What items you’ll find most useful to craft will vary based on your overall playing strategy. For instance, many of the tools support different types of ammunition that can put a monster to sleep or exhaust them. Other recipes are built around crafting the perfect trap to snare your prey or producing huge gunpowder-packed barrels for use as bombs. There are also some broad, fairly simple recipes that everyone will find useful.
That’s why we’ve have put together a guide with everything you need to know about crafting in Monster Hunter: World
Pay attention to the environment/follow the scout flies
If you’ve read our beginner’s guide, these guidelines should not be a surprise to you, but if not, you’ll learn quickly that Monster Hunter: World is a very dense game, especially when it comes to its environments. All crafting ultimately stems from the resources you’ll find out in the field. Whether it’s the broken bones of the dinos you’ve hunted or honey from a beehive, just about everything you pick up can be used to make something.
Most of the basic crafting items will be listed on the left side of the screen if you get close enough to them. It’s sort of like a news feed for your journey, and it can help you narrow down a basic search area — especially for some of the harder-to-find resources. You’ll also be able to take advantage of scout flies, fireflies that suggest places for you to gather on the map. They will float and begin to glow when they reach a node you can pull from, essentially pinpointing a spot to check. The flies also get better at finding these nodes the more you use them and “train” them on those resources, so it pays to check everything you can.
Follow those tips, and you’ll pack your small-item pouch chock-full pretty quick. So you’ll need to work with the primary means of storage — your item box — quite often. You can access it by going into your room in Astera, or by checking your tent at base camp in the field. Both options will give you full access to your items, and allow you to sort your gear and to craft.
Healing items
The first and most basic healing item is the simple potion. If you have auto-craft on (which is the default setting), you might never even notice that they’re crafted at all. But, any time you pick up some herbs and you have a spare slot in your inventory, Monster Hunter: World will assemble a quick pick-me-up just for you. It doesn’t heal much, but it’ll be your steak and potatoes, your bread and butter on this grand adventure.
When you’ve got some honey, however, you can give this medicinal beverage a massive boost, making a mega potion that will restore a much larger portion of your health bar. Honey can also be added to first aid medicines you can get at your base camp at the start of most quests to make an upgraded, fast-acting healing salve. Nutrients that boost your base health can be upgraded this way. In short, the lesson of Monster Hunter is that honey is the ultimate superfood that can heal broken bones. Which … sure, yeah. Whatever.
Healing item recipes to remember:
Potion: Herbs. Heals you a smidge.
Mega-potion: Potion plus honey. Heals you a bunch.
Nutrients: Bitterbug plus blue mushroom. Increases max health slightly.
Mega-nutrients: Nutrients plus honey. Increases maximum health a little.
First-aid med+: First-aid med plus honey. Restores a bunch of health very quickly.
Traps and offense
Sometimes, you just won’t be strong enough or fast enough to fell a beast on your own, and you’ll need to tilt the odds in your favor just a bit. And, like an overzealous Yu-Gi-Oh villain, you’ll get a rush when you spring your ambush. Crafting the tools you’ll need can be tricky, though, in no small part due to the relative rarity of some of the components.
Honey and herbs are basically everywhere, but vines and spiderwebs, which you’ll need for a net, are quite a bit tougher. The reward is worth it, though. Combined with a trap tool, a net can be used to make a pitfall trap that you can then bait with drugged meat. Since all standard, crafted items in Monster Hunter: World have two components at most, the bait isn’t too complicated to remember. Sleep herb and raw meat (found in the field and collected from monsters, respectively) combine to make a basic bait that will put out many of the beasts you’ll find. You can also use other status-affecting substances, like the parashroom or toadstool, which will paralyze or poison any creature unlucky enough to eat it, to augment your approach based on what your target’s weaknesses.
Bombs also make a pretty great addition to your arsenal, though they probably won’t make quite the impact you might think. Your item pouch can only carry a limited number of these high-end weapons, so use them sparingly. They’re best employed as a means to halt a monster’s healing (like, say, if it’s run away to sleep in its lair) and deal a sizable chunk of damage in one go. Small bombs, like the basic barrel bomb (made with a small barrel and a fire herb), are time-based, giving you limited control. The large barrel bomb (large barrel and gunpowder) is a bit more versatile, detonating only on impact and likely ensuring a hit.
Trap and offensive item recipes you should know:
Net: Vine plus spiderweb. Used for making nets and trapping monsters.
Pitfall trap: Net plus trap tool. Simple trap used for capturing monsters.
Drugged meat: Sleep herb plus raw meat. Great bait for traps.
Barrel bomb: Small barrel plus fire herb.
Large barrel bomb: Large barrel plus gunpowder.
Utility Items
Lastly, we have an array of easy-to-use utility items that will help you to be a bit more resilient in a bout or take a bit of a breather.
The first of these are defensive items like armorskin and adamant pills, both of which dramatically boost your toughness, allowing you to weather even the mightiest blows.
For these, you’ll need an adamant seed and then either an immunizer (for the adamant pill) or a catalyst. Made with a catalyst and the herb mandragora, the immunizer is one of the more potent healing items on its own, too. In the form of an adamant pill, though, these ingredients make you all but immune to damage, making it invaluable for any serious fight. There’s also a set of offensive equivalents (no surprise there) based on the might seed. This pair is known as the demondrug and its boosted variant, the might pill. As before, the lesser of the two is made with a catalyst. Either way, you’ll be filled with “demonic strength” and be ready to topple gods.
Our final two items are both mobility-focused. Dash juice can dramatically reduce your exhaustion, allowing you to run basically nonstop for a time. It’s perfect for bringing the fight to more mobile creatures or simply helping you cover more ground. It’s made with the dash extract and a catalyst. The next is the farcaster, which is a high-level item made from a smokenut and an exciteshroom. These allow you to warp back to base camp from anywhere — even midfight — by calling on a drake to grab you. These are great just to have, and offer an excellent escape if you’re finding yourself outmatched.
Miscellaneous recipes to keep in mind:
Amorskin: Adamanet seed plus catalyst. Boosts defense.
Adamant pill: Adamant seed plus immunizer. Dramatically boosts defense.
Demondrug: Might seed plus catalyst. Boosts attack power.
Might pill: Might seed plus immunizer. Dramatically boost attack power.
Farcaster: Smokenut plus exciteshroom. Allows instant warping between camps.
Dash juice: Dash extract plus catalyst. Relieves exhaustion, boosts stamina recovery.
That should cover it! Crafting in Monster Hunter: World is pretty extensive, but it’s also mercifully simple. Keep gathering and crafting and you’ll be set for your grand adventure.
