How to Use the Charge Blade in Monster Hunter World (Tips & Tricks)

The Charge Blade is perhaps the most mechanically-complex weapon in Monster Hunter World. It transforms from an oversized Sword and Shield into a gigantic axe at the press of a button, and its strength lies in the methodical manipulation of both forms in order to attack and defend effectively.

Players who are looking for a challenging weapon to master have a lot to be excited about with the Charge Blade. It pays off its user’s training with devastating attacks and versatile combos that make it incredibly powerful against all monsters. Here’s a beginner’s guide for this weapon covering basic weapon manipulation, combos, and a few tricks for general gameplay.

Updated November 13, 2024 by Marc Santos: The Charge Blade is a powerful but complex weapon that can be very strong in the right hands. Apart from complicated controls, this weapon also has the ability to perform Guard Points, an advanced technique that can take your Charge Blade skills to the next level. We’ve updated this guide to include a section dedicated to Guard Pointing.

How to Use The Charge Blade

The Charge Blade is a heavy weapon that makes use of a phial system that affects its attacks. Knowing how to manage these phials is the key to mastering this weapon, and you’ll need to know how to charge, load, and unleash these phials before you start thinking about combos.

When you have a Charge Blade equipped, you’ll notice phials below your stamina bar — these will light up and change colors as you attack with the weapon in sword and shield form. Once the phials become red-hot, your attacks will start bouncing off monsters. To avoid this, you’ll need to press R2+◯ to load the phials into your blade.

After the animation, you’ll notice that the phial indicators are now filled. If you press R2+◯ while your indicators are colored yellow, you’ll only load half the number of phials. You can reload again to fill the remaining phials, and you can reload while at full phials without losing anything.

Now that you’re fully loaded, you can unleash these phials by pressing ◯ while in axe form. Each hit will consume one phial. Alternatively, you can press △+◯ while in axe form to do an Amped Elemental Discharge. Once all phials are expended, you’ll have to charge the weapon up again.

Charge Blades are divided into the Impact and Elemental categories, which are dictated by their phial type and the effects their phial attacks (moves that consume phials) have. The former can stun monsters if you hit their head, while the latter deals more elemental damage overall. Impact CBs have generally stronger SAEDs, while Elemental CBs have better DPS with Savage Axe mode.

Essential Charge Blade Inputs and Combos

These are the most commonly used moves for the Charge Blade, and you’ll want to familiarize yourself with how they chain with each other as you learn the weapon. You’ll be spending most of your time in sword form since axe form is slower and has niche use cases.

The most efficient way to charge your phials is to loop Charged Slash and Shield Thrust together. Consider this your bread-and-butter combo as it deals the most DPS. It also transitions nicely to AED/SAED, letting you charge your shield up seamlessly mid-combo.

Super Amped Elemental Discharge can be hard to hit, but there’s a trick to landing it. Once a monster is knocked down, do the bread-and-butter combo, then pull back on your movement stick and press ◯ to do a backward Sliding Slash. This places you just at the tip of the axe’s range, making AED/SAED easier to connect to a monster’s face.

How to Charge the Sword and Shield

Now comes the tricky part. Phials can be used to charge your sword and shield by doing the following combos with any number of loaded phials:

• Shield Charge: (any sword attack), △+◯, △+◯, R2 when the sword is loaded into the shield. Can be done in axe mode by pressing △+◯ then R2.
• Sword Charge: R2+◯, then hold △ when the sword is loaded into the shield. This can only be done when the shield is charged.

To charge the shield, press △+◯ after a Shield Thrust to do an Amped Elemental Discharge (AED). The animation for the latter has two phases: the loading/windup phase and the swing. You’ll want to press either R2 once you hear the click sound during the windup phase. This will cancel your AED into an Elemental Roundslash, charging your shield in the process. Learning this form of animation canceling is mandatory as it is a key part of using the Charge Blade. Such techniques are also present in Great Swords.

To charge the sword, load your phials with R2+◯, then hold the △ button down until the shield compresses. Let the button go to unleash an overhead slash that charges your sword.

The Charge Blade’s signature move, the Super Amped Elemental Discharge (SAED) can only be accessed if the shield is charged. It replaces the normal Amped Elemental Discharge and uses the same button inputs. You can also cancel SAED with L2 to perform a Savage Axe Slash, which causes your axe blade to spin and function like a circular chainsaw.

Charge Blade Tips & Tricks

• The Artillery skill increases the number of phials you have, which translates to higher SAED damage for Impact CBs.
• Use Spinning Slash to dodge attacks or line up a perfect SAED.
• You can do a normal AED even when the shield is charged by pulling down on your movement stick and pressing △ during the SAED windup animation.
• Use axe mode to cut off tails and damage wings.
• Experiment with different attack combos to find shortcuts for SAED.

How to Guard Point with the Charge Blade in MHW

Guard Pointing is a Charge Blade technique where players block incoming damage using certain animation frames in the weapon’s moveset. There are a few ways to perform a Guard Point:

• Transform the weapon from sword and shield to axe mode.
• Perform the third hit of the weapon’s triple light attack combo.
• Perform Sliding Slash via using a movement input + ◯ after any sword attack
• Perform Axe Morph Slash by pressing R2 while in axe mode.

Basically, if the shield is in front of you after your attacks, then it will absorb incoming hits (including roars). Guard Pointing has a stronger guard level than your average block, which means you’ll take less chip damage, and you won’t lose any weapon sharpness. Additionally, a successful Guard Point can be followed up with an AED/SAED.