Continuing with my attempt to post up until the release of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, I’ve decided to take a look at the meat of the game… the weapons. Monster Hunter, like many games, requires to attack with weapons. There is a mix of 14 different weapons, some ranged and some physical, some are similar whilst others are bizarre, here […]
Continuing with my attempt to post up until the release of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, I’ve decided to take a look at the meat of the game… the weapons.
Monster Hunter, like many games, requires to attack with weapons. There is a mix of 14 different weapons, some ranged and some physical, some are similar whilst others are bizarre, here are my top five favourite weapon types in Monster Hunter World.
5. Long Sword.
I was debating whether to put this on the list, my only reason not to is that I’ve used it too much throughout all of the Monster Hunter games and tried to stay away from it in World. But that’s not a good enough excuse to not use it, Nostalgia can be powerful but is normally there for a reason. The Long Sword is probably the most popular weapon in the game, it’s fast, versatile and does a significant amount of damage. It is also pretty beginner-friendly, with the only drawback being you can’t block, but high mobility counters that. In past Monster Hunter games, this was my go-to, now it has begun to make a comeback.
4. Insect Glaive
This is among the bizarre weapons in the game, allowing you to use Kinsects to gather essence from the monster you are fighting. But the main meat to this weapon is that you can fly in the air by attacking the monster, allowing you and your team-mates to actually attack the monster from all sides. also whilst you are in the air, you are quite safe from the monster, allowing you to not take too much damage. The downside to this, is that the aerial attacks do not feel that damaging, maybe it needs a buff? also getting the essence from the monster to activate your combos can sometimes be annoying. I completed the entirety of the base game (My first playthrough), with this weapon and it was a fun experience… a truly unique experience.
3. Switch Axe.
A weapon that I’ve started to fall in love with, allowing you to switch between an axe and a sword, this weapon provides a great deal of damage. After attacking the monster for a period, you can grapple onto the monster attacking with your sword and unload an explosion into the monster. That’s what makes this weapon fun for me, grappling and blowing the monster time and time again, it’s… explosive. With the changes in Iceborne, who knows this weapon may become popular and get some love from Capcom.
2.Great Sword.
You know, I hated the great sword in every Monster Hunter game up until World, it’s slow, clunky and most of the time you miss the monster because of its speed. But when you do land a charged attack on a monster… well it’s not going to get back up, seeing the damage numbers that you can pull off with the greatsword is disgusting. Also, a huge reason that I love this weapon is the Great Sword ‘Wyvern Impact’, which has well… rockets? on the back, which charges up with your charged attack… it also helps that it does insane damage.
1.Bow
So, here we have it… my favourite weapon in Monster Hunter World, the Bow. For good reason, it’s just so elegant, ducking and weaving through monsters attacks as you fire a volley of arrows at it becomes more of a dance than a fight. Once I mastered the bow, the game felt more rhythmic than chaotic, I was able to see each opportunity to rain hell on a monster as I kept my distance and allowed it to dictate the fight. Lloyd used the Bow through his first playthrough and loved it, it can be quite a safe weapon and allows you to do a huge amount of damage whilst dodging the monsters attacks. along with the capability of using different coatings on your arrows to inflict different status effects, this weapon feels so fluid in what it does.
So that’s it, what did you think? Which weapon do you prefer to fight with? Will that change with Iceborne?
Thanks for reading,
Dale.
World being my first foray into Monster Hunter I made an effort to use everything for several hunts. I think my least used weapon is the Hunting Horn at around 20 uses, while my most used is the Hammer at close to 500. And when I say I’ve used the weapons I mean I’ve learned the basic moveset, made an armor set for it, and took it out on a few tier 1 and 2 tempered monster fights. Gotta give everything a fair shake after all.
I don’t even know what I’d have in my top 5 weapons. Probably Hammer, Gunlance, Sword & Shield, Switch Axe, and Great Sword, though Insect Glaive is a close runner up.
I largely tend to prefer the slower weapons with the higher damage output so I only have to land a few really good hits to kill a monster rather than several tiny hits. The S&S is the one obvious exception there. What’s so fun to me with that is you can do an infinite combo with almost no downtime as long as you know the monster’s attack pattern. It doesn’t do a lot of damage, but it can do a lot of consistent damage.
Also very surprised the Charge Blade wasn’t on your list. Almost every veteran hunter I know loves using that thing. I’m indifferent about it myself.
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I am falling in love with the “bigger hitting” weapons, I did try a hammer playtrough as my wife’s just picked up the game, but I just couldn’t get along with it! 😥 I do like to be fast, I suppose it makes me feel safer, so weapons like the bow and long sword make me feel easy.
The hunting horn is also my least used weapon, I think I’ve only used it twice? Maybe I’ll try and use it a little more.
I get that a lot about the charge blade, I dont know… it just feels like whenever I am using it, I’m fighting the weapon more than the monster. The combos and Phial system just distract me from the actual fight, I know it can do some insane damage… it just frustrates me 😅
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The hammer is bae. There is a simple elegance to using it. Plus it has the best aerial attack in the game (spinning bludgeon). Though I will agree that a big part of making both the GS and Hammer work comes from being able to know your foe. If you can’t predict correctly using both can be a huge pain.
The hunting horn has the same long, slow combos of the hammer and GS, but without the big numbers. And playing solo the buffs don’t really make up for the lack of giant numbers. At least that’s my hot take on it.
I have a similar experience. I find it unnecessarily fiddly. You have like…two weapons worth of moves, but all you really need to know how to do is the slide slash, charge slash, guard points, shield bash, and SAED. Then you get your shield phials, store em, do it again, SAED, and repeat until the monster falls over and dies.There are several other attacks, but the weapon feels so cumbersome to use in the first place that I usually just aim for finishing the hunt as quickly as possible so I can play something I enjoy.
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That’s why I love this game, every weapon has it’s own little details, I have a friend that swears by the hammer. Every time we hunt together he looks like he is having the most fun possible, then lloyd swears by the dual blades. Each weapon seems to fit everyone’s play style, I love it!
I’m glad it’s not just me with the charge blade, it’s just unnecessarily complicated, for a payoff that’s.. well not worth it in my opinion. You get the huge damage, but if you wiff that SAED… it’s just so unnecessary! 😅
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Great sword user here. I’ve spent at least 1000 hours on the series like every other Japanese millenial (but the sad thing is, I still kind of suck at it lol). Top favorite is the great sword, will use the hunting horn if I’m assisting an irl noob, and will use the bow IF I absolutely need to but prefer to stay away if possible.
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It’s funny because I’ve never used great sword until world, now I havnt put it down since Iceborne came out! I tried to use the hunting horn ince and it did not go well… I would love to be able to use it but just can’t.
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Hunting horn is for pure veterans. People who can beat any monster without issue and wants more to do on the side. Or at least this is what I’ve learned from other Japanese Monster Hunter fans.
Great sword is so fun once you memorize which parts of the monster is vulnerable (I don’t know if they still have this in World tho). You just aim for those parts and before you know it, the monster’s dead! 😀
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Hunting horn is the next challenge for me then! Yeah World has that mechanic and with the new ‘Clutch Claw’ you can turn any part of a monster vulnerable. Which is so much fun for a Great Sword user, you just charge and attack. When everyone’s using the Clutch claw everything’s good to hit! 😁
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Oooh that’s a fun mechanic!
I was wondering if there’s a chance that World would come out on switch? What do you think?
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To be fair, with the witcher coming out for Switch I think the Switch could handle it. I suppose it depends on if Capcom thinks there is a demand for it. I’m not sure how well Generations did, but I imagine if that was a success they’d definitely look at the possibility.
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Good point. I looked into the stats: 8.4k units sold on the first week. Ouch. And none of the Japanese gamers I know are playing Generations on switch so…lol
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That’s brutal, the worst part is that I actually want to pick Generations up. There are a few monsters that I’ve never fought on their and I’d love to add them to my hunted list 😁
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Maybe if the Witcher port blows up, it’ll start a new trend of pulling PS4 games to the Switch 😀
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I would live to see Playstation and Nintendo work together more! Xbox and Nintendo have started to, with Xbox putting some exclusives on switch, so who knows! Fingers crossed 😁🤞
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Oooh would that mean Halo for switch? I missed out on everything Xbox so that would be a godsend for me. Well a girl can wish!
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