Monster Hunter: World – Guide to Greatest Sword

The Basic Usage of the Weapon

This weapon can hit like a damn truck so long as you can hit your hard hitting attacks.

The controls are simple, so you don’t need to worry about complex combos.
What you need is knowledge and/or intuition to react to a monster’s movement to have your attack charged.

GS’s Highest DMG move is the True Charged Slash. This is acquired by either performing Strong Charge attack or tackle cancel the Strong Charge. 

If you’re wondering what are you supposed to do to do the Strong Charge/ True Charge, you press W+LMB

During your Charging animation and after rolling you can perform the tackle. Tackles have unique properties of Super-Armor allowing the user to be immune to all forms of knock-backs & hit-stuns, with exceptions attacks that force you to become pinned. 

The damage of the Tackle scales with level of charge when you initiate the move.

*While doing this move your character will take less damage.

Weapon Candidates, best & commended

Honestly GS has a pretty fixed weapon meta due to lack of new weapons capable of contesting the Greatest and 2nd Greatest and I assume you probably know the 1st place,

Best Greatest Swords

1. Wyvern Ignition- 

Obviously one of the best in Raw, Sharpness, and has a rather manageable negative affinity. It can be gained from the Hunter’s Dream Event quest requiring ~5 tickets to fully upgrade.**

**The materials for its creation is easy to obtain however to get its final form you have to fight elder dragons to obtain materials & also 5 Fire-cells so good luck!

2. Anguish- 

One of the only weapons that actually has a chance against Wyvern Ignition even though it is elementless. That is of course is due to the weapon’s insane value of ~1200 atk & natural white sharpness. However its -30% affinity is very heavy to alleviate to which makes its effective affinity lower than 100%.
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Commendable Greatest Swords

1. Nergigante GS

This GS is very simple and aesthetically great like the Wyvern ignition however due to it locked to blue it is not amazing in damage output compared to the weapons above and you also lose elementless which sets it behind very far from best

2. Hazak Krys

Another aesthetically amazing design from its uniqueness and rather decent power but like Nergigante GS it lacks power but can reach White sharpness.

3. Jagras Hacker

Albeit it doesn’t look like a Great Sword, it’s definitely more better than those serrated teeth great swords (disgusting). It’s also elementless which can go ahead compared to the mentioned GS. Of course it lacks white sharpness but has advantage in its rather easy to get materials.

Skill Allocations

The Core Component Skills 

[Elementless Boost]
[Crit Eye]
[Weakness Exploit]
[Critical boost]
[Attack Boost] (lv4 at least)
[Maximum Might]
[Focus](only when you have space)
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These are important for boosting your damage per swing. Elemental GS are pretty horrendous due to sluggish attack speed and attacks scale in favor of pure raw damage.

With Max [Crit Eye] and [Weakness Exploit] you’ll get 80% affinity however it isn’t enough for the weapons mentioned. Max Might is capable of helping you achieve the 100% with its 10% boost per level.
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Necessary Survival Skills

[Health Boost]
[Divine Protection]
[Evade Window]
[Evade Distance]
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Optional Damage Boosting Skills

[Peak Performance]
[Agitator]
[Heroics]/ [Feline Heroics]

Armour Composition (Wyvern Ignition Main Focus)

Variant 1- Basic Drachen Set

Head- Dragon King
Chest- Drachen
Vambrace- Drachen
Coil- Drachen
Greaves- Drachen

Slots allocation: 2x Mighty, Critical, Tenderizer, Elementless, Attack, Expert Jewels. (1 Free Lv3 Slot)
Charms- Health Boost

Resistances:
Fire: -8
Water: -8
Thunder: 12
Ice: -8
Dragon: 16
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This is very easy to acquire as many people are quite skilled in hunting behemoth with little to no healer support. However the armor is very weak to Fire and fights like Lunastra & Kulve Taroth, fire res is important. But you are great against Kirin & Xeno Jiiva in terms of resistance. This armour set is so efficient that you are able to have 1 free slot after all your core skills needed to build this set.
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Variant 2- Kaiser y Mix set

Head- Kaiser
Chest- Kulve b
Vambrace- Kaiser
Coil- Kulve y
Greaves- Kaiser

Slots allocation: 3x Vitality, 2x Tenderizer, 2x Mighty, Elementless, & Critical Jewels
Charms- Atk Boost

Resistances:
Fire: 17
Water: -13
Thunder: 9
Ice: -17
Dragon: -1
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This Mixed set is focused on Fire immunity and as you can tell it’s very expensive in terms of Slots and Gamma variant armours however with the 17 Fire res you can be resistant to majority of the game’s fire monsters (basically all if not most) You are also not bad against Kirin though you will usually die. This build however is very non flexible compared to Drachen and should be only used for fire monsters.
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Variant 3- Focus Pocus!

Head- Kaiser y
Chest- Damascus b
Vambrace- Kaiser y
Coil- Kulve y
Greaves- Kaiser y

Slots Allocation:3x Vitality, 2x Mighty, 2x Tenderizer, Elementless, & Attack Jewels. 2 free lv1 slots
Charms- Atk Boost

Resistances:
Fire: 17
Water: -13
Thunder: 6
Ice: -13
Dragon: 1
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This build sacrifices 2 lvs of Crit boost for 2 lvs of Focus, honestly I don’t know if it’s worth but it’s definitely not as powerful but rather flexible for gobbler or satiated.
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Variant 3: The Game-Conomist GS Drachen build (might not be exact)

Head: Drachen
Chest: Drachen
Vambrace: Drachen
Coil: Empress y
Greaves: Drachen

Slot Allocation: 1x or 3x Max Might(a/b), 3x or 1x Weakness Exploit(a/b), Vitality, Expert, & Elementless, and 1 lv3 free slot
Charm: Max Might(a) / Weakness Exploit(b) (Choose Either route)
Fire: -5
Water: -7
Thunder: 13
Ice: -11
Dragon: 14
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Compared to Variant 1 this is much more or less expensive as Tenderizer Jewels are more common than Maximum might. 

However you will lose 10% fixed affinity and have to rely more on Max Might to reach 100% Affinity as your base affinity with this set is 20% instead of 30%. You still have bad fire resistance, however your Resistance allocations are rather amazing due to lack of ice monsters posing huge threat.(unless it’s Legiana). 

This build does allow you to get [Air-borne] which will amplify your Aerial Attacks by 10% so it’s not much of a bad trade off as you also get 2 levels of [Evasion Window] with so you will have easier time evading various attacks and roars much more easily.

Armour Composition (Elder Dragon Culling)

Variant A: World on Fire(Lunastra, Teostra, Behemoth, Kulve Taroth)

Use Variant 2 above, it will offer plenty of Fire Res and it is decent against Behemoth’s Lightning Strike.
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Variant B: L A M P *deadmeme_kms*(Xeno Jiiva)

Use Variant 1 above, swap Health Charm for [Clear Mind] Charm, sacrifice [Expert] & [Attack] for 3 levels of [Vitality]. With so you are immune to lava floors and can resist some of the Laser Attacks.
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Variant C: KIRIN (self explanatory)

Variant 4(Game-Conomist), swap Rock-Steady for Thunder. Have at least (M) Elemental Res Meal.
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Variant D: Vaccination

Variant 1 and swap Expert & Attack Jewels & Free slot for lv3 Miasma. Immunity is a must, also grab some torch pods if you want to take less damage in his Effluvium Juul.

Attacks & Properties

Great Swords have a simple move set and little to no complexity in combos and you’ll find that out yourself.

Great Swords also have the rather unique properties of lacking Attack speed but not so horrid in terms of repositioning when out of position to hit monsters, thus having deceptive amounts of mobility when needing to find openings. 

Also due to the fact it has generally higher MV(motion values) per swing allows you to play in hit and run play-style with a mix of tackles to hyper-armor through non-deadly strikes.

Attacks:
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Draw Attack/Charge Attack: 
Quick and can be charged to power up attacks, useful if you want to do a hit and run initiative.
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Wide-Sweep: 
Also quick and covers large area, however MV is much inferior to everything else. 
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Rising Slash:
Launches players to the sky, not much use in damage purpose due to clunky features.
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Strong Charge: 
Much more powerful than Charge Attack, the finishing combo for a hit and run combo. Similar speed to a Charge Attack excluding the charging time.
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Tackle: 
Your Hyper Armour, damage scales based on level of charge you cancelled, this will slightly move you forward, which can help you do your last hit in True Charge. Consumes ~30(?) Stamina.
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Jumping Wide Slash: 
Much more better than Wide Sweep, also has high Elemental damage Modifier. Scales with the level of Charge you tackled through. A great move when needed to attack after a tackle if you don’t have enough time to finish it with your next Charge Attack
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Strong Wide-Sweep:
Much more powerful than the original, this scales with level of Strong Charge. however you have longer recovery time but your Strong Charge Attack will be quicker by 1 less charge, though the time needed to prepare the next attack after the move is lengthy. 

Though deemed near useless alike the Wide Sweep, this move can help you finish an attack if you know the True Charge won’t reach and you haven’t Tackled.
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True Charge Slash:
Most powerful move, prep up for the attack is lengthy and time needed to attack is time consuming.

Combo Tips & Decision making

In fights you are needed to act accordingly to respond to a monster’s action and strike in openings.
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Your safest move would be,

Hit & Run Combo:
Draw attack > Strong Charge Lv2 (Lv3 if ample time)
or
Draw Attack lv 3

This will be your best move whenever you see a short opening. However depending on the monster’s position and aggro you can choose to either roll and sheathe or continue your combo.
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If monster is certain to move to another player other than you but is far from where you are,

Strong Wide Sweep & Reposition to safety.
or if Tackled,
Leaping Wide Slash & Reposition

You are now possibly the next target to attack after the monster attacks another player. Be ready to dodge and attack during their recovery.
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If a monster attacks another player near you,

True Charge in varied levels depending on their attack recovery time
or just for fun,
Strong Wide Sweep Loop, watch out for aggro on monster whenever you Strong Wide Sweep.
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If a monster falls near you,

1. Reposition to better Weak-point: Draw attack > Strong Charge Lv 2 > True Charge Lv 3

2. If a monster falls when you are mid combo & in their favorable weak point: Max Charge Attack > Max charge True Charge or Strong Wide Sweep Loop.