Hello, hunters! Much has changed in the last week for Monster Hunter: World (MHW). The Arch Tempered Kushala Daora appeared in MHW on PS, and the Deviljho was added to PC, so I assume that most of you have once again taken to hunting and gearing yourselves up.

Whenever a new monster is added, you can’t help but grow curious about what new builds that monster’s items can create. Last time, we took a look at the Cluster Bomb Heavy Bowgun build.

Today’s weapon build centers around the Long Sword; based on data from this August, the Long Sword is one of the most commonly-used weapons on PC. However, the best Long Sword builds differ somewhat between PC and PS. Let us have a look at the PC version first.

Please note that these recommended settings focus solely on achieving the highest DPS without earplugs.

Divine Slasher & Extermination’s Edge - the standards of the original Long Sword build

The important aspects you need to consider with builds are which weapon is considered the best of its type, which skills work the best with that weapon, and how you will obtain them. With that in mind, we’ll first be taking a look at which Long Sword is the best and which skills are most suitable with that weapon.

One Long Sword, called Divine Slasher, is by far the best of its kind and is basically mandatory for any Long Sword user in the end-game of MHW. The weapon can be acquired with Coins at the Arena, and its damage increases significantly with a Non-elemental Boost Jewel. It is still considered one of the best Long Swords on PS even 6 months after its release.

Extermination’s Edge which can be crafted by slaying Nergigante, and is the next best option if you don’t have the Non-elemental Boost Jewel. This is why the weapon is recommended in the beginning when acquiring Jewels is quite tedious. Both weapons possess different elements and sharpness, thus you need different builds around each weapon.

Since the Long Sword has a relatively high attack speed among the various weapon types, players will often to go for Affinity-oriented builds. Elemental Long Swords are quite effective, so if you only use Long Swords, then it’d be a good idea to switch between different elements depending on the monster you’re facing.

Let’s look at the Divine Slasher build first. This weapon has blue sharpness, so it’s better to use Handicraft to make it white. Some of you already know, but blue sharpness increases damage by 6.25%, and white increases it by 12.5%. Handicraft can be upgraded up to Lv.5; this can be done by wearing a Handicraft Charm, which provides 3 levels, and getting the remaining 2 levels from your equipment.

Weakness Exploit is quite efficient as well. In fact, this skill is the most efficient skill in this Monster Hunter title, so it’s rather difficult to find builds without this skill. This will allow players to secure more damage in the early game.

Some players may think, “Well, I’m not good at finding weaknesses,” but the Long Sword’s attack range and hitbox are quite wide, so it won’t be that difficult to hit the monsters’ weak spots. You will eventually become much better at finding them as you progress further anyway.

Alongside the Weakness Exploit, Attack is also recommended for almost all weapon types. However, this skill only becomes  truly efficient at Lv.4, and armor parts generally only provide up to 2 levels each, meaning you’ll need to use at least 2 armor pieces to get Lv.4.

After getting your 3 main skills: Handicraft, Weakness Exploit, and Attack, the rest depends on what type of Jewels you possess and how you play the game.

This may probably be the most well-known build that most players are already using. It can provide Handicraft Lv.5, Attack Lv.4, and Weakness Exploit Lv.2, along with Nergigante Hunter and Maximum Might Lv.3. The Tenderizer Jewel is not that rare, so you can acquire it after grinding a bit.

The Long Sword has great Affinity; even without any weapon customization, you can have up to 85% Affinity when you hit a weak spot with this build. All you need to do afterwards is secure skills that increase your damage based around high Affinity. One recommended one is Critical Boost. However, the Critical Jewel is quite rare, so it may take some time to get one.

In case that you don’t have the Tenderizer Jewel yet but have 3 Critical Jewels, the build in the screenshot below might be a good choice. Also, the Sharp Jewel works exceptionally well with the Divine Slasher, so use it if you have one.

Now onto the Extermination’s Edge build. The biggest difference between the Divine Slasher build and Extermination’s Edge build is that the sharpness of Extermination’s Edge is already maxed out, so you don’t need Handicraft with this build. However, it’s still only at blue sharpness. Both settings share the same attack damage, but the reasons why Divine Slasher is favored more is because of the sharpness and the effects of the Non-elemental Boost Jewel.

You can have other skills similar to those with Divine Slasher. Since you don’t need Handicraft in this build, the skill settings can be a bit more flexible. The best comp would be Weakness Exploit, Attack, Maximum Might, and Critical Boost.

How about Deviljho? - Reaver “Calamity” Build

On September 5th, the Deviljho came out on PC as well. The Deviljho gear features high attack damage, high negative Affinity, and white sharpness if Handicraft is at its maximum level.

The same goes for the Deviljho Long Sword. Calamity is crafted from Deviljho and has the highest attack damage in the current version of the game, but it also has -25% Affinity. This is a fairly big drawback since most Long Swords rely on Affinity for most of their damage.

However, the damage itself is extremely high, so if you can just negate the negative Affinity, you’ll have a weapon with some serious DPS. Players studied and experimented with the DPS between Calamity and Divine Slasher on PS, and found out that both weapons have similar DPS, but Calamity is better against Elder Dragon thanks to its dragon damage.

Because Calamity has many aspects to supplement, your equipment settings cannot be as flexible. Handicraft Lv.5, Weakness Exploit Lv.3, and Maximum Might Lv.3 are considered necessary, and Attack Lv.4 is also highly recommended. Moreover, one or two Affinity Increase Augmentations are suggested for the Calamity build as well.

With the 15% from Augmentations and 5% from Attack, the negative Affinity will go from -25% to -5%, even without the randomly-activated Weakness Exploit and Maximum Might. For the last pieces of the build, follow the usual Long Sword build and use Critical Jewels.

The final Long Sword Build - Complete Calamity & Taroth Sword “Fire”

The Long Sword builds that we do now will change completely when Behemoth, the monster that has already been released on PS, appears on PC. You will then be able to craft the Drachen set that possess every skill the Long Sword needs.

The full Drachen set provides both Critical Eye Lv.6 and Critical Boost Lv.3, which allows weapons with negative Affinity like Calamity to have a 100% Critical Rate.

Furthermore, the 4-piece effect of the Drachen set, Master’s Touch, works exceptionally well with this high Critical Rate. Players who use the Drachen set focus more on Attack rather than Sharpness to secure higher damage.

The Calamity build includes the Handicraft Charm III for white sharpness and the Nergigante Helm to supplement the insufficient Maximum Might and Attack.

Although it’s really difficult to obtain, you don’t need Handicraft at all if you have the Taroth Sword “Fire” which is mostly used as part of end-game builds. The weapon originally has white sharpness, and this is maintained for the whole fight with the Master’s Touch effect. Note that it requires a different set of Jewels: Mighty Jewel instead of Sharp Jewel, and Critical Eye instead of the Vitality Jewel.