How Good is Switchaxe with Iceborne?

[Scorcher]

When I first played I mained switchaxe for about 200 hours and had a ton of fun until end game when it got harder to use. I found greatsword to be more rewarding and simplistic with high damage, easier stagger, and amazing solo potential especially when deviljho first came out. 300 hours later I've only used greatsword and have been having fun easily breaking shara heads and glavenus tails off like nothing, but some iceborne monsters I feel would be easier with say a faster more mobile weapon setup so I looked back at my old dusty switchaxe. I hear it was better than base game which was apparently horrible. Can it rival a greatsword veteran for damage now?

[Smug Kot]

Originally posted by Netsa:

Originally posted by Undertale: SHRIFTED Edition:

Vanilla SA wasnt speedrunner weapon, unless it was SA exclusive category, the weapon had huge flaws in vanilla being the biggest offender axe mode with pathetic damage and really the damage from sword mode wasn that good to justify the crappy movility.

now iceborne changed all that, well its really good now.

This is what I mean by "wannabe speedrunners". Shelving a weapon because of speedrun tier lists is just stupid.

becouse would be boring if every speedrun was just exploiting bow wall-jump or just straight insane elemental damage.

[JPM岩]

Originally posted by Pard:

It's the best it has ever been, but Sword mode needs some serious getting used to because you are slow and immobile as crap.

Imagine not being able to switch forms with switch axe

[Greb]

Originally posted by JPM岩:

Imagine not being able to switch forms with switch axe

It'd just be an Axe. We've got enough swords. It's time for an AXE! It could be like a Hammer that you insert phials into, but can also sever!

[Mr. Orion Quest]

Switch Axe is the 2nd highest DPS melee weapon in Iceborne, just under Dual Blades. The original problem of the weapon in base MHW were solved/improved.

[JPM岩]

Originally posted by Mr. Orion Quest:

Switch Axe is the 2nd highest DPS melee weapon in Iceborne, just under Dual Blades. The original problem of the weapon in base MHW were solved/improved.

See folks say that, but its 100% not true. It's still middle tier, simply due to the fact other weapons have much higher DPS, even moreso than Zero Skill Discharging

[Shu]

Originally posted by Mr. Orion Quest:

Switch Axe is the 2nd highest DPS melee weapon in Iceborne, just under Dual Blades. The original problem of the weapon in base MHW were solved/improved.

It is the 2nd highest DPS on a static target. You're forgetting a lot of infos here.
The switchaxe gets more powerful the more people there are around you. Everything around you make the phials proc, even the little bugs around what you're hitting.
If you take that in account, it overpower every other weapon, in terms of damage.

https://youtu.be/Y35I309xqmA

[Mr. Orion Quest]

Tuna's math about being the most powerful weapon with multiple targets weren't in reference to his comment about being the 2nd highest DPS melee weapon. It still hits harder than everything aside from Dual Blades because it now provides a very huge, (guaranteed in some monsters and situations) stagger and flinch chance, near instant ZSD and almost guaranteed proc chances (most notably poison, of which the gold rathian SA was the BiS weapon at the time of Tuna's video) and legitimate reasons not only to stay in axe form for longer amounts of time but also negates reasons it was largely only to build meter.

I'm one of the people who share theorycrafting information with the Tuna boys. Even after Safi, SA is still the 2nd highest DPS weapon in Iceborne, regardless of monster position and disposition.

[Shu]

Originally posted by Mr. Orion Quest:

Tuna's math about being the most powerful weapon with multiple targets weren't in reference to his comment about being the 2nd highest DPS melee weapon. It still hits harder than everything aside from Dual Blades because it now provides a very huge, (guaranteed in some monsters and situations) stagger and flinch chance, near instant ZSD and almost guaranteed proc chances (most notably poison, of which the gold rathian SA was the BiS weapon at the time of Tuna's video) and legitimate reasons not only to stay in axe form for longer amounts of time but also negates reasons it was largely only to build meter.

I'm one of the people who share theorycrafting information with the Tuna boys. Even after Safi, SA is still the 2nd highest DPS weapon in Iceborne, regardless of monster position and disposition.

Alright then, i misunderstood, thanks for the infos.
Still the switchaxe is, imo, a really powerful and underrated weapon by players, especially after iceborne.

Also for other people, just because a weapon doesn't perform well in speedrun doesn't mean it's bad, speedrun have very specific situation and setup that are mostly never used in a normal gameplay, please don't compare speedruns and normal gameplay.

[Tanglethorn]

Originally posted by Compa Desu:

it's garbage, trash damage, ZSD is risky and slow

The math gurus have shown before the balance patch that SA and DB where the top DPS weapons vs the training pole.

Take that as you want considering its not a moving target, but it still gives you an idea of its output.

Claiming its a trash weapon is deniable. Numbers dont lie. Its not a brain dead weapon and doesnt have a lot of defensive options, although the new Morph Slash helps and so does the new slinger burst after an Axe attack if you have ammo that can flinch.

Not sure why you'd post bad info?

[Franz]

Originally posted by JPM岩:

Originally posted by Mr. Orion Quest:

Switch Axe is the 2nd highest DPS melee weapon in Iceborne, just under Dual Blades. The original problem of the weapon in base MHW were solved/improved.

See folks say that, but its 100% not true. It's still middle tier, simply due to the fact other weapons have much higher DPS, even moreso than Zero Skill Discharging

Folks who say that have done legwork (or link videos of those who did) to support the claim, what do you have to show? Can you prove the claim is false?

On a static target without bodies around to trigger phial explosions SA has been shown to hold the second highest dps combo after DB (excluding aerial GL and Hammer).
On a real target all boils down to personal skill and experience in the matchup, it's quite hard to establish an objective metric. That's why in the end talking about potential dps, weapon tiers and so on is meaningless: normal players can't consistently reach ideal dps, speedrunners (who can achieve ideal dps by scripting hunts and restarting after a single mistake) only compete against the same weapon class.

As usual the TL,DR is "every weapon is viable. If you find a weapon interesting try it, if you tried it and liked it put in some time and learn it. If you learn it you can achieve good clear times".
Edit: typo :)

[jrubz]

Answer: Stabbing the monster continuously until it dies.

[JPM岩]

Originally posted by Franz:

Originally posted by JPM岩:

See folks say that, but its 100% not true. It's still middle tier, simply due to the fact other weapons have much higher DPS, even moreso than Zero Skill Discharging

Folks who say that have done legwork (or post videos of those showing said legwork) to support the claim, what do you have to show? Can you prove the claim is false?

On a static target without bodies around to trigger phial explosions SA has been shown to hold the second highest dps combo after DB (excluding aerial GL and Hammer).
On a real target all boils down to personal skill and experience in the matchup, it's quite hard to establish an objective metric. That's why in the end talking about potential dps, weapon tiers and so on is meaningless: normal players can't consistently reach ideal dps, speedrunners who can only compete against the same weapon class.

As usual the TL,DR is "every weapon is viable. If you find a weapon interesting try it, if you tried it and liked it put in some time and learn it. If you learn it you can achieve gold clear times".

Im saying that on paper, sure it has the theoretically highest DPS, but in practice, it's impossible; HBG can shred through monsters hours faster than SA can, same with LBG, and technically Bow with the wall shots; on top of that, Charge Blade also has a higher DPS, due to being able to block shots significantly easier than it is to roll with SA, and a Long GL with Wyrmstake can deal up to like 900 damage with a single shot; the highest damage I've seen SA deal is like 515 with an elemental ZSD against a Savage Jho

[Franz]

900 damage on a GL if you use wyvern fire, which has a cooldown, charged L6 shelling is closer to ~250 damage on the stake. SA 515 ZSD is an almost spammable move in the right situation. Apples and oranges :)

My point was that "in practice" is impossible to compare: when I play CB, a weapon with very high potential dps and guard points that allow you to keep combos going through monster's attacks, I can't land a single SAED to save my life and whiff all the GPs. Take DB or bow, very strong, very popular weapons. How often do you see DB chasing around, slicing thin air? Or bows spamming KOconuts everywhere but on the monster's head while being too far away to deal meaningful damage, making the monster run around like a headless chicken on crack?

Until you, or someone else, provides a reliable way to objectively compare weapons in actual hunts we have three metrics: ideal dps against the dummy, speedrun clear times and anecdotal evidence :)