Today, I’m helping you learn what affinity is and what affinity does in Monster Hunter World and the Iceborne expansion with this simple step-by-step guide.
In Monster Hunter World, affinity represents the percentage chance of performing an attack that does amplified or decreased damage (known as a critical attack). A positive affinity value increases the chance of doing more damage while a negative affinity increases the chance of performing an attack that does less damage.
Benefits of using my simple guide include
- helpful pictures
- easy-to-follow
- understandable language
- step-by-step explanations
- detailed instructions
Affinity in Monster Hunter World can be complicated to grasp at first but is quite easy to comprehend if properly studied.
In this guide, I will detail the nuances of affinity in simple terms you can understand.
Continue reading to fully grasp the concept of affinity in Monster Hunter World (Iceborne) and how it can greatly affect how you play.
- What Is Affinity In Monster Hunter (World/Iceborne/Rise/Sunbreak)?
- Monster Hunter Affinity: Explained
- How To View A Weapon's Affinity Value
- Why You Should Care About Affinity
- How Affinity Works In Monster Hunter World (Iceborne)
- How To Increase Affinity In Monster Hunter (World/Icebonre)
- How To Increase Critical Attack Damage
- More Features About Affinity You Should Know
- Monster Hunter Affinity: Summary
- Explore More Monster Hunter Like Games
- Enjoy Great Game Guides, Tutorials, and More!
What Is Affinity In Monster Hunter (World/Iceborne/Rise/Sunbreak)?
Affinity is a gameplay term used in Monster Hunter. It is a percentage that represents the chance of landing a critical attack. Critical attacks deal 25% more or 25% less damage, depending on the affinity type.
Positive affinity critical attacks deal 125% damage.
Negative affinity critical attacks deal 75% damage.
Affinity of 10% or -10% means a critical attack will likely occur one out of every ten attacks.
Affinity of 50% or -50% means a critical attack will likely occur every other attack and so on.
Important Terminology
There are two terms you need to learn to better understand affinity in Monster Hunter:
- Affinity
- Critical Attack
Affinity is the chance of performing a critical attack.
Critical Attack is a boosted or weakened attack.
Keep these two terms in mind while reading the rest of this guide.
Monster Hunter Affinity: Explained
Affinity in Monster Hunter World (Iceborne) is the chance to perform a critical attack that deals more or less damage than usual.
Positive and Negative Affinity
A positive affinity value increases the chance of dealing more damage, and a negative affinity value increases the chance of dealing less damage.
How Affinity Works In Other Monster Hunter Games
Affinity acts the same as it does in other Monster Hunter entries including Monster Hunter Rise/Sunbreak, Monster Hunter Generations (Ultimate), and Monster Hunter 4 (Ultimate).
Official Affinity Developer Definition
Capcom’s official description of affinity:
Your weapon’s Affinity is related to its critical hit rate. The more positive the percentage, the higher your chance of dealing more damage than usual during an attack. Conversely, the more negative the percentage, the higher your chance of dealing less damage than usual during an attack.
-Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Official Web Manual (Link)
Affinity Is An Equipment Status
From a gameplay perspective, affinity is an equipment status that appears only on weapons.
This makes sense as affinity affects damage output and weapons are used to deal damage.
Armor pieces, however, may include skills that modify affinity values and critical attack damage values, but armor pieces themselves do not have an affinity value.
BONUS: Ways to increase affinity and boost critical attack damage are included at the end of this guide.
How To View A Weapon’s Affinity Value
You can view weapon affinity values in many ways before, during, and after a hunt.
View Affinity Via Equipment Box
A weapon’s affinity can be viewed in the Equipment Info box beneath a weapon’s Sharpness indicator bar.
View Affinity Via Status Screen
View your currently equipped weapon’s affinity value by checking your Status on the menu screen.
View Affinity Via Smithy
View other weapon’s affinity at the Smithy (for weapons you have yet to purchase).
Why You Should Care About Affinity
A positive affinity value in Monster Hunter World (Iceborne) will ensure more damage is dealt to monsters during the length of a hunt when compared to a weapon with a negative or no affinity value.
Why is this so? A positive affinity value increases the chance of performing a damage boosting critical attack.
Understanding Critical Attack Damage
To understand the importance of Monster Hunter’s affinity, you must understand critical attack damage.
Critical Attack Damage: Positive Affinity
A positive affinity critical attack deals 125% damage (25% more damage compared to non-critical attack).
Critical Attack Damage: Negative Affinity
A negative affinity critical attack deals 75% damage (25% less damage compared to non-critical attack).
Therefore, affinity affects the likelihood of performing 25% more or 25% less damage on any given strike.
How Affinity Affects Weapon Damage
To the point, here is how a weapon with a positive affinity and a weapon with a negative affinity work.
A weapon with a 10% affinity will have a 10% chance of dealing 125% damage.
A weapon with a -10% affinity will have a 10 percent chance of dealing 75% damage.
Equip a weapon with a high positive affinity value to perform more critical attacks (which means dealing more damage) over the length of a hunt.
More damage dealt means defeating monster faster and completing quests quicker.
The benefits affinity provides is something every Monster Hunter player will want and enjoy.
| BENEFITS OF AFFINITY |
|---|
| More critical attacks |
| More damage dealt |
| Defeat monsters faster |
| Quicker quest completion times |
How Affinity Works In Monster Hunter World (Iceborne)
Let’s detail how affinity in Monster Hunter World (Iceborne) works in real-world scenarios, now that you have a basic understanding of affinity, how affinity is defined, and the perks of using affinity.
Here are three early-game Sword and Shield weapons along with their affinity values and how the affinity values affect their chances of performing a critical attack.
Monster Hunter World: Weapon Affinity Examples
Hunter’s Knife 1 has a 0% affinity.
As is, the Hunter Knife has a 0% chance of performing a critical attack since its affinity is 0%.
Flame Knife 1 has a 10% affinity (Rathalos Tree).
As is, the Flame Knife 1 has a 10% chance of performing a critical attack that does 125% damage since its affinity is a positive 10%.
Carapace Edge 1 has a -10% affinity (Barroth Tree).
As is, the Carapace Edge 1 has a 10% chance of performing a critical attack that does 75% damage since its affinity is a negative 10%.
Overall, positive and negative affinity affects the damage output of a weapon’s critical attacks and therefore affects overall damage dealt during a hunt.
Hypothetical Sword and Shield: Positive Affinity
Now, let’s look at a hypothetical Sword and Shield to better understand damage output when considering affinity and critical attack damage.
Example: Hypothetical Sword and Shield A has 200 attack and a positive 10% affinity value.
Generally speaking, this means that a critical attack will activate 10% of the time (or one in every 10 attacks).
You can roughly expect one in every ten attacks to deal 125% critical attack damage (25% more damage than a non-critical attack).
Hypothetical Sword and Shield A: Damage Table
This weapon has an attack value of 200 with a positive 10% affinity value.
Critical attacks will deal 125% damage 10% of the time.
One in ten hits will be 250 damage (multiply 200 weapon attack value by 125% critical attack damage value).
| ATTACK # | DAMAGE |
|---|---|
| First | 200 |
| Second | 200 |
| Third | 200 |
| Fourth | 200 |
| Fifth | 200 |
| Sixth | 200 |
| Seventh | 200 |
| Eighth | 200 |
| Ninth | 200 |
| Tenth (Critical Attack) | 250 |
Averaging the attack damage values will provide you with a general expected attack value of each hit.
Expected Attack Value: Positive Affinity
Adding (200 x 9)+250/10 provides Hypothetical Sword and Shield A with an expected attack value of 205.
We’re simply equally distributing the critical attack damage over each of the ten hits to acquire an attack value for the weapon one can reasonably expect during the length of a hunt.
IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that affinity critical attack occurrences are random and are not determined. You may experience more or less critical attacks with a 10% affinity or even many critical attacks in a row.
In general, one can expect critical attacks ten percent of the time when using a weapon with a positive 10% affinity value.
Hypothetical Sword and Shield: Negative Affinity
Now, let’s look at a hypothetical Sword and Shield with a negative affinity value.
This will help you better understand damage output when considering negative affinity and critical attack damage.
Example: Hypothetical Sword and Shield B has 200 attack and a negative 10% affinity value.
Generally speaking, this means that a critical attack will activate 10% of the time (or one in every 10 attacks).
You can roughly expect one in every ten attack to deal 75% critical attack damage (25% less damage than a non-critical attack).
Hypothetical Sword And Shield B: Damage Table
This weapon has an attack value of 200 with a negative 10% affinity value.
Critical attacks will deal 75% damage 10% of the time.
One in ten hits will be 150 damage (multiply 200 weapon attack value by 75% critical attack damage value).
| ATTACK # | DAMAGE |
|---|---|
| First | 200 |
| Second | 200 |
| Third | 200 |
| Fourth | 200 |
| Fifth | 200 |
| Sixth | 200 |
| Seventh | 200 |
| Eighth | 200 |
| Ninth | 200 |
| Tenth (Critical Attack) | 150 |
Averaging the attack damage values will provide you with a general expected attack value of each hit.
Expected Attack Value: Negative Affinity
Adding (200 x 9)+150/10 provides Hypothetical Sword and Shield B with an expected attack value of 195.
We’re simply equally distributing the critical attack damage over each of the ten hits to acquire an attack value for the weapon one can reasonably expect during the length of a hunt.
How To Increase Affinity In Monster Hunter (World/Icebonre)
Monster Hunter World (Iceborne) include four essential skills that increase affinity:
- Critical Eye
- Attack Boost
- Weakness Exploit
- Agitator
Of course, there are other skills that increase affinity you could use but these are the most dependable and reliable.
Activate these affinity-increasing skills by
- equipping armor pieces that inherently have these skills
- equipping decorations that have these skills
- or by equipping a charm that has one of these skills
1) CRITICAL EYE: Increases affinity.
Critical Eye is a skill that raises affinity between 5% and 40% depending on the level.
Critical Eye is a great way to consistently land critical attacks
One level of critical eye will boost affinity by 5% while seven levels of Critical Eye will raise affinity by a whopping 40%.
Using Critical Eye is a great way to consistently land critical attacks but requires a lot of levels to maximize the affinity gain.
2) ATTACK BOOST: Increases attack power. Also improves affinity at higher levels.
The skill Attack Boost raises raw attack power at lower levels and raises both raw attack power and affinity at higher levels.
I suggest investing in four levels of Attack Boost
Having levels four through seven of attack boost will increase affinity by 5% while also increasing raw attack power.
An extra 5% affinity is nothing to laugh at especially when it’s being coupled with extra, raw strength.
I suggest investing in four levels of Attack Boost if your equipment permits.
3) WEAKNESS EXPLOIT: Increases the affinity of attacks that exploit a monster weak spot.
The skill Weakness Exploit raises affinity when monster weak spots are attacked.
One level of Weakness Exploit will increase affinity by 10% when monster weak spots are hit while three levels of Weakness Exploit will increase affinity by 30% when monster weak points are hit.
Use Weakness Exploit if you are proficient with consistently hitting monster weak spots
Whereas the Critical Eye skill provides a consistent increase to affinity, Weakness Exploit provides an affinity boost ONLY when monster weak points are hit.
This is a tradeoff you’ll have to consider for yourselves.
Use Weakness Exploit if you are proficient with consistently hitting monster weak spots (such as the monster’s head; monster weak spots vary from monster to monster).
4) AGITATOR: Increases attack power and affinity when large monsters become enraged.
The skill Agitator raises raw attack power and boosts affinity when large monsters become enraged.
Monster enraged state often happens during the length of a hunt so a boost in both attack and affinity are welcome.
A monster must be enraged to reap affinity boosts with agitator
One level of agitator will boost affinity by 5% when a large monster is enraged while a full seven levels of agitator will boost affinity by 20% when a monster is enraged.
From my experience, large monsters become enraged a lot. This makes agitator a worthwhile skill to consider when looking for ways to increase affinity.
Similar to Weakness Exploit, however, agitator’s affinity boost is conditional as opposed to the flat rates and “always on” affinity boost the Critical Eye and Attack Boost (level four+) skills provide.
A monster must be enraged to reap affinity boosts with agitator; keep that in mind.
How To Increase Critical Attack Damage
A positive affinity will result in a critical attack that deals 125% damage versus a weapon’s normal 100% damage.
Yet, equipping the skill Critical Boost will increase the positive affinity critical damage by more than 25%.
Investing in one to three levels of Critical Boost can dramatically change the output of damage dealt during a hunt and quicken quest completion times.
CRITICAL BOOST: Increase the damage of critical hits
The Critical Boost skill increases a positive affinity’s critical attack damage.
One level of Critical Boost will increase critical attack damage to 130%, two levels will increases it to 135%, and a full three levels will boost it to 140%.
Remember, a normal positive affinity critical attack damage is 125% so having even one level of Critical Boost will increase critical attack damage by an extra 5%.
The extra critical percentage increase should result in more damage being dealt during a hunt.
More Features About Affinity You Should Know
Want to know when critical attacks occur? It’s easy as looking at your screen!
Critical attacks have a visual cue in the form of a giant splash, slash graphic that occurs when activated.
This makes it easy to spot when your affinity driven critical attacks occur.
Monster Hunter Affinity: Summary
Once again, let me repeat the simplest definition of affinity I stated early in this guide:
Affinity is a gameplay term used in Monster Hunter. It is a percentage that represents the chance of landing a critical attack. Critical attacks deal 25% more or 25% less damage, depending on the affinity type.
Positive affinity critical attacks deal 125% damage whereas negative affinity critical attacks deal 75% damage.
Remember, an affinity of 10% or -10% means a critical attack will likely occur one out of every ten attacks.
An affinity of 50% or -50% means a critical attack will likely occur every other attack and so on.
Enjoy Monster Hunter World (Iceborne) and every other entry in the franchise even more, now that you know what affinity is and how it works in the Monster Hunter series.
Explore More Monster Hunter Like Games
Enjoy even more games that play like Monster Hunter and satisfy that Monster Hunter gameplay craving.
Games that fit this description include the free-to-play Dauntless, the newest Monster Hunter titles which include Monster Hunter Rise and the spinoff Pokemon-like title Monster Hunter Stories 2, and gameplay “clone” titles such as Wild Hearts and God Eater 3.
You’ll have even more Monster Hunter satisfying gameplay moments with whatever game you choose. Happy hunting!
| 5 MORE GAMES LIKE MONSTER HUNTER |
|---|
| Dauntless STORE LINKS: Website |
| God Eater 3 STORE LINKS: PlayStation 4/5 | Nintendo Switch |
| Monster Hunter Rise+Sunbreak Expansion STORE LINKS: Nintendo Switch (Digital) | Xbox/Windows (Digital) |
| Monster Hunter Stories 2 STORE LINKS: Nintendo Switch (Digital) |
| Wild Hearts STORE LINKS: PlayStation 5 | XBox Series S/X | PC |
Enjoy Great Game Guides, Tutorials, and More!
Congratulations! You now know how affinity works in Monster Hunter (World/Iceborne/Rise/Sunbreak).
View all Monster Hunter World guides by checking our guide page.
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