Monster Hunter World: How to Increase Health & Stamina

By default, your health and stamina bars in Monster Hunter World are rather small.

Here are all the ways how to increase your life bar and stamina:

• Eat a meal at the Canteen. The Chef’s Choice Platter always provides the best health boost.
  • You can unlock better ingredients by doing quests for the Cook in Astera. He will have a yellow exclamation mark above his head when new quests are available.
  • You can also get ingredients from delivery quests for other people. So don’t just sell all the items you find, keep them for delivery quests later.
  • The Canteen will be upgraded automatically as you progress in the game, thus getting much better ingredients.
• Use potions
  • The Max Potion is the best as it permanently increases your health bar to the maximum until you faint. A good hunter will always have one or two of these when going on a quest. Only use them when the Canteen/Meal effects have run out! Otherwise it’s a total waste. It’s crafted by combining Mega Nutrients with Mandragora mushrooms.
  • Mega Nutrients & Nutrients provide a small health increase until you faint.
• Get armor / charms / decorations that boost health
  • Each piece of armor has a special skill. For example, the Bone Helm is great for the early game and gives a health boost.
  • Charms are unlocked in the mid-game, they give you a skill buff (such as more health, defense, attack power, stamina lasts longer etc.). You can also upgrade them to increase the effect but it’ll take a while to gather the materials.
  • Decorations: The option to craft decorations into your armor is unlocked in the mid-game after unlocking 6-star assignments. Basically, your armor after this point comes with free decoration slots (they are like runes). These you can fill up with decorations that you receive from 6-star quests or higher. You can also melt old decorations at the Melder in Astera to create new ones (unlocks when earning the right to take on  6-star assignments)!

There is no way to increase your health permanently (only with armor and charms but when you switch to a different armor your health will go back down). Your health bar does not increase when you rank up, it remains fixed throughout the entire game!

Pro Tip: Always eat a Chef’s Choice Platter before every quest. Bring 2 Max Potions with you. When you faint your health goes back to normal but you can drink the Max Potion to increase it to its maximum again. Also bring other potions that provide buffs. For example, the Armorskin potion makes your skin turn hard as rock so you can take more damage.