Photo credit: dotesports.com
The Long Sword has emerged as one of the most favored weapons within the Monster Hunter franchise, praised for its accessibility to newcomers while also offering a steep learning curve for experienced players. In Monster Hunter Wilds, the Long Sword’s capabilities have been significantly enhanced. If you’re keen on perfecting your skills with this weapon, this guide will walk you through the top Long Sword builds and armor, as well as an optimal progression strategy from low to high rank.
Guidelines for Playing the Long Sword in Monster Hunter Wilds
The Long Sword appears simple enough, suitable for quick hunts by anyone, yet mastering it requires a deeper understanding of its mechanics. This guide delves into the essentials of effectively utilizing the Long Sword in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Monitor Your Spirit Gauge Meter: The Spirit Gauge operates on a three-tiered level system, coupled with a charge bar for executing Spirit Slash attacks. Regular attacks contribute to filling this bar, and executing the final hit in the Spirit Slash combo, known as Spirit Roundslash, elevates your Spirit Gauge to higher levels. Each tier amplifies your damage and unlocks unique special attacks.
Optimal Combo for Spirit Gauge Accumulation: Instead of rapidly alternating between light and heavy strikes, it’s more efficient to utilize the Fade Slash by pressing the thrust and slash buttons. This strategically heightens your Spirit Gauge and allows you to leap directly into Spirit Slash III, bypassing much of the standard combo.
Foresight Slash Increases Spirit Gauge: The Foresight Slash not only grants invincibility frames (i-frames) during execution but also allows you to capitalize on timely dodges with a follow-up attack to enhance your Spirit Gauge. Missing this attack, however, depletes your gauge, making it crucial to practice and perfect this skill.
Leverage Special Sheathe Skills: The distinction between average Long Sword players and experts often lies in the use of Special Sheathe abilities. There are two main types: one is a quick double slash that offers passive Spirit Gauge regeneration, and the other serves as a parry that negates damage while boosting your Spirit Gauge.
Spirit Release Slash is Your Brawniest Move: With your Spirit Gauge maxed out at level three, unleash the Spirit Helmbreaker, immediately followed by the Spirit Release Slash. This potent move commits three gauge levels but inflicts significant damage, serving as your primary source of high-damage output.
Maximizing the Red Spirit Gauge State: The heightened power of the Red Spirit Gauge in Monster Hunter Wilds should not be overlooked. While in this state, you can execute your regular Spirit Slash combos for substantial damage before expending your gauge levels.
Employ Iai Spirit Slash: Recognizing and adapting to monster attack patterns is imperative; learning to incorporate Iai Spirit Slash counters will allow you to negate single damage instances while boosting your Spirit Gauge.
The Importance of Quick Sheathe Skill: Accessing Iai Slash and Iai Spirit Slash more promptly is facilitated by the Quick Sheathe skill. Neglecting this at Level three can lead to feeling restricted in your Long Sword play. Securing this skill should be a priority in any Long Sword builds.
Top Recommended Low Rank Long Swords
As players navigate the early-game and low-rank segments of Monster Hunter Wilds, progression can feel slow and requires continuous upgrades to the Long Sword to match rising challenges. While your build may lack ideal armors, charms, or weapons at this stage, the focus should remain on the stats and elemental properties of your selected Long Sword. Here are the optimal choices for early-game enhancement:
- Dosha Fatecleaver I (Rarity 2)
- Uth Khlunda I (Rarity 3)
- Wyvern Blade Ash I (Rarity 4)
- Wyvern Blade Verde I (Rarity 5)
- Windclaw Blade II (Rarity 5)
Each weapon listed serves as the best option within its respective rarity during this phase of the game. Mastering Long Sword fundamentals and optimizing your damage output will significantly ease the journey through the main storyline into the more demanding High Rank hunts.
Best Long Sword Builds and Armor
Long Sword Critical Hit Build
Weapon: Stahlrecht (Dragon Element, 20% Affinity)
Armor: Gore Helm β, Arcvulvan Mail β, Gore Vambraces β, Arkvulcan Coil β, Arkvulkan Greaves Alpha
The Long Sword critical hit build is ideal for players who prioritize landing high-damage critical strikes. This setup aims to maximize your Affinity stat, ensuring you consistently perform critical attack combos and activate enhancement skills for powerful Spirit Slash Releases. The Stahlrecht is the weapon choice here; however, a superior Artian Long Sword may outperform it.
The Arkveld armor set provides the Weakness Exploit skill, which elevates Affinity against injured targets. The Gore Magala armor pieces grant the Tyranny buff, which inflicts Frenzy, temporarily increasing your Affinity by an additional 15% after recovering from it. While armor pieces are predominantly Beta versions for their extra decoration slots, the Arkvulkan Greaves ensure the crucial Quick Sheathe Level 2.
Utilize the Corrupted Mantle for an additional Affinity boost if needed.
Essential Skills and Decorations
Key skills and decorations for the Long Sword critical hit build include:
- Quick Sheathe: Speeds up sheathe animation.
- Critical Eye: Boosts Affinity (Critical Rate).
- Critical Boost: Enhances critical attack damage.
- Critical Draw: Increases Affinity to 100% for initial draw attacks.
- Weakness Exploit: Grants +30% Affinity for weak point strikes and an extra 20% for wounds.
- Master’s Touch: Maintains weapon sharpness on critical hits.
- Antivirus: Activates Affinity bonus post-Frenzy recovery.
- Maximum Might: Raises Affinity while stamina remains full briefly.
- Focus: Accelerates Spirit Gauge accumulation.
Long Sword Paralysis and Sleep Combo Build
Weapon: Lala Ornithocton (Paralysis with 15% Affinity)
Armor: G. Arkveld Helm β, G. Arcvulvan Mail β, G. Arkveld Vambraces β, G. Arkveld Coil β, G. Arkveld Greaves β
This build introduces an intriguing strategy focused on applying continuous status effects like sleep and paralysis on monsters. By doing so, you can keep them stunned and vulnerable multiple times in battles, allowing you to execute powerful Long Sword attack patterns with more safety. This build offers substantial resilience for players who face challenges in dodging attacks effectively.
The Lala Ornithocton weapon is capable of quickly inflicting paralysis. Alternatively, a paralysis-element Artian weapon can be used. The Guardian Arkveld armor provides various bonuses, including Flayer and Weakness Exploit skills, while the Vitality skill from this set enhances survivability throughout prolonged engagements. Choosing the beta armor is strategic, as it maximizes decoration slots without compromising on the core skills.
Integrating your Palico is pivotal. Equipping it with a sleep weapon enhances its ability to apply status effects rapidly. The Felyne Nerscylla Wedge, crafted from Nerscylla Claws, synergizes perfectly with your paralysis skills and traps, often allowing you to defeat monsters before they can escape the initial area.
Important Skills and Decorations
- Flayer: Eases inflicting wounds and boosts non-elemental damage.
- Critical Status: Enhances status effect efficacy with critical hits.
- Weakness Exploit: Grants +30% Affinity for weak spots and an extra 20% for wounds.
- Paralysis Attack: Enhances paralysis buildup rate.
- Quick Sheathe: Quicker sheathe animation.
- Critical Eye: Increases Affinity (Crit rate).
- Divine Blessing: Reduces incoming damage by 50%.
- Guardian Arkveld’s Vitality: Restores health during attacks and while curing wounds.
While this build may not yield the fastest completion times, it remains a highly powerful configuration that minimizes mortality risks while maximizing damage output through status effects.
In conclusion, these strategies represent some of the finest Long Sword builds and techniques for mastering the weapon in Monster Hunter Wilds. For further insight into monsters and their weaknesses, as well as character design codes, numerous guides are available to enhance your gaming experience.
Source
dotesports.com