Armor Basics

Learn how armor protects you in Monster Hunter Generations. Discover how to boost defense, manage elemental resistances, and customize your gear for any quest.

Alright, let's talk about armor in Monster Hunter Generations. Think of it as your best friend out there against those giant monsters – it's what's going to keep you from getting absolutely flattened. Your natural defense is pretty low, but armor kicks that up a notch, giving you enough breathing room to actually get quests done without carting back to camp after every single hit.

You'll find that armor comes in sets, and wearing a full set often mirrors the monster it's made from. This doesn't just change your look; it also grants you a whole set of skills and elemental resistances (or weaknesses!) that match the monster. For instance, rocking a full set of Jaggi armor will leave you super vulnerable to fire, just like the Great Jaggi itself.

But here's where the real fun begins: mixing and matching pieces! This is your ticket to some serious customization. You can offset those pesky elemental weaknesses and fine-tune your resistances to create a build that's perfect for whatever challenge you're facing.

Unlike weapons, you can't forge armor into a different piece using monster parts. However, you *can* boost its raw defense a bit using special items called Armor Spheres. You'll snag these as quest rewards or find them at mining nodes. Armor Spheres come in different strengths, and to upgrade your armor, you'll need a mix of these spheres along with material points. Just gather various monster parts to meet the point requirement, and boom – upgraded armor!

Keep in mind that only the raw defense stat gets a boost. Elemental weaknesses are a different story and will remain unchanged. To deal with those, you've got two main options: either eat for elemental resistance at the kitchen before a quest, or, and this is often the most practical approach, build multiple armor sets tailored for different elemental threats.

A quick note for those coming from older games: in the past, you could eat to negate negative elemental resistances, pushing them up to +3 no matter how low they started. That's not the case anymore in Generations. Eating for an elemental resistance now adds a fixed amount, so you might still end up with a negative resistance even after your meal.

Now, armor from deviant monsters is a bit of a special case. It doesn't use Armor Spheres for upgrades. Instead, you'll need specific tickets earned from completing certain quest levels, along with monster parts, to power them up.