Monster Hunter Rise guide: Latent Power conditions and activation

In Monster Hunter Rise, there are several power armor skills that strengthen your hunter. Most of them are pretty straightforward and easy to use. However, one of them has certain conditions to meet: Latent Power.

In this Monster Hunter Rise guide, we’ll show you how to activate Latent Power, what conditions you need to meet to use the skill, and give you some tips to activate the power faster.

What is Latent Power?

The skill description for Latent Power reads:

Temporarily increases affinity and reduces stamina depletion when certain conditions are met.

Affinity is a stat that determines how likely you are to perform a critical hit. There are several Monster Hunter Rise skills that increase affinity. The more affinity you have, the more likely you are to perform stronger attacks.

Stamina reduction is important because you need stamina to attack, dodge, and climb up walls. It isn’t always easy to regain stamina in the middle of a fight — even if you’ve made plenty Well-Done Steaks. So having a skill that reduces its use gives you more options.

Latent Power has five levels. Each level increases the amount of affinity and stamina reduction you gain:

• Level 1 — Increases affinity by 10%, reduces stamina usage by 30%
• Level 2 — Increases affinity by 20%, reduces stamina usage by 30%
• Level 3 — Increases affinity by 30%, reduces stamina usage by 50%
• Level 4 — Increases affinity by 40%, reduces stamina usage by 50%
• Level 5 — Increases affinity by 50%, reduces stamina usage by 50%

Image: Capcom via Polygon

You can tell Latent Power is active when the stamina and affinity symbols appear above your life bar, your stamina glows white, and your hands have a white glow on them as well.

How to meet Latent Power conditions

While there is no clear and definitive answer, we’ve done some testing with Lv. 1 Latent Power and found a few reliable triggers.

The first is being consistently near or in combat with a monster. We tested this out in a hunt and in the training plaza with the large dummy. Being around a creature with your weapon drawn seems to start an invisible countdown to activate Latent Power.

Without any contact with the creature (either from you hitting it or vice versa), Latent Power activates around three minutes after your weapon is drawn.

However, it seems like you can cut down on that time by exchanging blows with the enemy. Either hitting them or getting hit reduces the time it takes to activate Latent Power.

The effects of Latent Power last about two minutes. After that, the countdown begins again when you’re near a monster with your weapon drawn.