Best Great Sword Build for High Damage in Monster Hunter Now

The Great Sword in Monster Hunter Now is a formidable weapon, capable of delivering massive damage with each swing, albeit with a bit of a learning curve due to its size. To create an effective Monster Hunter Now Great Sword build, you'll want to focus on slowing down the enemy, and recent updates have introduced sleep-based weapons crafted from specific monster materials. To maximize the effectiveness of this build, you'll need the right gear and skills to trigger sleep frequently.

Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Build

Unlike the Long Sword, which thrives on poison attacks, the Great Sword excels with sleep-based strategies. Crafting this build requires materials from a relatively rare monster, but you can gather most of the equipment from more common foes.

Full Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Build

Weapon

When it comes to sleep-based Great Swords in Monster Hunter Now, the Frilled Blade stands out as the best choice. It includes the Evade Extender skill, enhancing your ability to create distance after dodging an attack. While not essential for the build, this skill significantly improves your defensive maneuvers with the Great Sword. To craft this weapon, you'll need to hunt Somnacanth for the necessary materials.

Helmet & Greaves

The core of this build comes from the Nightshade Paolumu, introduced in the first paid event. This monster provides crucial parts and skills, including all three levels of Rude Awakener, which boosts your damage by 100% for the first attack on a sleeping monster. Nightshade Paolumu has become more common but may still require patience to encounter during 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 a point in Evade Extender and Artful Dodger to enhance your evasion capabilities. Tzitzi-Ya-Ku, a more frequently encountered monster thanks to the paintball tracker, is your main source for these parts.

Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Driftsmelt Slots

This build requires a manageable number of Driftstone slots to unlock its full potential. Ideally, you should aim for five slots in Sleep Attack. However, you can also use these slots to enhance your dodging with Artful Dodger and Evade Extender or boost your damage from behind with Sneak Attack.

• Sleep Attack - increases the weapon's sleep buildup value. 50 at rank 1 and 150 at rank 5. (Azure only)
• Sneak Attack - increases the damage dealt to a monster when attacked from behind. 10% at rank 1 and 30% at rank 5. (Pale only)
• Artful Dodger - makes evading easier to perform. 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)