MHW Augmentations Guide & FAQ

Hello hunters – here we talk all about Augmentations in Monster Hunter World. First of all let’s get the basics of augmentations over with.

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MHW Weapon Augmentation Summary

• Rarity 8 weapons fit 1 Augmentation.
• Rarity 7 weapons fit 2 Augmentations.
• Rarity 6 weapons fit 3 Augmentations.

Augmentation	Short description
Attack Increase	Adds “three Attack Boosts” worth of base attack damage to your weapon.
Affinity Increase	Adds 10/5/5 Affinity% on your base weapon stats.
Defense Increase	Adds 10/?/? Defense on your weapon. (BAD)
Slot upgrade	Adds S/M/B slot on your weapon (Meh)
Health Regen	“Lifesteal”. It’s a percent of your damage. (Exact unknown)

What’s the best Augmentation for my weapon?

99.99% of the time, I will recommend the Health Regen (“Lifesteal”) augment.

Health Regen (Lifesteal): is a god tier augmentation. Its effect simply CANNOT BE REPLICATED easily, or at all. If you sheath your weapon even ONCE MORE than if you otherwise didn’t have it to drink a potion – it’s already better than attack increase.

For a vast majority of hunters on a vast majority of hunts, Health Regen will simply obliterate the efficiency of ANY OTHER AUGMENT, hands down

All of my weapons have at least ONE level of Health Regen.

Health Regen simply boosts HUNT SUCCESS RATE VASTLY, versus any other augment that IMPROVES HUNT SPEED by a small margin. If that tiny margin matters for you, then you probably are in the razors edge of speedrunning.

ITS EVEN OFFENSIVE! 1, or even stacking 2 levels of it can allow you to run some EXTREMELY offensive builds of utter greed and be REPAID IN MASSIVE LIFEGAIN!

Augmentation FAQ part II

I can only give “informed recommendations“. The aboslute correct answer depends on far too many things for me to say with outright authority “A is correct vs B”. Sorry.

Affinity Increase versus Attack Increase augmentation? Oh boy this one gets asked A LOT. I cannot tell you what to get as each build is different. Lemme run it down for ya.

If your weapon has negative affinity – take Affinity once if you can.

If your weapon has high affinity – take Attack Increase once if you can.

Attack increase is better on non-elemental weapons, as the gem BOOSTS the small gain from it (however, a lot of the good ones have negative aff).

As a general, and I mean it, general recommendation. If your weapon has negative to zero affinity – take affinity. If it has 10 or more affinity, take Attack Increase.

However, ultimately, BOTH CHOICES have an OPPORTUNITY COST of “3 small slots”. Since Attack Increase is roughly worth 3 Attack Jewels, and Affinity increase is worth 3 Expert jewels. HOWEVER, I would rather get Attack Boost on my gear since L4 gives 5% affinity. Whereas Critical Eye is pretty meh.

Should I take Affinity augmentation twice? I personally wouldn’t in a vast majority of cases. There are cases wherein it’s good.

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Is Defense Increase augmentation good? No. Feel free to correct me but my assessment is 100%, 24/7, sure as sunday, certainly, surely, with much confidence, a resounding No.

Why is Defense Increase bad? Defense is a great stat. Don’t get me wrong. It just simply isn’t worth it HERE. When compared to ANY of its peers in augmentation, the effect is simply TOO MINIMAL.

Defense is everywhere! You have FIVE armor slots which give 80+ DEFENSE. You want to add 10 on your weapon? At the cost of LIFESTEAL?

Lifesteal will improve your “survivability” much more than 10 defense EVER WILL.
Unless you are literally so bad at the game your lifesteal amount cannot equal to damage negated by 10 defense over a hunt!

I will never take this augment, ever.

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Is Slot Increase augmentation good? I would have to say in most cases it’s a NO.

The only time I would take this is on a Rarity 6 weapon taking Lifesteal/Slot/Slot to get an extra medium slot. But only on “very specific builds” wherein the medium outweighs 10% affinity and some flat attack. That’s a lot of filters.

I would almost never take this on Rarity 7, and NEVER on Rarity 8. That’s just me.

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Summary and Mega Basic Recommendation

Health Regen augmentation is GODLIKE. Essentially, percent based lifesteal, this is by far the heaviest “power level” of all of them. ALL OF MY WEAPONS HAVE AT LEAST L1. For most hunters even TWO ranks of this is GODLIKE! Three is a little much. It also has a hidden passive ability of “Reducing stress”, “Counteracts salt”, among others.

Affinity Increase augmentation is the next general “best bet”. Great for negative aff weapons. Great for zero aff weapons.

Attack Increase is “roughly as good” as affinity augmentation. It’s hard to explain the scenarios in my mind wherein I would take one or the other. Math is your friend. THIS IS AN AUTOPICK FOR HIGH AFFINITY WEAPONS.

Defense Boost augmentation is hot garbage. Nothing else needs being said.

Slot Upgrade augmentation is a toss-up. If you need an extra medium, sure.

Basic Augments which you can’t be sad about

Rarity	Augment 1	Augment 2	Augment 3
8	Lifesteal	–	–
7	Lifesteal	Affinity	–
6	Lifesteal	Affinity	Attack Boost

• Don’t take affinity on weapons with high base affinity – swap to Attack Boost.
• Dont’ take affinity twice – unless you made an informed decision.
• Double lifesteal is still great. Taking it actually opens up some extremely greedy builds.

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Augmentation Costs

The below tabs detail Weapon Augmentation cost by rarity. Armor discussed below.

The cost for a Rarity 6 will never “increase” to R7 or R8 on the second and third upgrades. Same goes for R7 (it will never jump to R8 costs on the second). The base cost will STAY no matter how many upgrades.

Armor Augmentations requires Streamstone and money. The type of Streamstone depends on Rarity.

Armor Augmentation – How and What? After augmenting them simply upgrade them as per usual, but they need a metric ton of spheres and money.

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Well I hope you learned a thing or two about Augmentations in Monster Hunter World. And if I didn’t say it enough I’ll say it again. For 99.99% of hunters, Health Regen is THE augmentation to take. I’m not joking man.

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