Objectively Best Weapon

[Hi.standard]

I know there probably isn't an objectively best weapon but if you were really forced to come to one choice on best overall weapon, what would it be?

I've played almost only Lance, and Sword and Shield. And I love them, but, I cant help but feel like, for my skill level, they are like some of the weakest options and in the lances cases, a tad boring when you basically have 2 attacks.

So i'm looking for a new weapon to dedicate myself to, I've avoided overly popular weapons like the long sword...

I'm leaning towards Great Sword, or light or heavy bow gun. Any thoughts?

[Dr. Raven]

Originally posted by カミナ:

Originally posted by D. Flame:

LS is super easy. What are you talking about?

compared to what? Charge blade? Maybe? Compared to many other melee weapons absolutely not. In world my LS skills lag way behind with other weapons like GS, hammer, lance etc. LS is pretty hard and complex if you actually try to utilize the weapons parrying, dodging, immunities etc.

From a skill floor perspective. As in, a player who only ever touches it for the first time and arena quests, I will say Long Sword feels 3rd worst weapon to learn from scratch in a short while. I remember having to watch a tutorial for it for my first monster hunter game and that's just to do the arena quests with it.


Skill floor wise when touching weapons for arena question I'd say:

Charge Blade > Insect Glaive > Long Sword > Hunting Horn > Gunlance >
Bow > Switch Axe > Lance > Bowguns > Dual Blade > Hammer > S&S > Great Sword


Anything past gunlance imo is easy enough to understand the basic fundamentals of in a short while.

[Smiles]

I shall always say Sword & Shield!!

[カミナ]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Originally posted by カミナ:

compared to what? Charge blade? Maybe? Compared to many other melee weapons absolutely not. In world my LS skills lag way behind with other weapons like GS, hammer, lance etc. LS is pretty hard and complex if you actually try to utilize the weapons parrying, dodging, immunities etc.

LS has a super simple rotation, and massive iframes.

In MHWI it was:

1.) Use counter to build spirit level, repeat until red level
2.) Helm splitter
3.) iaito
rinse and repeat

Meanwhile HH is dealing with multiple songs and trying to blend them into combat. SA is basically 2 weapons in one and is trying to manage Sword gauge, amp gauge, axe buff. Etc.

I found SA easier than LS or at least similar. HH in world yeah, but you picked one of the most obtuse weapon they keep changing precisely because they can't get it right.

Learning to actually use counters and things with long sword already puts it above most. I agree in general with the person above me who said LS has a pretty decent barrier to learning its meat and bones.

[カミナ]

Originally posted by Dr. Raven:

Originally posted by カミナ:

compared to what? Charge blade? Maybe? Compared to many other melee weapons absolutely not. In world my LS skills lag way behind with other weapons like GS, hammer, lance etc. LS is pretty hard and complex if you actually try to utilize the weapons parrying, dodging, immunities etc.

From a skill floor perspective. As in, a player who only ever touches it for the first time and arena quests, I will say Long Sword feels 3rd worst weapon to learn from scratch in a short while. I remember having to watch a tutorial for it for my first monster hunter game and that's just to do the arena quests with it.


Skill floor wise when touching weapons for arena question I'd say:

Charge Blade > Insect Glaive > Long Sword > Hunting Horn > Gunlance >
Bow > Switch Axe > Lance > Bowguns > Dual Blade > Hammer > S&S > Great Sword


Anything past gunlance imo is easy enough to understand the basic fundamentals of in a short while.

I would tend to agree with most of this. For me when I struggled early on i swapped to GS and first tried something I couldn't do with charge blade despite having used charge blade for many hours over GS. Guard points and the complexity of that weapon is alot.

I think the other guy who says LS is simple is deliberately over simplifying the weapon and comparing it to only the most obtuse examples.

[Scipo0419]

Everyone arguing about DPS like that's the only metric that makes a weapon "the best."

We've already established that SnS is objectively the best weapon. Dps is only part of it and even SnS has good dps with proper usage.

[Toyosatomimi no Miko]

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

Everyone arguing about DPS like that's the only metric that makes a weapon "the best."

We've already established that SnS is objectively the best weapon. Dps is only part of it and even SnS has good dps with proper usage.

The only two things that matter when talking about "objective best" are least risk to user and greatest damage, anything else is irrelevant in such a conversation. SnS both has lower damage and fights in melee with a mediocre blocking ability, which puts it at greater risk.
Longsword does much more damage for roughly similar risk, so do other weapons. HBG and Bow output greater damage for less risk. Bow would be the thoughtless option and Pierce HBG would be the option with the most thinking, since you'd want to hit the monster at the longest part (though as long as the shot hits 3-4 times and enters through a soft enough hitzone it does good damage).

[カミナ]

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

Everyone arguing about DPS like that's the only metric that makes a weapon "the best."

We've already established that SnS is objectively the best weapon. Dps is only part of it and even SnS has good dps with proper usage.

for what? Safety? Versatility? Ease of use? I don't think sns is the best at all, maybe versatility. It was my go to in Sunbreak though it is a great weapon.

[Travis Touchdown]

I think I heard somewhere that they balance the games around Greatsword as it's the THE Monster Hunter weapon. In Wilds, it definitely does it all with big damage (they're buffing TCS for full release even) and it gets both Power Clash and Offset attacks. Power Guard shoring up the weapon's historically weak guard and the Offset attack has been added to its historically worst move in the upswing.

As an all around weapon, it seems pretty good in Wilds. I can't imagine that it'll be the fastest for TA though as that's always HBG.

[Scipo0419]

Originally posted by カミナ:

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

Everyone arguing about DPS like that's the only metric that makes a weapon "the best."

We've already established that SnS is objectively the best weapon. Dps is only part of it and even SnS has good dps with proper usage.

for what? Safety? Versatility? Ease of use? I don't think sns is the best at all, maybe versatility. It was my go to in Sunbreak though it is a great weapon.

It can stun like hammers and horns but it can also cut tails
It can apply status and element like dual blades.
It can mount without ledges like an Insect Glaive
It can use any item while unsheathed
It can deal big damage like a great sword
It has built in I-frames like a Longsword.

[Dr. Raven]

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

It can mount without ledges like an Insect Glaive

It has an aerial attack on flat ground? Or does take a slope to aerial attack like charge blade?

Unrelated but I hope there's an arena in this game with a slope again.

[Scipo0419]

Originally posted by Dr. Raven:

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

It can mount without ledges like an Insect Glaive

It has an aerial attack on flat ground? Or does take a slope to aerial attack like charge blade?

Unrelated but I hope there's an arena in this game with a slope again.

IIRC, World added the ability for the charging back step to launch you off the monster into the air. You could falling bash or falling slash (whatever it's called) from there. Dealing mounting damage.

Edit: it's Charged Slash + Scaling Slash + Falling Bash/Jumping Slash

[Nightmarian]

I'm just going to be boring and use Sword and Shield. Swiss Army Knife that can do it all, viable status builds which I use just to piss of people that use speedruns as jerk material, can help others out via nonsheathe items, and it looks the least jank weapon because it's the only size-appropriate one that mashes with the monster slayer theme. DS would count too if not for the weirdness of even "light" looking armor looking too bulky for a rogue or ninja type.

Now that there's a type of bomb that blows up when the monster hits it, I'll also be reliving my Bomberman gaming days.

[Nightmarian]

Originally posted by カミナ:

Originally posted by D. Flame:

LS is super easy. What are you talking about?

compared to what? Charge blade? Maybe? Compared to many other melee weapons absolutely not. In world my LS skills lag way behind with other weapons like GS, hammer, lance etc. LS is pretty hard and complex if you actually try to utilize the weapons parrying, dodging, immunities etc.

LS IS easy, it's actually one of the reasons why everyone uses it alongside it being good. If it was an actually hard weapon, it wouldn't be as near as popular.

To be frank, there are no hard weapons and general mastery is easy too, you will naturally get there over time.

Becoming a 1%er is much harder, but also pointless unless you are a professional speed runner and are already one of the very few that tops the top 1% game content grind.

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by カミナ:

Originally posted by D. Flame:

LS has a super simple rotation, and massive iframes.

In MHWI it was:

1.) Use counter to build spirit level, repeat until red level
2.) Helm splitter
3.) iaito
rinse and repeat

Meanwhile HH is dealing with multiple songs and trying to blend them into combat. SA is basically 2 weapons in one and is trying to manage Sword gauge, amp gauge, axe buff. Etc.

I found SA easier than LS or at least similar. HH in world yeah, but you picked one of the most obtuse weapon they keep changing precisely because they can't get it right.

Learning to actually use counters and things with long sword already puts it above most. I agree in general with the person above me who said LS has a pretty decent barrier to learning its meat and bones.

Foresight slash, or whatever it was called, probably had the most iframes out of any evasion move in the game. If you couldn't figure out how to use it effectively in less than 10 minutes, it was most likely a skill issue.

[Wild]

I think all weapons able to do the perfect block (lance, gl, sns, cb, gs) will be extremely powerful unless some of the monsters out there have good counters for it.