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Buddies: Palicoes and Palamutes

You do not have to hunt alone, even in single-player. Monster Hunter Rise pairs you with two types of animal companions: Palicoes (felines) and Palamutes (canines). Understanding how to use and upgrade them significantly smooths out your progression.

Palamutes (The Mounts)​

Palamutes are new to Rise and focus heavily on mobility and aggressive offense.

  • Riding: Hold the command button near your Palamute to mount it. Riding a Palamute allows you to traverse the map without consuming stamina. You can sprint up vines and drift around corners.
  • Item Usage on the Move: While riding, you can safely consume Potions, eat Rations, or sharpen your weapon. This is invaluable when a monster flees to a new zone or when you need to heal while retreating.
  • Combat: In battle, Palamutes use offensive gear like the Dual Bladed Scroll or the Heavy Strike Scroll to deal consistent damage alongside you.

Palicoes (The Support)​

Palicoes return from previous games, serving as versatile support companions. Unlike Palamutes, Palicoes come in five distinct support types, determined when you hire them at the Buddy Plaza.

  • Healer: Drops healing bubbles and utilizes horns to restore your health and cure status ailments. Highly recommended for beginners learning a new weapon.
  • Assist: Specializes in crowd control. They lay traps (Poison Purr-ison, Shock Purr-ison) and use wirebugs to temporarily bind the monster.
  • Gathering: Steals materials directly from the monster during combat and gathers extra items from the environment. The best choice if you are farming for specific rare drops.
  • Fight: Focuses on buffing your attack and affinity (critical hit chance) while dealing decent melee damage.
  • Bombardier: Pure explosive offense. They throw barrel bombs and use explosive lances to deal fixed damage.

Buddy Plaza Operations​

The Buddy Plaza in Kamura Village is the central hub for managing your companions.

Hiring and Training​

You can hire dozens of buddies from Iori the Buddy Scout. Once hired, send unused buddies to the Buddy Dojo to level them up passively while you hunt. Higher-level buddies have more health, deal more damage, and unlock new support moves.

The Argosy​

Send your spare buddies on trade requests via the Argosy submarines. This is the primary method for generating a passive income of crucial crafting items like Honey, Bitterbugs, and Thunderbugs.

Meowcenaries​

Deploy a squad of four buddies on a Meowcenaries expedition. They passively gather monster parts and unique materials (like Kamura Tickets or specific scraps) from a chosen route while you complete quests.

Equipping Your Buddies​

Buddies require gear just like you do.

  • Visit the Buddy Smithy (next to the main Smithy) to forge weapons and armor for them using Buddy Scraps.
  • You obtain Scraps automatically when forging your own gear, or you can trade excess monster parts directly for Scraps.
  • Equip your buddies with weapons that inflict Sleep or Paralysis. Even a small amount of status buildup from your companions frequently results in one or two free openings per hunt.

Endgame Optimization​

While Palamutes are excellent for early game mobility, they are mathematically outclassed in the late game. As you approach the endgame, you should transition to using two Palicoes.

  • For Material Farming: Run dual Gathering Palicoes. They steal exceptionally rare monster materials (including Mantles and Gems) using Pilfer, and they apply crucial status effects via Endemic Life Barrage.
  • For Difficult Encounters: Run a Fight Palico and a Healer Palico. The Fight Palico provides a massive 30% affinity (critical hit) buff to the entire team via the "Rousing Roar" skill, drastically altering your optimal weapon builds, while the Healer keeps you alive.