Best Great Sword Skills in MHWilds- InMonster Hunter Wilds, the satisfying gameplay loop of hunting monsters to get loot to craft stronger gear to hunt strongermonstersmakes a grand return. And with this grand return also comes the return of a variety of skills that come with the equipment you will be forging and using in your hunts.
In Monster Hunter Wilds, there are a total of 148Skillsthat have unique effects, and each one of them is helpful in a particular aspect when you are playing the game. A lot of the skills that were in the previous games make a return with a few newly added skills.
The biggest change to skills in Monster Hunter Wilds is that some of the Equipment skills that were on the armor pieces in the previous games have been moved to the weapons. This particular change makes it so that you will not be locked into specific monster trees when using a particular weapon.
In this guide, we will be taking a look at the skills that will bring out the Great Sword’s full potential during your hunts.
Best Great Sword Skills in MHWilds
TheGreat Swordis a weapon that can deliver devastating slashes with its charge attacks, dealing massive damage to monsters with each hit. In addition to the ability to Guard, the weapon also received amazing defensive options with Perfect Guard mechanics and the Offset attacks, making the weapon stronger than ever. Skills that can enhance these effects will help maximize the value of using the Great Sword.
Great Sword
FocusCritical EyeFlayerStamina SurgeElemental AbsorptionConvert Element
2nd Best Tier
Charge MasterWeakness ExploitMaximum MightPeak PerformanceHeroicsPartbreakerDoshaguma’s Might
Attack BoostDefense BoostRecovery UpRecovery SpeedOffensive Guard
Tier 1 Skills
The best skills to have in your loadout when using the Great Sword include theFocus, Critical Eye, Flayer, Stamina Surge, Elemental Absorption, and the Convert Element Skills. The Focus and Critical Eye skills are Equipment Skills that can be found on Weapons, while the Flayer, Stamina Surge, Elemental Absorption, and Convert Element Skills are Equipment Skills that can be found on armor pieces.
Focus- The Focus skill is one of the best tier skills for the Great Sword because, while the skill increases gauge fill rate, it also reduces charge time by up to 15% at the max level of the skill, level 3. This reduction in charge time is amazing for the Great Sword since the weapon is all about landing your charged attacks and ending with a strong finisher with your True Charged Slash. The reduction in charge time will allow Great Sword users to unleash their devastating attacks faster, quickly taking monsters down.
Critical Eye
Critical Eye- The next skill, Critical Eye, increases the affinity of your weapon. At the max level, level 5, it increases your affinity by up to 20%. And if you pair it with weapons that already have high base affinity, for example, theArtian Swordwith max Affinity Infusion, this skill can easily increase your affinity and critical hit chances to upwards of 50%, enabling you to land even more powerful hits with your critical strikes.
Although there are Great Swords that have the Focus skill built into them, there are no Great Swords with the Critical Eye skill except for the Hope Great Sword. As such, you will have to utilize the Decoration slots and Talisman to obtain both skills at the same time in your loadout.
Flayer- The Flayer skill is an end-game skill that makes it easier to inflict wounds, and it also adds to the non-elemental damage of a weapon. This skill will increase your flat damage output even further from the non-elemental damage increase itself, in addition to the increased frequency of wounds that you can destroy, leading to massive numbers of damage.
Stamina Surge
Stamina Surge- The Stamina Surge skill has three levels, and at the max level, it increases your stamina regeneration by up to 50%. This is the best stamina-related skill for the Great Sword because this increase in regeneration rate will let you fill up your stamina bar quickly as you reposition between your series of charged attacks, taking away the need to worry about your stamina when using the Great Sword.
Elemental Absorption
Elemental Absorption- The skill Elemental Absorption will increase your elemental attacks and resistance to the elemental damage you have taken during your hunt. This is an extremely good skill since it will boost both your offensive and defensive stats, letting you deal more damage while increasing your survivability at the same time.
Convert Element
Convert Element- The Convert Element skill will temporarily give you dragon element effects after taking elemental damage. While active, it will also increase your dragon attack. This skill can lead to massive amounts of damage as the increase in dragon attack will increase your damage output against monsters considerably.
Although all of these skills are in the best tier of the Great Sword, it can be a challenge to get all of them together into a single loadout since you would have to choose between the Elemental Absorption and Convert Element on armor pieces and rely on decoration slots and charms to give you the skills your armor does not have.
Tier II Skills Great Sword
These next set of skills in this Best Great Sword Skills in MHWilds Guide are still really good when using the Great Sword, as they will enhance some part of the Great Sword moveset, but compared to the best tier skills, they will not result in as much overall damage.
Charge Master&Weakness Exploit
Charge Master- The Charge Master skill increases the elemental damage and the status effect build-up of your charged attacks. And since the Great Sword’s bread-and-butter attacks are the charged slashes, this skill will increase your overall damage during your hunts.
Weakness Exploit- The Weakness Exploit skill increases affinity when attacking weak parts of monsters and increases affinity even further when you are hitting wounds or destroying the wounds. And if you are using the Critical Eye skill, this skill has the potential to bring your affinity to 100%, making it so that every charged attack you land will be a critical hit, amounting to huge numbers of damage.
Maximum Might
Maximum Might- The skill, Maximum Might, increases your affinity when your stamina is kept full for a period of time. At the maximum level, level 3, when the skill activates, it increases your affinity by up to +30%, and if you are using this skill with other skills that focus on affinity, this skill can be really amazing as it will be able to bring your critical hit chance to 100% whenever it is active.
Peak Performance
Peak Performance- Another skill that is useful when playing the Great Sword is the Peak Performance skill. The Peak Performance skill increases your attack power when your health is full. At the max level, level 5, this skill increases your attack power by up to +20. The reason this skill is not in the best tier list is that it requires your health to be full to be active, which is relatively hard to do when you are using a slow melee weapon like the Great Sword. Even though there are plenty of instances during the hunt where your health will be full, it will not stay full for long, making this skill less reliable compared to other skills.
Heroics- Another skill that works really well with the Great Sword is the Heroics skill, so I’ve included it in this Best Great Sword Skills in MHWilds Guide. The Heroics skill increases your defense and attack power if your health falls below 35%. The increase can be as much as +30% attack, and defense can be up to +100 while active. However, this skill can become a double-edged sword, as the max level will negate all the defense-increasing effects even though it increases your attack by +30%. Although master hunters can focus on offense and utilize the 30% increase with low health, it is a very risky situation. Therefore, the optimal level for the average player will be level 4, which increases your attack by 10% while giving a defense boost of +100. This risk-and-reward factor of this skill makes it fall into the second-best tier of the skills for the Great Sword.
Partbreaker
Partbreaker- The next skill in this Best Great Sword Skills in MHWilds Guide, Partbreaker, is a skill that increases the damage you will be doing to the weak parts of monsters, and in the Great Sword’s case, the head and the tail, and also increases the damage you do when you destroy wounds inflicted on a monster during the hunt. This skill is outstanding for the Great Sword as it will still offer a respectable increase in the weapon’s damage output. The only reason it is not in the best tier is because, compared to the Convert Element skill, the damage output just falls short.
Doshaguma’s Might/Powerhouse
Doshaguma’s Might/Powerhouse- The set bonus skill gained from having at least two pieces of the Doshaguma or Guardian Doshaguma armor set, the Powerhouse skill, gives you a temporary increase in attack power after a successful offset or a powerclash. This can be triggered after any Offset attack that wards off the monster’s attack, and after winning a powerclash, so if you can time your offset rising slash reliably, this skill can be triggered quite often. But this skill has two downsides: it requires you to use specific armor sets, and it is not active all the time—you have to trigger it with your attacks, which has a lot of variable factors when you are hunting a monster. As such, even though this skill gives a powerful attack boost, the situational nature of the skill prevents it from being one of the best skills.
Optional Skills that are good with the Great Sword
These skills will help in certain aspects when you are using the Great Sword and can be very useful while you are farming parts for your most powerful weapon and armor but they will fall short if you compare their effectiveness to the best skills.
Attack Boost
Attack Boost- The Attack Boost weapon equipment skill increases your attack power, and at the max level, it increases your attack by a total of +4% in addition to a +9 increase. This raw increase in attack power will boost your damage while you are putting together your favorite pieces to use in your loadout.
Defense Boost
Defense Boost- The Defense Boost skill is an armor equipment skill that has seven levels, and at level seven it will give you a +35 defense boost, a +10% bonus to your total defense value, in addition to +5 elemental resistance against all the elements. These raw stat boosts will make you really tanky, and this is really helpful since you will be in the thick of it with the monster most of the time during your hunts.
Recovery Up&Recovery Speed
TheRecovery UpandRecovery Speedskills can help Great Sword users during their hunts, as the Recovery Up skill will increase the amount you heal from all sources, and the Recovery Speed skill speeds up the rate at which you regain the red portion of your health bar. Having these skills will help with your chances of survival during your hunts as you will be taking hits frequently, which is why they are here in this Best Great Sword Skills in MHWilds Guide.
Offensive Guard
Offensive Guard –Lastly, the offensive guard skill increases your attack temporarily after a perfect guard and at the max level it will increase your attack by +15% which can really help with your damage output. This skill will really help if you find yourself blocking a lot while using the Great Sword.
So, these are the best skills to use with the Great Sword in bringing out its full potential in my opinion. I hope you found this Best Great Sword Skills in MHWilds Guide helpful. If you disagree or have suggestions on which skills could work better with the Long Sword, please leave them in the comments below. Be sure to check out ourother guides, andthe wikifor more tips and guides and May the Hunt Favour You!
