The Great Sword is Monster Hunter Wilds’ most iconic weapon — and its most misunderstood. Newcomers see the oversized blade and assume it plays like any other heavy weapon: swing, hope to hit, repeat. That assumption gets them killed by basic monsters for three hours straight. The Great Sword is not a heavy weapon you spam. It is a sniper rifle disguised as a sword, rewarding positioning, monster study, and precise timing over raw aggression.
When it clicks, nothing in Monster Hunter Wilds hits harder. A perfect True Charged Slash into a staggered monster’s weak spot delivers more damage in a single swing than most weapons manage in five. This guide covers the core mechanics, three builds for every progression stage, armour skill priorities, multiplayer tactics, and a direct comparison against the Long Sword for hunters still deciding on a main weapon. New to the game entirely? Start with our Monster Hunter Wilds beginner’s guide first.
How the Great Sword Works: The True Charged Slash Explained
Most weapons in Monster Hunter Wilds reward attack frequency. The Great Sword rewards attack timing. Its damage ceiling depends on one move: the True Charged Slash (TCS), a fully charged overhead strike that deals roughly twice the damage of a standard attack. Getting there reliably is the entire game of playing Great Sword well.
Charge Levels: The Three-Stage System
Holding the charge button (Triangle on PS / Y on Xbox) initiates a three-level charge sequence visible via a glowing charge indicator on your hunter:
- Charge Level 1 — Basic overhead swing with modest damage bonus over raw. Viable in very tight windows only.
- Charge Level 2 — Noticeable damage spike; worth committing when the window closes before Level 3.
- Charge Level 3 / True Charged Slash — Maximum single-hit damage in the game. Always the target. The motion value difference over Level 1 is roughly 2.2x.
Releasing early at Level 1 or 2 is legitimate when the window is genuinely short, but TCS is so disproportionately powerful that experienced GS hunters reposition and wait rather than settle. The goal is not to swing as often as possible — it is to swing as hard as possible, as few times as needed.
The Tackle: Great Sword’s Superarmor Mechanic
The tackle (Circle on PS / B on Xbox, pressed during a charge) is one of the most powerful movement tools in Monster Hunter Wilds across any weapon. During the tackle animation, your hunter has superarmor: attacks pass through you without knockback, and you can immediately cancel into a new charge. This mechanic allows you to:
- Walk through monster attacks mid-charge rather than rolling away and losing your charge level
- Reposition to a better angle during a charge sequence without cancelling the action
- Absorb a hit and continue directly into TCS on the recovery frame
The tackle has a strict timing window — too early or too late and you execute the swing instead of repositioning. Spending 20 minutes in the training area building tackle muscle memory is the single most efficient skill investment available to Great Sword players. Once it becomes instinctive, your TCS rate per hunt doubles within a session.
Rage Slash and Adamant Charged Slash (Monster Hunter Wilds Additions)
Monster Hunter Wilds introduced two new Great Sword charge moves. The Rage Slash absorbs an incoming monster attack during a charge and converts the impact into a bonus damage modifier on your next strike — a high-risk, high-reward alternative when a monster attacks during your prime TCS window. The Adamant Charged Slash follows a successful tackle and delivers a high-damage follow-up from the repositioned position. Both integrate naturally into the existing GS loop rather than replacing it. TCS remains your primary target; Rage Slash adds a viable option when absorbing attacks is better than dodging them.
Great Sword Combos and the Positioning Game
Great Sword has fewer combos than most weapons by design. The complexity is in positioning, not button sequences. There is one core loop and several situational variants built around it.
The Core TCS Loop
- Sheathe weapon — mandatory if running Critical Draw (see skills section)
- Draw + hold charge — initiate from sheathed state; reach Level 3
- True Charged Slash — release on weak spot during a monster stagger or recovery
- Tackle if needed — reposition through a follow-up attack after TCS
- Sheathe, repeat — loop back to step 1
Against monsters with long predictable phases — Doshaguma standing still, Rey Dau’s tail-sweep recovery — the loop runs clean. Against fast, erratic monsters like Gypceros or Rathian in airtime, you will spend more time repositioning than swinging. That is correct play. Forcing a TCS at the wrong moment deals no damage if you miss the weak spot or the monster moves mid-animation.
Reading Monster States for TCS Windows
The Great Sword’s core skill is reading monster animation states for guaranteed TCS opportunities. The most reliable windows across all monsters:
- Stagger / flinch — monster recoils for 1.5–2 seconds after sufficient damage to a part; prime TCS window
- Roar — monster locks into roar animation for 2–3 seconds; free TCS if you have Earplugs or resist the stun
- Part break recovery — breaking a leg or tail creates a stumble; charge the moment you see the break effect
- Ground slam recovery — most monsters pause 0.8–1.2 seconds after a ground slam before their next move; start charging during the slam
- Topple — KO from Hammer or concussion causes a full topple lasting 3–5 seconds; land two or three TCS on a downed monster
These windows are consistent per monster. After 10 hunts against a single target, you will have most of its stagger timing committed to memory and your TCS-per-hunt rate climbs significantly without any build changes.
Build 1: Levelling Great Sword (Low to Mid Rank)
This build covers the first 60–70% of the game before High Rank armour becomes accessible. Focus on weapons with high base raw and blue or white sharpness over elemental damage. Critical Draw is the priority skill — it guarantees a critical hit on every draw attack, which aligns directly with the sheathe-draw-TCS core loop.
| Slot | Equipment | Key Skills |
|---|---|---|
| Weapon | Bone Great Sword tree (blue sharpness as early as possible) | High raw damage |
| Head | Doshaguma Helm | Attack Boost Lv 2 |
| Chest | Chatacabra Mail | Critical Draw Lv 1 |
| Arms | Doshaguma Vambraces | Attack Boost Lv 1 |
| Waist | Chatacabra Coil | Critical Draw Lv 1 |
| Legs | Rey Dau Greaves | Weakness Exploit Lv 1 |
| Charm | Attack Charm II | Attack Boost Lv 2 |
Target skills at this stage: Critical Draw 2 minimum, Attack Boost 4+, Weakness Exploit 1–2. Add Quick Sheathe via decoration slots if available — it shortens the sheathe animation and tightens the TCS loop cadence noticeably. Free PC settings guide: if you’re optimising frame rate alongside your build, see our Monster Hunter Wilds best PC settings guide.
Decoration priority: Critical Eye decorations are cheap early game and push your crit rate to 60–70% before reaching Weakness Exploit thresholds. Do not invest heavily in Crit Boost until you have a reliable base crit rate above 60% — before that threshold, Crit Boost adds negligible real DPS because most hits are not critting.
Build 2: End-Game Great Sword (High Rank Meta)
At High Rank, the build goal shifts: maximise the Critical Draw – Weakness Exploit – Critical Boost interaction. A TCS on a weak spot with Critical Draw active, Weakness Exploit threshold met, and Crit Boost at 3 delivers the highest single-hit damage number in Monster Hunter Wilds. The entire end-game build is engineered around making this happen on every swing.
| Slot | Equipment | Key Skills |
|---|---|---|
| Weapon | Arkveld Great Sword (or Zoh Shia GS for raw) | White sharpness, high raw or natural affinity |
| Head | Arkveld Helm R | Weakness Exploit Lv 2, Crit Boost Lv 1 |
| Chest | Arkveld Mail R | Weakness Exploit Lv 2, Attack Boost Lv 1 |
| Arms | G. Dala Vambraces R | Critical Draw Lv 2, Quick Sheathe Lv 1 |
| Waist | Arkveld Coil R | Crit Boost Lv 2, Attack Boost Lv 1 |
| Legs | Zoh Shia Greaves | Crit Boost Lv 1, Maximum Might Lv 1 |
| Charm | Critical Draw Charm III | Critical Draw Lv 3 |
Final skill targets: Critical Draw 3, Weakness Exploit 5, Critical Boost 3, Attack Boost 7, Maximum Might 3. This combination reaches 100% affinity on weak spots when Maximum Might is active, converting every TCS on a targeted part into a critical hit.
Weapon choice note: The Arkveld Great Sword offers the best balance of raw damage and natural affinity in the current meta. The Zoh Shia variant trades affinity for higher base raw — it pulls ahead on monsters where consistent weak spot targeting is difficult due to large hitboxes or erratic movement patterns. Test both across a few hunts and choose based on your personal TCS consistency.
Build 3: Speedrun and Comfort Variants
Speedrun-optimised Great Sword builds extend the end-game setup with three additions: Partbreaker (increases part HP depletion, triggering staggers faster and creating more TCS windows per hunt), Agitator (attack and affinity bonus when the monster is enraged — which is most of the time in High Rank), and Coalescence (damage bonus on recovery from status). These skills are meaningful for 7–9 minute hunts and largely irrelevant for casual progression.
Comfort swaps to consider:
- Replace Maximum Might with Stun Resistance 3 if you get stunned mid-charge regularly — particularly relevant against Arkveld and Xu Wu whose attacks stun on hit
- Replace one Crit Eye decoration with Guard Up if using the Rage Slash counter approach (intentionally absorbing attacks)
- Add Earplugs 3 if you find yourself dodging roars instead of charging through them — each roar becomes a free TCS window with Earplugs active
Neither swap reduces TCS damage meaningfully. Both improve hunt completion rates and reduce frustrating failed charge sequences caused by crowd control.
Armour Skill Priority for Great Sword
Not all armour skills scale equally on Great Sword. Here is the priority ranking based on damage contribution per decoration slot:
| Priority | Skill | Why GS Benefits | Target Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Critical Draw | Every draw attack becomes a guaranteed crit; sheathe-draw is the entire GS loop | Lv 3 |
| 2nd | Weakness Exploit | TCS always targets weak spots; pushes base affinity to 50%+ on every hit that matters | Lv 5 |
| 3rd | Critical Boost | Multiplies crit damage; GS crits have the highest raw numbers in the game | Lv 3 |
| 4th | Attack Boost | Flat raw bonus; scales well with GS’s extreme base motion values | Lv 7 |
| 5th | Maximum Might | Free affinity when stamina is full; GS doesn’t drain stamina during charging | Lv 3 |
| 6th | Quick Sheathe | Shortens sheathe animation; each second saved tightens the TCS loop | Lv 2–3 |
| 7th | Partbreaker | More part staggers per hunt = more free TCS windows | Lv 2 |
| 8th | Earplugs | Every roar window becomes a free TCS instead of a dodge; situationally powerful | Lv 3–5 |
Skills to avoid on Great Sword: Guard and Guard Up (GS has no shield), Evade Extender (the tackle superarmor supersedes roll-based evasion for GS), and any Elemental skill for a single build (elemental GS is viable but requires matching separate weapons to each monster, which is a different playstyle entirely). Rapid Morph has no function on GS.
How to Play Great Sword in Multiplayer
Great Sword is the weapon most affected by multiplayer conditions. Monsters aggravated from multiple directions move more erratically, and teammates interrupt your charge windows by staggering a monster mid-animation. Both problems are manageable with the right approach.
Managing Charge Windows with Teammates
- Watch for teammate staggers — when a Hammer player hits a KO threshold, the monster topples; start charging before the fall animation completes so you land TCS the moment it hits the ground
- Communicate part priority — in voice sessions, calling your TCS target prevents teammates from accidentally breaking the part you’re targeting mid-charge, which removes the Weakness Exploit weak spot bonus
- Position 90–120 degrees off the main group — you get cleaner TCS angles, avoid friendly staggers that knock the monster off your charge trajectory, and create a natural split aggro that gives you more predictable movement windows
Sleep Bomb Coordination
In an optimised four-player team, Great Sword’s highest-value window is a sleep bomb setup: a teammate inflicts Sleep on the monster, the party delivers one hit each while it sleeps, and the GS player lands the final (or second) hit with a TCS. Sleeping monsters take 2x damage from the first hit that wakes them — a fully charged TCS into a sleeping target is one of the largest single-hit damage values achievable in Monster Hunter Wilds. Coordinate sleep positioning before the hunt if running this setup deliberately.
Positioning Guide by Monster Type
The correct positioning strategy depends on monster movement patterns. A blanket rule (always aim for the head) fails against fast-recovery monsters. The table below covers Monster Hunter Wilds’ major monster categories:
| Monster Category | Best TCS Target | Key Windows | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Large Brutes (Doshaguma, G. Dala) | Head or neck | Roar, slam recovery, topple from KO | Long stagger windows; ideal for back-to-back TCS. Best monsters for learning GS. |
| Flying Wyverns (Rathian, Rathalos) | Legs when grounded; head when staggered | Wing flap recovery, landing from airtime | Use tackle to walk through landing attacks. Commit during airtime gaps, not during flaps. |
| Fanged Beasts (Rajang, Garangolm) | Head | Post-charge recovery, slam | Fast and erratic; prioritise Level 2 charge over waiting for TCS when windows close quickly. |
| Bird Wyverns (Gypceros, Quematrice) | Head | Distraction attack recovery, stun from flash | High movement frequency. Take Level 2 charges more often. Flash bombs extend windows. |
| Apex / Elder Dragons (Arkveld, Jin Dahaad) | Head or core weak spot | Enrage roar, post-beam recovery, phase transitions | Rage Slash viable here to absorb heavy beam attacks. Earplugs turns every roar into a free TCS. |
Great Sword vs Long Sword: Which Should You Main?
The Great Sword vs Long Sword question is the most common weapon choice debate for new Monster Hunter Wilds players. Both weapons deal high damage per hit and both reward monster pattern knowledge. The mechanical difference is significant enough that your answer should depend on playstyle, not popularity.
| Factor | Great Sword | Long Sword |
|---|---|---|
| Damage style | Burst: one massive hit every 8–15 seconds | Sustained: moderate hits on a continuous 6–8 hit combo loop |
| Core mechanic | Positioning for True Charged Slash | Spirit Gauge management and Helmbreaker |
| Defensive tool | Tackle superarmor (timing-based, proactive) | Foresight Slash (reactive counter on dodge) |
| Multiplayer | Burst windows; disrupted by chaotic monster movement | Consistent uptime; less sensitive to monster repositioning |
| Skill floor | Higher: must read monster states accurately to land TCS | Lower: forgives missed counters; combo loop continues regardless |
| Skill ceiling | Very high: perfect tackle timing + TCS on every available window | Very high: full Spirit Gauge maintenance + Helmbreaker on every opening |
Choose Great Sword if: you prefer patient, calculated play; you enjoy studying monster patterns before committing; the satisfaction of one enormous hit outweighs the frustration of a missed charge. The single-hit damage ceiling is genuinely the highest in Monster Hunter Wilds — a crit TCS on a weak spot with an optimised build produces numbers no other weapon matches.
Choose Long Sword if: you prefer reactive, counter-based combat; you want consistent damage output regardless of monster positioning; you find sustained combo pressure more intuitive than charge timing. Long Sword is also significantly more forgiving in multiplayer because its DPS is less disrupted by chaotic monster movement.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best Great Sword build in Monster Hunter Wilds?
The end-game meta build uses Critical Draw 3, Weakness Exploit 5, and Critical Boost 3 as its core trio. The Arkveld Great Sword or Zoh Shia variant fills the weapon slot. With Maximum Might 3 active, this setup reaches 100% affinity on weak spots, converting every True Charged Slash into a critical hit.
How do I land the True Charged Slash consistently?
Target monster stagger windows, roar animations, and slam recoveries — these are the most reliable guaranteed openings. Practice the tackle iframe mechanic in the training area so you can hold charges through incoming attacks without losing your charge level. After 10 hunts against a specific monster, its stagger timing becomes predictable.
Is Critical Draw mandatory for Great Sword in Monster Hunter Wilds?
Not mandatory, but it is the highest-priority skill for the standard sheathe-draw-TCS loop. Critical Draw turns every draw attack into a guaranteed critical hit. Without it, you rely entirely on base affinity plus Weakness Exploit to generate crits. Most meta builds treat Critical Draw as core infrastructure, not optional.
How does Great Sword perform in multiplayer hunts?
Viable but requires adaptation. Position 90–120 degrees off your teammates, time your charges around staggers created by Hammer or Gunlance KOs, and coordinate sleep bomb setups for the highest burst damage in the game. The weapon is more disrupted by chaotic multiplayer movement than most weapons — a KO-based team composition helps significantly.
Should I use Critical Boost or Attack Boost on Great Sword?
Prioritise Critical Draw and Weakness Exploit first to establish a 60%+ base crit rate. Once there, Critical Boost outperforms Attack Boost for every additional slot. Below 60% crit rate, each point of Attack Boost adds more real DPS. Build crit rate first, then layer Critical Boost.
What does the Great Sword tackle do?
The tackle (Circle / B during a charge) gives your hunter superarmor: monster attacks pass through you without knockback. It allows you to reposition mid-charge, walk through monster attacks that would otherwise interrupt your TCS, and cancel a badly angled swing into a fresh charge. Mastering tackle timing is the highest-leverage skill improvement for any GS player.
New to the game? Our Monster Hunter Wilds beginner’s guide covers the full gameplay loop, all 14 weapons, armour skills, and essential tips before your first hunt.
Sources
- Monster Hunter Wilds — Official Site, Capcom
- Monster Hunter Wilds Wiki — Great Sword, Fextralife
- r/MonsterHunter — MH Community Meta Compilation
I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.