Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate – Guide to Wystones, Frenzy and Apex Primer

Wystones, Frenzy and Apex Primer

This primer is to serve as an explanation of wystones and frenzy as well as some of the more obscure details the game fails to explain.

Things in here can be subject to change if someone is able to directly view the game code or I produce more results or some else does.

Introduction

4u has a special mechanic in the form of frenzy as well as the advanced form of frenzy only certain monsters can get which is called “apex” and you use “wystones” to counteract this special status (even if it’s not really a status by MH terms).

Apex in particular promotes precision aggression or you will get punished otherwise. If you want to know more about weapons and armor read other guide.

For New Players Still Obtaining Wystones

If you want to experience the endgame (level 140 guild quests and yes you should try them), do any apex monster in general or just make your life easier on frenzied monsters, I highly suggest you finish the caravan storyline to get your first wystone and then get your 2nd wystone by doing a string of quests in G rank hub. If you do not have both wystones you will most likely be kicked from guild quest halls. If you aren’t kicked and only have 1 wystone or none, you will be drastically under performing and causing yourself and any teammates unnecessary suffering.

To get your first wystone (your first two wystones being Brace and Force) you have to get up to High rank Caravan Brachy.

They will become level 2 shortly after you finish the story just make sure you pop the speech bubbles after.

To get your second wystone slot you must do G2 “Advanced: Escaped Convicts” then in G3 you need to do “Advanced: Lab Partners” which will unlock a wycoon request that you turn in to get your second wystone slot and some other mostly useless goodies from the Wyceum.

The Actual Information

• To start off, frenzy and apex makes a monster hit harder than usual.

• Apex monsters have “hardzones” and “softzones”
  • Softzones take full damage and you will not bounce on them without the Drive wystone.
  • Hitting hardzones even with drive up will reduce your damage by 80% (EX. 150 damage Bomb becomes 45)

• Apex can directly change the moveset of a monster (Ex, Jang continental rock throw)

• Apex and frenzy can indirectly change movesets by drastically changing the AI.
  • For example, something like frenzy Garuga can turn into actual cancer and spam the unpunishable “walking pecks” attack while frenzy.
  • In addition to this, they can also perform attacks that seem to be aimed towards air which can lead to things like the infamous “Jang beam snipe” during apex or Deviljho trying to kill the air. When you see it you’ll understand.

• Both Frenzy and Apex can only be removed while at least one Wystone is active.
  • Deapex/defrenzy power is mostly based on pure damage output but there are other unidentifiable factors in determining the thresholds for the amount required to deapex.
    • Deapex “power” applied does not decay overtime like a status does, meaning you can leave it one hit till it can deapex, wait 40 minutes, reapply a wystone and deapex in 1 hit.
    • Since hardzones give a 80% damage debuff (even with drive) hitting hardzones will deapex slower than hitting a softzone since it reduces your damage.
      • If you use force and drive (which you should), using both at the same time will give you a faster deapex as drive and force both give you more damage.
        • Force gives you 20% more damage on frenzy and apex monsters
        • Drive stops bounces on hardzones and gives a flat 10% more damage for guns. For blademaster it gives a 1.16 sharp mod, or just simply put, 16% more damage.
        • These are multiplicative, meaning you’ll get more damage out of using them at the same time than 1 by 1.
    • HP roll actually increases or decreases the threshold required to Deapex
      • Lower HP roll means slightly lower threshold to deapex and higher roll means slightly higher threshold to deapex. Overall a non factor.

• Monsters in Apex take no status or element damage without the ele wystone

• You cannot deapex/defrenzy during certain states. The most common example being Apex Rajang continent rock throw as he cannot be flinched out of it and thus cannot be deapexed out of it.
  • If you reach the deapex/defrenzy threshold during one of these states, the required amount to deapex will be “0” so anything can do it, including paintballs and dung bombs.

• A monster has a minimum time it must spend in frenzy/apex before you can remove it so try to squeeze in that last hit while you have your wystones active.

• Any monster that can go Apex will start turning Apex at level 136 and up in Guild quests.

• A monster in frenzy sleep still takes damage as it normally would.

• Gore and shagaru may give frenzy to things in the poor excuse of a story, but they themselves are not frenzied and thus not affected by wystones.

• Some monsters get an actual hitzone increase or a hitzone reduction while frenzied or apex.
  • When put back into their normal states, their hitzones return to normal until frenzied or apexed again 
  • Further explained in the image below 

• Each consecutive deapex is slightly harder than the last but not by that large a margin. Meaning the first deapex is the easiest and it only gets harder the longer the fight drags on.

• Items do not get the benefits of wystones but they can still deapex. For example the 112 damage a large barrel bomb does will not be modified by Force’s damage mod and they still suffer from Apex hardzone damage reduction (22 damage per bomb after the 80% reduction) and hitting a hardzone with a bomb while drive is up will still give the bounce animation.

Apex hard and soft zones visual

Data on frenzy/apex hitzone changes

Note these are actual global hitzone changes on all parts of a monster.

Any frenzy/apex monster not on this list does not have any global hitzone changes.