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https://youtu.be/HJwvrmuK000
Now, Savage Axe was introduced in Iceborne along some other changes to CB like basically a slight nerf to SAED (the ultimate attack where you use all your phials), Savage Axe is a really strong playstyle (the best against many most of the monsters) and it's a bit similar to the old games where SAED spam was't viable.
Savage Axe hits benefit from the offensive skills any other melee weapon would do, and you get a bit of damage from phials too.
Against monsters that have good hitzone values for melee attacks Savage Axe will usually be the way to go, DPS wise is stronger than SAED (in certain matchups).
Impact SAED is still kind of usable but kind of dead in the meta, but elemental SAED is still pretty damn good. I don't know if you're still in vanilla game or Iceborne but in Iceborne the few fights I can remember where SAED (Elemental) is better than Savage Axe are: Namielle, Diablos and Lunastra, I could be easily forgetting a few though.
I am not sure what do you mean by charging sword more than a half, phials management becomes something instinctive and when you know the weapon and the monster enough you manage that according to the situation you are in.
About skills, Capacity Boost is basically mandatory. The skills CB needs are basically like any other melee weapon, it gets benefits from critical chances (maxed out if possible, with Weakness Exploit and Critical Eye, obviously Critical Boost too), even if you don't use Savage Axe, when you SAED you need to try to land the physical hit of the axe because it does a lot of damage.
Other useful skills for CB are Focus, that allows you to charge phials more quickly, ideal for SAED playstyles where you basically spam the ultimate, though isn't as required for Savage Axe.
Guard is also good, but Guard interacts with CB a bit differently than with other weapons.
When you charge your shield that is already a Guard boost although you can't see it in your current skills. And when you guard point (something you should learn to do if you haven't yet) your guard will be boosted even further.
Because of those things CB only benefits from 3 different levels of Guard: 1, 3 and 5. Having guard 2 would be the same as having Guard 1 when you Guard Point with a Charged Shield, and having Guard 4 would be the same as Guard 3.
To block everything as you asked you don't need Guard 5, on certain monsters. Some monsters will give you a much stronger knockback if you don't have high levels of Guard (like Brute Tigrex and Ruiner Nergigante) but Guard 1/3 is usually enough for mostly everything.
There are certain attacks that cannot be blocked without a skill called Guard Up, such as Teostra's nova, Lunastra's blue flames, Black Diablos fast charge in Master Rank, etc.
Nergigante CB is Impact Phials so adding element won't do much, boost its raw. Only get elemental attack for elemental charge blades. (Also if you use Impact SAED you want to have Artillery, though not as required for Savage Axe)
To move around you can use the slide attack you have with your sword in Sword and Shield mode with Circle/Right Click, but mostly you just roll or walk, sheath when necessary.
I hope I made some sense in this wall of text, as I said in the other post, I am bad at teaching , I'm only good at killing stuff, in the unga bunga way.
Also I'm kind of tired so if I made any mistake I apologize.
To OP, check also his Guard Points video.
What about all those vanilla monsters that you get to fight in Iceborne? Did they get buffed just enough to make SAED not viable anymore? What's the deciding factor in that?
Charging sword (in more than half of visits i saw). You know... Empowering sword from charged shield...
Is it even possible to fit all those in single set? How about defenses then? Like Crisis or anti stun?
I tried fitting lv2 of that and honestly didn't notice difference. As it still took two rightclick charges with sword and basic attack in between to get phials.
^ now that is something my brain can't comprehend. What's guard point?
So having charged shield actually reduces guard level? or i'm reading that wrong... that one is hella confusing i must say because all I knew is that lance blocks everything, other shields not. And assumed SnS blocks even less because it's small...
Ok, but bigger knockback means I can't counter that attack by blasting dragon pods to it's face, right? Glad to know that all I need is 3 guard points tho.
Let me guess, that skill is hard to actually get? Because it sounds like I would love that.
How about those weapons with elemental damage grayed out? Me and friend called them "hidden element". (No idea where he got that phrase but it fits.) If such element is on elemental phial CB but I have no skill to unlock that element (like, that Free Ammo charm), does it instantly make whole CB worthless? (for clarification, i DO have ability to have that skill on level 3 at all times). How about if I use such weapon with Impact phials on it?
I tried, but usually that gets me only to other side of Kirin where I still get kicked in my teeth :I And if I try to run after Lunastra that decided to cosplay as a happy cat running from place to place... well, I have to do simple attack in between those slides and I might as well just walk at that point.
Everyone is good at teaching if they know what they are talking about. And I also do walls of text. I'm fine with those :D
Don't get me wrong, I don't aim for speedruns or most optimal tactics, all I want to do is learn how not to suck just enough to impress my friend next time we go suck at "red outline" Kushala Daora from HR events :D
No worries, it's past 5am here too and as humans we should understand that people are not perfect beings and we all do mistakes from time to time :D
Will do. Hopefully it will make sense to me with my limited knowledge :D
Having a balance that allows you to play comfortably while doing good damage is very important.
For CB, Focus 3 or nothing. No real benefits with Focus 1 and 2, Focus 3 will help you to charge faster, and even the sword animations for charging up phials will be a bit faster.
Guard Points are a special blocking you can do between certain transitions from SnS to Axe mode, and viceversa, the most common Guard Point is from Sword and Shield to Axe while pressing R2/Triangle (Control+Left Click), when you press that imput to go to axe mode, if you do it right before getting hit you will Guard Point.
And no, Charged Shield boosts you guard level, meaning your Guarding level gets stronger with a Charged Shield (and a Guard Point will make it even better)
Bigger knockback means that you won't be able to SAED from blocking/guard pointing the attack, or do any other attack while you character recovers from said knockback.
Greyed out Element is in fact, called Hidden Element. You need a skill called Free Element to unlock it. Most of the Charge Blades with Hidden Element are mediocre and you will have to trade more skills than usual to unlock the element.
The best Elemental Charge Blades are from Kulve Taroth (Kjarr ones, not the normal ones), bu pre Kulve Taroth in Iceborne you can use stuff like Beotodous for Ice, Glavenus for Fire, Zinogre for Thunder, Hazak for Dragon and Jyuratodous for Water.
For Impact CBs Safi Jiiva would be your goal before the "real boss" of Iceborne, but other early charge blades that are decent are Dante's from the Devil May Cry event, and of course, Raging Brachydios, Raging Brachy is in fact as strong as Safi'Jiiva.
I recommend checking the videos from the channel stealthdriver posted above, the speedrunner explains things way better than me. And also this can give you a general idea of certain CB stuff: https://mhwbuilds.net/charge-blade-guide/
In that website there is another section with builds but they're mostly DPS oriented so you don't really need to follow them (though you can see which skills are the best for damage in there, and some progression builds)
Speaking of which... There is one decoration I keep... gives me Resuscicate (or something like that) skill when I get inflicted with negative effect that reduces rolling cost. Is that even worth to have in general? My logic was that it's good because it makes getting rid of burning cheaper, or getting inflicted with ice pretty much is countered by that skill. Am I just wasting a decoration on that one? How about things like tremor resistance or recovery speed?
Does it also improve how fast SAED gets ready to blast? I find myself getting hit in the face either at same moment as I hit enemy with it or just before that and it's kind of rage inducing...
oh... that explains some things... Does... savage axe also have some sort of frames of that in middle of some attacks? or i-frames for that matter? or that's just my luck of gently getting pushed few times by legianas fly-by attack somehow?
Ok now that you mention it, this will fall on your shoulders- how do I even SAED from a block? Only way to "counter" I knew was "guard>get hit>shotgun style rocks to the face". And that works only if enemy attack is weak enough to gently tap on your shield. (or if your dualblade duo partner gets too wild on his demon mode and starts to bang your shield).
Oh. And I was actually using those because they seem to have better elemental stat. And also have better sharpness. And somehow they are the ones I could actually make.
That's that event with big golden dragon, right? I didn't understand it when it was happening last time, made my palico some armor out of stuff I picked up and didn't even see any weapons that I could make out of it. Only armor that didn't even impress me at that time. (does MR have it's own special version with special items? Back then I was HR)
Safi'jiva is FAR yet for me I believe (despite the fact that I found that one as pretty easy boss after those other elders that were introduced in story just before Safi). I still can't beat a damn bazelguse on MR and I haven't even seen stuff like raging brachy or whatever Rajang even is.
In fact, regular Brachy was painful enough for me that I decided that I won't even do it again despite the fact that I will probably need those materials. I will just order palicos to bring it from safari and will pray that argosy gets the rest. :I
I have myself DMC sword. I believe it's only rarity 8 or something tho (I'm pretty certain I got it in HR and I didn't upgrade it since). And I believe I have at least 2 other thunder weapons that look better by numbers.
Yeah, will check those videos for sure. Just don't want to start now because it's already past 6am and if I know myself it would mean I will go to sleep at 10 in the morning... :D Obviously, that's not really a good thing by far...
I actually checked that site before. Understood 2 things- "I will never have enough decorations, especially tier4" and "I have no idea how half of that build logic works".
Another thing:
If I build critical, does it matter if I take elemental or impact weapon? For example, does elemental weapon benefit less from critical because it crits only "physical" part of damage? Or damage is damage and crit increases everything?
Learn how to use savage axe.
It sucks that CB became so much like SA with iceborne as we went from a counter puncher wp to evading like everyone else.
It doesn’t, SAED plays like Greatsword, predicting the monster.
Savage Axe doesn’t have i-frames except for just dodging. If I remember correctly going from Axe to SnS mode has a Guard Point too but It’s 3am so I’m not even sure.
When you block or guard point just press Triangle+Circle and you will go directly into the SAED animation (you can also cancel into AED but that’s a bit more complex in timing, easy with practice though)
Kulve has her own MR version, not a siege, just a quest where you kill her, and once you kill her you can use her materials to meld weapons at the melder and get random weapons, so you technically don’t need to do the HR siege anymore. (The weapons you will get are High rank, you will have to upgrade them with MR Kulve materials to get their MR versions)
DMC Sword is for Impact, the Thunder is just an extra that you shouldn’t mind. Raging Brachydios is a brutal fight until you learn it, you need to beat the final boss of Iceborne’s main story first though.
Just to clarify something, Phials don’t crit, it doesn’t matter if it’s Impact or Elemental, the phials themselves will never crit, only your physical hits do. Therefore critical chances will benefit you with both Impact and Elemental because you will crit when you are charging phials and when you hit with the SAED axe hits.
Needless to say it’s mandatory for Savage Axe since crits are a massive damage increase.
I use way more the draw guard point than that one lol.
i miss my Valor Dash guard points... never been a better reason to run constitution and evade distance on CB. close that distance, pure god mode all the way to them!
I find myself using both savage and saed all the time depending on what kind of enemy I get to fight and where enemy really is. I suck at both, not gonna lie...
Wait, which one is which now? I have recovery one that tripples recovery of red (yellow?) health when I get hit. As I always aim to have Immuniser buff I just thought it made sense?
Oh, ok, wasn't aware that was an option. Glad to know. About canceling into AED you mean by pressing "S + basic attack (Left mouse for me because for now i'm M/K scrub for now. long story, but I wish I had my gamepad with me.) in middle of SAED charge-up animation? Is there another way how to AED when shield is charged instead of doing SAED?
Oh, where do I find that quest then? And how viable is it for someone like me to do it?
Neat, and I always thought having 5% affinity was just enough because it's not a dualblade and some of the hits feel too weak to matter (like savage hits sometimes. Which I avoid using because it makes my dualblade partner fly in the skies when he tries to go ham with his demon mode on knocked down teostra :D)
Hold up, what's draw guard now? Does that imply that skill for draw attacks might do something for CB too?
Extra few:
I have flinch-free at lv1 because I felt it negates my partner (dualblade) interrupting my attacks. Is that just coincidence or that's exactly what that skill is for?
Did I miss something or there is no other way to know total damage (and contribution) in a hunt other than random post-hunt screen where it shows some sort of "achievements" for each player? You know, the screen where it shows who made most slinger shots or mounted monster most times or picked up most junk from the ground...
Kind of would like to see how different my damage is in comparison to my partner out of curiosity. I'm aware of 3rd party tool, but reading forums here I noticed a very strong bias against it because it also shows other stuff like enemy health (part health too? I'm not clear on that) and possibly other metadata that's not supposed to be seen and that does sound a lot like cheating. (don't get me wrong, to each their own as long as they keep it for themselves. All I want is to see total damage of me and my friend. even if it's merely by %)
M/K scrub?, what do you mean?! We keyboard users are the true master race.
It is indeed S+Left click to cancel a SAED into an AED. You can only do it after a SAED animation when you have a Charged Shield. Therefore Guard Points are kind of a shortcut for it.
Guard Point into SAED and then AED or Savage Axe.
I think she requires MR24 if I remember correctly, and she hits like a truck so you will need decent MR armors and weapons.
If you have your weapon sheathed you can press R2/Control to unsheathe with your axe instead of your sword and shield. This has a guard point basically, if you press Control when you are about to get hit (timing is a bit tighter than normal guard points) you will guard point with the unsheathe animation, pretty baddass.
And nah, it’s just guard point, stuff like critical draw would be useless for CB.
Flinch Free 1 negates all the small knockbacks from your teammates, meaning they won’t interrupt you with the normal hits (the only weapons that will flinch you with FF1 are the Lance charge, the charged hammer hits, the SnS backhop attack, don’t remember the name, the one you use to jump instead of Perfect Rush, I think one of the glaive heavy attacks does too but not sure about that one, and of course all the uppercuts will send you to fly regardless of Flinch Free, so Hammer, fellow CB users, SA users and GS users can yeet you if they want to)
And no, only if you get around 70% of the damage in a hunt the game will “reward” you with “Damage Dealer” in the ending screen.
That’s the only legit way to know if you completely outperformed your teammates.
Other than that is through 3rd party software.