pressing the Block/Shoot when you just right after your music will perform a stronger attack with encore to enhance the effective power of the buff and/or increase duration.

A good damage combo for HH other than your backward direction encore music is RMB+ L&RMB.

*During RMB animation you can add another RMB or LMB music key without animation.

The best reccomendation is to use it after playing the campaign or when you've gained enough experience to understand monsters and gained resources to craft Devil's Maestro(Devil-Jo tree) for maximum enjoyment.
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GS: Hardest hitting weapon per swing. Has the power to imbue your entire left body to resist the toughest blows in the game while taking lesser damage by using tackle (unless you get hit by attacks that pin you). You have 3 different charges, normal, strong, and true.

True charge deals the most but requires more time to reach but can be rushed by tackling while charging however if you skip the strong charge you have to charge 3 times from true slash to deal maximum damage.

Your tackles, your superior defensive option compared to normal guarding due to no knockback effect, multi-directional, retaliate with counter damage of stunning effect on monster's head, and along with skipping charges to True and/or Strong charges can allow quick methods to deal massive damage. Be wary as tackle has to be timed correctly to hyper armor through attacks.

A good skill for GS is [Focus] lv2 as lv3 is actually 15% reduction other than 20%. Focus will cut time for charging to Lv3 charges for more damage.

GS also doesn't benefit much from elemental damage, rather benefit from raw damage.
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Lance: Has the most defensive options in the game, and counter methods to make openings. However your rolls will be hops instead, which will cover a short distance compared to rolls, which will raise the amount of "rolls" to relieve yourself from Fire/Thunder/Water Blights.

Basic combo you must know is the rule of thirds, every third poke is best reseted with hopping, or Counter Cancelling(which can be done by not holding the Block after initiating the ability)

*Your RMB attack does more damage than your LMB and every third attack deals more damage

While Countering you can use the evasion button to Power Guard to gain Impact resilience and allow other options such as a leaping thrust and counter thrust with multi-directional input.

*Please know that although Power Guard significantly reduces impact on hit and guards all directions, you'll take more chip damage and will be in knocked back state when tanking certain heavy moves if you don't have the skill [Guard] high enough
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GL: GL and Lance has similar Defensive power but has more damage output than Lance but kills sharpness with blasting shellings. There are 3 types of shellings Normal/Spread/Long with Lvs

Normal: Highest ammo capacity, excellent for burst combo spam*
*(though some argue melee GL is better)
Spread: Best damage without charging
Long: Best range, best used by fully charging

There are 2 special ammos you can use as GL, Wyvern Fire and Wyvern stake.

Wyvern Fire is a channeled shot with deceptable range dealing 3 separate but massive damage to a monster, it also has explosive properties, thus nulling affinity and consideration of weak spots.

Wyvern Stake is more focused on weak points similar to slicing ammo as it deals multiple ticks of damage but unlike slicing, detonates.

Difference of these 2 are the fact that Stake can be reloaded and Wyvern Fire needs time to shoot again.

GL also has 2 different reloads, Quick reloads that is only used mid combat and standard reload. To reload your Wyvern Stake, you have to do the full regular reload.
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LS: LS has far reach, easy to use, and has very flashy moves

Attacks fill [Spirit Gauge], this fills depending on the damage you deal per swing.

Expend the gauge to deal a Special attack, this attack has immunity from bounce ( [Mind's Eye] )

The Special attack has 4 combo presses to deal a finisher to fill a stack on the [Spirit Gauge], stacking the gauge will increase the damage of your Special attack, this gauge can stack up to 3 times (1:White, 2:Orange, 3:Red).
[Spirit Gauge] and its stacks will decay over time when you don't do your Special finisher or depletes rapidly when out of combat.
If your [Spirit Gauge] has at least 1 stack you will perform a Spirit Helm Breaker.

Although Spirit Helm Breaker can be started requiring no stacks, it needs to have [Spirit Gauge] stacks to fully perform. It is started with at thrust, and if it follows up, you'll jump up and strike down dealing multiple ticks of damage, and will activate gauge regeneration. The SHB will deal more damage and regeneration with more stacks you've raised.

If you want to raise your Gauge quickly you can use forsight, this ability can be only used during mid combo.

When performing this you'll have a forgiving window of invulnerability and the retaliation will have immunity from being knocked around with damage reduction similar to tackle from GS.

On successful retaliation with a follow up with a hit from anything that is a monster(dead or alive) will fully charge the gauge and follow up with Special attack finisher after the gauge fill which is a quick method of raising stacks.
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SA: A mix of mobility in Axe form and High damage and attack speed with Sword form.

SA has Power, Status, and Element Phial, affecting Sword mode's power.

In Sword form you have a Special meter underneath your stamina bar that is used when landing hits. You cannot morph to Sword form if your meter is underneath the special indicator of the Special gauge is in Axe form without doing a long battery reload animation.

Dealing damage with Sword form will charge your weapon to deal more damage extra phial damage depending of type of phial. (don't listen to me look for real weapon guides) with your Power Discharge you'll deal continuous damage if you repetitively press the LMB to unleash an explosive finish or detonate early with less damage output by not pressing LMB.

*The Discharge can latch onto monsters when landing a successful Power Discharge initiation.

*If you morph back to Axe mid combo it'll restore a small amount of charge.
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CB: Weapon with a defensive form of Sword and Shield to charge your phials, and unleash powerful Phial power attacks in Great Axe form. Also the most complicated weapon in the game.

CB uses 2 variation of Phials, Impact and Elemental. Impact is able to be increased by Artillery, while Elemental are boosted by their respected Elements.

Impact phials deal stun damage, Elemental phials exploit weaknesses

SnS form has defensive mobility and focus on charging phials, the optimal attacks to charge is
(For distance closer) L&RMB +2LMB+ Hold RMB for charge + LMB (roundslash) + L&RMB (reset) + 2 LMB

*Shield Thrust does not contribute phial charges
*If you have [Focus] you'll be able to ditch the last 3 attacks from the combo

In Axe form, you have greater reach with damage with combination of Element Discharge attacks. The standard LMB will have great reach in vertical range than horizontal, honestly you'll find yourself using the Spinning Elemental Discharge, allowing 2 wide sweeps for area at the cost of 1 phial allows better accuracy for hitting monsters and follows up with Amped Element Discharge. However the Spinning Elemental Discharge will not immediately work if you don't do it mid combo, which will waste 1 extra phial.

Now here comes the special part. When performing your AED (Is this a medical shock treatment?) you can cancel by pressing guard before the character starts swinging to store phials into the shield.

Each Phials stored presumably boost 30seconds worth of your shield remaining at charged state, at this state your AED will be S-AED dealing damage based on phials stored & enhances guard power of your shield.

Once your shield is charged you'll be able to imbue your sword with that power by holding attack after doing your phial store with a timing where your shield clumps together to unleash a strong attack with a short ~30(?) second period to deal additional phial damage per sword swing, basically adding a secondary damage like elemental damage.

CB has a unique feature of Guard Point, a feature to block attacks during a certain attack animation (SnS to Axe morph Initial Animation & Axe to SnS morph at the End Animation)
During a successful Guard Point, you'll charge your phials and deal small damage, and allows morph attack, SED, or S-AED/AED if you don't get knocked back hard enough.

*When using Dante's Devil Sword when the "shield" glows when doing the mentioned abilities, Guard Point is active.
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There are 3 ranged weapons in the game, Heavy Bowgun(HBG), Light Bowgun(LBG), & Bow.

LBG and HBG have similar properties of using same ammuntion but different playstyles and here are the differences,
*FYI: Both Bowguns have same damage per shot, my life was a lie :'(
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LBG pros
Great Mobility, and access to rapid fire ammo modifications.
Quick Recharge for Wyvern Blast and offers great damage against sleeping monsters and aggresive monsters.
Has wider varities of status ammo with better recoil(?)

LBG cons
Common high grade ammunitions(Normal lv3, Pierce, Spread) has high recoil without recoil compensation.
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HBG pros
Has 2 exclusive ammunitions, Cluster and Wyvern ammo, both deal high damage and Clusters are almost meta use for HBGs
Has further Evasion distance, with compensation of slower evasion rate
Common Ammo(Normal/Pierce/Spread) has generally better recoils, with exception with certain weapons. (due to inertia, possibly)
Can deal more damage with Special Ammo than Wyvern Blast
Has innate blocking capabilities with Shield modification for tank builds
Noticably higher ammunition capacity than LBG generally

HBG cons
Restricts movement while equipped
Very slow withdraw speed, extremely vulnerable while doing so
Both special ammo need time to load and prepare firing, requiring ample time.
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Bows are one of the only ranged weapons that benefit from elemental damage than raw damage.

Bows can charge their arrows draining stamina dealing more damage by shooting more arrows, or they can do a rapid fire chain to automatically get charged arrows.

Quick shot can deal wide horizontal damage ticks dealing more damage than standard attacks. However the quickshot has bad recovery compared to normal firing.

Also it can perform Spread shot chain with wider and more hits, finishing with a Raining Steel balls for KO damage. It can also perform evasion while charging arrows, the evasion has more wider window than standard rolls.

They also have a flashy move called the dragon piercer that deals piercing damage dealing more damage depending the amount of charge done before starting by L&RMB after charging.

Main drawback is the heavy stamina gain than any other weapon in game due to using stamina to simply attack, this can be fixed with Dash juice, [Constitution] for reduced evasion stamina cost, increasing stamina regeneration, along with learning to manage stamina in mid-combat.
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In Monster Hunter games you'll be able to join in with 3 other people (or friends) on a quest. Having you or teamate join a mission
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The positives of having multiple teamates can be mentioned,

You'll have more damage out-put overall with four people than one despite the monster will have bonus HP multipliers.

More players mean different chances of getting hit by attacks which will allow you to get your opening for items, sharpening, and reloading.

If you have some shared sense of what other players are aiming for you'll be able to speed up the hunt even more.

You'll find yourself into some fun shenannigans at times
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The downsides of playing multiplayer are quite notable,

Certain weapon users will cause other teamates, including you, to flinch which will reduce damage output and increase hunt time.
This is most seen when a monster is down and a damn LS or DBs just occupy the entire head and cause flinch to the Hammer or HH, who deal most DMG on the head, CB using S-AED while aiming toward the party to knock them back, Cluster bombs, and Hammers "accidently" using 2nd charge on other players for a Big Bang Combo.

Rewards and Lives requirements are shared. Though I'm not really bugged about the monetary gains cut on quests as you can just sell monster material for quick and large cash, the lives are most annoying part of the multiplayer experience when you've get yourself screwed and everybody else fails because of it or vise versa.

The monsters you hunt become more unpredictable due to more people for it to target and you always have to keep an eye on it even more to make sure it doesn't turn to you, especially in Elder Dragon fights.

Finally *CONNECTION ERROR* though for me I don't experience it much, when it happens it's when everybody's having a great hunt and you suddenly lose connection. In PC it's noticable that it happens often for others.
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Things to do when with other players,

Always bring Mega Barrel Bombs and Large Barrel Bombs with Devil's Blight.
(or bring Large Barrel bombs if you don't have Mega Barrel bombs)

If you see a monster suddenly stop and begins to drop down (while battle music abruptly ends), stop what you're doing unless you're in mid-animation of an attack that can't be cancelled, that can't be helped, drop all the Mega Bombs and Wyvern Blast and proceed to wake up the monster. Preferably whomever deal the highest damage in the team.

Immobilized and pinned allies can be broken free if an ally hits them. Which is the only few things that are helpful for friendly flinches.

If an ally begins to lay traps to immoblize a monster, it's either they're capturing, or making an opening for damage. But I don't highly discourage people from attacking monsters while a teamate is attempting to capture as they might have HP above capture, in which you are helping them in a sense. You can always ask for a capture if the monster is limping, given you have the traps and tranq bombs. At least bring tranqs in normal monster hunts for the instances where someone is capturing.
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Alrighty you've most likely met them all, the Great Jagras, Pukei-Pukei, and Tobi-Kadachi. Relatively the Starter monster hunts you'll do at least once and I'll do an semi in-deph with personal experience mix to attempt to spice up the flavors of this guide.

Each Monster will be classified by Tempered, Monster Type, Roar Power, Difficulty, Specialty, and Notes
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Great Jagras
Tempered Varient:N/A
Monster Type: Large Monster
Roar Power: N/A
Difficulty: Very Easy
Specialty: Attracted to killed Aptonoth, Raw Meat, and Poisoned(includes Para & Sleep) Meat

Notes: Great Jagras is extremely easy to kill given the fact a good majority of the monster is a weakpoint, specially when it recently ate, at this sated state it will hurl vomit as a ranged method, but regardless it's really not a difficult monster to slay in the first place.
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Pukei-Pukei
Tempered Varient: Level 1
Monster Type: Flying Wyvern
Roar Power: Weak(It'll still stun you)
Difficulty: Easy
Specialty: Poison Vomit, when its tail inflates it will spray a large poison gas that will deal poison status in AoE and will eat nearby Slinger ammo to shoot Poison. Scatternuts will further enhance the Poison Vomit.

Notes: Pukei-Pukei is where positioning is key as this Bugger has a tendency to charge foward making it much difficult to attack it face to face but attacking at the sides allow distance and doesn't forfeit the opening for heads than going face to face.
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Tobi-Kadachi
Tempered Varient: Level 1
Monster Type: Fanged Wyvern
Roar Power: Weak
Difficulty: Average, will be challenge for Bowguns
Specialty: When using its electrical attacks with the power of current friction and deal Thunder Blight to increase probability of causing a stun for the next hit

Notes: When performing its leap attack there is a slight delay as it glides before it actually attacks which will throw you off-guard at your Tackles, Foresight, and Guard Points. Also when it raises its tail block or don't get close.
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At this point these trio are the most dangerous for the first timers against these mean hubbards.
These 3 are Anjanath, Rathalos, Rathian
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Anjanath
Tempered Varient: Level 2
Monster Type: Brute Wyvern
Roar Power: Weak
Difficulty: Difficult
Specialty: When enraged it will be able to breathe fire for a set amount of time, there are 2 varient fire attacks, the Sneezing Fire Breath will cover a larger area but avoidable & Anjanath will always end the fire breathing effect with a long fire breath dealing massive damage if you take the full front of force.

Notes: During its enraged state it will have dorsels, which is a weakpoint great for Glaives, and when attacking the head to a threshold will Knock-out the monster. Its large size in height will have difficulty targetting the head and tail for weak point damage.
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Rathian
Tempered Varient: Level 2
Monster Type: Flying Wyvern
Roar Power: Weak
Difficulty: Average
Specialty: The tail deals Poison damage, when Enraged it will hurl 3 fireballs instead of 1, and will do a rampant charge back and forth targetting the player.

Notes: Rathian is much easier to deal with compared to Anjanath due to the lack of height size, allowing easy access for striking weakspots, not many attacks covering large areas to avoid, and along with the fact when flying you can use flash pods to knock it out of the air for a good open window for damage. The tail can be severed to null the poison damage.

Rathian will hunt down whoever picks up one of its eggs in its nest, this can allow players to aggro and bring Rathian to you if you don't want to find her. (Yes Rathian is female)
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Rathalos
Tempered Varient: Level 2
Monster Type: Flying Wyvern
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Easy ~ Average
Specialty: Rahalos has poison claws instead of having it on its tail. Also when enraged Rathalos will do a roar with a large fireball follow-up with almost no window of evasion if point blank range from its position.

Notes: Unlike Rathian, being more focused on ground, Rathalos is more airborne than his female counterpart, this means you can make use of Flash pod knockdowns to gain extra free damage. It is do-able without these methods but will be slightly more difficult.

*You can lure Rathalos to the nest by picking up the egg(maybe)
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Ah the Wildspire Waste, a really odd biome of desert and oasis merged into a frickin' theme park. Here you'll face other enemies such as Kulu-Ya-Ku, Barroth, and Jyuratodus
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Kulu-Ya-Ku
Tempered Varient: N/A
Monster Type: Bird Wyvern
Roar Power: N/A
Difficulty: Easy
Specialty: Digs up rocks to shield and deal more damage

Note: Once it picks up a rock, simply sling a flash or slinger ammo to force it to drop the rock. Careful when you try to attack, Kulu-Ya-Ku will primarily attack in front of it attack from the side.
Try not to attack the rock, your weapon bounces.
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Barroth
Tempered Varient: Lv 1
Monster Type: Brute Wyvern
Roar Power: Weak
Difficulty: Average
Specialty: Mud Armor, Hard Head(Can be Broken), Throws mudpiles to hinder movement

Note: Barroth will 2 things if you are in front, charge or head slam, the head slam has tremor if you're too close from the area of impact and you'll be almost defenseless for 3~5 seconds(idk don't flame me), though you can move (at a pitiful speed of slow prone walking), you'll more likely to be open for its next attack.
If you're behind it will casually swing its tail like most monsters with long tails in this game.
It will also tackle from its side with is greatly telegraphed but deceptively far reaching yet also open areas to be unaffected point blank.
Before and during fights I reccomend picking up watermoss to remove the mud to deal unmitigated damage (specially the body where the arms are) as the front arms are its only weakness, which is, in my opinion, the few monsters that doesn't have any weakpoint on their heads (like Val-Hazak)
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Jyuratodus
Tempered Varient: Lv1
Monster Type: Piscine Wyvern
Roar Power: N/A
Difficulty: Average
Specialty: Goes underwater to sneak attack, mud armor, vomits mud

Notes: There some that reccomend luring Jyuratodus out of water for a better fighting chance, you don't have to. It's not suprisingly difficult as there are only 2 Piscine Wyverns in this entire game, which are basically the same but we'll talk about the other one later. No watermoss is needed as it's unecessary.
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In this small Desert marsh wasteland there can be only one Apex in this turf, and this is none other than the Diablos, the Wyvern of the Sand.
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Diablos
Tempered Varient: Lv 2
Monster Type: Flying Wyvern(Ikr? Looks more of a brute wyvern)
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Moderately Difficult
Specialty: Burrows Underground to ambush

Notes: Diabolos is extremely predictable with its attack, however the sheer force of this Wyvern will cause your guards to be loose with openings as the impact is very strong (even for Low Rank) to even shaken Power Guarded Lances. While Diablos is Burrowed, you can use Screamer pods (Collected by killing the birds nearby Diablos's death pit) to force it out of the ground allowing an opportunity of attack.

Of course I will talk about its Sub-Species, but that will be mentioned in the other Section.

Ah the Coral Highlands, it is one of the most visibly beautiful places in the game, though you'd face some unfriendly monsters (except for Tzichi-Ya-Ku, he's chill). These two are Tzichi-Ya-Ku and Paolumu.
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Tzichi-Ya-Ku
Tempered Varient: N/A
Monster Type: Bird Wyvern
Roar Power: N/A
Difficulty: Easy
Specialty: Flash attacks will stun regardless of direction so long as you're in its flash range.

Notes: Attacking the head will damage the Flash photospore which will reduce the range untill it is unable to flash enemies. This monster is a chill dude which is also helpful for hunting flying monsters as he'll drop 'em out of the skies which is always helpful.
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Paolumu
Tempered Varient: Lv 1
Monster Type: Flying Wyvern
Roar Power: Weak
Difficulty: Easy ~ Average
Specialty: Will inhale/exhale which will cause wind pressure staggers.

Notes: Though it's head weapoint is a tad odd, when inflated the area of weakpoint will increase allowing more damage dealt to it however while it is inflated it will fly making it difficult to attack. Flash pods will make this fight partially trivial. Also you can cut its tail.
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In the Highlands of somehow non-aquatic coral reef there is an Apex Predator beyond anything else in its turf. That is the Legiana, the dragon of ice.
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Legiana
Tempered Varient: Lv 2
Monster Type: Flying Wyvern
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Easy ~ Average
Specialty: Releases Ice Winds to proc Ice blight

Note: Legiana has tendancies of attacking by charging on ground with tail spin on occasion. On flight it will blow a chilling wind by a long line, close range half circle, or spin dive thrust. Also the frozen area will remain active for a few seconds and will cause Ice blight, which will drain stamina faster.
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Rotten Vale, some will confirm the very place was where a very large elder dragon made this place as its final resting place. Everything is somewhat dirty and has plenty of dead monsters in the Vale and well placed bone dropping traps, conveniently. In there, there are the two common monsters that roam the vale from the higher up dominated by Radarobaan and bottom below where the bacterial disease called effluvium is concentrated ruled by Great Girros.
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Radarobaan
Tempered Varient: Lv 2
Monster Type: Brute Wyvern
Roar Power: Weak
Difficulty: Average
Specialty: Has Bone Armor, rolls around and throws bone pieces

Note: Radarobaan is very fast moving while rolling, it can be interrupted while moving. Its armor is annoying, but once broken, there will be more weakpoint damage opening. Also occasionally, it will channel air to release sleeping gas in a small area.
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Great Girros
Tempered Varient: N/A
Monster Type: Fanged Wyvern
Roar Power: N/A
Difficulty: Easy ~ Average
Specialty: Spits paralysis toxin and every bite has paralysis toxin, summons Girros to attack

Note: Great Girros is an a-hole, paralysis will make you open for free hits from the Girros until you get knocked over by Girros, then get paralyzed again. But once you get over its paralysis, you'll start stomping that bastard.
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In the Vale, down below the vale in a small cavern is the home of the Apex predator, the Double Clawed Devil, Clifford the Red Dog, Odogaron. Most ferocious inhabitant of the Vale.
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Odogaron
Tempered Varient: Lv 2
Monster Type: Fanged Wyvern
Roar Power: Weak
Difficulty: Average ~ Moderately Difficult
Specialty: Claw attacks cause bleed(Bleed deals damage whenever player moves)

Note: Odogaron is highly aggressive in fights, but you'll see he'll move in patterns with 2 lunging attack, with an claw attack between lunges. (maybe, sorta but RNG) Bleed can be cured by Astera Jerky or crouching to naturally heal.

You finally sent Zora-Magdaros away to blow up somewhere else, now enjoying your victory you enter a more harder missions known as High Rank. (It'll have an orange star of difficulty)
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You'll also notice some monster migrations happening in different areas.

Such as Kulu-Ya-Ku migrating to Ancient Forest. Rathian and Pukei-Pukei in the Wildspire Waste. Odogaron goes up to Coral Highlands.
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After completing your High Rank mission, you'll aquire your first decoration. Decorations are rewards are given only in High Rank by Feystones rewarded with Mysterious, Glowing, Worn, Warped Feystones, arranged by low to high rarity.

An optimal decoration farm is by aquiring Worn and Warped Feystones, to acquire them I'll explain later but most of your decorations are linked to those two.

In High Rank all equipments have at least an Alpha varient. However majority of Armors have Beta Varients. Like so you'll notice the difference between the two.

Alpha benefits from more skill focus from the Armor set, at a cost of flexibility of decorations.

Beta benefits from more slots or higher slot levels for more flexibility for additional skills.
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Now you may wonder, what is better for you?

It all depends on your needs in a hunt or gear optimization, Alpha is generally better for players without many useful decorations to slot in making it better for Alpha varients.

However there are times the extra skill wasn't worth having as they might be useless such as status ailment resistances and occasionally elemental attack.

Eventually you'll gravitate to Beta varients as you'll lose dependance on certain skills, like Evade window, Earplugs, etc, for more slots to fill in to favor your choice of skills as you have more decorations to slot in for your favor.

In the Elder's Recess they're some that's tough and normal. There is Dodogama, the loved monster in the community, but also very territorial, Uragaan, the strong chinned Radarobaan's cousin, and Lavasioth, Jyuratodus's distant relative.
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Dodogama
Tempered Varient: N/A
Monster Type: Fanged Wyvern
Roar Power: Weak
Difficulty: Easy ~ Average/ Best of all don't kill it
Specialty: Consumes stones to hurl explosive rocks

Note: It is nearly harmless at the behind moderately easy at the side and mixed difficulty at its front. Dodogama can only reload its stone bombs whenever it consumes rock by the ground or it consumes rocks by doing a charge attack, the bombs and its charge will proc blast blight which will deal additional blast damage whenever you get hit while active(once only).
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Uragaan
Tempered Varient: Lv 2
Monster Type: Brute Wyvern
Roar Power: Weak
Difficulty: Average ~ Moderately Difficult
Specialty: Has built in Mineral Armor, durable chin, drops bombs, and releases fire/sleeping gas

Note: Uragaan's chin can be broken to gain easier access to the head weakpoint. It has similar properties of Radarobaan, but while rolling it may drop bombs and doing its spin attack will drop bombs that can cause you to trip if the ball rolls toward you.
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Lavasioth
Tempered Varient: Lv 2
Monster Type: Piscine Wyvern
Roar Power: N/A
Difficulty: Easy ~ Average
Specialty: Has Lava Armor, gradually hardens denying weakspots, spits lava & explosive lava

Note: Similar to Jyuratodus, it is very bland and very time consuming fight with its armor, not much is known and best off not fighting due to dying of boredom. (Not enough data don't flame me)
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In the New World, like so in the Old World, have sub-species monsters. Generally sub-species have a variation of movements and higher difficulty (yes Radarobaan and Lavasioth is a sub species). Currently there are three sub species, Pink Rathian, Azure Rathalos, and Black Diabolos.
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Pink Rathian
Tempered Varient: Lv 2
Monster Type: Flying Wyvern
Roar Power: Weak
Difficulty: Easy ~ Average
Specialty: Basically the same like Rathian

Note: Pink Rathian will do her tail uppercut more often than her original counter-part. She will also do a ground pound if you're too close to her legs. Honestly Pink Rathian simply has higher HP and damage than HR Rathian.
(Ground Pound is seens as it flying up and straight down on its feet)
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Azure Rathalos
Tempered Varient: Lv2
Monster Type: Flying Wyvern
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Easy~ Average
Specialty: Basically Rathalos

Note: Azure Rathalos will always do the original enraged fireball attack before setting flight. It will still be in the air more often than its female sub-species, like I said for Pink Rathian, more HP and DMG
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Black Diablos
Tempered Varient: Lv 2
Monster Type: Flying Wyvern
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Average~ Hard
Specialty: Same as Diablos

Note: The Black Diablos will occasionally have a slight delay before emerging from the ground from behind, which will throw off some Guard Points and Foresights for first timers. Black Diablos and Diablos's Turf War is a random chance of one of the side to lose which is free damage for you though usually Black Diablos wins in normal circumstances.
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Yes, at this point you've met one of the Invasive species at the start of your first HR expedition I assume, and the last one after unlocking Elder's Recess. These two bas.... species are considered the most hated among the community who first encounter them.
That is the Bazelgeuse for the New World and the World Eater Devil Jho, from the Old World.
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Bazelgeuse
Tempered Varient: Lv 2
Monster Type: Flying Wyvern
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Average ~ Hard
Specialty: Explosive Scales, occasional Fire breath, and being as complete a$$h0L3

Note: Bazel's bomb scales are lethal for Low Rank Hunters as it will tear 60~80 HP in a single blast without proper resistances. Bazel also uses its large physical size to its advantage by using charges, shoulder checks, body slam, and dive bombing. Good news is Bazel has a large area of weakpoints so you can use Pierce and Thunder ammo to kill it quickly in safe distances. Also when enraged, its scales are primed which will blow up after reaching the ground. So best not to be close to them when enraged
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Devil Jho
Tempered Varient: Lv 3
Monster Type: Brute Wyvern
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Hard ~ Very Hard
Specialty: Can enrage to change weakpoints and breathe crystalized Dragon beam

Note: Fighting Devil Jho will be hard as like Anjanath its vertical height will restrict weakpoint availability for certain weapons and it has plenty of tremor causing attacks. Its tail is deceptively great at hitting players from behind and nearby as most of the tail's movement is considered an attack. Only way to beat a Devil Jho is to learn more about it so you'd stop getting hit.
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The Elder Dragons, you seen them right? Zora-Magdaros, that's a good example. Elder Dragons will generally have strong roar power and have extremely unnatural elements within their grasp.

The known Elder Dragons inhabiting the New World are Zora-Magdaros, Nergigante, Kushala Daora, Teostra, Kirin, Val-Hazak, Xeno-Jiiva, Lunastra, and Kulve-Taroth.
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Zora-Magdaros
Tempered Varient: AT to be Released
Roar Power: N/A
Difficulty: Cake-Walk
Specialty: Is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Island of magma

Note: Best to use a weapon with high damage output to drop stalagmites after the 2nd core. After "repelling" Nergigante (unless you wanna fight it), you'll be sent to the wall to fire cannons. Shoot cannons and spam Ballistas until it reaches the wall and go down to use the Dragonator.
EZ 2424 DMG, then aim the 2 cannons and begin loading the vacant cannon. The cannon is far enough for you to roll and immediately load the cannon and you'll get ~15 minutes.
Other than Certain weapons, the Armor Set is meh but best gathered for Arch Tempered.
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Nergigante
Tempered Varient: Lv3/ AT to be Released
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Easy ~ Hard
Specialty: Regenerative Parts that harden to become used in its deadly attack

Note: Nergigante is highly aggressive. Max out defense to survive and do not get up after being knocked down to the ground to prevent it from comboing you with the dunk attack. Breaking the hardening spines will knock it down for more free damage. Which means more damage the better.
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Kushala-Daora
Tempered Varient: Lv3/ AT
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Easy ~ Moderate
Specialty: Wind Aura that knocks Hunters back if too close

Note: Kushala will occasionally use a strong channeled wind breath which is very lethal if hit while low HP. Has tendancies of flying so flashpod it, but be careful as it will create a tornado while it flies up if enraged. IMO most abusable Elder dragons. Tempered and AT variants gain resistance to stun effects every flash.
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Teostra
Tempered Varient: Lv3/ AT
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Moderate ~ Hard
Specialty: Fiery Aura dealing damage over time if too close.

Note: It is noticeable that Teostra has 2 varient of auras of Burning or Blast. Similar to Nergigante it will be often close to you or breathing fire at you. Its dangerous move you must evade is its Super Nova as your screen will focus to Teostra, best answer to this situation is to dive drop, run away from it, temporal mantle dodge it, or perfect frame evasion which is much harder without Evade window.
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Kirin
Tempered Varient: Lv3/ AT
Roar Power: N/A
Difficulty: Moderate ~ Hard/ Very Hard
Specialty: Very painful lighting attacks

Note: Kirin will cause trips while charging or hopping around. Thunder Mantle and Thunder Resistance is key to surviving its thunder attack, also bring max stun resistance to not die horribly.
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Val-Hazak
Tempered Varient: Lv3/ AT
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Moderate/ Hard/Insane
Specialty: Enveloped in Effluvium. Does more damage than standard Vale damage.

Note: Val-Hazak will blast concentrated Effluvium as beams or shot on the ground to spread a thick layer of DoT area. In Tempered Varients you'll be oneshotted if you're in the direct contact of its origin spread DoT attack when it was feigning its death. Maximum Effluvia Resistance is needed to spare time from using items and HP reductions.
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Xeno-Jiiva
Tempered Varient: AT
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Easy ~ Moderate/ Nani the ♥♥♥
Specialty: Shoots frickin laser beams, which is dragon

Note: The standard varient will move around which is a bad time for weapons with slow attack speed or long combos. It has size and tremors to its favor to annoy you. It shoots its energy shot oddly to most likely miss you. AT varient is much more lethal and better at fighting than original along with new moves.
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Lunastra
Tempered Varient: Lv3/ AT
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Moderate~ Very Hard
Specialty: Burning Aura

Note: Similar to Teostra but will use tail whip more often than Teostra when behind it. Its supernova is much more deadly which will flinch for ~2 seconds and deal rapid DoT which will drain HP rapidly in 2 waves that flinch and a large area of HP drain. Lunastra will bond with Teostra to activate the most deadly area of effect attack that will first detonate and lay a burning ground that will near-instantly kill you.
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Kulve-Taroth
Tempered Varient: AT to be released
Roar Power: Strong
Difficulty: Easy ~ Moderate
Specialty: Golden Queen, annoys Hunters with RNG

Note: Kulve-Tarroth is annoying to do so alone unless speedrunning, and the grind happen to annoy a good amount of players to become burn out. Although the weapons are good and aesthetically pleasing, it is RNG and grindy so I'm not wholly saying don't do Kulve, but this is a problem imo.
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After beating Xeno-Jiiva you'll face tempered monsters. Tempered monsters will have more HP and notable damage increase. The only way to fight tempered monsters are by Assigned Quests, and gathering blue glowing tracks to acquire Investigation Quests.

All monsters have different levels of threat levels. They're all divided 3 levels and mentioned in my monster infos in each area in their respective sections.

Tempered Monsters drop Purple Rewards, Purple Rewards give Feystones and the best Reward drops for Feystones are from threat Lv 2.
Threat Lv 3 Purple Reward exclusively drops a chance for Hero Stream Stones compared to Lv 2, which have better higher rarity Feystone drops.

Threat Lv 3 monsters are generally mentioned as Elder Dragons and Devil Jho*
*(The only known non-Elder Dragon in MHW in this level)

All Tempered Monsters have a shining hue compared to their normal versions.

At long last you've finished reading this guide, well... so I'd assume if you've reached this point. I'll assume you've read them in your spare time, I've done some time making this after finishing most of the content and going head-on onto the newer recent events, though I'm having a hard time finding people to join with.

This is the point where you'll now go and investigate other armor skills to learn more of the game, also go outside and take a break and do excercise, walking is acceptable, stay healthy and I'll see ya someday!

Also I will keep trying to update any new things, other than collabs, into the page.

Thanks for reading and stay hydrated