In the expansive world of Monster Hunter Now, the Great Sword stands out as a formidable weapon capable of delivering massive damage with each swing. However, its size can make it challenging to wield effectively. To craft a top-tier Monster Hunter Now Great Sword build, it's crucial to slow down your opponents, and recent updates have introduced sleep-based weapons that can help achieve this. To ensure you can frequently induce sleep, you'll need the right skills and gear. Here's a comprehensive guide to building the ultimate Great Sword setup.
Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Build
While the Long Sword excels with poison, the Great Sword shines when paired with sleep. This build requires materials from a rare monster, but most parts can be obtained from more common ones.
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
Options for sleep-based Great Swords in Monster Hunter Now are limited, but the Frilled Blade is your best bet. It comes equipped with the Evade Extender skill, which helps you create distance after dodging, enhancing your defensive play. This skill isn't essential for the build but makes handling the Great Sword much smoother. To craft this weapon, you'll need to hunt Somnacanth for the necessary materials.
Helmet & Greaves
The core of this build comes from the Nightshade Paolumu, introduced in the first paid event. This monster provides crucial parts and skills like Rude Awakener, which boosts your first attack on a sleeping monster by 100%. Although Nightshade Paolumu are more common now, they might still require some patience to encounter during events or as rare spawns in later seasons.
Mail, Gauntlets, & Coil
The remaining pieces of the build focus on maximizing the Status Sneak Attack skill, ensuring guaranteed sleep buildup when attacking from behind. Additionally, you'll gain points in Evade Extender and Artful Dodger, which enhance your evasion capabilities. Tzitzi-Ya-Ku, a more common monster thanks to the paintball tracker, is your go-to for these parts.
Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Driftstone Slots
This build requires relatively low Driftstone slots to unlock its full potential. Ideally, you should aim for five slots in Sleep Attack to maximize sleep buildup. Alternatively, you can use these slots to boost your evasion with Artful Dodger and Evade Extender or enhance your damage 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)
