Monster Hunter Now: Best Great Sword Build for High Damage

The Great Sword in Monster Hunter Now is a formidable weapon, capable of delivering massive damage with each swing. However, its size makes it somewhat challenging to handle. To maximize its potential, crafting a sleep-based Great Sword build is key, requiring specific monster materials and skills to frequently induce sleep in enemies.

Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Build

While the Long Sword thrives on poison, the Great Sword excels with sleep-inducing capabilities. Crafting this build involves hunting a rare monster for key components, though most parts can be sourced from more common creatures.

Full Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Build

Weapon

The Frilled Blade is your go-to sleep-based Great Sword in Monster Hunter Now. It's equipped with Evade Extender, a handy skill for gaining distance after a dodge, enhancing your defensive play with the Great Sword. To craft this weapon, you'll need to hunt Somnacanth for its materials.

Helmet & Greaves

A significant portion of this build comes from the Nightmare Paolumu, introduced during a paid event. This monster provides essential parts and skills, including all levels of Rude Awakener, which boosts your first attack's damage by 100% on a sleeping monster. While Nightmare Paolumu may be scarce, they appear more frequently in events or as rare spawns post-story.

Mail, Gauntlets, & Coil

The remainder of the build is centered on maximizing the Status Sneak Attack skill, ensuring sleep buildup when attacking from behind. Additional skills like Evade Extender and Artful Dodger help in evasion. Tzitzi-Ya-Ku, easily tracked with paintballs, is your target for these parts.

Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Driftstone Slots

This build benefits from a low requirement to unlock all its Driftstone slots. Ideally, you'll want to allocate five slots to Sleep Attack to enhance sleep buildup. Alternatively, you can boost your evasion with Artful Dodger and Evade Extender or increase damage 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 - Enhances 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)