Monster Hunter Rise: Bunny Dango Explained And Best Food Combos

Eating food has always been an integral part of Monster Hunter, especially if you want to embark on every hunt in tip-top shape. This is still true in Monster Hunter Rise, yet Capcom’s latest also revamps its approach to meals, adding more importance to what exactly you’re eating before each hunt and gathering quest. To help you gain a full understanding of Rise’s Bunny Dango system and the best food combinations to try, we’ve compiled this guide with everything you need to know about the tasty treats.

What is Bunny Dango?

Bunny Dango is a pre-hunt meal you can purchase from either Kamura Village’s tea shop or the Gathering Hub’s canteen. Eating any Bunny Dango will grant you extra health and stamina, with these bonuses growing as you progress through the game. At the beginning of the game, you receive a 20+ boost to both health and stamina but this eventually rises to 50+ once you reach either 5* Village Quests or 4* Hub Quests.

In addition to an increase in health and stamina, all of the various Bunny Dango flavors provide special effects that can be useful in specific situations or in general gameplay. You can eat up to three Bunny Dango at one time, but each effect only has a chance of activating, indicated by the percentage listed beneath each flavor. Once you reach High Rank you can even upgrade these flavors to create more potent versions of these effects.

Unlocking new flavors

Yomogi the Chef cooks up each meal with her feline helpers, and she’ll occasionally give you special requests to gather more Dango ingredients. These range from simple quests that revolve around gathering packages scattered across a particular map, to more difficult quests where you’re tasked with defeating a Kulu-Ya-Ku so Yomogi can snatch its eggs. You’ll also unlock new flavors as you progress through the game and reach higher Village and Hub ranks.

Daily specials and saving combos

The first rule of thumb when purchasing Bunny Dango is to check the daily special first. Every time you order from either the tea shop or canteen, there will be a special flavor available that rotates out after every quest. These Bunny Dango provide extra benefits, so it’s worth checking what’s available before heading out on a hunt.

The only reason you might miss the daily special is because Rise also lets you register your favourite Bunny Dango combos. If you find yourself picking the same three flavors every time you order, you can select “Register to Set” to save the combo and then quickly access it by ordering the usual. You can save a generous amount of different combos and give them all unique names for easy reference. This makes it easy to find and eat a combo you might use for, say, gathering quests or against certain monsters. The only downside is you can’t save specific daily specials. Instead, the game will replace it with whatever the current daily special is.

Motley Mix and Dango Tickets

Ordering Motley Mixes from either the tea shop or canteen will reward you with Dango Tickets that can be used to eat for free and add, more importantly, add a 40% boost to the activation rate of each Bunny Dango flavor you order. If you’re ordering a flavor with only a 50% chance of activation, for instance, using a Dango Ticket will push that up to 90% and almost guarantee you’ll receive the special effect before embarking on a hunt.

When ordering food, select the “Motley Mix” option and you’ll be able to use a service that transforms items into more useful ones, for a small fee. Raw Meat can be turned into Well-Done Steak, Blue Mushrooms can be converted to Herbal Medicine, and so on. This is a useful service on its own, but if you want to get your hands on a whole heap of Dango Tickets with relatively little fuss, you’ll want to head over to the Buddy Plaza and speak to the Argosy. Rondine is willing to trade Raw Meat in exchange for 60 Kamura Points. You can acquire a full stack of 99 Raw Meat for 5,940 points, then it’s just a matter of turning that meat into Well-Done Steak by using the Motley Mix. For your efforts, you’ll be rewarded with around 45 Dango Tickets, allowing you to boost those activation rates without being stingy with tickets.

The best Bunny Dango combos

Eating Bunny Dango before every quest is essential just to receive the boost to both health and stamina. When it comes to choosing specific flavors, however, there are some combinations that are more advantageous than others depending on the situation.

Good all-around set

Mint-iature: Temporarily increases attack and defence after consumption, once.

Bestnut: Decreases damage taken.

Medicinal: Increases health recovery from items.

This set provides a decent mix between attack and defence, while the Medicinal Bunny Dango ensures you won’t have to use as many healing items if you sustain any damage.

Defensive set

Bestnut: Decreases damage taken.

Medicinal: Increases health recovery from items.

Balacing: Prevents you from getting knocked on your butt.

This is a more defensive set, swapping out the increased attack and defence for a Buddy Dango that prevents you from getting knocked over.

Offensive set

Mint-iature: Temporarily increases attack and defence after consumption, once.

Peach Skill: Helps your weapon retain sharpness when attacks are deflected.

Sharp: Speeds up weapon sharpening.

If you’re more offence minded, this set helps your weapon retain its sharpness while also speeding up the weapon sharpening process, guaranteeing that you’ll spend more time on the attack.

Gathering set

Call-of-the-Wild: Makes rare Crafty Creatures more likely to appear.

Leg Day: Decreases stamina depletion while wall running.

Bee-utiful: Increases quantity of honey obtained while gathering.

For those embarking on Gathering quests, this set ensures that you’ll obtain more honey and increase the likelihood of finding creatures like the Rock Lizard.

Bowgun set

Beansplosion: Increases ammo damage, but also increases deviation.

Centering: Increases the power of shots and arrows.

Spud-luck: Large Monsters encountered on quests have an increased chance of being weaker than normal.

For those using a bowgun as their weapon of choice, this set improves your damage output as much as possible while also weakening your target. Alternatively, you can also swap out Centering for Fruitflash if you’re using Sticky Ammo.

Hammer and Hunting Horn set

Spud-luck: Large Monsters encountered on quests have an increased chance of being weaker than normal.

Secretheart: Increases the potency of abnormal status attacks.

Dizzybloom: Makes it easier to stun monsters.

This set is ideal for those rocking either Hammers or Hunting Horns as it improves on their already formidable knockout power. With Secretheart active, any attacks that fill the monster’s stun meter will become stronger, which pairs well with Dizzybloom as this also makes it easier to stun monsters.

There are other Bunny Dango flavors you can swap in and out of these sets as you see fit. Numerous flavors offer resistance against elemental damage such as Thunder, Ice, and Fire, so eating these before a fight with a monster that deals specific elemental damage is a smart move. You can also simply experiment and find sets that work for you.