Heavy Bowgun

Weapons

Weapon Overview

The Heavy Bowgun (ヘビィボウガン Hebyibōgan) is the ranged weapon of choice for those who wish to have as much firepower as they can, while still maintaining some distance. While much slower than their Light Bowgun cousins, they are the only ranged weapon that allows a shield to be attached, giving them guard capabilities. For an experienced gunner, this is more of a restraint since you can only attach a power barrel OR a shield. In games before MH3U, Heavy Bowguns usually do not support elemental shots unlike their cousins, the Light Bowguns. They mainly support raw damage shots (such as Crag or Pierce).

Notable Skills

• Auto Reload - Once an ammo type is loaded, you will not have to reload that bullet type and may keep firing until you run out of that bullet type.
• Reload - Reduces reloading time, allowing for more time spent attacking.
• Capacity Up - Adds an additional bullet slot to the available ammo type. Useful for fitting in more shots without having to reload as often.
• Precision - Heavy Bowguns often have a slight bullet curve. Use this skill to decrease this.
• Recoil - Heavy Bowguns also often have a large amount of recoil. This skill reduces this.
• Evade - Allows a longer invincibility time when dodging. With Evade +2, you're basically invincible.
• Evade Distance Up - Increases the amount of distance you move when evading.

(Monster Hunter Frontier Version 6.0 and on allows a Heat Tank to be attached, allowing a powerful Heat Beam attack.)

Key Differences between Heavy and Light Bowguns

• +Higher attack power.
• +Generally less deviation
• +Capable of installing Shield attachment, provides an Auto-Guard option.
• +Larger clip sizes (in general).
• -Longer unsheathe and sheathing animation.
• -Poorer mobility.
• -Slower reload speeds (in general).
• In the 5th Generation, both Bowgun received a new "Special Ammo Type". Heavy Bowguns received two types of Special Ammo, unique to each weapon tree, these are; the Wyvernheart (A rapid firing barrage) and the Wyvernsnipe (a single piercing and explosive shot). While Light Bowguns got a Wyvernblast (A landmine).

Weapon Traits and Strategy

• A powerful ranged weapon.
• Bullets allow for flexible gameplay such as hitting elemental weak points or piercing damage.
• Shield attachment can block weak blows and help protect against some roars and flashes.

Evasion skills in your armor really shine as they help improve your poor mobility. Guard Inc. can also help improve your shield. Due to the long unsheathing and sheathing animations and the fact that bowguns do not have an unsheathe attack, you should pull this weapon out in advance. Use your rolls when you need a burst of speed or to just get out of the way. You should always remember to keep a "bubble" around your target where you don't go in: generally a roll or two away from the wyvern depending on the shot type you are using. You should try to bring materials to create more ammo as you will likely run out if you are going to be using one particular type of shot.

You should also consider what kind of ammo to bring. With small monsters, like the Velocidrome or the Kirin, Pierce Shots are not suggested as they cannot do as much damage. Pellet Shots are like shotgun shells - they can help hit smaller, faster monsters due to their wide spread, but be wary of the short range. Shots such as Pierce or Clust are more for larger or longer monsters, such as the aquatic Plesioth, corpulent Khezu or the heavily armoured Gravios. The other non-elemental shot types (Normal and Crag) serve as the general-purpose ammunition. One should always be cautious if you are hunting with someone, as all shots could also hit your teammates and could interrupt what they are doing. Also, if you plan on using Recovery Shot to support your team, be wary that the Recovery Shots could also heal the monster you are hunting.

Advantages

• Generally much higher damage than a Light Bowgun, as well as larger clip size to keep up the DPS.
• A Power Barrel, Shield and other attachments can be attached.
• Easily keep distance from a monster.
• Can inflict status ailment in addition to dealing extra damage from exploiting elemental weaknesses through elemental ammos.
• In online modes, a gunner can provide some sort of support, similar to a Hunting Horn, however, this comes at the expense of damage downtime.
• As of 5th generation, Heavy Bowgun now have very slow roll but covering a large distance, which is useful for just evade out of the way.
• Heavy bowguns are arguably the safest way to kill certain monsters that Blademasters would have difficulty attacking (like the Gypceros, Khezu, Kirin, Plesioth, Basarios, Gravios etc). It is also possible to slay a Cephadrome when it's still in the sand, or a submerged Plesioth that hasn't jumped onto the ground.

Limitations

• To compensate for their immense firepower, Heavy Bowguns are much slower compared to the Light Bowgun.
• A shield is much less effective compared to some melee weapons that can block like Lance, Gunlance, or Charge Blade.
• Cannot Rapid Fire.
• Gunner armor has lower defense than Blademaster armor. Or from 5th Gen onward, doesn't have physical damage reduction like Blademaster weapons.
• Need to invest money and/or resources for ammunition. In older games, resources for additional ammunitions must be carried in the same bag as the other important items. However, starting from 4th generation, an Ammo Pouch is introduced, which stores Bowgun's Ammunition and Bow's Coatings, erasing the problem of slot shortages.
• Some actions, such as tail severing, inflicting status, and knocking out monsters, require specific type of ammo, which all Bowguns can only utilize some ammo type simultaneously.
• Very slow sheathing and unsheathing.
• Be wary of inflicting a killing blow on a monster that's in an out of reach area, as you will lost all of the carves for that quest.

Controls

PSP Controls

Sheathed

 = Unsheath

 +  + R = Unsheath and Reload

Unsheathed

 = Reload

 = Fire

 = Roll

R (tap) = First-person Aiming

R (Hold) + D-Pad = Third-person Aiming (Default setting)

 +  = Melee Attack

PSP Controls (MHP3)

Unsheathed

 = Reload

 = Fire

 = Roll

R (tap) = Full First-person Aiming

R (Hold) + D-Pad = Third-person Aiming (Walk Able)

 +  = Activate "Shoot Squatting"

Shoot squatting 1 Shoot squatting 2 Shoot squatting 3 Shoot squatting 4 1/4

Shoot squatting (Uncharged Bullet) Shoot squatting (UB) + or = Bullet Select (Up or Down) Shoot squatting (UB) + = Choose Bullet Shoot squatting (Charged Bullet) Shoot squatting (CB) + = Quick Fire Shoot squatting (CB) + = Stand Up (Cancel "Shoot Squatting") Shoot squatting (CB) + + (Left - Right)D-Pad = (Left - Right) Roll (Reload with or Weapon Sheathe is unable with Shoot squatting)

Normal Aiming Squatting Aiming 1/2

Shoot squatting + R (Hold) + D-Pad = Third-person Aiming (Walk Unable) Shoot squatting + R (tap) = Focus First-person Aiming

Videos

Video
Title	Monster Hunter 3rd Heavy Bowgun by chascoo

Video
Title	MH4U Heavy Bowgun Tutorial by Arekkz Gaming

Video
Title	MH4G/MH4U Heavy Bowgun Tutorial by gaijin hunter

Links

• Ammo List
• MHF2 and MHFU: Heavy Bowgun List
• MHF2 and MHFU: Combination List