Popular builds based around the Long Sword or Insect Glaive

[Leigh]

I'm new to Monster Hunter as a series, I've known of it since MH Tri but I've never played any of the titles.

As strange as it sounds I kinda liked it from its almost Pokemon like perspective, but obviously with quite a different slant on "battling monsters". I'm also a old hand at some gear set intensive MMORPGs, namely Final Fantasy XI, a game I played for around 8 years. I also played FFXIV (both versions, but preferred ARR) for a couple of years, and dabbled in Knights of the Old Republic and Star Trek Online.

Basically trying to say that I'm not new to the concept of creating a character build when it comes to gear. But, of course, totally new to it when it comes to MH:W.

I'll be playing solo, what two friends I thought would have lapped it up as they too were FFXI/XIV players are either too busy or not interested. Honestly, I'm not sure they even know what kind of game MH:W is. Thats another story, though.

In previous games I've tackled pretty much all your class types, I would not say that I prefer any one over another. I was used to playing what I wanted, or playing what I was needed as. Each type of class has its positives and negatives and I just rolled with them. As such, I really have no idea what I want to do in MH:W.

As weapons, I find the Long Sword and Insect Glaive kinda cool, so I'm looking for peoples ideas based around those. Going solo I assume I will have go pretty tanky as opposed to a all out damage dealer, which is fine. I kinda like the idea of a medium to heavy armoured Darth Maul springing about all over the place.

So, any particular gear and skill paths I should be considering for the Long Sword or Insect Glaive? I like the idea of the Polearm and Shield, too, so feel free to add those in if you wish.

[maj. gooner]

why dont just try having some fun

[khermerker]

im a insect glaive user.. still from what i see there are two forms of play this game in terms of equip.. focus in a mixed set and tune it based in what you want or like me have full sets different for each element. For the first you can wait for more info .. but for the other... just look a set you like in a element you want and grind. I had done a lot of multiplayer (and solo but i suggest go multiplayer after end story.. or for when you enter HIGH maps) and my rate of be carted is low.. i mean a lot of times i never get carted and see other carted a lot.. this experience for me seems that my approach is correct. Before say the combat style that can work.. if you plan this.. learn use loadouts.. that is make a armor set and save it for when you need it.. you can change in camps and takes 1 min at max.

Now on how fight... well after try lot of things the style is kinda straightforward, First get the boost at least red. Then do aerial until you mount monster. bring it down and then do combos in floor. Cause you will mount a lot is better get the neckalce that increase change of mount... sadly you will need wait a lot for get it.

Last thing.. this game is kinda free and as long you don't cart almost all you do is ok.. i will not list all you must not do but in multiplayer this 3 are a must.
1. do all for no be carted, that is cure if you need, run, farm equip that let you survive 1 or 2 hits etc. (you know i was worried in a team with my tempered lunastra.. and was fine only 1 was carted not me.. still i expected the randoms have bad equips for her)
2. Never flash a monster that was mounted, attack can be risky too .. if a part is cut will ruin the mount complety... still a lot fo people (even me) accept that other people attack .. even if its a little better not attack.
3. only put bombs if other put bombs and probably wait only for sleep. Bombs and some ammo will bother all your teamates reducing the damage they do. This is like the first you are there to help take monster down not for bother other chars.

So just enjoy the game and play with your style, as long you follow those rules.. pretty much
nobody care how you play it. YUp there are few that bother all what others do.. but will not be that comun.

[Leigh]

Originally posted by asdfasdfasdf:

why dont just try having some fun

Which is why I made this post, to figure out which direction I want to take myself to get the most fun out of the game, as I have no preference based on common character tropes (I've played and enjoyed them all).

[Tarshaid]

I'll speak only for the IG, although some advice can be applied to both.

If you want to look like Darth Maul, the Nergigante glaive is the best thing you'll ever see, along with what I think is any explosive kinsect for the red glow (I can be mistaken). It takes a while to get there, but you'll only need to follow the regular steel upgrades for it, so it'll be easy once you have access to it.

Now, as for what to build with, the best "defensive" skill you could likely look for would be Health Boost. Naturally some elemental resistance where it applies always helps, but considering that your base health bar is of 100, can go up to 150 with meals/max potion, the opportunity to add 50 on top of this is just too good. Most of getting good defense is simply using armor spheres to improve your armor's defense, so that's usually covered.

You'll likely want to play with elements and the IG is not too bad with it, at which point the critical element will likely be of help (provided you have options to get crits in the first place, but every player wants to run weakness exploit), so the rathalos gear will likely be relevant. But that's when I'll have to add something: you'll see the skill "jump master" and think it'll be great for the IG since you can fly freely (don't fly too much btw, ground attacks deal great damage). It's actually completely useless, since it doesn't work when doing jump attacks, so you'll never actually see it have a point.

As long as you are in low ranks, however, consider that every armor piece you have will be absolutely trivialized when you enter the higher ranks. So don't fret too much over not having the greatest build while you're there, you'll have all the time to start over once you're done. You'll still need the low ranks weapons to upgrade them to they high rank counterparts, so don't dismiss that either.

[Seamus]

Originally posted by lei07:

Originally posted by asdfasdfasdf:

why dont just try having some fun

Which is why I made this post, to figure out which direction I want to take myself to get the most fun out of the game, as I have no preference based on common character tropes (I've played and enjoyed them all).

Thing is, this isn't an mmo with class roles. Seriously, find a weapon you enjoy the feel of and go ham.

[Stationary Traveller]

Originally posted by lei07:

As weapons, I find the Long Sword and Insect Glaive kinda cool, so I'm looking for peoples ideas based around those. Going solo I assume I will have go pretty tanky as opposed to a all out damage dealer, which is fine.

Wrong assumption. Monsters in single player have way lower HP and stagger/status thresholds compared to multiplayer, which means that if you keep doing enough damage they will be constantly flinching and unable to attack you to begin with.

As for the main question, LS and IG are similar weapons with similar needs: both have a meter system that allows you to buff your character (although it works differently for each weapon), both will be consuming sharpness pretty fast and both require high affinity to be able to crit most of the time. So your standard build for these weapons will be almost identical, although LS will likely make the best use out of it due to not having stamina consuming aerial moves.

A standard set for LS/IG will usually include the following skills to the max levels or close to:
Weakness Exploit - the single best affinity boosting skill in the game
Maximum Might - to increase affinity during grounded combos
Attack Boost - to increase raw attack and get a small affinity bonus (only lv3 is required)
Critical Boost - to increase the damage of your crits
Handicraft - required if your weapon can reach higher levels of sharpness or if you just want to extend your sharpness bar a little
Protective Polish, Master's Touch, Razor Sharp/Spare Shot - you'll usually need at least one of these skills to prevent your weapon from going down a sharpness level and losing damage

Other skills to consider:
Critical Eye - if your weapon's base affinity is low
Peak Performance - to use with a health augment for a "vampire" build
Power Prolonger - extend the duration of kinsect buffs and of the spirit level buffs. Better on IG because the 3 extracts state doesn't last for too long
Stamina Surge/Stamina Cap Up - for aerial IG users
Focus (LS only) - makes your spirit gauge fill quicker

Don't bother with elemental until Drachen comes out. Status however is pretty valuable on both weapons since they hit quite often.

[Pafti]

Pretty much use common sense. Look at your options, and pick the stuff that increases your damage output the most, while still giving you enough options to stay alive. Staying alive is the priority, but should be something you can achieve without a single point spent on actual survivabilty skills. You may use them of course, but they're like a bandaid, you want to get good enough to not need them.

Here are two good Longsword sets for reference, one with Protective Polish, and one without, in case you don't have it yet. In both cases, you could replace the Vitality jewels with Attack ones, but those take a while to collect. Vitality is the single best defensive skill in the game, so if you're gonna use any, use that.

http://honeyhunterworld.com/mhwb/?43,83,99,80,76,100,65,aff,0,0,26,0,0,5,0,0,16,96,0,75,0,0,57,0,0,96,96,0,3

http://honeyhunterworld.com/mhwb/?43,83,82,80,76,100,65,aff,0,0,26,0,0,5,0,0,16,0,0,16,0,0,57,0,0,96,96,0,3

[Kyukyu]

You can go full DPS in this game even when playing solo, but I honestly don't recommend it for end-game. You can and will be one-shotted by monsters at one point or another if you do that. Unless you become quite comfortable with a monster's patterns, I suggest you take at the very least Health Boost 3 in terms of defense. It is by far the most powerful defensive skill in the game as it comes with no diminishing return unlike physical defense at a certain point. Divine Blessing 3 comes second, but you're basically hoping for RNG to be in your favour when you will get hit by the heavy attacks so I tend to rarely use it anymore myself. If you are getting hit a lot and notice you get stunned quite often Stun Resistance 3 would be a welcome addition to your builds until you become comfortable fighting most monsters.


When it comes to melee weapons in general, you can never go wrong with Attack Boost 4 and Weakness Exploit 3. People usually got for four levels of attack boost instead the seven because of the 5% additional affinity it gives you. And Weakness Exploit gives you a whopping 50% additional affinity when hitting a monster's weak spot and honestly why wouldn't you want to hit a monster's weak spot anyway?


In terms of Long Swords, nothing beats the Divine Slasher. It has great physical attack to start with, no affinity (so no negative affinity which is quite nice compared to most high physical attack weapons), a level 3 jewel slot, can hit white sharpness at Handicraft 3 and has an okay white sharpness at Handicraft 5 and most importantly of all has a hidden element which means you will be able to add Non-Elemental Boost to it which will increase that high physical attack by yet another 10%. The only issue is that you will need to farm a bit of special arenas to get it as it is a Workshop Weapon. But you should easily be able to find lobbies doing them by simply filtering your server search to arena quests.

Useful skills for the Long Sword are Critical Boost, Handicraft, Maximum Might, Speed Sharpening (mostly a quality of life skill but will keep you at white sharpness for that extra 12% damage easier) and Protective Polish (usually paired with Speed Sharpening).


In terms of Insect Glaives the best one so far is Tyrannis Glaive II (the Diablos one). Comes with very high physical attack with the cost of a base -30% affinity (which you will be able to augment it to make it only -20% base affinity), a level 2 jewel slot, can hit white sharpness at Handicraft 4 but really doesn't come with a lot of white sharpness even at Handicraft 5. I'd say for this one it's best to stay at Handicraft 3 to have the most blue sharpness possible unless you can equip Speed Sharpening and/or Protective Polish on it. But you can also equip Non-Elemental Boost on it as it has a hidden element as well and also comes with the Stamina Boost for your kinsect which is a very good thing honestly.

But honestly, I could also suggest you the Vice (Odogaron) and Catastrophe's Light (Nergigante) Insect Glaives as they are very good as well even though statistically less than the Diablos one.

Useful skills for the Insect Glaive are Critical Boost, Earplugs (that way you can continue your aerial combos when the monster roars, even though that is not the most optimal way to play Insect Glaive but still fun to do which is why I recommend it), Handicraft, Power Prolonger (more of a quality of life skill but still useful nonetheless) and again Speed Sharpening, Protective Polish and Non-Elemental Boost if the weapon has a hidden element (like the Vice does but the Catastrophe's Light does not).

Originally posted by asdfasdfasdf:

why dont just try having some fun

Originally posted by Seamus:

Thing is, this isn't an mmo with class roles. Seriously, find a weapon you enjoy the feel of and go ham.

Everyone has their own way of having fun in a game. If his is to make builds and try to optimize his character the best he can, where's the issue?

[Stationary Traveller]

Originally posted by ♡ | Kyukyu:

In terms of Insect Glaives the best one so far is Tyrannis Glaive II (the Diablos one). Comes with very high physical attack with the cost of a base -30% affinity (which you will be able to augment it to make it only -20% base affinity), a level 2 jewel slot, can hit white sharpness at Handicraft 4 but really doesn't come with a lot of white sharpness even at Handicraft 5. I'd say for this one it's best to stay at Handicraft 3 to have the most blue sharpness possible unless you can equip Speed Sharpening and/or Protective Polish on it. But you can also equip Non-Elemental Boost on it as it has a hidden element as well and also comes with the Stamina Boost for your kinsect which is a very good thing honestly.

Diablos glaive falls behind the other glaives in terms of sustained damage output until the Drachen armor set comes out. Until then you'll be better off using Hazak Entoma, Cane Styx, Grunge Storm or Taroth Water which can reach white sharpness with much less or no Handicraft and can therefore spend more points in damage boosting skills.
Vice has too low raw to be ever worth using, and in the endgame Catastrophe's Light won't keep up with the other glaives that can actually reach white sharpness.

[Prince Vegeta]

I'm not at end game but i've been enjoying the IG as well. I like sets that either boost the aerial damage or help deal with stuns and roars.

[FafnirChaos]

I don't think anybody can help you out with what weapon choice to go with, It depends on what you like and what your most familiar with in other games.

This game itself is not a final fantasy game. I have lots of experience in FF games and Coming from them expecting something smiliar isn't going to run its course properly.

Your experience in Pokemon may actually help you out, if you play competitive you know that builds are the most important aspect of the game. High Levels with the best gear isn't going to do any favours to anyone.

That being said LS I'm not familiar with in builds, Rarely even use one.

Insect glaive is whole another story, Building a tank Insect glaive is just going to drag out a fight.. It will ultimately end in you losing most of the time, Insect glaive has 2 functions 1 To mount monsters and bring them down, and 2 Manuverablity.. It's fast and It's one of the dodgist Weapons in the game, If your familiar with Fighting games and beat'em ups This is a potential weapon of choice.

If your actually looking at something tanky and fun.. Lance maybe your calling, however it's probably best to just pick a weapon go to the training area and test out what you like.

[Magistrella]

If you're unfamiliar with MH i'd advise to go for a defense LS build first before you go full DPS, so you learn when to Foresight Slash and how to build your Bar quick.

Get the Water Bone LS Dipterus III, put 3 Health Regenration Augments on it. Add 3 Health/3Recovery Up/3 Divine Blessing and 3 Stun resistance via Gear or Jewels and learn. You will get 5-7% HP per hit on weakpoints back, if the monster is weak against water, like Teostra, even more. It's quite nice as you can learn mechanics while keeping up the DPS b/c you dont have to drink potions when you get hit.

After you're sure you can Foresight at the right moment get a Sword of your choice, for Raw DMG go for the Divine Slasher - i personally went for the Ruin Version of the Lunastra Sword and put another health leech augment on it.

I went with a build of:

Maximum Might 3
Weakness Exploit 3
Critical Eye 3
Critical Boost 2
Recovery Up 3
Health 3
Stun 3
Divine Blessing 3

This gives me 90% affinity when hitting weak spots, what is all you ever really should do. The Critical Boost adds another 10% to those crits and with that another 7% or so to your weakness point hits. Plus you still have that survivability if you fire that Foresight Slash at the wrong time or just get nuked by a flashed Lunastra >.>

Ofc I'd see higher numbers with the DS, and i could swap all my def jewels for offensive ones, but im so used to be able to dps 95% of the time without having to drink a potion, that i'd probably cart the second i'd try to. Eating minor hits that dont knock me back and only do 10-20% of my HP can be healed by connecting one chain *shrug*



So, if you want to go for sure, but way slower, kills with the LS, go for full leech. The moment you feel safe you can switch. I rarely cart anymore, i think luna was the first on 30h of playing after i made my leech set - but thats part of the learning process

anyways, hf with that stylish LS if you go for it ^.~

[Xilo The Odd]

IG can be used a few ways, i typically build mine as both decent damage and support, the "best bug" is the blast one typically that you see everyone using, but theres more to it than that. that blast bug means nothing if your allies are dying all the time. so i tend to use para and heal bugs more. sure its more challenge on me because they arent fast and high damage, but the bug was never the damage, me and my TEAM are the damage far exceeding the bug. heal clouds are great for small monsters and monsters that dont move often, your allies can get in, get hit come back in and take a heal cloud your bug made while you stand your ground or zip to another spot on the monster through the air. para bug benefits everyone always when the monster gets stuck and everyone can pound something flat.

as for builds its all in how you find yourself playing the weapon. my suggestion is if possible, record yourself for a hunt with the weapon see what your doing most often then skill around that.

i did this for my HBG set and i've never been dissatisfied. scatter shot, impact mantle, maximize for KO potential and crit. even through in bludgeoner because im not afraid to beat a monster when my gun goes empty.

[Leigh]

Thanks to those that have offered their sugesstions. It has given me an idea of how to "build the build" going forward.

Now once I hit endgame I will be comfortable with my weapon choice, an idea of a build in mind, and all it would take is wiki-ing what I'm not sure about. So, thanks all.