Raw Damage is the Best Starting Point for New Hunters

When first stepping into the wilds of Monster Hunter World, raw damage builds are the easiest to grasp and most versatile against the widest range of monsters. As you master monster movesets and weaknesses, elemental damage builds can ultimately overtake raw damage but require more gear and decoration management.

Raw Damage Build Benefits

Raw damage comes from the base attack rating of your weapon and gets boosted further by skills like Attack Boost. This regular physical damage is effective against almost all monsters regardless of weaknesses. The main benefits are:

Ease of Building

• Skills boosting raw attack are easy to fit into builds
• Sharpness directly boosts raw damage which isn‘t true of elements
• Works well with general damage boosting skills like Weakness Exploit and Critical Boost

Good Match for Slower Weapons

For weapons like:

• Great Sword
• Long Sword
• Charge Blade
• Hammer
• Hunting Horn

The slower hits reliance more on making each strike count with high raw damage. These weapons also often have low elemental ratings making raw builds the natural choice.

Versatile Against All Monsters

You don‘t need to worry about swapping gear to match specific elemental weaknesses. Raw damage works reliably on almost every hunt.

Example Great Sword Raw Set

Focused on Critical Eye, Weakness Exploit, Critical Boost, and Non-Elemental Boost.

Dynamic Elemental Builds

Once you understand monster weaknesses and have decorations to spare, elemental damage builds can pull ahead in damage potential. Their major benefits are:

Exploiting Monster Weaknesses

Every monster has hitzone weaknesses:

Targeting weakness 1 with the right element lead to tremendous damage.

Faster Weapons Apply Element Frequently

Weapons like:

• Dual Blades
• Sword and Shield
• Insect Glaive
• Bow
• Light Bowgun

Attack much faster allowing more elemental damage procs. Slower weapons see less benefit because element is only applied on certain attacks.

Elemental Critical Boosts Damage

Unlike raw, elemental damage gets boosted by the Critical Element skill when landing critical strikes. This is a huge damage increase.

Example Fire Dual Blades vs Anjanath

Key fire attack boosting skills to maximize damage potential.

Conclusion: Start Raw & Branch into Elemental

To summarize, here are my recommendations on damage types:

• Start with versatile raw damage builds to learn monster patterns
• Target specific elemental weaknesses once you understand behaviors
• Faster attacking weapons benefit most from elemental Crit builds
• Slower weapons focus on maximizing raw damage per hit

Follow these tips and you‘ll be slaying monsters in no time! Let me know if this helps explain the damage type choice in Monster Hunter World. Happy hunting!