With all the weapons available in Monster Hunter Now, few are quite like the Great Sword. This big chopper can dish out a lot of damage to an unsuspecting monster with every swing, though it can be a somewhat unwieldy tool to use due to its size.
In order to get a decent Monster Hunter Now Great Sword build, you’ll need to slow down the enemy somehow. Thanks to subsequent updates since launch, some monster material parts now enable you to craft sleep-based weapons. However, you’ll also need the appropriate skills to trigger sleep often, so here is all the gear you need to make the best build.
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Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Build
While the best Monster Hunter Now Long Sword build focuses on poison attacks, the Great Sword works best with a different element: Sleep. You will need to encounter one relatively rare monster to create this build fully, but you’ll also be able to fight more common monsters for the bulk of the equipment.
Full Monster Hunter Now Great Sword build
|
Item |
Effect |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Weapon |
Frilled Blade |
|
|
Helmet |
Nightshade Paolumu Helmet |
|
|
|
Tzitzi-Ya-Ku Mail |
|
|
Vambraces |
Tzitzi-Ya-Ku Vambraces |
|
|
Coil |
Tzitzi-Ya-Ku Coil |
|
|
Greaves |
Nightshade Paolumu Greaves |
|
Weapon
There aren’t many options for decent sleep-based Great Swords in Monster Hunter Now, but the one to go for is the Frilled Blade. This gives you the more useful Evade Extender skill, which you can use to get some distance after dodging an attack. This isn’t one of the essential skills you need to complete the build, but it can make defensive maneuvers a lot easier to pull off with the Great Sword. You’ll want to hunt Somnacanth to get the materials for this weapon.
Helmet & Greaves
The bulk of this build comes from a monster introduced in the first paid event: Nightmare Paolumu. This will give you some of the better weapon parts and skills that you need, including all three levels of Rude Awakener, which amps up the damage you deal by 100% for the first attack dealt to a sleeping monster. Nightmare Paolumu are a little more common these days, but may take a while to show up for events or as rare spawns in seasons after defeating them in the main story quest.
Mail, Gauntlets, & Coil
The rest of the build focuses mainly on giving you points in the Status Sneak Attack skill, which, thanks to increasing it to maximum, allows us to increase it to guarantee sleep buildup whenever you attack from behind. You’ll also get a point in Evade Extender, as well as Artful Dodger to help avoid attacks. Tzitzi-Ya-Ku is the target for the bulk of these parts and is, thankfully, far more common thanks to the paintball tracker.
Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Driftsmelt Slots
This build does have the small advantage of a relatively low requirement to unlock all its Driftstone slots. Ideally, five slots in Sleep Attack is best. However, you could also use them to increase your dodging capabilities with Artful Dodger and Evade Extender or buff the damage you deal to monsters whenever you attack from behind with Sneak Attack.
- Sleep Attack – increases the weapon’s sleep buildup value. 50 at rank 1 and 150 at rank 5. (Azure only)
- Sneak Attack – increases the damage dealt to a monster when attacked from behind. 10% at rank 1 and 30% at rank 5. (Pale only)
- Artful Dodger – makes evading easier to perform. Slightly easier at rank 1 and significantly so at rank 5. (Azure only)
- Evade Extender – extends evasion distance. Very slightly at rank 1 and massively at rank 5. (Pale only)
- Released
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September 14, 2023