Bowgun Guide: Picking the right Shot Type.

The purpose of this small guide is to help give you an idea of what LBG or HBG to take to a quest. This will just cover the primary shot types, of which both Bowguns share for the most part. HBG does have decent Water and Thunder options for element, but not Fire or Ice.

Normal: This is your basic single hit shot. Your best choice of Normal is Normal 2, this is your highest and most consistent MV shot with readily available combines.

If you’re going to be taking Normal to a hunt you want to pick a monster that has at least a 45+ hitzone that’s accessible most of the time. Optimal picks are generally things with a high single hitzone, and other hitzones that are low. For example Akantor; We see here that it has a 60 head hitzone and none of its other hitzones even reach 30 aside from its tail.

Pierce: This is your multi hitting shot that can take advantage of multiple hitzones. Pierce 1 is 9x3 MV, Pierce 2 is 7x4 MV, and Pierce 3 is 7x5 MV. Your best choice in general is Pierce 1 with Pierce 3 having its uses as well. Pierce 2 is still a good shot however less so than the other two.

Pierce is a very versatile ammo that can be used decently on basically anything except Kirin, and very well on things as small as Seltas. To give an example of distance on Rajang. Pierce 1 will easily get 3 hits in, head on or across the arms and head. Pierce 2 can reliably get 4 hits in on Rajang head on. Pierce 3 can less reliably get 5 hits in, but still get 5 hits if Rajang is para'd and you're shooting head on, with the last hit landing in the tail.

In general optimal use is on things with multiple decent hitzones, or one big hitzone. But has more leeway than Normal for when you want to use it. For an example of the first Seregios; We see that it has multiple high hitzones with its stomach being the highest hitzone, which is perfect for pierce to reach. For an example of the second point you have Duramboros’ Hump; Which is enough to hit multiple times on one spot. For an example of the third point Redhelm Arzuros; While it doesn’t even reach a 40 hitzone on anything Pierce is still your best bet in general on this.

Elemental: This is your shot for taking advantage of element weakness. Ele Pierce 1 and 2 are your best choices, with Ele 2 shots still having use as well.

With Element shots you want something with at least a 20+ hitzone. Since Ele Pierce is the strongest shot type you want to have multiple hitzones in that range to take advantage of. This leaves it less options to be used on, but when it works it is very effective. For an example for Thunder we have Plesioth and for Water there is Glavenus; On Plesioth and Glavenus we see they both have a minimum of a 20 hitzone for their respective elemental weakness on their body which is perfect to take advantage of with Ele Pierce.

Multi Hunts: What should you bring to a hunt with multiple monsters? The answer to this question is almost always going to be a raw gun that shoots Normal or Pierce.

You might look at [this](http://mhgen.kiranico.com/quest/guild/6.37-wild-gunman quest) that has Plesioth, Nargacug and Lagiacrus, and think how it was mentioned earlier that Plesioth was good with Thunder Pierce. The thing with element guns in multiple monster is their best ammo is internal, which means once you run out you can’t combine anymore. You also likely have an element focused set as well so your backup raw shots don’t have armor skills boosting their damage. With a quest like this if we look it up we can see they all have decent raw hitzones. Plesioth’s best raw hitzone is its stomach which is less easily accessible with Normal but good with Pierce. And Nargacuga and Lagiacrus both have decent enough hitzones for Pierce as well. So you can conclude Pierce would be a good choice for this quest.

Now Advanced: Might is Right has 5 monsters and has a total of about 16k HP, This is more HP than Pierce 1 with combines will handle but would be enough with Pierce 2 and/or 3 with combines as well. But if we look closer at the monsters inside we will see that they all have an at minimum 50 head hitzone, and Yian Garuga in particular has low hitzones elsewhere. Normal 2 starts to look like a good choice in that quest, and in fact can carry more combines than you would need to use to kill all 5 of them. So Normal 2 ends up being a good choice here.

Bowguns can handle any quest in this game with the right set, even the 45k HP total quest Five Kings. Something like that requires more dedicated armor sets with ammo saver and combo pro however.

Anyways, hope this guide helped give a better idea of how to pick what type of shot to bring.