What is Affinity?: How to Raise Affinity Stat | Monster Hunter Rise | MHR (MH Rise)

This is a guide to affinity, a damage modifying stat in Monster Hunter Rise (MH Rise) for the Nintendo Switch. Read on to learn what affinity is, how it works, and how to increase it.

What is Affinity? What Does Affinity Do?

Monster Hunter's critical strike chance

Zero Affinity
Positive Affinity
Negative Affinity

Affinity is Monster Hunter's version of critical strike chance. But how does affinity work exactly?

The default state of your affinity is zero. When positive, that means your weapon has a chance to amplify your damage by 25%. When negative, your weapon has a chance to decrease your damage by 25%.

So for example, if your affinity is 30%, that means your weapon has a 30% chance to deal 25% more damage.

Visual effects of affinity-related damage

Positive Affinity	Negative Affinty
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When you have positive affinity, you will occasionally see a shiny red light behind your damage number. That means you're doing critical damage!

On the other hand, when you have negative affinity, you will sometimes see a shiny purple light behind the damage number. This means you're dealing less damage than normal.

Elemental damage is not affected

Affinity-related damage does not include the damage calculation for elemental attacks. Normally, the calculation goes like this:

Total Damage = (Damage x Critical Strike Damage) + Elemental damage bonus

Due to this reason, elemental builds rely on the skill called Critical Element which will make your elemental attacks do critical strikes as well!

How to Increase Affinity

Equip affinity-raising skills

Affinity-raising skills like Critical Eye are highly recommended if you wish to increase your affinity stat. You can get these from armor, talismans, and decorations, so it's important to plan your build!

List of Skills

Use Rampage Skills

With the Ramp-Up feature, you'll be able to equip Rampage Skills to your weapons. Affinity Boost is a Ramp-Up Skill that increases affinity.

List of Rampage Skills (Ramp-Up Skills)

Equip high affinity weapons

There are weapons with particularly high affinity, with a few going up to 40% base affinity. You can spot how much affinity a weapon has even before crafting it, so keep an eye out for high affinity weapons! The affinity stat usually sits under the weapon's element and sharpness.

How To Deal With Negative Affinity

Cancel out your negative affinity

If you want to use a weapon that has negative affinity, you can always increase your affinity until it reaches zero. Some weapons are worth the effort, so don't dismiss one just because it has negative affinity!

Equip the Brutal Strike Rampage Skill

There's another way to make use of negative affinity. Brutal Strike is a Rampage Skill that has a chance of doubling your negative critical damage (the damage lowered by 25%).

Best Rampage Skills (Ramp-Up Skills)

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