Monster Hunter: World - Complete Guide for Preparing for Iceborne DLC

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Other MHW Guides:

Achievements Guide.
All Camps Locations.
All Palico Gadget Locations.
Elder Dragon Investigations.
Where to Find Kirin (Elder Dragon).
How to Get the Sinister Cloth (Death Stench Armor Set).
Extreme Behemoth Guide.
Armor Skills (Guide).
Bow Guide.

What to Do

Here are some things you can do to prepare, as well as some lesser-known things to work on.

There has been a lot of discussion of the more obvious things, and most people are probably well aware of this stuff, but I’ll put it here for the sake of completion. Look further in the guide for some more obscure stuff.

These will definitely help save some time in early MR.

Consumables:

Most people will be well aware of this, but it’ll be good to have lots of consumables ready for MR (I like to keep everything above 100), such as…

Mega potions
Max potions
Lifepowder
Dash juice
Demon drugs
Demon powder
Traps
Bombs
Flash bombs (note that these will be getting nerfed)
Loads of ammo
Loads of raw materials, such as honey, bitter bugs, blue mushrooms, etc.

Weapons:

Having a good collection of different weapons ready to be upgraded into MR will be a good idea. You will likely be able to craft MR weapons, but this will be more expensive than upgrading. We don’t know which weapons will be meta (I’ll add optimal trees to this page once console launches), but having access to most trees for your favorite weapon types wouldn’t hurt.

Canteen Ingredients:

While you can get by if someone in your lobby has all the ingredients, it is worth spending time collecting all ingredients yourself. People really underestimate food skills, and having more ingredients increases the chance of having fresh ingredients. There may also be new ingredients added in Iceborne too.

Charms:

Charms will have upgrades in MR so having a collection of the best HR charms ready will save time, especially charms like handicraft.

A Few Other Notes:

Decorations (?): HR decorations will be less valuable, as it will not only be easier to obtain rarer ones, but there will be new MR decorations that give multiple levels and combine skills. Still good to have a collection, but probably not worth focusing on, despite what a lot of people are saying.
Kulve Taroth weapons (?): despite being the some of the best weapons in the game, these will quickly become redundant compared to MR gear, especially since they cannot be upgraded. However, there are rumors that the devs want to reward people who have a good collection of kulve weapons, so it could be useful continuing to farm these.
Armor: again, armor cannot be upgraded, so will become redundant in MR. Only craft what you need for early MR quests.
Armor spheres: there will also be new tiers for armor spheres, so having a large hoard of HR spheres will only really be useful for early MR.
Gold wyvern prints: there will be a new tier of tickets called celestial wyvern prints. Gold prints will still be useful for crafting HR weapons (or charms) that can be upgraded for MR however.
Augments (?): apparently, augments will be kept even on MR upgrades for weapons (although this is just a rumor), so having a good collection of streamstones might be useful. This is quite speculative as there will probably be a new form of augments or another means to obtain them.
Vouchers: farm greeting the gluttons for these, though there will be a new tier called gourmet vouchers.
Layered armor: for those completionists, go ahead and do this now, but it will be far easier to defeat AT monsters and extreme behemoth with MR gear. Feel free to wait if you aren’t up to the challenge.
Research levels: having all monsters fully researched may save time when Iceborne drops, as there will be new research levels for MR (and an achievement for maxing all of them in MR). This might be drastically faster once Iceborne drops, so this one is up to you.

Here are some of the more obscure things which might be helpful to have done once the expansion drops or those looking to squeeze every drop of content out of the game during the wait. If you’re really desperate for more stuff to do, this is for you:

Tailrider Unity:

While you’ve probably unlocked all the palico gadgets by befriending tailriders, you might not have maxed unity for all maps. This will be more important for Iceborne since it will improve the raider ride ability (and the max unity will be increased from 5 to 10). Gajalaka’s are also especially important for the traps that randomly spawn on maps.

Event Tickets:

This one is a little more speculative, but event gear such as the Wyvern Ignition will likely have a MR upgrade. It is possible that these upgrades will require tickets from the low/high rank event quests, and it would be a pain if you had to wait for a given event to be available again, so might be good to have a few spares. These might also be used for more layered armour, but that’s just speculation.

Resource Point Farming:

This one is a bit niche, but the new housing decorations are confirmed to be bought with resource points. If you want to obsessively collect this stuff (like me), having a lot of excess RP will let you unlock everything quickly. RP is also used for layered armour, so depending on how much new layered armour we get, RP might be good to have.

Endemic Life:

Again for those completionists, having all the endemic life and fish before Iceborne will allow you to flex on people who lack the will to reload an area for hours until a giant platinum fish spawns. They will be allowing you to invite other people into your room too, so all the more reason to waste time doing this stuff.

Hopefully this keeps you busy through the long wait until launch.