If you’ve spent more than a few hours running around Monster Hunter Wilds’ open biomes chasing large monsters and hoarding every shiny material you find, you already know the monster hunter wilds smith is one of the most important NPCs you’ll interact with in the entire game. They’re the one who turns your pile of monster claws, bone shards and rare ore into the gear that lets you take on ever more dangerous hunts, and if you don’t know how to use their services effectively, you’ll hit a wall far faster than you expect. I’ve spent dozens of hours testing every part of the smith’s functionality, from unlocking hidden recipes to maximizing upgrade efficiency, and I’m breaking down everything you need to know to skip the frustrating trial and error most new players go through.
Core Services the Monster Hunter Wilds Smith Offers All Hunters
A lot of new players only use the smith for basic gear crafting, but they offer way more services that can save you hours of grinding if you know what to look for. Basic gear crafting is obviously their most used feature, letting you turn collected materials into full armor sets and weapons for every weapon type in the game. You can also use their upgrade service to boost the stats of your existing gear without crafting a whole new piece, which is a huge money saver early on when you don’t have a lot of zenny saved up. Another underrated service is their recipe unlocking feature, where you can trade specific rare materials to unlock hidden gear recipes that don’t show up normally, even if you’ve collected most of the required parts for them. You can also ask the monster hunter wilds smith to add decorative slots to existing gear pieces if you have the right materials, letting you fit more decoration skills into your build. I didn’t even know these extra features existed for my first 15 hours of play, and I missed out on a ton of strong mid-game gear because of it.
How to Unlock Extra Smith Features as You Progress
You don’t get access to all of the smith’s tools right when you start the game, you have to unlock most of the useful ones by completing specific side quests and hitting certain hunt milestones. If you want to get the most out of the smith as fast as possible, prioritize these three tasks early in your playthrough:
- Complete the first three village smith delivery quests: These quests ask you to turn in small amounts of common ore and monster parts, and they unlock the armor skill transfer feature that lets you move skills from one armor piece to another without losing the original piece.
- Hunt at least 10 different large monsters across all open biomes: Doing this unlocks the smith’s material preview feature, which shows you exactly which materials you’re missing for any gear recipe, and even marks which monsters drop those materials on your map.
- Reach hunter rank 4: Once you hit this rank, the smith will start offering limited-time daily gear discounts, where you can craft or upgrade gear for 30% less zenny than normal, which adds up to thousands of zenny saved over time.
All of these unlocks take less than five hours to get if you prioritize them, and they make every interaction with the smith way more useful for the rest of your playthrough. I skipped the delivery quests on my first run, and I had to grind twice as many materials when I wanted to mix and match armor skills for endgame builds, so don’t make that mistake. The last thing you want is to get to endgame and realize you can’t build the set you want because you never unlocked the full feature set the monster hunter wilds smith offers.
Pro Tips to Maximize Your Smith Crafting Efficiency
Even if you have all the smith’s features unlocked, there are a lot of small tricks you can use to cut down on grinding time and get better gear faster. Always check for partial recipe unlocks first before you head out on a hunt: if you have 70% or more of the materials for a piece of gear, the smith will show you the full recipe, so you don’t have to guess which materials you need to look for next. If you’re ever unsure if a material is worth keeping, you can check the monster hunter wilds smith’s recipe list first to see if it’s used for any upcoming gear you want. It’s also a good idea to save all your rare monster materials for upgrades instead of basic crafting: you can get perfectly usable basic gear from common drops, but upgrades for endgame gear require far more rare materials that take hours to farm. So don’t waste that rare Rathian ruby on a low-level sword you’ll replace in three hours, hold onto it for an endgame upgrade that will last you for dozens of hunts. Another trick I picked up is to craft one piece of a full armor set first to test its skill bonuses, instead of crafting the whole set at once: I’ve wasted hundreds of materials on full sets that looked good on paper, but didn’t fit my playstyle at all once I actually used them in hunts.
Common Smith Mistakes New Players Should Avoid
I’ve made almost every possible mistake with the smith during my first playthrough, so I can tell you exactly what to skip to save yourself a lot of frustration. The most common mistake I see is players upgrading every piece of gear they get as soon as they can: early game gear becomes obsolete extremely fast, so upgrading it is almost always a waste of materials and zenny that you could use for better mid-game gear. Only upgrade gear you plan to use for at least 10 hunts, otherwise you’re just throwing resources away. Another big mistake is ignoring the smith’s side quests entirely: a lot of players think these quests are just filler, but many of them reward you with exclusive crafting materials that you can’t get anywhere else in the game, including rare ornament parts that let you customize the look of your gear without changing its stats. I’ve seen players sell rare materials they thought were useless, only to find out later the monster hunter wilds smith needs them for a top-tier endgame weapon. You also don’t want to forget to check the smith’s inventory after every major story hunt: every time you beat a new large monster for the first time, the smith adds a whole new set of gear recipes to their shop, so you can immediately start planning your next build as soon as you get back from the hunt.
At the end of the day, the monster hunter wilds smith is far more than just a simple crafting NPC, and learning how to use all their features effectively is one of the fastest ways to improve your performance on hunts and cut down on unnecessary grinding. Take the time to unlock all their features early, prioritize crafting gear that fits your specific playstyle, and avoid the common mistakes that waste your hard-earned materials, and you’ll be decked out in top-tier endgame gear far faster than most players. You don’t have to grind for hundreds of hours to get strong gear if you work with the smith smartly, instead of just using them for basic crafting every once in a while.