Monster Hunter Rise introduced the Wirebug, a cyan creature that opens up countless traversal options, provides access to many of the game's "new" combat mechanics, and generally speeds up gameplay across the board. This is something you'll need to master in MH Rise - there's just no getting around it.
There are many intricacies to maximize the effectiveness of your Wirebug. However, in this Monster Hunter Rise guide, we'll cover the most critical mechanics you'll want to master before tackling the more complicated systems.
Bases the Monster Hunter Rise Wirebug
You'll get a general overview of the Wirebug in the Back to Basics quest, but there are a few nuances you'll want to practice even in the early missions.
Activating any Wirebug ability allows you to hold down the left trigger and press a button specific to that ability. This expends a charge on the Wirebug meter at the bottom of the screen. Once used, this charge will have a brief cooldown depending on the type of ability used – simple actions recharge faster than more advanced maneuvers, attacks, and skills.
The first and most frequent Wirebug ability you will use is the simple Wiredash, a movement technique.
Depending on your input and the position of the camera, it allows you to move up, down or forward. Hold down the left bumper and press the Use button (A on Switch, Circle on a PlayStation-style controller, or B on an Xbox-style controller) or the Light Attack button (X on Switch, Triangle on PlayStation, or Y on Xbox). This will move you in the direction of the camera or vertically.
Be aware that you can only use the standard Wirebug Wiredash while your weapon is sheathed. Using it with your drawn weapon will use up one of the switch skills you have equipped, which is an item in itself.
You'll most often use Wiredash to traverse a level, and you can chain together as many uses of Wiredash as you have Wirebugs to spend. You also have a double jump after each Wiredash that allows you to completely change direction or provide extra momentum at the end of the dash.
The other basic technique is to stop mid-air. This requires pressing the Use button during a Wiredash in the air. You will stop and hang onto the wire of the Wirebug for about 10 seconds before letting go.
Stopping alone is good for peeking around an area, but its real use is skipping the end of quest cutscenes. If you hang from a Wirebug with about five seconds left on the countdown after the quest and stay up there, the Quest Complete screen will automatically play without you needing to watch your Hunter gesticulate for 15 seconds.
Wirebug Intermediate Skills
There are two areas of expertise to develop once you have a basic understanding of using Wirebug. The first is load management; the second is the proper use of Wirefall.
Load management
It's no exaggeration to say that the Wirebug is at the heart of everything in Monster Hunter Rise. Without one at hand, you can't use some of your weapon's most powerful abilities. You can't get out of tight spots, and you will effectively be prohibited from traversing even the less vertical parts of each level. It is therefore essential that you learn to track how many Wirebug charges you have left.
Load management does not come quickly and will take effort to master. The easiest way to train is on early game monsters in an expedition quest. Pick a monster you're comfortable fighting and see how long it takes for the two charges of Wirebug to return after use, how effectively you can chain together Wirebug's abilities, and more.
Yarn drop
Whenever you are knocked down or thrown into the air in Monster Hunter World, you can press the left bumper and the Use button to perform a Wirebug Wirefall recovery.
You will immediately come out of the thrown or hit state and can attack or evade threats. It's almost always advantageous to use this recovery technique rather than falling, but if you've just used your other charge, taking the fall isn't always the worst option.
You can't Wirefall if you don't have a Wirebug charge, of course, so you'll probably be caught off guard at least once. This is why it is essential that you first master load management before reducing your use of Wirefall.
Advanced Wirebug Trainer Crash Course: Switch skills and abilities in combat
The sheer volume of fine details and mechanical optimizations the Wirebug offers is staggering. We will not detail them all here. Instead, we'll focus on the most important but hard-to-implement parts of using the Little Guys: Switch Skills and Combat Abilities.
Most weapons have an offensive skill and a defensive skill and learning when to use which of these is vital to your success in Rise.
At the start of your hunting career, you will have access to Switch Skills; Alternate weapon moves that use a Wirebug charge to activate. Your weapon will also have a default Wirebug skill. To use these abilities, hold down the left bumper and press the light or heavy attack buttons while your weapon is drawn.
For example, if you're using the Charge Blade with the Wirebug, the proper use of the Counter Peak Performance Shield Amplifier can mean the difference between life and death in High-Rank. The most offensive skills involve movement, so they help with positioning and damage.
Using Wirebug skills in tandem with more traditional abilities is paramount. The tips for learning their optimal use are the same as for learning load management, with a huge asterisk. Early on, you'll want to focus on finding out how long each ability takes to activate, how long it's active, and how long it does on Wirebug's cooldown.
However, unlike Wirebug Charge Management, you have to extend your knowledge base to every monster in the game. Each attack has different timings, but as long as you inherently know how long your abilities take to be used from input to activation, their implementation is a matter of practice.
The hardest part is that your training will come with wagon trips to camp, which is about as much fun as it sounds. Enjoy!
Related Guides
And that's our crash course in using the Wirebug in Monster Hunter Rise. Of course, there's a lot more to learn about this mechanic, and good practice will have you up to speed in no time. For more tips and tricks, check out some of our other Monster Hunter Rise guides here on GameSkinny.
