Monster Hunter World: Tempered Monsters, Augmentation, Decoration Farming and the endgame explained

It's been a few weeks now. It might've taken quite a bit of time, but you find yourself at the "end" of Monster Hunter World. You slew Xeno'jiiva, maxed out a weapon or two... but what exactly are Tempered Monsters? First Wyvernian Ritual, what's THAT? You need to grind Decorations now? Well... this is where it gets complicated, and in truth your quest is only just beginning.

There's a bit of a problem, however, and that's that Monster Hunter World doesn't do a great job of explaining what the meat of the endgame is. As a result, we're here to help go over what there is to do once you've hunted every monster through the main progression.

Remember, for help with way more parts of the game you can check out our Monster Hunter World Guide hub.

Tempered Monsters, Streamstones, and Their Importance

Tempered Monsters are the end-goal for Monster Hunter: World. These are tougher, harder hitting variants of otherwise normal High Rank monsters. With a few exceptions they can only be found through investigations (denoted as a 9-star Investigation at the Resource Center) and can be characterized by their slight metallic sheen. To tie things up: the major characteristics for Tempered Monsters are as follows:

• Deal much more damage with attacks
• Have the same amount of HP as a normal, High Rank monster
• Can (with a few exceptions) ONLY be found in Investigations
• Completing Investigations with Tempered Monsters will award Streamstones

Notice that last bulletpoint. Streamstones come in a variety of types: they're all useful, however. Here's what you need to know about Streamstones:

• There are 5 types of Streamstone: Streamstone Shards, Streamstones, Gleaming Streamstones, Warrior's Streamstones, and Hero's Streamstones
• Of the 5, 3 are "general use", whereas 2 are split into categories for specific weapon classes. Warrior and Hero Streamstones are required to Augment weapon
• Besides for Warrior and Hero Streamstones, streamstones have multiple uses: including Augmenting armor, and re-rolling decorations

Let's delve a little deeper.

Augmenting Armor and Weapons

Regular streamstones (streamstone shards, streamstones, and gleaming streamstones) can be used to remove the upgrade for a piece of Monster Hunter World's various armor sets - allowing them to be levelled up 7 more times, and giving players the ability to better tackle Tempered Monsters. Warrior and Hero Streamstones, on the flipside, are used to Augment weapons. Augmenting armor requires Streamstone Shards for Rarity 5 and 6 armor, Streamstones for Rarity 7, and Gleaming Streamstones for Rarity 8.

Weapons are special in the sense that regular streamstones won't work to upgrade them, and Warrior/Hero Streamstones are separated into their own categories. There are seven types of Warrior and Hero Streamstones each, and each one will work to Augment a weapon of 2 of the 14 weapon classes. Rarity 6 weapons require 1 Warrior Streamstone of the right class to upgrade, and can be augmented 3 times. Rarity 7 require 2 and can be upgraded twice. Rarity 8 weapons require a Hero Streamstone of the right class and can only be augmented once.

Weapon Augments can increase the attack of a weapon, the affinity, add additional defense to the weapon, add or upgrade a decoration slot, and even give the weapon a lifesteal ability. For Rarity 6 or 7 weapons the same augment can stack, though you will be subject to diminshing returns if you choose to do so.

Weapon and Armor Augmentation, while not essential, is a very useful tool for the endgame grind against Tempered Elder Dragons. You're going to want the extra defense from augmenting your armor, at least, to prevent yourself from getting killed by some of their most nasty attacks.

Threat Levels, and What they Mean

It's all well and good to know what you get from Tempered Monster investigations, but how do Threat Levels tie into things? Well, it's fairly simple:

• Tempered Monsters are separated into 3 Threat Levels, which are respectively locked behind a certain HR requirement. Threat Level 2 Tempered Monsters require players to have cleared the HR 29 urgent, while Threat Level 3 (Elder Dragons) requires players to have cleared the HR 49 Urgent.
• Threat Level 1 encompasses smaller, weaker large monsters such as the Great Jagras, the Pukei-Pukei, and the Anjanath. Threat Level 2 houses stronger monsters such as the Bazelgeuse, the Odogaron, and more. Threat Level 3 is only Tempered Elder Dragons.
• The quality of the streamstones you find, as well as the rarity of the decorations you find, depend on the Threat Level of the monster you're hunting. Harder missions give higher rarity Streamstones and more useful decorations!
• Streamstone Shards are found in Threat Level 1 investigations, Streamstones are found in Threat Level 2, and Gleaming Streamstones are found in Threat Level 3. Warrior Streamstones can be found in Threat Level 2 but are much more common in Threat Level 3 investigations - Hero Streamstones can only be found in Threat Level 3 investigations.

Consider the types of Streamstones you want to grind, and tackle Tempered Monster investigations appropriately.

The Elder Melder, and the First Wyvernian Ritual

By virtue of completing Tempered Monster Investigations, you're going to be getting a lot of decorations; many of them, you won't really need. Decoration farming is easy as sin once you reach Tempered Elder Dragons - just find an investigation that has a bunch of extra rewards and grind it. That'll get you loads of strong decorations, but that's not to say even weaker decorations are useless! The Elder Melder can re-roll decorations for each rarity level for you, allowing you to use a streamstone (one of the 3 rarities) and a bunch of extra decorations to tackle a certain rarity of decoration you're looking for. Most of the time, you'll be using this to recycle decorations for Threat Level 1 or 2 investigations into Threat Level 3 decorations, but here's the gist of it:

• There are 3 categories of First Wyvernian Rituals, and they each correspond to a Threat Level. Spire Sorcery (Threat Level 1 drop table), Coral Concoction (Threat Level 2 drop table), and Strange Stream (Threat Level 3 drop table). You can re-roll for 3 decorations at once, at max, regardless of the level of ritual.
• For Spire Sorcery you'll be required to give up 12 points worth of decorations per decoration, as well as a Streamstone Shard. You'll be looking at 36 points for a full rotation.
• For Coral Concoction you'll be required to give up 24 points per decoration, as well as a Streamstone. 72 points required for the full 3 decorations to be rolled.
• Finally, Strange Stream requires 36 points per decoration, and a Gleaming Streamstone. You'll need 98 points for the full roll.