How to Capture Monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds

While Monster Hunter Wilds holds your hand and teaches you the fundamentals, it doesn’t guide you much when it comes to capturing monsters. Capturing monsters will often give you more resources than you’d get from simply slaying them, plus it feels nicer. We’ll go over everything you need to know about capturing monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds

How Craft Tranq Bombs

You can craft Tranq Bombs by combining a Sleep Herb and a Parashroom. However, you might not have collected any of these early on. The fastest way to find Sleep Herbs and Parashrooms will require you to open up your map, navigate the item filters, and manually locate the closest Sleep Herb and Parashroom.

Later on, you unlock Material Gathering from NPCs which lets you passively stock up on Sleep Herbs and Parashrooms. You’re going to want to craft at least three to five Tranq Bombs for a successful capture.

How to Craft Traps

Next, craft a trap so you can make the monster vulnerable to Tranq Bombs. There are two types of traps, Pitfall Traps and Shock Traps and you can only carry one of each at a time. We suggest carrying both of them in case one isn’t effective or the first capture attempt fails.

The first thing you need to craft traps is Trap Tools. Luckily, you can buy a large amount of Trap Tools from the NPC at the Base Camp for 100z. Just make sure you’re buying them for your inventory as you can only carry two Trap Tools at a time in your Item Pouch. They’re cheap, so feel free to stock up on a bunch in one go.

Next, you’ll need Thunderbug Capacitors for Shock Traps and Nets for Pitfall Traps. Thunderbug Capacitors are found by collective Thunderbugs in the wild, and you might have to forage around for them. Nets can be crafted using Spider Webs which can be found in the Scarlet Forest region easily.

How to Capture Monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds

With Tranq Bombs and Traps loaded in your item pouch, you can now attempt to capture a monster you’re hunting. To capture a monster you must lure it into a trap and then hit it with at least two Tranq Bombs at close range. Tranq Bombs create a cloud at the location where you’re standing, so stand as close as possible to a trapped monster and use your bombs. If done correctly, usually two Tranq Bombs will get the job done but you might need three in some cases. If three Tranq Bombs aren’t enough, it means the monster hasn’t been sufficiently weakened yet.

As you battle a monster, you weaken and tire it out. You can see visible signs of exhaustion from the way a monster behaves, such as drooling excessively. However, not all monsters will always share this tell and you’ll have to be a bit more observant. If a monster is moving around exhausted or limping, it usually means you’ve weakened it enough for a capture. When a monster flees and attempts to sleep to regain its strength, that’s also a sign that you can capture it.

Once you’ve successfully captured a monster, you’ll get your basic capture rewards and a 20-second quest end timer will start. Captured monsters usually disappear after a short while.

That’s all you need to know on how to capture monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds. For more guides, also check out how to customize your Seikrat and how to mount and ride monsters.