The Great Sword in Monster Hunter Now is a formidable weapon, capable of delivering devastating blows to monsters with each swing, though its size makes it a bit cumbersome to handle. To create an effective Monster Hunter Now Great Sword build, you'll want to focus on slowing down your enemies, and the latest updates have introduced sleep-based weapons to help with this strategy. Pairing these with the right skills will enhance your ability to induce sleep more frequently. Here's a detailed guide on crafting the optimal Great Sword build for maximum effectiveness.
Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Build
While the Long Sword thrives with poison attacks, the Great Sword excels when paired with sleep-inducing capabilities. To fully assemble this build, you'll need to target a somewhat rare monster, though more common monsters will supply most of the necessary 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
The Frilled Blade is your go-to choice for a sleep-based Great Sword in Monster Hunter Now. It comes equipped with the Evade Extender skill, which is handy for creating distance after dodging an attack. While not crucial for the build, this skill enhances your defensive capabilities with the Great Sword. To craft this weapon, you'll need to hunt Somnacanth for the necessary materials.
Helmet & Greaves
The core of this build is sourced from the Nightshade Paolumu, introduced during the first paid event. This monster provides essential parts and skills, including all three levels of Rude Awakener, which boosts your damage by 100% on the first attack against a sleeping monster. While Nightshade Paolumu are more common now, they might still require some patience to encounter, either through events or as rare spawns in subsequent seasons after completing the main story quest.
Mail, Gauntlets, & Coil
The remainder of the build focuses on maximizing the Status Sneak Attack skill, ensuring sleep buildup when attacking from behind. You'll also gain points in Evade Extender and Artful Dodger, which help in evading attacks. Tzitzi-Ya-Ku, a more commonly encountered monster thanks to the paintball tracker, is your target for these parts.
Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Driftstone Slots
This build benefits from a relatively low requirement to unlock all its Driftstone slots. Ideally, you should aim for five slots in Sleep Attack to maximize sleep buildup. Alternatively, you can enhance your dodging capabilities with Artful Dodger and Evade Extender or boost the damage dealt to monsters when attacking 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)
