MH Wilds Damage Skill Priority: Critical Boost First
Short answer: Critical Boost, Attack Boost and Critical Eye go in weapon slots. Weakness Exploit goes in armor slots. They do not compete for the same space, so "Attack or affinity?" is the wrong question. Put Critical Jewel III [3] in your weapon's 3-slot for Critical Boost Lv3 and build affinity around it. Weakness Exploit is the outlier: its only decoration is Tenderizer Jewel [3], and that 3-slot gem grants just Lv1.
Verified on 30 August 2026 against Ver.1.042. Ver.1.042.00.00 shipped on 4 August 2026 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Steam; the later 1.042.00.01 covered PS5 and Steam, and the 14 August 1.042.00.02 hotfix was Steam-only. Free title updates concluded with Ver.1.041, and neither the Ver.1.041 nor Ver.1.042 patch notes change the values of the four skills covered here.
The four damage skills at a glance
| Skill | Max Lv | Slot type | Level from a 3-slot decoration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Critical Boost | 5 | Weapon | Critical Jewel III [3] → Lv3 |
| Critical Eye | 5 | Weapon | Expert Jewel III [3] → Lv3 |
| Attack Boost | 5 | Weapon | Attack Jewel III [3] → Lv3 |
| Weakness Exploit | 5 | Armor | Tenderizer Jewel [3] → Lv1 only |
That last row is the one people get wrong. Critical Boost, Critical Eye and Attack Boost each come in [1], II [2] and III [3] sizes granting Lv1, Lv2 and Lv3 respectively. Weakness Exploit has no [1] or [2] version at all — a full 3-slot buys a single level. Stacking it to Lv5 through decorations alone is not practical. Build the base from armor pieces that carry the skill natively plus an Exploiter Charm, then top up with Tenderizer Jewels.
Exact values
All figures below come from the Kiranico database (Game Ver. 1.040) and were cross-checked against Japanese guide sites Game8 and GameWith.
Critical Boost
Base critical damage in Wilds is x1.25. Critical Boost adds 3% per level on top of that, and it applies to physical damage only.
| Skill Lv | Critical damage multiplier |
|---|---|
| None | x1.25 |
| Lv1 | x1.28 |
| Lv2 | x1.31 |
| Lv3 | x1.34 |
| Lv4 | x1.37 |
| Lv5 | x1.40 |
Weakness Exploit
Wilds splits this skill into a weak-point bonus and a separate wound bonus.
| Skill Lv | Affinity on weak points | Extra on wounds | Total on a wounded weak point |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lv1 | +5% | +3% | +8% |
| Lv2 | +10% | +5% | +15% |
| Lv3 | +15% | +10% | +25% |
| Lv4 | +20% | +15% | +35% |
| Lv5 | +30% | +20% | +50% |
Attack Boost
| Skill Lv | Effect |
|---|---|
| Lv1 | Attack +3 |
| Lv2 | Attack +5 |
| Lv3 | Attack +7 |
| Lv4 | Attack +8 and x1.02 attack |
| Lv5 | Attack +9 and x1.04 attack |
Capcom has not published the internal order in which the flat bonus and the multiplier are applied, so this article does not convert Attack Boost into a single percentage. The useful takeaway is that the multiplier component makes Lv4 and Lv5 scale with your weapon's raw attack.
Critical Eye
| Skill Lv | Affinity |
|---|---|
| Lv1 | +4% |
| Lv2 | +8% |
| Lv3 | +12% |
| Lv4 | +16% |
| Lv5 | +20% |
Why affinity and Critical Boost multiply
Expected physical damage works out to:
Expected multiplier = 1 + affinity x (critical multiplier − 1)
The critical multiplier is 1.25 without Critical Boost and 1.40 at Lv5. Because the two terms multiply, raising only one of them gives diminishing returns.
| Affinity | No Critical Boost | Critical Boost Lv3 | Critical Boost Lv5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50% | 1.125 | 1.170 | 1.200 |
| 80% | 1.200 | 1.272 | 1.320 |
| 100% | 1.250 | 1.340 | 1.400 |
At 100% affinity, Critical Boost Lv5 is worth 12% more physical damage than no Critical Boost. At 50% affinity the same skill is worth only 6.7%.
Spending one 3-slot on your weapon
Starting from 50% affinity with no Critical Boost (expected multiplier 1.125):
- Critical Jewel III [3] — Critical Boost Lv3, expected 1.170, about +4.0%
- Expert Jewel III [3] — Critical Eye Lv3, affinity to 62%, expected 1.155, about +2.7%
- Attack Jewel III [3] — Attack +7, independent of affinity
Critical Boost wins here. But once Critical Boost Lv5 is already online, adding that same Expert Jewel III [3] moves the expected multiplier from 1.200 to 1.248 — about +4.0%. Critical Eye gets better as Critical Boost rises, so within weapon slots the order is Critical Boost first, then Critical Eye.
The important qualifier: your affinity base is not built from weapon slots. It comes from the weapon's innate affinity and from Weakness Exploit on the armor side. Weapon slots are then spent on Critical Boost. If your affinity is still low, the table above shows how little Critical Boost has to work with.
These figures cover expected physical damage only. They exclude hitzone values, motion values, elemental damage and negative affinity.
Two rules that decide whether Weakness Exploit works
The in-game text only says the part must be one where "attacks are quite effective" — Capcom has not published a hitzone threshold. The figures below come from third-party in-game testing that ran a −20% affinity weapon with Weakness Exploit slotted and watched for negative critical hits. We have not reproduced these tests ourselves.
- The threshold sits around hitzone 45. At hitzone 40 the test still produced negative criticals. Weakness Exploit Lv4 grants +20% on a qualifying part, which would have brought a −20% affinity weapon to exactly 0% and eliminated negative criticals. Their appearance shows the weak-point component did not fire at hitzone 40. In the monster field guide, four-star hitzones reliably qualify; three-star hitzones are the ambiguous line
- Wounding a part does not turn it into a weak point. The same test produced negative criticals on a hitzone-40 part even while it carried a wound
One limit worth stating plainly: this test cannot determine whether the wound component alone fires on a part below the threshold. The Lv4 wound component is +15%, which would leave a −20% affinity weapon at −5% — still producing negative criticals. The observation is equally consistent with "the wound component did not fire" and "it fired but affinity was still negative." We treat that question as unresolved.
The practical advice is unaffected. When you estimate affinity while building a set, plan around the weak-point value (+30% at Lv5) rather than the wounded total.
Critical Boost does nothing for elemental damage
Critical Boost raises physical damage on critical hits and nothing else. If your build leans on elemental damage, the skill that raises elemental damage on critical hits is Critical Element. Maxing Critical Boost on an elemental build is a common reason total damage comes in below expectations.
Summary
- All four skills cap at Lv5 — do not plan around older-game Lv7 caps
- Critical Boost, Critical Eye and Attack Boost use weapon slots; Weakness Exploit uses armor slots
- Critical Jewel III [3] in the weapon's 3-slot is the default opening move
- Tenderizer Jewel [3] grants only Lv1, so build Weakness Exploit from armor and an Exploiter Charm
- Build your affinity base from the weapon and Weakness Exploit, then spend weapon slots on Critical Boost before Critical Eye
- Testing puts the threshold near hitzone 45; wounding a part below it does not turn it into a weak point
Sources: skill values from Kiranico's MH Wilds database, cross-checked against the in-game wording listed by Game8; version and patch contents from Capcom's official update information; the Weakness Exploit threshold from third-party in-game testing.
