Materials and Rarity#

Materials drive every step of gear and upgrades, from low-tier armor to Rarity 8 Artian weapons. In Monster Hunter Wilds, materials come from three sources — monster drops, field gathering, and quest rewards — with Rarity 1 through 8 determining their tier of use; the main farming route is investigations: saveable as presets, with reward slots, repeatable hunts. This page maps the two material lines — Artian weapons and Artian armor — including unlock ownership, tier mapping, and the easy traps; for forging finished gear see the weapon guide and the armor guide.

Material Sources and the Rarity Ladder#

Rarity runs from 1 to 8 and is the shared tiering standard for gear and materials; its meaning is structural rather than numerical:

Note that gear materials stop at Rarity 8: Artian weapons are forged at 6, 7, and 8 — there is no tier “above 8.”

The Four Artian Material Lines and Three Shard Tiers#

First, correcting a widespread myth: the Artian weapon forging route has been open since launch — it was not added in the April 2025 update. Its unlock condition is clearing the Chapter 4 main quest “Wyvern Sparks and Rose Thorns” — the point where players first encounter tempered individuals. Clearing it awards Damaged Weapon Shards, the Smithy immediately opens Artian weapon forging, and the Tier 1 tempered monsters unlock. The April 2025 TU1 added Plesioth, High Rank Zoh Shia individuals, the Grand Hub, the Arena, and Challenge Quests, none of which relate to unlocking Artian weapons.

There are 4 Artian materials in total, and forging one Artian weapon takes three of them:

Material choice directly determines the finished weapon’s elemental direction: two of the same element give the weapon that element, and three of the same element trigger element infusion. Each of the 14 weapons has a fixed three-piece combination — see the full comparison table in the weapon guide. Each of the three rarities corresponds to one shard type, and the shard-to-monster-tier mapping is the one table to memorize from this whole page:

Four hard constraints govern the tiers:

• The three tiers of materials cannot be mixed; Rarity 6 and 8 cannot go into the same weapon.
• Rarity cannot be raised — a Rarity 8 finished weapon must be forged from scratch with Ancient Weapon Shards.
• Dismantling an Artian weapon never returns Artian materials, only upgrade materials — decide your combination direction before committing.
• The tier differences lie in sharpness and deco slots: Rarity 6 gets blue sharpness plus three Level 2 slots; Rarity 7 gets white sharpness plus three Level 2 slots; Rarity 8 gets white sharpness plus three Level 3 slots.

The Artian line totals 42 weapons — three variants for each of the 14 weapon types; for route trade-offs see build archetypes.

Monster Tiers per Shard and Farming Routes#

The main route for acquiring materials is investigations: repeatable, with reward slots, saveable as presets for repeat farming. Investigations with gold reward slots yield noticeably more output; banking investigations before heading out is the material-efficiency watershed after High Rank. After Ver.1.042, investigations support offline play, and 25 Event and Challenge Quests also support offline play — you can keep your daily farming routine without a connection.

Tempered individuals are the carriers of this line: they carry old scars that can be opened as wounds, hunting them yields Hunter Symbol tokens and Artian materials, and their difficulty tiers are covered in the endgame system. Five of them — Arkveld, Rey Dau, Nu Udra, Jin Dahaad, and Nuudra — rotate through Arch-tempered forms (often nicknamed “AT kings” by the community) by version, each release accompanied by a Gamma-series armor set. The supplementary channel outside hunting is Suja’s Peaks of Accord: the Meld Relics there can also produce Artian materials — good for converting surplus resources into missing pieces.

The Artian Armor Material Line#

Artian armor shares the “Artian” name with Artian weapons but is a completely independent material line. There are two unlock gates: Hunter Rank HR100, and accepting the side quest “Echoes of the Forgotten Forge” — this quest does not appear on the quest board; you must go to Suja’s Peaks of Accord and talk directly to the researcher Fabius beside the camp’s scroll table, and this conversation is also the entrance that unlocks Artian armor. The set totals 5 pieces (including goggles); its signature skill is the wound-damage-oriented Slayer, providing +45% wound damage at max level — the backbone of late-game melee builds.

This line has the two easiest traps to step on:

1. Frenzy Shards and Frenzy Crystals are not the same thing. Shards come from any Frenzied monster, Crystals come only from Gore Magala — for Shards, any Frenzied monster will do; for Crystals, you must hunt Gore Magala exclusively.
2. Frenzied monsters only appear in the Iceshard Cliffs. This is the sourcing premise of the whole material line — no amount of tempered farming on other maps produces Frenzy materials. Frenzied Yian Kut-Ku and Frenzied Nerscylla are the two easiest individuals to hunt; prioritize them for daily Shard farming.

Preparing for Gore Magala: in its Frenzied state, use the Frenzy-cure herb to clear the status, and choose a weapon with Elderseal to suppress its Frenzy Virus — otherwise the virus state will repeatedly interrupt your hunting rhythm.

Remember how Hunter Symbol III settles too: it comes from quest reward boxes rather than carves — carving the monster dry without getting one is not bad luck, it is the wrong settlement route. Farm it preferably through investigations with gold reward slots. After the fourth title update, the armor augmentation system added a long-term upgrade layer to endgame armor; for growing Artian armor after it is built see the armor guide.

Other Important Material Categories#

Beyond Artian materials, four endgame material lines deserve their own listing:

Tarred Devices deserve a closer look: the fourth title update, alongside the game’s only Elder Dragon Gogmazios, added Gogmazios Artian weapons — upgrading an existing Rarity 8 Artian weapon one more tier, carrying one random set skill plus one random group-set skill, with a chosen upgrade direction (attack, affinity, or element) at upgrade time. The unlock chain: Hunter Rank HR100, clear the main story quest “A First Cry,” then defeat Gogmazios in the extra quest “Ghosts Pay No Heed to Tomorrow”; after that, repeatedly slay it in the 9-star Event Quest “Specter of Their Sins” and upgrade with the dropped Tarred Devices. Gogmazios launched together with the new special arena “Forgotten Machineworks” (located in the Oilwell Basin); for Appraised Talisman mechanics see decorations.

Rarity 8 Artian Parts and Limited Events#

Rarity 8 Artian parts are one product of 2025’s limited Event Quests, on the same event-reward line as the gathering-oriented Rarity 6 special gathering items. Event quests rotate on timers — when you see a current quest with Artian parts listed as rewards, run it, then wait for the rerun. The Arena and Challenge Quests were introduced with TU1, and after Ver.1.042, 25 Event and Challenge Quests support offline play, so this line can be cleared offline too.

Material Planning Tips#

Three disciplines run through the whole process: dismantling Artian weapons is irreversible, so settle your material combination direction before forging; Artian materials of different rarities cannot be mixed, so start from Ancient Weapon Shards if you are pushing Rarity 8; keep sellable materials and Research Points as gap coverage — do not squander them before graduation.

FAQ#

Revision note (2026-10-03): every entry on this page has been verified item by item against official update announcements and post-launch documentation; unverifiable numbers and speculation have been removed.