MH Wilds Palico Guide: Which Gadget Wins by Hunt Type (Healing vs. Paralysis vs. Trap)

Patch verified: TU4 (Version 1.040, 2026). Values may change with future updates.

Most players assign their Palico a weapon, forget about the support moves, and watch their companion fire healing wasps, shock traps, and airship cannons in no particular order. The result is a Palico that wakes your sleep setup with a shock trap, launches a five-second airship sequence right when you need a heal, and plants a Paracorn on a monster you’re trying to capture.

The fix takes thirty seconds. Since TU1.3, you can toggle any individual support move on or off from the Palico Menu at Base Camp. Most players never discover this.

This guide covers all 12 support moves, the unlock quest chain in order, how to level your Palico to 30, and—the part no other guide provides—a gadget selection matrix showing exactly which moves to run and which to disable for healing setups, paralysis hunts, capture runs, and sleep builds.

Quick Start: Five Steps Before Your Next Hunt

1. Complete all five Palico side quests to unlock the full support move roster—Vigorwasp Revival is locked until Chapter 6 and it’s your highest-priority unlock
2. Equip your Palico with a paralysis weapon (Felyne Barina Needle is a strong early option)
3. Open the Palico Menu at Base Camp and toggle off Place Paracorn on any hunt where you’re running a sleep or status setup
4. Enable Sporenet: Song o’ Power for aggressive hunts and Vigorwasp Delivery for anything you’re learning
5. In 3+ player hunts, all Palicoes auto-sit out—plan your survival strategy accordingly before queuing

All 12 Support Moves Explained

Your Palico has access to 12 support moves across four categories. Seven are active from the start; five require completing specific side quests in High Rank.

Healing Moves

Vigorwasp Delivery (Default): Sends a Vigorwasp to your location when your HP drops low. Your core survival move—never toggle this off unless Revival is active and you know the hunt cold. [3]

Purewasp Delivery (Default): Removes all blights and status ailments. Invaluable against any monster that inflicts Thunderblight or Fireblight. Thunder Resistance at 20 prevents Thunderblight status, but Purewasp is a faster fix if you get caught without the right resistances. [3]

Attract Vigorwasps (Unlockable): Calls a Vigorwasp to a specific location rather than sending it directly. More situational than Delivery, but upgrades to summon Giant Vigorwasps for larger heals. Unlock: complete “Healing Help” after capturing Yian Kut-Ku in Chapter 4. [5]

Vigorwasp Revival (Unlockable): Revives you after fainting once per extended cooldown. This is the only source of a cart-prevention outside your three shared faint counter, making it the single most valuable Palico move in the game. At Palico level 26, the move upgrades to restore substantially more health on revive. Unlock: complete “A Gutsy Move” in Chapter 6 after finishing “A Break in the Clouds” and “Purrfect Plundering.” [6]

Buff Moves

Sporenet: Song o’ Power (Default): Grants a temporary attack buff via melody. Keep this active for almost every aggressive hunt—consistent passive damage enhancement at no cost. [3]

Sporenet: Song o’ Purrtection (Default): Grants a defense buff. More relevant when learning new attack patterns or against monsters with high raw damage output. [3]

Utility and Control Moves

Provoke (Default): Draws monster aggression to the Palico briefly. Useful when you need a moment to heal or reposition—the Palico is fast enough that the monster rarely connects before it’s drawn back to you. [3]

Place Paracorn (Default): Deploys a shock trap that paralyzes the monster on contact. One of the highest-impact moves in the game when used correctly—and the one most likely to sabotage specific strategies when left active carelessly. The weapon synergy section covers this in detail. [4]

Flashfly Cage (Unlockable): Places a cage that blinds nearby monsters when activated. The blind window is short but useful for repositioning or executing a follow-up attack after a stagger. Unlock: complete “Flash Course” immediately after Healing Help. [5]

Plunderang (Unlockable): A boomerang attack that steals items from monsters mid-combat. Essential for farming specific rare drops without relying purely on the Wound system. Unlock: complete “Purrfect Plundering” after defeating Guardian Ebony Odogaron in the Ruins of Wyveria. [5]

Offense Moves

Let-’Er-RRRip (Default): Fires thorny ranged ammunition with a chance to create wounds on the monster. Wounds are free Focus Strike setups—any wound your Palico creates saves your own stamina or weapon resources. [3]

Rath-from-Above (Unlockable): Your Palico pilots a mini-airship and rains down cannon fire. High damage output with a long cooldown. The aerial sequence takes several seconds, during which your Palico cannot use any other move—a tradeoff that matters in survival-focused hunts. Unlock: complete “Rath-from-Above, Go!” at HR 9+ in Chapter 4, after Flash Course, hunting Quematrice (max two hunters). [5]

How to Unlock Every Palico Support Move

The five unlockable moves arrive through a sequential quest chain given by your Palico. You cannot skip ahead—each quest unlocks the next in order. [1] [5]

The main bottleneck is Purrfect Plundering: reaching the Ruins of Wyveria requires completing the main story through Chapter 5. Prioritize this quest chain over optional hunts once Chapter 4 unlocks—Vigorwasp Revival is worth the sprint.

Gadget Selection Matrix: Which Moves to Run by Hunt Type

The default Palico setup—all moves enabled—is not optimal for specific scenarios. Since TU1.3, you can toggle any individual support move on or off from the Palico Menu at Base Camp. [2] Here’s how to configure it for four major hunt types:

Survival / Learning a New Monster

Keep ON: Vigorwasp Delivery, Vigorwasp Revival, Purewasp Delivery, Provoke
Toggle OFF: Rath-from-Above

Rath-from-Above runs a multi-second airship sequence during which your Palico cannot use any other move. When you’re learning a new monster and HP drops frequently, you need the Palico available to send a heal—not stuck in an animation. Provoke buys you repositioning time when the monster locks onto you. [4]

Paralysis Speedrun / Max Damage Windows

Keep ON: Place Paracorn, Sporenet: Song o’ Power, Let-’Er-RRRip, Vigorwasp Delivery
Toggle OFF: Rath-from-Above (optional)

Place Paracorn is the paralysis-focused Palico’s primary contribution. Song o’ Power multiplies the damage window with a passive attack buff. Let-’Er-RRRip creates wounds for your Focus Strikes during the paralysis lockdown. Stack all three and a single paralysis proc becomes a 10-second combo opportunity. [3] [4]

Capture Run

Keep ON: Place Paracorn, Provoke, Vigorwasp Delivery
Toggle OFF: Rath-from-Above, Let-’Er-RRRip

Rath-from-Above can push a weakened monster past the capture health threshold and kill it instead. Let-’Er-RRRip creates wounds that sometimes trigger effects you’d rather not activate on a low-HP target. Place Paracorn synergizes directly with capture runs: using both your Shock Trap from inventory and the Palico’s Paracorn can create a double-paralysis window to safely close in for the capture. [4]

Sleep + Item-Detonation Setup

Keep ON: Sporenet: Song o’ Power, Vigorwasp Delivery, Purewasp Delivery
Toggle OFF: Place Paracorn

This is the most critical toggle in the game. Place Paracorn drops a shock trap on the monster’s location—which immediately wakes a sleeping monster, destroying your free-hit window. If you’re running a sleep weapon or relying on a barrel bomb setup, toggle Paracorn off before the hunt starts or it will interrupt your knockdown every time. [3]

Palico Weapon Synergy: Why Paralysis Doubles Your Damage Windows

Equipping your Palico with a paralysis weapon turns Place Paracorn from a standalone utility move into a two-source paralysis combo.

The mechanism: paralysis in Monster Hunter Wilds is a buildup status—the monster absorbs hit damage until the buildup crosses a threshold, then locks up completely. Your Palico hits the monster on every attack. With a paralysis-attribute weapon like the Felyne Barina Needle, every hit adds to that buildup. Then, when the Palico deploys Place Paracorn, the shock trap adds an independent paralysis source—separate from the weapon buildup. [7]

In practice across a typical hunt, this creates two distinct paralysis windows:

1. First paralysis: Palico weapon buildup crosses the paralysis threshold naturally—typically within the first half of the hunt, depending on monster tier and Palico level
2. Second paralysis: Place Paracorn fires as a standalone shock trap, independent of weapon buildup status

Using a blunt-type paralysis weapon compounds this further. Blunt damage applied to the monster’s head contributes to KO/Stun buildup alongside the paralysis procs—giving you potential stagger windows on top of the lockdowns. [7]

Palico armor skills that multiply this setup:

• Status Attack Up (3 slots): Increases paralysis buildup speed from the weapon—shortens time to first proc
• Knockout King (2 slots): Boosts stun damage from blunt attacks—doubles down on the KO contribution from head hits

One note on resistance scaling: monsters build resistance to paralysis with each successive proc. Community testing suggests thresholds increase by roughly 1.5× per proc (Tier 4 data—hedge). Expect two reliable paralysis windows per hunt and treat a third as a bonus, not the plan. [7]

How to Level Your Palico Fast

Palicoes level up by accompanying you on hunts. The level cap is 15 through standard progression, rising to 30 after completing the Urgent Quest that unlocks at HR 40. [1]

The practical takeaway: take your Palico on every High Rank hunt. Don’t grind Low Rank quests specifically for Palico XP—the difficulty multiplier matters more than frequency. A single Tempered HR hunt gives more Palico XP than several short LR quests. [2]

The level 26 milestone is worth targeting: Vigorwasp Revival upgrades at that point to restore significantly more health on revive. If you’re farming endgame content, reaching 26 before committing to specific builds makes Revival a substantially more effective safety net.

Palico in Multiplayer: The Co-op Rule

One rule governs everything about Palicoes in co-op: Palicoes only appear in hunts with fewer than three players. In a three- or four-player group, all Palicoes automatically sit out. They return if the party drops to two or below.

What this means in practice:

• Solo: Full Palico support active—Revival, Paracorn, healing, buffs all available. Solo is where your companion investment pays off most.
• 2-Player: Both hunters keep their Palicoes. The most impactful co-op configuration: one Palico handles Revival and healing support while the other runs Place Paracorn and Song o’ Power for shared damage windows.
• 3–4 Player: No Palicoes at all. Your full healing, control, and buff support kit disappears. Bring more Mega Potions, coordinate with your party’s Hunting Horn player for buff coverage, and treat the hunt as a resource-management exercise rather than companion-assisted play.

For survivability-focused players, 2-player is the sweet spot: you keep both Palicoes, HP scaling is manageable at approximately 163% compared to solo (community testing, Tier 4 data—hedge), and the companion support kit remains intact. For a full breakdown of HP scaling and multiplayer mechanics, see our Monster Hunter Wilds multiplayer guide.

Player-Type Recommendations

The right Palico configuration depends on how you play:

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I manually trigger Palico support moves?
No. The Palico chooses when to use each move based on battlefield conditions. The toggle system lets you control which moves are in the pool, but not the moment of execution. The practical way to influence timing is to avoid the Palico Menu toggle altogether and instead use enemy positioning to create conditions that trigger the move you want—but this is observed behavior, not confirmed game design.

Why does my Palico keep waking my sleep setup?
Place Paracorn is active. Toggle it off via Palico Menu at Base Camp before any hunt where you’re building sleep status. This is covered in the Selection Matrix above, but it’s the single most common support-move mistake in the game.

Does Palico level reset when I change equipment?
No. Palico level is persistent and unaffected by equipment swaps. Upgrade armor and weapons freely without losing XP progress.

Is Vigorwasp Revival worth the quest chain?
Unconditionally yes. An extra faint counter outside the three-faint quest limit—especially on Tempered or Arch-Tempered fights—is the most impactful safety net in the game. Sprint through the quest chain as soon as Chapter 6 unlocks. [6]

My Palico doesn’t appear in some hunts. What’s happening?
You’re hunting with three or more players. Palicoes auto-sit out in 3+ player parties—this is intended behavior, not a bug. Drop to two players or hunt solo to restore companion support.

Sources

• How To Unlock Every Palico Support Move In Monster Hunter Wilds — TheGamer
• Palico Support Moves — Icy Veins
• List of Palico Support Moves — Game8
• Monster Hunter Wilds: 7 Best Palico Support Abilities, Ranked — GameRant
• List of All Palico Missions — Game8
• Vigorwasp Revival Effect and How to Unlock — Game8
• Monster Hunter Wilds Best Palico Guide 2026 — WildsBuilder

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.