BY ARCHON
Bowguns may seem like they are only a fit for a supporting role in multiplayer hunts, but with the proper ammo and careful dodging, the bowgun is a weapon class to be respected.
There are three classes of bowguns: Light, Medium, and Heavy but they all play relatively the same. The differences lie in the speed of your characters movement and action, and the power of the ammo. The heavier the gun the more powerful your ammo can be, but the slower your weapon and your character will move.
Controls
"X"-draws your weapon and reloads. Unlike many weapons in MH, you can't come out swinging with the bowguns, so make sure you have your ammo selected and loaded into your gun before you rush into battle. Be sure to reload every time you change ammo as well. Hold "L" and used "X" and "B" (think of them as "up" and "down" on a second d-pad) to navigate through your cache of ammo types. There is no shield to speak of, so like the hammer and switch-axe classes you must dodge your enemy to keep out of harms way. Do so by tapping "B" and holding the direction you want to jump. A+X is a melee attack with the bowgun. Tapping "R" will bring up a scope-view. This is great for shooting monsters at range but does leave you very vulnerable. I find that most ammo veers off if you try to shoot it too far so I rarely use this mode. It might prove more handy when you have other player around to distract the beast. Holding "R" will bring up an aiming reticle with can also sometimes come in handy although I find the most success just "shooting from the hip".
Ammunition:
Using the right ammo in a fight can make all the difference. Each bowgun class has its own special ammo and the heavier the gun, the more powerful its "normal" shots become. The more powerful and special ammo also come with drawbacks; for example some powerful types must be reloaded after every shot, while normal ammunition comes 6-to-a-reload. Here is a quick breakdown of the ammo types in the Monster Hunter Tri demo (this is not meant at all to be exhaustive).
(All three classes have 'normal ammo' which can come in different levels of effectiveness)
MEDIUM
-sleep: puts the monster to sleep. The bigger the monster, the more of these it will take to put the monster out
-exhaust: tires the enemy
-pierce: Shoots 3 rounds one right after another leaving you vulnerable
-slice: rounds stick into enemies and then explode with shards that damage again, and damage nearby monsters
-crag-rounds stick into enemy and then explode, often knocking them back
LIGHT
-poison: only one round in your magazine. Once hit, monster keeps taking damage
-water: shoots 3 rounds, does water damage (useful against fire foes?)
-clust- creates a fire explosion on impact
-para- paralyses your monster. As with sleep, this may take many rounds
-pellet-like a shotgun. A wide spread of pellets. Useful for groups of small enemies
HEAVY
-flaming-1 shot does lots of fire damage
-wyvern fire- charge shot and must be at point blank range. Tons of damage
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