Best Great Sword Build for High Damage in Monster Hunter Now

In the vast arsenal of Monster Hunter Now, the Great Sword stands out for its sheer power and potential to deliver devastating blows to unsuspecting monsters. However, mastering this hefty weapon can be challenging due to its size and slower attack speed. To create a formidable Monster Hunter Now Great Sword build, you'll need to focus on slowing down your targets, and recent updates have introduced sleep-based weapons that can help achieve this. Here's a comprehensive guide to crafting the best Great Sword build, centered around sleep-inducing capabilities and the necessary skills to maximize its effectiveness.

Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Build

While the Long Sword in Monster Hunter Now excels with poison attacks, the Great Sword thrives with sleep-inducing elements. To fully realize this build, you'll need to hunt a relatively rare monster, but the majority of the gear can be obtained from more common foes.

Full Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Build

Weapon

The Frilled Blade is the prime choice for a sleep-based Great Sword in Monster Hunter Now. It comes equipped with the Evade Extender skill, which enhances your ability to create distance after dodging, making defensive maneuvers smoother with this large weapon. To craft the Frilled Blade, you'll need to hunt Somnacanth for the necessary materials.

Helmet & Greaves

The core of this build is sourced from the Nightshade Paolumu, introduced during the first paid event. This monster provides crucial parts and skills, including all three levels of Rude Awakener, which boosts your damage by 100% on the first attack against a sleeping monster. While Nightshade Paolumu are more common now, they may still require patience to encounter, either through events or as rare spawns in subsequent seasons after completing the main story quest.

Mail, Gauntlets, & Coil

The remainder of the build focuses on maximizing the Status Sneak Attack skill, which ensures sleep buildup when attacking from behind. You'll also gain points in Evade Extender and Artful Dodger, aiding in evasion. Tzitzi-Ya-Ku, a more commonly encountered monster thanks to the paintball tracker, is your target for these parts.

Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Driftstone Slots

This build benefits from a relatively low requirement to unlock all its Driftstone slots. Ideally, you should aim for five slots in Sleep Attack to maximize sleep buildup. Alternatively, you can enhance your dodging capabilities with Artful Dodger and Evade Extender or increase the damage dealt to monsters when attacking from behind with Sneak Attack.

• Sleep Attack - Boosts the weapon's sleep buildup value. 50 at rank 1 and 150 at rank 5. (Azure only)
• Sneak Attack - Increases damage dealt to a monster when attacked from behind. 10% at rank 1 and 30% at rank 5. (Pale only)
• Artful Dodger - Enhances the ease of evading. Slightly easier at rank 1 and significantly so at rank 5. (Azure only)
• Evade Extender - Extends evasion distance. Very slightly at rank 1 and massively at rank 5. (Pale only)