Monster Hunter Rise guide: How to heal

Fighting creatures in Monster Hunter Rise is dangerous work. A single hit from an enemy can nearly deplete your entire life bar. To stay alive during your hunts, you need to heal. Not only that, but you’ll have to learn how to heal safely.

In this Monster Hunter Rise guide, we’ll show you how to heal. The process of restoring your health involves some details that aren’t immediately clear to newcomers. We’ll show you how to restore your hit points safely and how to craft the right potions to stay alive.

How to heal in Monster Hunter Rise

To heal in Monster Hunter Rise, you need to use either a Potion, Mega Potion, or a First-aid Med.

Image: Capcom via Polygon

To select an item to heal with, first hold the L button, which brings up both your radial menu and the item bar. Depending on how you set up the shortcuts in your radial menu, you can access your healing items there. You can also browse your item pouch while holding the L button and pressing Y and A to cycle through your items.

You can use a healing item in two different ways, depending on which menu you choose. However, before you can use a healing item, you must sheathe your weapon by tapping the R button. You cannot heal when your weapon is readied.

How to heal using the radial menu

To heal using the radial menu:

1. Hold down the L button to keep the radial menu active
2. Select the shortcut for your healing item of choice
3. Depending on how you customized your radial menu, either release the right stick or press the right stick in to use your healing item

How to heal using the item bar

To heal using the item bar:

1. Hold down the L button to keep the item bar active
2. Press the A or Y button to cycle to the healing item you want to use
3. Let go of the L button, and then press the Y button to use your healing item

Healing tips

If you’re trying to restore a large amount of health, you’ll notice that healing doesn’t immediately refill your lost life. Instead, your character goes through a drinking animation as they gain the maximum healing benefit from their potion over the course of a few seconds.

The moment you begin the drinking animation, some of your health will be restored, but there will also be a portion highlighted in white that gets restored as your character guzzles their potion. While your character is using their potion, you can move around — and you should!

Drinking a potion puts you in a vulnerable state. Although your character can move, they will walk very slow while drinking a potion. You can jog while drinking by holding down the R button, but it’s best to learn how to use your Wirebugs to get to a safe distance before drinking a potion.

If you are in danger of being hit while healing, press B and any direction to dodge while in the drinking animation.

However, if you dodge while your white health is still being restored, you will stop regaining health the moment you dodge. Not only that, but you’ll use up a potion while doing so.

It’s best to try and get to a safe distance or behind something before using a potion. Since healing a large amount of health takes time and puts you in a dangerous situation, make sure you don’t waste a potion or worse, get hit with a huge attack while healing and lose all your health. If you get knocked out three times — or faint, as the game refers to it — the hunt is over. In a multiplayer session, all players share the same three faint limit, so be careful.

Where to get more potions

While you can buy a potion from the merchant in the village or hub, the best way to get more healing items is through crafting.

The process for learning how to craft items in Monster Hunter Rise is simple. To begin creating more healing items:

1. Press the Plus (+) button to access the menu
2. Select Crafting List
3. Then highlight either the Potion, Mega Potion, First-aid Med+

If you have the crafting ingredients to make healing items, they will first enter your item pouch. When you reach the maximum of 10, they will then enter your item box.

Image: Capcom via Polygon

You can also learn how to autocraft and keep a steady supply of healing items without lifting a finger. When crafting a surplus of healing items, make sure you learn how to restock items at the beginning of hunts so you always are carrying the maximum amount.