Slaying monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds is fun and all, but I'm here to tell you that capturing is secretly the better option

If you managed to nab the rewards from participating in the Monster Hunter Wilds Open Beta 2, or been poking around in your crafting list, you'll have noticed things like pitfall traps, shock traps, and tranq bombs available to you. There's more than one way to hunt a monster, and the answer isn't always necessarily to hack, bonk or shoot it to death. Sometimes, you might want to use these items to capture it instead.

There are pros and cons for slaying versus capturing, which I'll go into below. So if it's your first Monster Hunter and you're wondering whether to show mercy to the creatures of the Forbidden Lands—or even how to go about doing that—here's whether you should capture or kill in Monster Hunter Wilds, and how to actually capture them.

So wait, is capturing or killing better?

Okay, these are my least favourite words to answer a question like this, but it's true: It depends.

For starters, some quests will specifically request that you hunt a monster in a particular way. While most will simply say "Hunt [insert monster here]," some might say "Slay" or "Capture" instead. For these quests, you'll want to do whatever it tells you: If it's slay, then you'll have to kill it, while requests for capture need you to, well, capture it as killing will fail the quest.

Those are fairly niche scenarios though, which means that 90% of the time it's largely left up to your discretion.

It can be more beneficial to capture than it is to kill. The biggest plus to capturing is that it cuts the hunt time down significantly—no fighting your way through the gruelling final phase where, more often than not, the monster is pretty damn angry about being on death's door. It's a good way to quickly get out of one hunt and straight into the next one, even if it's just a few minutes being saved here and there it quickly adds up into multiple extra hunts.

It's also definitely worth capturing if things are looking a little dicey. If you've already had a cart or two and teetering on your third into a quest fail, it's better to capture and end the hunt than it is to play with fire and potentially lose a 15-minute hunt, walking away with no materials at all.

Now the one thing that's debated among the community is whether capturing gives better rewards over killing. Unlike Monster Hunter: Rise, Wilds doesn't specify separate capture percentages in the in-game Monster Guide drop tables, making it more difficult to definitively say if one method is better over the other.

As best we can tell, there aren't any monster materials that are exclusive to carving or capture in Wilds. Every one of a monster's materials can drop as a "Target Reward"—the rewards you get during the quest completion screen, and capturing a monster seems like it immediately rewards you with three of those Target Rewards.

Carving a slain monster, meanwhile, draws from a smaller pool of potential monster materials, eliminating certain types of common Target Rewards like certificates and elemental sacs. With those common drops removed from the reward pool, carving means you have a higher chance of receiving rare materials like gems.

Here's an example: Let's say I'm trying to get an Uth Duna Watergem from a High-rank Uth Duna. According to the Monster Guide, I've got a 3% chance of getting one as a Target Reward. However, it's got a 5% chance of dropping while carving, because carving eliminates Target Reward-only materials like Torrent Sacs and Uth Duna Certificate S from the reward pool.

So which is my better option? Carving gives me a 2% higher chance, which numerically seems like the best choice. But because capturing is often faster, I'll probably be getting more gems in the long run by cutting the hunt off early and getting my Target Rewards.

Playing out the whole hunt, however, gives you as many opportunities as possible to earn rewards through breaking monster parts. In Uth Duna's case, the material reward from breaking its tail has a 7% chance of getting me that Watergem.

To summarize, because you can get every material as a Target Reward in Wilds, capturing is probably your best bet in the long run. Just make sure you're also breaking the monster's parts that give you a chance at the material you want before you capture it. For the specific percentages, check the in-game monster guide.

I'm sure as the number crunchers get into the real nitty-gritty of Wilds we'll get a better idea of the value of each method, but for now, carving and capturing both seem perfectly valid ways of obtaining materials, depending on what you need.

How to capture a monster in Monster Hunter Wilds

I'll go into more detail below, but if you're looking for the quickfire rundown:

1. Deal damage until the monster has a skull next to its icon on the minimap.
2. Place either a pitfall trap or shock trap down near it.
3. Throw down two tranq bombs to secure the capture.
4. Alternatively, tranq first and then capture.

Thankfully, capturing monsters is surprisingly easy. If you've played any other Monster Hunter game, it works exactly the same in Wilds. Right now every monster in the game can be captured, bar the final monster you fight at the end of low rank, though that'll likely change as Capcom updates the game with new foes to fight.

Unfortunately, if you were looking for a pacifist method of monster hunting, capturing still requires you to wail on your foe for a good while. You'll need to deal enough damage for a flashing skull to appear next to the monster's icon on the minimap. That means it's close to dying and, more importantly, ripe for capturing. Trying to capture a monster before it's skulled won't do anything, so keep an eye out for the icon as you're fighting.

Handily, Alma or your Palico (if deployed) will usually alert you once the monster's weak enough to capture, so if you're forgetting to peep the minimap just keep an ear out for their alert.

Sometimes the monster'll saunter off to another zone once it's on its last legs. If that happens, just follow it to wherever it's going and cycle through your item pouch to get your trap ready. You can use a shock trap or a pitfall trap, it doesn't really matter either way—although some monsters in past games have been immune to particular traps. The most important thing is making sure the monster stands in it.

If it successfully steps in a shock trap, bolts of electricity will surround its body, while a pitfall trap will see the monster fall down and become enveloped in vines. Once this happens, you're clear to equip your tranq bombs, run towards the monster and throw them down with Square.

Tranq bombs get thrown down directly below you, so make sure you're right next to the monster when you're doing it. You'll need at least two bombs to knock a monster out, by which point you'll have secured the capture and can walk away with your rewards. If you've thrown your two bombs and the monster's not passed out, give it a couple more whacks—sometimes the skull icon pops a little early.

If you like, you can also tranq first and then trap, which'll also work. Monsters will sometimes have decent resistance to traps which means they can escape fairly quickly, and while I haven't had any issues with trapping and tranqing in that order just yet, I'm sure later additions will close the window you have that little bit more.