Longsword advice?

[Silver Ferret]

Any tips on doing good with Longsword? I'm HR6 and am trying it out. I'm not doing awful, but I'm also using the Defender line.

[mercurious05]

I'm no LS main, but I've put some hours into out of curiosity and the desire to weeb.

Like most weapon sets, knowing the monster helps a lot--but I would say spend some time in the training area learning which moves reposition you. Once you have those memorized, apply them mid fight to avoid damage while building your spirit gauge. Once it hits red, you spend it all as soon as there is an opening--create one preferably.

I know that's just a basic overview, but thems the bread and butter of it.

[BloodReaper]

I feel these video's will help you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vFUM14b6CQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jayzwPYveQ8

[76561198378545136]

Originally posted by Silver Ferret:

Any tips on doing good with Longsword? I'm HR6 and am trying it out. I'm not doing awful, but I'm also using the Defender line.

pro tip: use something else

[Vallard]

A s someone who learned LS in rise: You have 2 basic playstyles you can get by on, the charge slash wirebug move and the counter attack wire move. Both do great damage and choosing one to focus on will be more with what you like. I prefer the dash move over the counter as it makes you more mobile and saves a bug for evasion (the counter attack costs 2 bugs).
With the dash you don't need to use spirit combo as much as if even a single hit of it makes contact you get an upgrade to the spirit meter (same thing that happens if you get the full combo off). Because of this you spend more time using helm breaker and Iai slashes. You will be rolling a lot with this playstyle. A lot of LS users have trouble landing the full spirit combo and so this is better for beginners but deals slightly less over all damage.

With the counter attack you focus on filling and spending the spirit gauge as you did in older games but you have a super powerful counter attack you can use to deal ridiculous amounts of damage. The timing for the counter is very generous and the damage it deals is based on the power of the monster's hit. In HR i've seen well over a thousand damage when countering Magnamarshmallow's super dive ability and narg's tail bash (I spent waaay too long farming him).
These abilities are not mutually exclusive and you can keep both on hand to use situationally (recommended).

Other than this just remember that your highest priority is reaching red spirit gauge level and keeping it that way. Only use helmsplitter if you've got red spirit and you are absolutely sure it'll land on a weak spot (head is best, called helmsplitter for a reason). You can smoothly enter special sheath from pretty much any other attack and you should make a habit of this because you can freely rotate while sheathing and its great for stopping the Vergil-esque flashy sheathing animation that follows a spirit combo and gets bad LS users killed. Spirit combo is good for dealing damage even in red gauge. When a monster gets knocked down or bug tied a solid damage move is spirit combo-special sheathe-iai slash-helmsplitter.

More advanced techniques are using the baseline counter slash (makes you nearly invincible if you get good at it) and using foresight slash to dodge (one of the more difficult tricks).

[Emiya Muljomdao]

skill issue

[ZacHt]

longsword is one of the weapon that is hard to master.. take your time learning it, its a weapon that will benefit you greatly if you have the perfect timing to counter monster moves. check some videos on youtube for guides and builds. but most important, having fun at the end of the day

[Talos]

Defender gear is meant for people who have already finished the game and want to rush to sunbreak content. Use other equipment lines for a real experience.