Monster Hunter Wilds Affinity explained
How Affinity works in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Affinity is an important stat in Monster Hunter Wilds, but it's unfortunately hard to come by useful information about it in-game.
As it can increase your damage, it's a good idea to wrap your head around what Affinity means in Monster Hunter Wilds before you go forging and upgrading new weapons and armor.
So to help you understand this deceptively simple stat, we've got a Monster Hunter Wilds Affinity explainer below, along with some quick details on how to increase Affinity.
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Affinity in Monster Hunter Wilds explained
The quick explanation is that Affinity increases the chance to deal a critical hit in Monster Hunter Wilds, which we'll refer to as a Critical Strike in this guide. So the higher the Affinity percentage you accumulate across your gear and skills, the higher the chance you have to score a Critical Strike in combat - and Critical Strike is important because it deals increased damage.
Basically, you can think of Affinity as your Crit Rate, and Critical Strike as your Crit Damage, and a higher Crit Rate means you can deal Crit Damage more often.
For example, a 50% Affinity rate means for every hit you make, you have a 50/50 chance to score a Critical Strike (which increases your damage for that hit). If you don't score a Critical Strike, you'll just deal damage like normal. You'll know you've done a Critical Strike if you see a squished pink star symbol above your damage number, like in the picture below.
Whereas if you had 100% Affinity, all of your hits would score a Critical Strike, and if you had 0% Affinity, none of your hits would score a Critical Strike.
Getting more into the nitty-gritty of how Affinity works, scoring a Critical Strike adds a bonus of 25% to raw Physical Damage in combat. However, you can apply it to Elemental Damage and Status Damage if you have the Critical Element skill or Critical Status skill active, respectively.
It's also worth keeping in mind that unlike most games with Crit Damage, you can actually have negative Affinity in Monster Hunter Wilds. This negative percentage shows your chances of applying a penalty of 25% to raw Physical Damage instead - meaning you deal less damage than normal. You'll know you've made one of these 'penalty' hits if you see a squished blue star symbol under your damage number, like in the picture below.
How to increase Affinity in Monster Hunter Wilds
You increase your Affinity in Monster Hunter Wilds with:
- Weapons
- Skills
- Decorations
- Some armor sets
The most common way to increase (and decrease) your Affinity percentage is with your weapon choice, so make sure you keep an eye on its Affinity percentage when you're forging and upgrading weapons.
Some skills can passively increase your Affinity, but skills more commonly alter the way Affinity works/activates. The Agitator skill, for example, increases your Affinity when Large Monsters become enraged.
For more help on your adventures, check out our pages on all monsters, all weapon types, and the best meals.