Well, that settles it, you've made some very good points and convinced me that the longsword is just too overpowered. Well, only one thing can be done about this problem, we're gonna have to nerf the gunlance again.
Don’t forget to give the longsword two more abilities. Maybe let it stun monsters better than the hammer and make its red charge let your character move around like they’re in dual blade demon mode
@Firenze 64 Next game, longsword will gain the ability to bash monsters with the sheath. Of course, to balance it, the ko values will be half that of the hammer. But to reward "skilled" players, we'll give it 2.95 seconds of i-frames where it would deal triple the ko and fill half the spirit gauge.
@@shirosame7 shields need guard improvements to not be pushed by the recoil with no chance to counter, with longsword if you are good you can ignore anything the monsters toss you and just keep attacking with 0 decision making of what you should or shouldn't block. All while suffering 0 chip damage.
@@Zamoxino He went through the whole quick sheith thing in the video, you absolutely can. Shields technically handle that kind of thing a little better. However, with how fast quick sheath can be the difference is negligible.
@@cameronstandifird8210 im pretty sure piss zinoger is still too fast even for QS3. but im stuck on my PC and i dont rly follow LS players around so who knows
Long Sword, a weapon originally designed to elegantly move between risky combos and dodging: ahaha *3 gem slots to make no-chip-damage become instant* ahaha *counter into high damage follow up into counter into high damage follow up into counter into high damage follow up into...* Lance, a weapon designed around holding your ground with impeccable defense: My entire armor loadout revolves around maxxing out Guard and Guard Up and I still take chip damage :(
Boggles my noggin that not a single one of LS counter has a window as small as perfect guard. They nerfed guard decos across the board and don't even let you get that kind of treatment. I was hoping beyond hope that Rise's PC launch would come with a rebalancing so the weapon didn't feel like complete muck when it hits. I disagree a bit. I think quick sheathe deserves to be tossed into the gutter. The weapon has the entirety of it's kit and a fade slash. Getting to twitch into an insane i frame counter is way too much.
@@themur880 I think quick sheathe being the way it is is fine so long as there's more reason not to spam special sheathe. They should definitely lower the window for landing spirit slash, reduce the I frames a tad, and make it so you can't dodge cancel it once you activate it. Players should have some kind of repercussion for using special sheathe at the wrong time and getting rid of the dodge cancel is one of the easiest ways to make people think a little more about when to use it because at least then they'll be forced to do one of two moves. If neither move is good for the situation? well tough shit. Should of thought of that before using special sheathe.
@@sgtpancakes450 So my opinions on this are somewhat not very complicated. LS gets counters that ignore guard-up ignoring unblockables, takes no chip, uses no stamina, and can go into them at relatively the same speed as the windows between two lance pokes. It's resistant to multi-hits by design due to the movement and the length of it's i-frames, and unlike the backhop with SnS starts out at full power. No evasion necessary. Iai should have it's own deco line and that deco line should be 2 slotters that cost 5 points for max power just like guard. The trigger frames should be the lance perfect block window and require skills (evasion) to get to slightly better than IB window. Lastly sheathe should burn stamina as rapidly as powerguard does while you hold it, impacted by Marathon runner. That'd be "fair" though I admit it would obviously not be very fun.
@@themur880 how about instead of ruining LS because Lance is shit, like many seem to want, we buff Lance while making LS harder to use. The main crux of the issue is that LS in rise is too easy to be good with, not that LS is good so how do we fix that? Well I can tell you it’s not by artificially capping the weapons potential, that’s fairly obvious because doing that won’t actually fix the problems.
@@domp2729 Now I'll preface this by saying this isn't the main focus of the point I was making. With that out of the way, LS was perfectly fine without the buffs it got so I'm not sure how that would be ruining the weapon if you return to a pre-overdone buffed state. It was still one of the most used weapon for world/IB. Ease of use has nothing to do with it. Because the end result is still a weapon with no drawbacks. How do you fix it? The same way they "fixed" Lance and Gunlance. A bunch of nerfs. They hit skill slotting, mobility, and stamina regen. Clearly they thought this was the correct choice of balance. Secondly, Lance doesn't need sweeping buffs, it needs a reversion of inane nerfs. The last thing this game needs is more LS tier weapons running around trivializing fights as hard as sticky raining gunners. Naturally this wouldn't be a fun outcome. But it'd be in line with the consistency every other weapon got. Naturally I'm not advocating for such wide sweeping tomfoolery. I'm just applying exactly what other weapons got and showing how little fun that would be. The only thing I personally want is QS to be thrown into the gutter. That move has no reason to be that quick with that most access to the entire rest of your moveset upon successful execution of your counter.
Personally I think one of the most simple minded ways but maybe also decently effective ways to balance the weapon would be to make its special moves cost stamina. I mean just look at how a longsword player flies around the map just using their attacks, without any stamina cost despite their movement. If Insect Glaive jumps cost stamina why shouldnt Longswords? That would make stamina skills more viable for longsword gameplay similar to dual blades.
Nope, the simplest way is to remove counters in all non shield weapon. The hunters are too overpowered and it's not fun. The game stopped become fair in gen 5.
@@regaliaex1338 maybe prior to World, but after World Dash Juice only reduces stamina loss by 25%, still encouraging the usage of Stamina skills or item extenders as well to maintain their stamina better just as other weapon types slot specific skills too.
@@pemuda7075 while that would be even simpler it would alianate a huge part of Longsword users by removing half their movesets. One could consider nerfing the counters making their movement and i-frame range dependent on skills like Evade extender or evade window, that way skill managment could still allow for players to feel like the "new old ways" while still stopping them or punishing them from overextending their stamina loss.
Imagine being mad about "balance" in a non-competitive, non-Player v.s. Player game Besides, of course Longsword is overpowered in Rise, the theme for this mh game is "weeb"
Imagine being a lance player that has to slot in guard 5 and still takes chip dmg and loses stamina while a long sword has better defense than you while also doing massive dmg and increasing the spirit gauge for even more dmg
the thing that ticks me off the most, is the decision to give long sword all of these advantages with easy counters, meanwhile, lance's special counter move is super tight, leaves you super vulnerable, and has worse range. at this point, long sword has just taken lance's playstyle away from it. gunlance also apparently got a nerf to it's shelling damage to make up for the silkbind move's damage increase but gunlance wasn't strong in the first place so it just becomes weaker. they've essentially kept buffing the weapon that was already fine multiple times while reducing the effectiveness of all the others for seemingly no proper reason.
I was super pumped to use the Lance Insta-Guard because I liked adept Lance in GU, but man that timing:reward ratio is too narrow for me to consider it worth learning
I'll be honest, I'm a LS main but in my MHGU run I'm going full blown CB due to the complexity and defense capabilities of the weapon (i play adept and striker style). An I must say even playing Rise or World/Iceborne I feel like CB is overall more fun to play then LS due to actually having a riskier moveset.
I think gunlance for me had a bit of a buff. Back then in world, it was regular shelling in high rank and charged shots plus wyrmstake. Full burst still does top damage I think but leaves you open too much. In rise, with a counter move that restores sharpness and another silkbind move that has a really long hyper armor and reduces damage taken by a lot. With those 2, you can do the fullburst playstyle better. That being said, i tend not to use longsword much anymore because quests seem too easy with it. It does annoy me a bit that they still buff longsword and bow when they are already strong
TBH, I don't think they should nerf LS for future game, it would be far better for the game to bring other blademaster weapons up to LS level. It's super fun to play LS in rise, and the counter frames for Iai and foresight are tight enough to require good knowledge of monster patterns.
Longsword has better defenses than defensive weapons, better counters than counter focused weapons, better burst than burst weapons (great sword is a burst weapon) and hits faster that most speed weapons. It quite literally does the job of eveyr other melee weapon better than every other melee weapon.
It really bothers me that I feel the longsword is a far better defensive weapon than the lance in rise- as a matter of fact, I feel like they completely dropped all fun back and forth play with the monster on lance and put it on lingsword for... some reason?
If you want to know something really stupid Guard 5 SNS with offensive guard is a thing in rise that actually works. 15% damage boost at all times, enough chip damage to keep up resentment, and the insane mobikity and utility of SNS. They really screwed lance out of its identity lmao
@@gamecavalier3230 I was more just adding another nail into the coffin for lance. Since Guard Slash acts sort of like another level of guard now, it basically lets you tank some hits that would cancel your combo otherwise and jumps you straight into perfect rush, even giving you a couple decent damage numbers on the shield bash. Since you can guard slash out of any combo you can basically just never move away from the monster. No idea why they seem to be out to kill the pokey weapons but they are.
From a Bushido Lance main it saddens me that everything has better counter options and damage than Lance :( I love when I can turn Monster Hunter into a massive Sekiro boss. The dopamine release after parrying three zinogre slams is unmatched to me.
One thing they can do to “nerf” the ls is by bringing back the punishment spirit gave if used incorrectly. Example: If you time a spirit slash correctly, you gain a gauge. If you time it incorrectly, you lose a gauge. This will not only help players from not abusing the move too much, it also help the longsword being balanced (i think).
This would be the sweet spot for LS in my opinion. In MHWI failing to time the spirit slash is a great punishment while timing it correctly is just ok. In MHR is the opposite, there is no risk for not timing it correctly, and reward for doing it is huge, so spamming is normal. This move should be high risk high reward.
One thing people seem to miss about World ISS is that it isn't you still get full damage if you mistime a counter, while in Rise is does no damage if you don't counter. so if you wanted to nerf it back to World you would also have to give back back the damage on a "miss".
Personally I didn't like the punishment feature as it just resulted in LS players having really big egos and it wouldn't fix LS's insane dps for speedruns. Maybe narrowing the timing a little bit and just making it's damage less insane. The punishment also makes LS less fun, and while it's broken rn, it's DAMN fun. Simply culling the damage a bit and maybe the timing would make it less broken while retaining the fun.
My issue with LS in rise is simple. They gone far enough where you don't even have to play the game like it's monster hunter. Just keep attacking non-stop with the monster feeling more like a punching bag with teeth, than a deadly creature.
ya, all the counter and the silk thread just allow you to hug the monster non-stop and beat them up. I just don't have the fear of giant monster chasing my ass like before, even if the monster about to use big move, you can easy move away without any problem.
GL just needs more damage and maybe something like elemental shelling. But if you buffed up the damage it would actually be fine. It's a complex weapon so it's never gonna top popularity charts but that doesn't mean it has to be bad.
@@HeavyWings Gunlance especially needs a shell level rework. It's a shame there is currently only 5 levels which makes every gl that has 4 and under obsolete
Gunlance and Lance are not powerful in meta simply because they are designed to avoid damage with the use of shields. As a weapon design philosophy, if you don't need to retreat, then stop and heal, you can keep dealing damage. But meta play is already a style with the goal of never taking damage (except in rare examples where taking damage is advantageous), so this is no longer an advantage for these weapons. So, in summary, if you get hit by monsters, the other weapons are not better in your hands. Enjoy your relatively equal Gunlance ✌️
I was hoping to bring back the raw damage equivalent to your weapon in wyrmstake man. And to amplify the damage of the shelling I hope they will also bring back the WSB. I am loving gunlance!
A big thing that'd help lance: Consolidating guard up back down to just one level. Attacks you block use a special value called "Stability" or some sort of similar hidden value to determine how much guarding chip dmg you take. Guard skill improves stability, and hence reduces impact and damage. Guard Up in World just made it where you could block certain ordinarily unblockable attacks (with some exceptions), and those attacks relied on your stability value. In rise, its like they just threw out a perfectly fine system when it came to guard up, and made arbitrary dmg reduction values. And they took away Power Guard Boost too, a thing in World where if you sustained PG for a couple seconds, you'd get Guard Up. Until i could get Uragaan Armor/Shield Jewel in World, I had fun learning monster attack patterns so i could PGB just before a big, normally unblockable attack would go off... feels like they took that fun and threw it at the LS.
From what I remember playing World and Rise, 5th gen lance suffers too much from recoiling after guarding, even with appropriate guard skills. I feel like I rarely encounter that problem in older MH games because I feel the guard skills actually worked to make almost all monster attacks feel like they are just raindrops hitting an umbrella.
@@wamken619 Master Rank basically required guard 5 to be able to stand up to most monsters recoil. It was super frustrating because lance also required either master's touch or a good chunk of handicraft. It's a sharpness hog
I use to be a lance main but i chose to learn a new weapon in Rise and haven't played lance in Rise yet. Could you explain the problems with Lance in rise? Sad to hear 😔
Part of me tells me that LS is given some preferential treatment is because MHR Kamura is literally Japan themed. So longsword *cough* 'Katana' *cough* makes sense in a patriotic way. With that said... I really hope Sunbreak buffs the Lance/Gunlance since if Kamura is Japan themed, then Elgado looks very much Western themed...
The issue with this statement though is the fact that LS becoming OP didn't start with Rise, it started in W. Foresight Slash is literally one of the best counter moves in the game and it's more forgiving than Lance's counter move in terms of timings.
The counters LS had in Iceborne were already pretty ridiculous, but then Capcom thought it was a good idea to add even more that had no repercussions of missing and had timing windows the size of Plesioth's hitbox Meanwhile CB gets its phial hit detection gimped, Lance gets a half-assed counter move and IG gets its downward thrust gated by wirebugs. I'm just so confused and hope that Sunbreak puts all weapons back on the same relative playing field again
@@adhdasdfroflxd123 It is so strict that you cant hit all 5 or 6 phials when you SAED a monster unless they're really long. You also cannot hit airborne monsters with SAED anymore. Part of the reason CB doesn't feel as good to play anymore, but it's not a bad weapon in Rise
IMO the biggest offenders are QS3 and ISS buffs, specifically gaining a level on a successful ISS. Those two buffs alone are why spamming special sheath and ISS are optimal. You can literally build to red blade and spam helm breakers without even touching regular attacks, the spirit combo, or even gaining spirit because of ISS. QS3 just means you can use it like foresight slash. I don't think the level loss on whiff needs to be added back, but removing the level up would make the rest of the moveset more relevant again. It also means it takes more than 10 seconds to get to red blade Edit: Lotta comments talking about re-adding the punishment to Iai Spirit Slash, but the issue, so to speak, is with Longsword's power, not its weakness. Being able to level up with ISS is insanely powerful, and once you've gotten it down, it is THE main way to level the spirit gauge. With so much uptime on red blade the only gate on Helm Breakers is wire bugs.
Yeah its becoming pretty stupid but you need to know the monster moveset and know your weapon to really destroy monster with LS give it to someone who don't know the weapon or someone who had experience with previous iteration of the weapon and you will see the difference the only problème with LS now is that the player who use it every hunt are becoming more and more good with it
In world/iceborn I still mostly used ISS with draw attack sets. It was mad annoying to lose a gauge level for missing, so I was glad to see it changed in rise. However, it's like you said. ISS is to strong now. I find myself in most hunts waiting in special sheath or just doing the thrust so I can have foresight slash at the ready. I literally almost only do this and spirit helm breaker. It's a problem in rise. Why wouldn't I use ISS in rise when it's that good? I dont want it nerfed back to what it was like in world, so I think giving it no gauge increase on correct timing but not taking away gauge on miss is perfect. I also think that if you get the timing right that you should be put into the last attack of the combo like foresight slash does. Make ISS an alternative instead of the go to. I miss dancing around monsters in world with the fade slash and foresight slash all to set up the Iai Spirit Slash into spirit helm breaker stagger combo
I think it's crazy seeing how many crazy upgrades other weapons get, while I'm still out here playing Lance getting excited that I can slide forward after poking the monster now.
Lance does need some more attention I feel. It does what it does well, it always has, but when you look at every other weapon having this crazy shit and you're still pokey boi with big shield, it feels kinda diminishing fr.
And they both are, the problem is that they are also dogshit in rise.. The problem isn't with mechanics it's just the fact everything else is very weak when compared to LS, nerfing LS wouldn't fix anything, buffing other blademaster weapons would..
Its so painful, especially when I went through a phase where I was just binging every MH game. Going from 4U straight to GU was.... Let's just say it put me on the road to maining LS lol
@@HeavyWings it kind of happened to me with the transition from world/ib to rise: In world the SAED are too crispy, but in rise they BUTCHERED it's hitbox Then i played GU and ended up saying "look how they massacred my boy"
Suprised to see Greatsword do consistantly well. I guess if you truly master the enemy patterns, you can do some nasty punishes. Mounting in 4 seems to benefit it very well because the difficulty as of high rank isn't as drastic as people have told me.
Oh, great sword has usually had a good spot in being a damage king. You have the usual big damage of the lvl 3 charge with the hit and run style. Can always guarantee that if you know a monster inside and out, crit draw is free 100% affinity and punish draw for certain matchups with head sniping for access to KO by exploiting ai. Throw in some good staggers with the high raw, and some monsters will just crumple. It helps that the main goal plan of the gs is so simple, once you know the weakest hitzones you're usually fine. Oh, and you free a space for an extra skill because you aren't as reliant on razor sharp like other weapons.
Because big numbers that's why. You objectly can't underperform if you use the weapon with the highest motion values. Mastering Great Sword is not learning how to deal more damage with your attacks the best, but how to attack more, because every attack deals the most damage the best.
@@ScorpiusRexXIII I feel like since GU Crit Draw is not that required anymore, except on Striker and maybe Alchemy Style. Valor had you with your weapon out a lot of the time since you could just slide charge, no need to sheathe and run to reposition. World is a lot about True Slash, but Crit Draw is more valuable here than in GU Valor thanks to Frostcraft bumping up your damage. Rise you can spam slide charges with wirebugs and for optimal damage you cancel the normal chage slash into a True or Rage Slash, removing the Crit Draw bonus. Crit Draw still good and playable don't get me wrong, but the playstyle seems like it's falling out of favor with Capcom.
The flying kick + helm breaker cooldown on wirebug is far lower then sakura slash as well. but FAR more powerful. Makes the sakura slash entirely pointless as without the helm splitter, you literally have nothing to spend gauge on and it's super easy to maintain it using the slash. Honestly backwards.
I do get where they were coming from, because Sakura Slash is the easier-to-use Silkbind for people who aren't good at building meter with other methods, so it's supposed to be the weaker alternative to Helmbreaker that helps maintain your damage buff for you (and also gives you easy ammunition for Serene Pose since that's still locked in your moveset). But once you actually get good at fighting monsters with Longsword, there's very little reason not to just run Soaring Kick. I read that Sakura Slash is still superior for element/status damage, but that would be about it
Great points on why LS is overpowered. Another thing about counter is that in Rise there are a lot of '2-hit combo attack'. Meaning you can't just do your counter attack after every successful block/parry because you will get punished. Unless you are using LS, you get a lot of i-frame and repositioning using Iai Spirit Slash if successful.
Provided you counter correctly, LS can avoid triple combo attacks with counters. Lets use Valstrax's triple wing slam first slam - foresight slash second slam - sheathe after the first foresight hit, counter. third slam - serene pose
I think the problem with people asking for nerfs is this. Specially for lance, gun lance etc players, why ask for nerfs when you can ask for some buffs or moves changes to the weak weapons. Like LS plays really smooth and other weapons feel really clunky, why not fix the other weapons
This. Exactly this. Make other weapons fun factor as good as the LS instead of nerfing the longsword. It's not a pvp game. Up the fun factor, not degrade it.
because power-creep. Eventually by only powering up other weapons you get to the point where all weapons are too overpowered to have any challenge. Seeking only nerfs is almost as bad since nerfing has more affect. So this actually is an incomplete if not dumb suggestion. Do both not one or the other.
IMO just add back the punishment for a missed counter and nerf the sheathing time back to world standards, I don't mind that you can roll out of the counter stance. It's just no risk spamming the insanely buffed counter slash.
Thanks for the analysis/chart/statistics. It is an honor to hunt with people who understand the game mechanics at such an intimate level but who still keep an open mind to the possibilities of MH.
As a longsword main my completely biased opinion is who cares whether or not it it might need a nerf, this isn't a competitive pvp game, you're not losing games because somebody in your team chose your weapon. Every game has its "most powerful", even if longsword gets nerfed another weapon will take its place. I enjoy flowing all of my attacks into a chain and it's not like it makes people want to stop playing because somebody chooses longsword. Longsword is a choice, you are not forced to pick it, you are not forced to stay away from it, whether or not you want to use it is up to you. Play. Your. Way. (but also as a longsword main, yeah we should lose a spirit gauge if we don't land the spirit counter slash, as in land the count AND hit the monster)
Longsword basically plays like a frontier weapon now, a bunch of counters and a ton of I-frames. it just doesn’t look as flashy so people don’t notice it.
I wouldn't be against more weapons using that design philosophy but that would mean the whole game would have to be designed around it, and that way LS would just be one among many OP weapons designed for equally OP monsters.
@@zeehero7280 that’s basically what frontier was. By the end of the games lifespan every monster could cart you in 2 hits (some could with 1) because every weapon had at least 2 ways to completely negate damage on the fly. I used to play frontier, but I don’t want the mainline games to end up like that.
17:10 How do they go about it? Make not every melee weapon be a mediocre Longsword It does more damage than the others, it has more mobility, it has great horizontal and vertical range, safer than even shield weapons and other dodge based weapons, 4 fucking counters where 2 of them can act as panic buttons and one can be used from draw, all with good damage; a super long range gapcloser with a shit ton of damage, the easiest time refilling it's special meter and spending it is super fast and reliable It has everything other weapons have but better, it excels at everything sacrificing nothing in return and everyhing else is mediocre at best in comparison in ANY regard. I'm not even sure buffing other weapons by a lot would make it even close right now, it needs a nerf
It's a PvE game. Coming from someone who mains SnS and GS, I'd rather they just buff all other weapons except for LS by adding new/better moves to them, and reducing/removing chip damage for big shield users.
Tried lance in the demo and you really do need armor skills to make the weapon worthwhile. At this point why even play lance when LS makes you an unstoppable fortress with zero need for guard skills
Lance's base bug moves also suck allot. Twin Vines costs way too much, is super hard to land, and breaks almost as easily. Anchor Rage actually looses damage if you have more guard.
Going into Rise once it landed on PC I had a variety of weapons I traditionally liked to choose from, landing on Insect Glaive. That same day one session my Girlfriend picked up her favourite weapon in World where she started, the Lance. She was miserable with it. She felt it was unusable. I didn't realize how bad it was and suggested she might be out of practice. Two hunts later she nearly refunded before trying to land on a new weapon. She ended up on SnS. It felt the most likely the parts of lance she liked. Which was a defensive yet surprisingly mobile weapon with no fancy resources to manage.
@@squirrel_killer- Yeah, it's a bit of a what moment when just about every weapon in the game now has defensive options that can exceed that of the Lance and still have far better dps to boot - even SnS. And Lance was at a good point in prior games where we finally could have guard builds that felt satisfying and it wasn't just the build that ironically enough doesn't block at all (evade lance in MH4 was fun... but way too broken). I hope they consider making some big changes to it's silk binds and maybe rewarding more aggressive play with it.
@@squirrel_killer- i honestly don't get it. Even with generations the changes they did to it made it feel like shit. They fixed them in world and then changed it again to feel like shit for rise. I don't understand how they keep messing up a weapon with the basic gameplay loop of 3 pokes and a hop.
It’s literally a crime that gunlance is as bad as it is. This video hits it on the head, not only does it need armor skills to be viable, even with the MOST OPTIMAL skills it’s still the worst weapon in the game. By a long shot. Which is a shame cause the playstyle and blast dashing is the most fun I’ve had in this series. Still love longsword, but man. I can’t believe they butchered some of these other weapons. If they don’t buff them in the dlc I’m gonna be so upset.
Every game they try to nerf gunner weapons but end up giving them two buffs for every nerf and they stay broken. Every game they try to buff gunlance but end up giving it two nerfs for every buff and it stays shit.
I really liked your video! It covered every qualm I had with the LS changes in Rise! Note: A successful Iai spirit slash in iceborne actually does not raise the spirit gauge level as mentioned in 5:10. It KEEPS the current level (if done perfectly) and increases the speed of a follow up spirit helm breaker should the player choose to perform one. (I could not tell you if this sped up helm breaker mechanic is still a thing in rise but I don't think so) MH Rise added the changed of increasing the spirit gauge after a successful Iai spirit slash on top of no punishment for missing which is just another reason LS is OP.
reason why you feel so satisfy when you successfully counter with lai spirit slash because of how difficult it is compared to rise. you have to prepare the slow sheath, commit to it and pray to the rng god that the AI decide to atk you.
The most broken part of longsword isnt its speed or amount of counters. Its how forgiving it is. If the Iframes for the counters were much tigher and harder to pull off for example it would be a bit better. Also a more interesting idea of a nerf would be Lai as if you missed it you lost gauge but of you hit it you gained gauge. I doubt it would happen but if both nerfs happened it would actually take a bit more skill and a bit more balanced Edit: Just a random thing Id LOVE to see the valor counter replace foresight but make the timing even less forgiving then guard points.
It's important to note in base World the longsword could foresight slash at any time regardless of the gauge state. They only added the minimum gauge requirement to the FS in Iceborne. Also part of why base World (High Rank) runs were faster than Iceborne.
One small nerf i’d make to LS immediately is making the LS counters adhere to the unblockable rules If they wanna counter certain beam attacks, or hell GRABS, they should have to spec for the skill, boom now they can at least stack less damage That skill is half the reason LA and GL suffer That fact LS just in validates LA, as a parry weapon having parries that lack any downside when used and have generous windows And then they can’t even give LA better damage despite its lack of crazy movement And GS id supposed to be the true powerhouse and yet it has to split its skills between… Guard Guard up Weapon damage Shell damage Sharpness It really feels like they viewed the weapons in a vacuum without the foresight of armor skills
I agree, and although you're not the first with this idea, it is still great. It is fair, and makes sense. The only issue, is that you would have to force the other weapons with counters to abide by that rule. Further nerfing them.
I've taken a look through the comments and I couldn't agree more: the fact that the LS has more counters - and more *effective* counters - than the shield weapons makes no sense to me, and I say this as an LS main. As much as I enjoy playing LS I don't want my enjoyment to come at the cost of others'; my favourite weapon should not be allowed to steal another's mechanical identity. When I picked up LS in World, I did so because of one move: the Fade Slash. The idea of being able to reposition in the middle of a combo while still doing some damage was really cool to me. I would love nothing more than a playstyle based around the Fade Slash (as suggested in the video), and I think that would be a really cool way to shift the LS's playstyle away from the counter-heavy one it's in currently while still maintaining the LS's identity as a graceful, mobile melee weapon.
The simplest solution to that is to either not play LS when playing with others, or have everyone in the party play it. I really hope for Sunbreak, they would buff the other weapons by adding better moves and add little to nothing for the LS since it literally has everything. I decided to main GS and SnS to start off with in Rise. I tried LS for a couple of hunts and I could tell immediately how much more utility it has compared to the other two. More counters than the GS or SnS and it has more melee range.
I agree with the fact of instead of nerfing the long sword, just buff the other weapons. I think it’s ok with the type of game Monster Hunter is, not PVP.
The problem is, when you make everything that good, there is no limitation to your ability. When you can do everything, you do the best thing every time. For me, limited options force you to work around flaws, consider timing more, and respect the monster, ultimately increasing my satisfaction when mastery is achieved. If every class was buffed, the gameplay would just become hack and slash mixed with counter spam, and I would lose interest rapidly
First of all, just because it isn't a PvP game doesn't mean there shouldn't be any form of balancing. Imagine how stupid it is to see overtuned weapons all across the board, with monsters staggering, tripping, and KO'd 24/7 much much worse than the smoothest TA run you can ever witness. Secondly, MH is all about the player being the clear underdog in the battle. A mere mortal up against a force of nature, while it tries everything in its power to bring it down. Gen 5 LS, and Rise in particular, is not "ok with the type of game Monster Hunter is", and it's quite frankly very debasing to reduce it as just "not PvP". Low risk for extremely high reward was never on the table, until LS got its counter in World and is now virtually untouchable in Rise. It says a lot when my first time playing Longsword in Gen 5 gave me an S rank clear on an arena quest with barely any practice. Lastly, LS definitely needs hard nerfing. World's version wasn't too demeaning and carried with it a sizeable amount of risk for bad play. There's none of that type of commitment in Rise whatsoever that I can just pick up a mediocre LS loadout and absolutely decimate an Apex monster with Peak Performance at 100% uptime.
I started playing MH with World. I picked up the long sword before Iceborne came out so I adopted the FS, helm breaker playstyle. Was fun. Haven't touched LS since. Decided to play the base game from the beginning when Iceborne came out but this time with CB as my main. "Holy hell, CB is my new daddy," I thought. I see LS now, and how vastly different (and albeit easier) it is to use from when I last touched it. It makes me wonder what it would feel like to be able to spam SAEDs continuously, being able to guard-point immediately afterwards, never lose any phials in the process, all while not having to spend skills on Guard, Guard-Up, Artillery, etc. Lemme tell you, CB would feel a lot more cheap.
This was the most comprehensive, level-headed explanation on MHR’s LS issue I’ve ever seen, well done! I’m glad you took the time to explain how it is unbalanced, and why that matters to the community. I’m genuinely looking forward to you addressing those other topics and concerns you mentioned at the end of the video!
Yeah i usually run LS, and I'm usually as awestruck as the monster when I see a nice Hammer or HH user. Tbh, I felt the buffs immediately going into Rise but I wouldn't have guessed that LS was ever bottom tier or high tier until this vid. Because you know I'm a normal guy and get giddy if i manage to do two back to back Iai's, maybe did a flawless quadruple back in World once mind you lol. And in GU i was just happy with everything. I tried diff weps just for the sake of seeing how different they could all be.
As a gunlance main I've accepted I use the worst weapon in the game but it's way to fun to put down. At least greatsword will always be there for me since that's been my true main since Freedom Unite.
I was a greatsword main since FU, i just tried Gunlance in MHR cuz a friend challenged me to do it. So i did. And now i'm a better gunlance user than said friend when i have 60+ uses and he has some 500+ uses. But man, gunlance is hella fun.
Maybe us gunlance mains should start claiming it's op so Capcom will actually buff it. Saying it stinks doesn't help. But at least the boomstick is fun.
Seems like modern Monster Hunter balance has been every game they try to nerf gunner weapons, but end up giving them some broken shit anyway, and they try to buff gunlance, but are afraid it'll be actually good for once so they give it two nerfs for every buff.
Look at it this way, Rise is so easy that your weapon being shitty kind of makes the game more fun. I'd rather be a GL main than a LS main right now. LS is so boring.
I remember playing the demo and thinking long sword was way too strong (the demo honestly put me off the main game just due to the weapon changes, so I've yet to play rise). It baffled me that they both increased the reward of the Iai slash, made it easier to pull off, and even let it go straight into another special sheathe; the fact that it was strict, behind a fairly long sheathe animation, punished you for missing not just by being open but also by lowering your gauge, and could only go into a helm after use in iceborne (which itself was a far higher commitment move than the current soaring kick into splitter, forcing you to know the monster to get it off often), meaning if you used it all the time the monster was going to follow up on you, did a lot to reign in what could easily have been a ridiculously powerful move, and left it in what I always felt was a good state... With Iai's inability to work against grabs aside anyway. Defensive options that allow you to maintain offensive pressure go an extremely long way in monster hunter in general, so the fact the longsword was designed in this way just seems so baffling to me. Making one aspect of a weapon so centrally powerful leads to that one aspect overshadowing all your other options with that weapon in most situations, making them, at least in my opinion, far less interesting to play.
Ls mains like myself feels like the longsword isn’t that good helmbreaker got nurfed hard and cool downs for soaring kick and the slash are very long in the demo and that’s with wirebug 3 but who knows we will find out June 30th
I have played LS (and all the other melee weapons, as well as the ranged weapons in some outings) throughout my monster hunter career. Soaring kick is much faster than World's helm, and the cooldown for kick in particular also isn't very long, especially considering that you need to build back up to red before you use it again. It's much more small opening friendly in particular compared to the old helm breaker, which would require more creativity and monster mastery for more constant use that didn't lead to punishment. special sheathe is extremely powerful due to its ease of use, spammability, and so on. The blade has access to very strong offensive and defensive-offensive options, which is why it ranks on top of melee weapons for speed-running. I'm gonna play the main game soon (probably starting today), so it may change my opinion as compared to the demo, but in the demo the LS was very clearly one of the best weapons move-set wise.
I was pretty baked when I said that comment tbh and I know trust me I killed astalos with my 3 buddy’s all using longsword in 5 mins on the dot and now that I think about it with the new moves we’re getting in the real game the damage is gunna be insane sorry for my stoned comment lol
With Foresight slash already rewarding you with gauge on hit, I don't see why ISS also needed it. That's my biggest gripe. You're given full liberty to spam it as much as you want. At least with the Valor counter and IB ISS, there was risk involved. In Rise you are free to do as you please. All the speed, and no gauge drop if you miss. In the hands of anyone moderately capable, you are no longer playing the game. Long Sword is playing the game for you. I think it would be overall better if they brought up the other weapons. Lance and GL need help. CB feels weird. Hunting Horn lost the strategy and thinking ahead that made it fun to play. Hammer's damage is frontloaded onto Impact Crater.
As an LS player, I agree; I'd be perfectly happy just not losing a level of spirit gauge if I don't land the ISS just right, and it feels unnecessary for me to gain a level of gauge for landing it. Actually, with how much less strict the timing for it is in Rise, I'd actually probably be okay with losing the gauge level for missing, but that was one of my least favorite parts of IB LS. 🤷♂️
This video must have been released before iai spirit slash had its damage nerfed by 50% and the counter window was made tighter. The longsword is only as good as the player that is using it. I’ve talked to people that struggle with using it, it doesn’t just play the game for you so I think calling it this overpowered at this point is a little hyperbolic. Yes it’s very versatile but there is a tremendous skill gap between novice longsword users and experienced users, it requires a lot of monster knowledge and skill to use optimally. The longsword tends to get me slower times than charge blade and greatsword in a lot of match ups in World and Rise. Those are the three weapons I play and even though i’m the best at using longsword it still doesn’t kill the monster as quickly as other weapons often times
@@AWanderingSwordsman It's actually not way too safe, after pretty much every attack you are left vulnerable since it lacks lance's counter. You can only block for a neutral state, which isn't good reactively, only good proactively. In rise they finally gave it some much needed safety with it's wirebug block. Pure shelling is also really bad and arguably it's best move, wyrmstake, is affected by hitzones. If you want a weapon that's really safe and hitzone agnostic, look no further than Sticky Bowgun.
@@FrostyTheCookie pure shelling is bad in terms of dps but it's top tier in terms of safety and it will still kill the monster. We are talking about rise here as well where it got a solid counter. Sticky bowgun is very busted (as is slicing). It's arguably less safe for bad players, because of the lower defense, but in even an average players hands, lbg is brain dead easy mode.
@@AWanderingSwordsman Yeah LBG is the easiest weapon in the game. And regarding the first paragraph, anything can be top tier in terms of safety if you use exclusively weak but safe attacks. There's arguably safer ways to play that can deal more damage too. Just tapping the enemy and bailing is safe, this can apply to pretty much any weapon. Never filling up your spirit gauge with longsword isn't good for damage, but it sure is safe. There's better ways to play a horribly weak yet safe weapon than pure shelling.
@@AWanderingSwordsman Yeah LBG is the easiest weapon in the game. And regarding the first paragraph, anything can be top tier in terms of safety if you use exclusively weak but safe attacks. There's arguably safer ways to play that can deal more damage too. Just tapping the enemy and bailing is safe, this can apply to pretty much any weapon. Never filling up your spirit gauge with longsword isn't good for damage, but it sure is safe. There's better ways to play a horribly weak yet safe weapon than pure shelling.
The weapon usage will never be evened out, many people pick weapons because they think it's cool, (looking at you gunlance users) and not because it's really good. I'm pretty sure even if you could balance out the potential damage output of all weapons people will still gravitate to long sword as it's one of the more fluid weapons to use and its arsenal of moves just makes it easy enough to use that people will still use it over the Lance, hunting horn, and switch axe. As for me, well I tend to use every weapon in every game, buy my most used weapon is the hunting horn whole my least used is the great sword. As of rise anyways. I love the performance mode i-frames.
Vulcano, not sure of what you talking about, when we got first demo MHR , many people or majority of people were using exclusively HH because the damage was very hight in the first demo. When the full game came out, they nerfed HH. I m very sure, if devs give some kind of boost dmg on Lance weapon, many people will follow. Of course I agree with you to the fact that people usually follow some weapon because of the style and fluidity it might have, but if I m very sure about something is that majority of people will try to use a weapon that deal much more damages that other to get the job done without having to lose wasting time during the run. Me for exemple, I stopped to play LGs because it's not for me to use it. I m not good at counter, so I can not do alot dmg as I would like. And this apply to many other players like me.. many people love to use LGs but they sucks at counter and when you meet that kind of rando in multiplayer online mode, what you could do solo for 4 min , you will take like 10 min And all of them use LGs and they sucks on it only because the gameplay is fluid, but they don't do alot dmg.
If I take exemple about the trio Apex quest (Misutzune, Rathalos, Zinogre) when we don't have HBGunner in team or lbgunner , the run will really suck,and will take more time than necessary.
Serene pose is kinda worse than crit junc but the funny thing is that serene pose gave LS a GS level wake up attack. Small barrel bomb > ISS is also one of the funniest things to do
I really liked the video, I had some clues of why the weapon was so buffed but now I think I comprenhend almost conpletely the problem and sole possible solutions, thanks pal
I just think that we need buffs more than nerfs. I've been testing so many different things in rise. CB is a great example because it has that amazing slide, which evades almost anything, and that beautiful silkbind counter is god's miracle. Another thing I love to use is a full Narg HBG set with evade extender and evade window and boy.... Let me tell you... To make a long story short, the only way you're getting hit by a monster when you have that set on is if you reload at the wrong time, other than that the monster literally can't touch you. I could go on but I think I'll stop by saying I do not think the LS needs super major nerfs. The only thing i would need is the quick sheath, make it just a little bit faster than world's but not too much. I love using LS but I love to use other weapons so I think it'd be much better to BUFF the current weapons rather than NERFING current weapons. If longsword is going to be broken, make every weapon broken and make the G rank monsters op. Broken weapons, harder fights, I think it'd all balance out.
@@funpox5062 oh great, more people like you. If you want to play with the same old stiff and slow hunter, go play dark souls. Go suck off nostalgia and play FU.
So longsword went from dante to vergil gameplay wise. Hard to master but looks cool when you do. Much easier to master looks cool no matter if you aren't that good.
As a player back in the 4U days, I have never and will never touch Long Sword despite how fun it seems to be. Not only is it the most popular weapon, but I constantly flinch from it. I prefer more niche and satisfying weapons like Great Sword and Lance, in fact Lance is my main weapon in Iceborne, and because how how they butchered Guard Up, I don't feel like I can play Lance in Rise, not to mention the fact I like my Guard which is hard to slot in.
I kinda feel the same. Playing nothing but the GS from FreedomU to 4U has made it hard to appreciate the LS. Sure it keeps getting OP, but it doesn't have that chunky *lag* that happens when you hit the monster.
you have something very slightly wrong, in Iceborne the Iai spirit slash doesnt increase the level on a successful, just keeps it the same, that part wasnt added until Rise
A few things I think it's worth pointing out, 1. How to determine whether a weapon is overpowered? By its DPS or the difficulty of using it? If that's the case, the most overpowered weapon should be either HBG or LBG since they require little to no skills but still produce a top 3 DPS. With LS, you have to get really good at reading the monsters' moves before you master the weapon. The learning curve can be long but ends up pretty rewarding. 2. What would be the reason to nerf a well designed weapon with a big player base? I personally wouldn't think in a way to nerf the LS, but to buff the other fun weapons to make them more enjoyable. At the end of the day, every weapon is fun to use. Some prefer one over another. The simplest way to buff the other weapons is to boost attack damages for the all-in offensive weapons like the switch axe and boost the attack damage to a less degree for the primary defensive weapons like the lance. Nothing will be overpowered by then, except for the HBG and LBG. 3. When you say LS doesn't need any armor skills, I can guarantee that you're not a regular LS user. Level 3 Quick sheath is ESSENTIAL to LS, from what I can remember, the armors that have quick sheath don't have a good defence rating. Besides, your argument is totally based on someone that does perfect iai and foresight slashes. But not every player is Peppo or even Peppo himself can't guarantee he placed every counter perfectly. Some monsters have one or multiple combos that literally breaks the LS game's rhythm and if you're a speedrunner, that means start over. For the ones who think LS is op, please master it first. I've been a LS user since p3, I feel like I'm having the most fun in MHR. The game feels more smooth and flawless. Wouldn't that be a good thing if it happens to the weapon you love to use? So buff the other weapons instead of nerfing the LS. If anything deserves a nerf, LBG.
LS main and I agree. But I woudn't complain even if LS received a minor nerf, say, halved i-frames on Foresight and losing/gaining gauge depending on whether you whiff ISS.
@@lemuelszeto True. This gives the new users a longer learning curve and for LS mains only a marginal adjustment. I wouldn't complain about this type of nerf either.
I've played multiple weapons before but in MH:World, the weapon I ended up using the most is Bow, Charge Blade and Dual Blades. Back when it was the PSP Era, I played all of the MH Series using Long Sword but it ended up not being fun to me anymore seeing how there was no challenge anymore when using Long Sword. There's no risk when you master these counters and knowing the monster. There's no danger to fighting anymore when you know what you're doing and when to do it. Though it breaks my heart to see that Charge Blades has sunk so low now that it feels so different from back then, I still love the Charge Blade. The fact that the Bow Guns are at the top is kind of disappointing to me but not surprising. Since using advanced Tech would definitely give you an advantage. I was hoping that the Mechanical Type weapons would do better...
Ranged weapons have dominated speedruns in pretty much the whole series. It's just that with the old generation it was typically GS that was top dog with it's high reward for knowing monsters inside and out. Now LS has taken that role in rise.
Even i don't use LS or like that weapon a lots, but I think Capcom shouldn't nerf its move set. It looks so cool. Maybe just slightly adjust its damage output or increase the sheathing time a bit
That or just revert it back to its older risk and reward playstyle, or bring back Valor style, or just make it it's world counterpart. LS went from strong to full on brain dead op. Granted bow guns are also incredibly strong but only reason people don't complain about them. Is the amount of prep it requires to be good. It's not busted off the bat like Rise's LS. Best change to it would be make Iai spirit slash take a bar but not give it back like it does currently. In its current state the move is free it cost spirit bar then gives it back immediately once it lands. It has 0 drawbacks for being spammed. It's an incredibly easy weapon to learn and is quite fun (in older games at least rise LS is quite boring).
@@itsyaboiguzma pretty much nailed it. Rise LS is too easy to use so hitting the skill ceiling is a lot simpler. I wouldn’t say increase the sheath time though, world’s was horrific and QS didn’t do anything to help. I’d make the actual counter windows smaller, Let’s say the game runs at 60hz, I’d say the counter windows should be between 6 and 12 frames so between 1/10th and 1/5th of a second depend on their risk/reward. As well as making stuff like ISS more punishing on misses like in world.
Idk that I agree with having a missed counter eat a level of gauge is necessarily the best decision, especially since this game has a lot of jank interactions where a monster will aim an attack directly at you and just flat out miss cause of shitboxes (looking at you, Apex Diablos.) A better avenue might be having sheathe counter not interact with gauge whatsoever, and do significantly less damage than it does now if you miss the counter. Would also make FSS more than just a "the monster is putting out two hitboxes" button. Then just make soaring kick more expensive (probably two bugs instead of longer cooldown?) and the counter windows smaller and LS would be more balanced while still being good and retaining its identity.
Special Sheathe should slow down stamina regeneration and should cost like half of your stamina bar just to be used to reduce the spamming. In World, Iai Spirit Slash was used to either reduce or net neutral your spirit gauge. If you countered with it, you gained an extra hit, but the window for Iai Spirit Counter in World was so INCREDIBLY small. It felt justified getting a counter, because it was something like 3 to 7 frames depending on how much Evade Window you had. However, I've been an LS user since before I can even remember. This video makes a lot of good points, but I'm not going to apologize for the weapon I love finally being at the top.
I don't think small adjustments are gonna be enough for this thing, personally. It might've not been the strongest speed run weapon in WIB but it was definitely the most versatile one, being effectively the only weapon in the roaster with a fool proof way to avoid any and all damage for any monster attack if timed correctly sort of screwed with the game progression for anyone playing the weapon. There weren't as many walls in the game if you picked LS, and getting through them was more about trying a few times until you got the counters, it didn't really require you to think about your gear or strategy just learn to do foresight at the proper time. Compared to every other weapon in the game, the long sword could consistently kill any monster you threw at it without any armour skills other than DPS ones, which encouraged the meta playstyle and made other weapons seem pathetic, for example the defensive weapon if the game the Lance taking half of its health in chip damage from rajang with guard, or getting pinned through its shield even with guard up. There's just no place in this game for a weapon like the long sword, huge damage is supposed to be a trade off for brutal difficulty, if a weapon can perform even remotely competitively while being this easy and versatile without even a proper set then it throws off the balance of the entire game.
That was absolutely not the case in world and IB. Many weapons need basically nothing. Hammer, LS, SnS, IG all use exactly the same endgame builds. HH needs horn maestro, one extra 4 slot. SA can use that same meta build or go for power prolonger. It also in no way made other weapons seem pathetic, as it's damage Is very average. All it has is very consistently fine matchups across the board.
Lol u have no idea WTF u are talking about, there are lots of weapons waaay more powerful and easier to play in WIB than LS, esp in endgame. The only reason people like u think it's OP is cause it popular, so automatically u think it must be OP. I can tell u as a LS main with tousands of hours playtaime that for most of the hardest encounters in WIB i didn't even use LS cause other weapons were just stronger and waaay easier to use. ZSD SA spamming, Frostcraft GS, Bow, LBG and HBG are all both easier and stronger for 99% of encounters. LS was a midtier weapon at best in WIB. I would agree that it's very strong in Rise compared to other melee weapons, but it's still miles below Bow, LBG and HBG, so yeah not even that OP.
Personally, I think LS needs heavy nerfs. Even without any counter move, LS is still very versatile with its mobility, speed, long range, being relatively easy to learn, and its spirit attacks lets you ignore sharpness (and don't require aiming to break specific parts) It didn't have any significant weaknesses so it was already very beginner friendly, besides having to commit to long combos to get big damage and lack of defensive options. That's why the counters felt like an overkill, because now you can continue your agression withour mayor risks, while still keeping the mobility and range. It even has better defense than shield weapons because you aren't restrained by the stamina meter and neither has to worry about chip damage. If it needs to keep the counter moves, make it like in GU where the timing was stricter and had to consider where the attack was coming from.
@@benhzy9609 It has above average speed while unseathed. It has the reach of a GS and the speed of a SnS. The fade slash is fine because it's balanced by not being instant nor invincible, and being limited to 3 directions. Also, being able to attack while being very moving, even if only in 3 directioms, is very good. ISS is instant, invincible and can be used at any direction. It needes spirit meter, but getting it is kinda the focus of the weapon, so you won't have trouble.
Then there are greedy LS users still ranting about the hitlag, and asking for a buff. Said removing the quick sheath is fine, bring back no hitlag. If Rise has ISS i-frame and same punishment (lose a level when u miss) like Iceborne itd be a decent balance. Anyway, you guys know what counter is the most punished when you failed? Bow with Dodge Bolt, super tight i-frame like a flash, and if you miss, its a OHKO even with full upgrades and health birds, buffed magnamalo and apexes doenst care. As LS having a plenty of invulnerable window with ISS, like Apex Zino with hand stomp attack, smth around 0.2 secs you can counter with ISS when it touches you. While bow only having a short likely instant. For me if Capcom want to buff Bow, it should be after a successfully dodge bolt give you Herculean Draw effect for like 3secs, or max out the charge, raise only one charge is a crime with such punishments if you fail.
I think the team needs to give buffs to other weapons to make it just as flexible like the ls, keeping the balance amongst other weapon users. (I miss charge blade)
I don't think the MonHun developers should try to balance things only around speedrunning, since it's a fairly niche way of playing the game, and not necessarily the best perspective to view game balance from. Given how most speedrunners' fastest times only count their best or near-perfect runs, they do not represent how hunts usually play out. I do wish you could play Rise's Long Sword in a way that felt more like the older games, without it feeling very inefficient and wasteful. I was thinking of a Switch Skill that replaces the Iai Spirit Slash, or the Special Sheathe as a whole, with some kind of Great Sword-style charge attack. Since the counter-based playstyle is all about exploiting Monster's attacks, having a charge attack that requires you to stand still and be vulnerable for a few seconds would be focused on making the most of big openings instead, so it would be a good counterpart.
Imho basing nerfs on speedrun times is overall not healthy for the whole game.. Since only very minority of players opt for such very optimal gameplay where the weapon really excels... And especially in Rise where Longsword is the tutorial weapon hence the reason for it to be streamlined even further (You can take it or leave it).. I agree that nerfing some s can be good for the enthusiast part of the community but I highly doubt that aligns to Capcom's view of giving us a good new player experience in which Monster Hunter is not known for..
mh3u was my first mh game and LS was the sole reason why i got into the series so it feels extremely jarring seeing LS go from a careful positioning weapon to letting the monster kill itself
In addition to the dmg in counters, you also can factor in what you need for it in the hunt and in a set. GL, Lance and CB all need some sort of guard or guard up ability to counter later monsters, up to 5 of them, depending on the attack. Also, with no health augment you have to get used to chip dmg. There are counters that work regardless of guard (or even better with lower guard), but they all need wirebugs to work. LS on the other hand needs no investment of skills to counter, no wirebugs and recieves no chip dmg.
The reason why gun lance is so weak is due to shelling being hard nerfed to do as much damage as the level prior in world (EG level 5 shells in rise are level 4 shells in world) along with either the removal or severe nerfing of the trip values that gun lance provided in world. Not to mention the removal of the blaster stake. (Okay technically your palamute can apply something like it, but half the time I can’t find the damn thing and the wolf ends up applying it somewhere that a gun lancer can’t make good use of, like the tail) if you addressed those issues, gunlance would probably go back to being a middle child, if not more given the fact that speed stake and wyvern fire spam now exists. (Basically after any counter, or charged shell, you can can immediately go into a doubled speed wyrmstake. this also works with the alternate silk bind move that temporarily levels up your gun lance, but if you keep the hail cutter, you can combine it with long lances inherently shorter wyvern cool down, artillery’s cooldown buff, and all you need to do is use hail cutter twice and your good to go again!)
I started with World and been maining IG, it really got my attention that one generation earlier IG was S tier. I'm ok with it having low damage in World because the extra mobility is awesome, but damn what happened? From 1st to 10th that's crazy
Oof, I feel this. I picked up IG on World (also my first game but I knew of IG from the previous generation as well) and loved it, especially the additions it got from Iceborne but when I used it in Rise, it just felt off
Instead of nerfing the LS they should buff the other weapons to this level. LS feels amazing to play, I want other weapons to feel this awesome too. If the monsters then need a buff as well, that's fine. They absolutely shouldn't revert the weapon. I have so much fun playing LS, and it was very frustrating at times in World. They basically just fixed the bugs World had. No other weapon makes you feel like you're in a dance with the monster like LS. Instead, just buff the lacking weapons so they can compete. Why should lance have tight counters when LS doesn't? Buff everything to this level. Why make the player feel slow and limited just so they can keep up with the monster design? If monsters need to be faster or less predictable, that's where we should put our criticisms.
Agree Instead of nerfing everything they should buff the others Although there are a few things they could nerf But that shouldn’t be the main focus Also buff the monsters to compensate
@@The.Brother.in.Christ Especially considering that LS isn't even as good as the least powerful ranged weapon according to speed run statistics. But you don't really hear anyone complaining about HBG
longsword been the most popular weapon not because it is overpowered, but its fast pace and flashy style. if you look back in previous version, LS is always on the top of popularity chart even when the speed run clear time are below avg among the 14 weapon types.
LS in iceborne was already pretty good for non speedrunners, and yes was the most popular, but it was something like 23%, in rise we double this value, that is something strange going on here right
Most likely reason for doing this was because lots of people considered LS to be a newbie weapon for its versatility, ease of use, and incentive to learn monster attack patterns, but its damage was outclassed by other weapons, meaning the skill ceiling was much lower compared to weapons like the dual blades. Iai slash was completely ignored by most players as a counter as it was much harder to land than a foresight slash, and missing had much more dire repercussions; you would remain locked in an animation for a dangerous amount of time and you would spend an entire spirit level for no reward. Easiest fix for the latter and the former was the same; buff the special sheath stance. As for the Helmbreaker's speed and damage buff, I feel like that's warranted considering you now spend a wirebug on top of the spirit level. The investment is increased, therefore so too should the payoff. I feel like the buffs did their job in transforming LS from a beginner weapon to an actual identity; a counter-focused damage dealer that relies on gambling resources (spirit gauge, spirit level, wirebugs) with ample payoff, and a diminishing risk as you become more acquainted with the monster you are hunting. They buffed the Iai slash counters, they nerfed the foresight slash (no longer has two hit boxes for attack registration, thus making spirit gauge a bit more difficult to replenish), and they integrated the LS moveset into the wirebug mechanic very smoothly. You could argue that the Silkbind counter is a bit obnoxious, but same concept applies; risk and reward with diminishing risk as you become more acquainted with a monster's moves. It has a long active phase, it deals damage, and it builds up a mount. Yes, that's a lot, but it also puts two wirebugs out of commission for a while, so you can't spam it, you need to use it sparingly, and you have to decide if it's better to use the Silkbind counter or a Helm Breaker, because in most cases, you can't have both. I have no issue with this rework, but I do play a bit more Charge Blade and Hammer than Long Sword anymore. I just don't feel like it needs to be changed any more than the Dual Blades from World.
I really miss the old long sword play style, it used to be one of my mains back when it was a dodge play style, but since it turned into a counter machine and since I'm quite bad at countering, I've just fully switched to DBs as my main
It may be busted. But it's busted in a fun way, instead of nerfing it, everything else should be buffed. It's a mentality a lot of the best fighting games have and I think it could apply really well here. It's a game about fighting monsters and picking flowers, so the monster hunting parts should feel awesome.
Well now it makes sense why veteran players kept saying I (GS main) would like longsword. The positioning and timing aspect sounds super fun. But I hate, HATE using counter/parry mechanics in games. I just thought this was always how longsword worked.
really good video, i went into it thinking "wait, it's not" but you mention that gunner weapons are stronger... i agree on pretty much everything that said, i like rise's longsword, i'm not particularly mad at ls being this busted, it's fun ant that's the important thing since it's not a competitive pvp game BUT i'm really mad about the other weapons not being nowhere near (i'm looking at you gunlance) buffs >>> nerfs
@@ramondelgado6029 true, but is not that bad as in pvp games and franckly speaking, ls doesn't have anything wrong, is incredibly fun to play and that's the only important thing the problem is the other blademaster weapons being lackluster in comparison buffs > nerfs
I started out as a lance main, but i was very disappointed in my damage, and when i went to look it up i saw someone saying "if you like counter based playstyles, just play long sword lol" And i did and now it's almost impossible to play any other weapon! The longsword is VERY strong, very safe, and also very fun, so i feel no reason to swap out of it. What i will say tho is that instead of nerfing longsword, i think they should buff the other weapons (SPECIALLY lance) I don't want to see Longsword gutted in Sunbreak, it is still a really fun weapon, i just think the other options are too inferior to even bother, so they should be brought up a notch
I heavily despise that the Lance even with heavily invested guard skills still results in chip damage. Lance is my favorite weapon Becuase I enjoy a slow and steady tank build while also feeling like a tactician on my pokes.
Make Quick Sheathe not SO quick can fix the problem. The Player just shouldn't have time to counter every second attack. Also losing one level of spirit bar after an unsuccessful counter looks like a good decision. Or, as a decision, the counter has take a bug, successful or not.
They could make it so that when you incorrectly use the lai spirit slash you lose all levels of the spirit gauge. The Lance as a start could get a damage buff and have guard up on all blocks or counters. Gunlance could use a small raw buff, some raw scaling based of offensive skills, and the addition of elemental/status damage to shelling that scales with both artillery and element/status boosting skills. This doesn't have much to do with the video but I need Hunting Horn to go back to the way it was in World or be fused with it's GU counter part. They could try using World's moveset with the addition of double notes to start. I just hat what they did to Hunting Horn it feels like a completely different weapon and justifies my fear that monster hunter will become a hack and slash over the top game in the near future. Most weapons I think are really good in rise, it's just that you can't actually feel it the same way you did in World or to a smaller extent in GU. The switch controller has HD rumble why do they not use it, the controller gives way more feedback then Xbox or PS4 controllers, so why not use the tech to their advantage.
I don't think losing all levels of spirit gauge on a failed iai spirit slash is a good nerf. I'd rather they just make it the same in iceborne tighter counter windows and if you fail you lose 1 level of spirit gauge and also make it so that quick sheathe is back to world standards as well.
@@ligaar0849 yeah I guess. One thing is that all explosives in Monster Hunter have an absolutely mineschule amount of fire damage. It could be a separate shelling type. The thing is shelling quickly caps out in usefulness. Gunlance's application of flat damage is not as good as the blowgun application through sticky and cluster. If they increased the scale then it not only would directly increase damage but make shelling more applicable. In every game shelling has run into the problem of being weak. GU had the stupid heat gauge, World completely ignored shells as it was such a waste since slap/swinglance is better, and rise is fully reliant on the silkbind that also buffs. It would be neat of element/status was not just a waste on gunlance. It's impossible to make a perfectly balanced game but they could try a lot to not make entire weapons a joke.
As for the state of ls now in sunbreak, personally, it now has 2 main strong playstyles using the 2 sheathe switch skills, sacrdd sheathe firstly is a lot of fun and honestly no complaints really it allows the use of silkbind sakura slash and also the new redirection skill added and now with the addition of wind mantle and frostcraft i couldnt be happier As for spirit sheathe it had its numbers cut in half and instead moved to the new silkbind harvest moon which has too many issues that make it so awkward to use, soaring kick also had its damage halved and wirebug cooldown rate decreased but thats fine really, the new way to play spirit sheath is to use more of its moveset, adding in serene pose and that one hit of spirit reckoning for repositioning but the main issues lies with harvest moon, why did they make it so it disappears when you put your weapon on your back, step out of the circle or after a period of time, it didn't need the first 2, also its completely useless in multiplayer I think it should stay when you sheathe your weapon (maybe), allow you to step out of the circle without it disappearing or knocking you back in, and make it so other players get a small buff to their counters when they step in it like pls bro i dont even want stat changes i just want it to not be so bloody awkward
God I've never thought that LS became that much busted since its introduction, hope they nerf it a bit in sunbreak so people use other weapons. Great Video
Honestly, if they really want to keep the mechanics for Sunbreak, then they need to buff the living shit out of all the weapons. The fact that hammer has way less damage output than not only LS, but also DB, seems illegal to me. Make the damage somewhat equal, then I'll be happy. (DB main speaking here, btw.)
Very true. Although, I believe rather than nerfing longsword there should be buffs for other weapons. Leaving the current play style alone (with slight modifications, like adding more options centered around normal attacks) may level the playing field between weapons without provoking those that prefer the counter centric play style. But that's just a theory. I play all the weapons so I don't have the specialized knowledge that some may have.
Yeah, you're right. I may not be great at using longsword but after looking at certain skills like the evasion skills and Barioth armor in general, I have to admit the longsword is far too forgiving. Also, I'm so sorry for not realising who responded to my comment until recently.
The video was really well made, good job. I agree with pretty much all your saying. One thing I want to point out is how long the counter for longsword stay out in comparison with something like gunlance, Critical juncture has alot more active counter frames than other weapons counters, which makes it really good in comparison with other weapons
@@betashark9776 ah lmao Honestly most people dislike the Serene Pose because yes, it has more active frames, but the counter itself is slow and uses up a whole spirit gauge level, which would be better used on a soaring kick. And it uses two whole wirebugs. Like I said in the video, it does have a use for emergency counters for monster combo attacks, but I didn't mention that it's also used for wakeup hits. It's alright but it's not ideal, and I don't consider it to be a significant factor into why the longsword is overpowered.
I don't see why would that be a problem considering that in the previous games there were other melee weapons that were best in slot for speedrunning. I think that the game is catering to what is fun rather than anything else. The fact that speedrunners have a favourite weapon does not mean that the weapon is OP. I bet in the next installment there'll be a new favourite weapon yet again
I understand where you're coming from, but consider how the longsword has continually been receiving buffs since MHXX/MHGU. Valor style was busted for its counter, the special sheathe moves in World, Rise adding more counter based wirebug skills, bringing back Sakura Slash, making it easier to pull off the Helm Splitter and the Quick Sheath skill being far more impactful than in World/Iceborne. MH3U LS was when it was at its best in my opinion. If you wanted to block an attack, you had to pick a Lance or a Gunlance. You either dodged or got hit. Nowadays, the spirit meter mechanic has been significantly. It is easier to level up the meter and to keep the meter at a certain level without much hassle. I wish Capcom would do a complete revamp on all weapons based on community feedback. That's my take on the matter anyways.
As a more or less new hunter, i feel like a rare breed for picking the lance as a main weapon :) the reason i mostly hate the longsword is because longsword players wont let me move and sometimes even get me hurt because i cant even raise my shield when they are interruptong me
@@mrblooper1994 you deal most damage to the head. So you kill the monster the fastest when everyone aims for the head. Capcom implemented friendly fire, so why is it so difficult to use one level 1 slot for flinch free? Most level 1 decos are useless anyway
As Lance main I have this weird distaste for Longsword in World, Iceborne and Rise (and kinda Gen and GenU but to a lesser degree). Lance revolves around using that big shield of yours to stay your ground and be opressive with the essential use of counters. However, It has some problems that haven't been properly adressed like the movement since Lance has no reliable way to reach the monster mid combat except for the charge (which isn't that fast to begin with and you have to commit to it with few fluid follow-ups), the guard advance which i have no problems with as it functions as a guarding hop with a decent lunge attack (and it's already guarding frame one so it's the more reliable to use after attack than any other blocking/counter except for the silkbind ones), the weird guarding charge switch skill that replaces the original one (it's a lot faster but has a limited travel distance AND melts your stamina so much it's not worth using at all since Lance heavily relies on stamina to block and counter) and the Twin Vines silkbind that has a very short range to apply the teather to the monster, costs two silkbugs which are crucial for Lance in Rise and the teather can be easily broken if the monster get's too far which oddly happens more often than you'd think. Also, without World's and Iceborne's health regen augments, the nerf to Guard Up, the insistance of keeping Guard lv 2 and 4 when both are very redundant and useless and the overall lack of ways to deal with both chip damage and stamina consumption, Lance is in a pretty tight spot. In the other hand, Long Sword not only gets tons more love than other weapons like Lance or Gunlance, it started to be THE counter weapon which makes playing Lance quite obsolete when you could get a lot more results with less effort and a strong moveset with Long Sword's strong counter arsenal. In Gen and GenU, I had no problems with Critical Juncture because it required you to deal damage to charge AND the charge meter was long. In Rise, Serene Pose has a shorter overall charge time and the only thing you have to do is wait. The Iai Counter had it's miss penalty from Iceborne removed and Quick Sheath allows you to easily spam it. Foresight Slash has too many counter frames (I remember that it was quite challenging to pull of at the start of World's life but got gradualy buffed with more and more counter frames up to Iceborne).
I'm pretty indifferent ngl. Been playing for a long time and I've seen weapons be completely busted time and time again. Even individual weapons can be dumb. Kelbi bow anyone? I just want every weapon to be good. Idc if there's a best weapon. Just as long as every weapon is close enough to eachother. Too many people are saying "hunters are becoming too powerful". I seem to have forgotten when this game became dark souls. World made the game more casual and accessible. Be thankful that world was such a success that we can continue having monster hunter games to begin with cause gen ain't do too good and genU wasn't even gonna come out.
Even with the counters World and iceborne added, they still had a high level of commitment and risk:reward. Rise removed that and turned it into the super easy-to-use weebstick we all know. also, uh... what? no, CB DOESN'T need Guard and Artillary to make it good. Guard isn't really that necessary if you can time your CPP well, and Artillary isn't a huge buff to phial damage. Another point on CB- why didn't you show the the CES counter from CPP? I believe that can do more damage than a UAED- it has in my experience.
I do want to make a follow up to this video, but I think it's better to wait until Sunbreak is actually out before we make any sweeping statements. Like Harvest Moon seems very strong, but it's possible Sunbreak nerfed Longswords counter damage to balance it. In addition to this, the description of the attack seems to imply we can't leave the circle, or we get nerfed when we leave, which could be a problem against monsters that move a lot. Like I said, best to wait.
One less obvious mechanic of the longsword that isnt talked about as much, is the delay in hits. It isnt significant at first, but becomes a VERY comfortable part of its moveset that allows easy decision making. Because of the delayed hits in the sheathed counter and helmbreaker, the LS user always has more window to react to a flinch/stagger as they can already start moving during the flinch animation. Other weapon classes will still be locked into a roll, a sheathe, or in attack recovery animation for a few more frames during the monster's flinch animation. During the flinch the LS user may have already sheathed into iai slash, or can silkbind jump into helmbreaker. Basically what im trying to say is, LS has more window to react to a flinch over any other melee weapon class. That said, it's also the reason ranged weapons are so powerful, coz they dont miss a stagger/flinch window to add shots and stack up on damage dealt.
Longsword was always a relatively balanced weapon Valor LS was strong but you could still die to things like side-hitting Hitboxes and the Valor Gause running out Then World came and everything went downhill
Valor Longsword is just a upgrade version of Rise Longsword. People are saying Rise Longsword is to op actually never played Gen U since Valor Style is completely BUSTED
I heavily disagree with the notion that LS should get any nerfs but hard agree with buffing other weapons Reason : it’s fun , why take away the fun? just balance out the fun of other weapons instead and make them just as viable
LS is a bit mindless and easy. I'd even say it trivializes a lot of the content. It would kill the game for me if they ramped up every weapon to SL levels. I'd rather there be imbalance with LS auto pilot on top and other weapons just being weaker.
@@sean_thomson It is relatively easy to pick up yes, but it still takes time to learn to use properly. Playing it in Peppo mode is nothing a beginner can pull off, they still need a few hundred hunts to get all the counter timings down for the weapon to work optimally. It also wouldn't hurt weapons like the Lance to get a more fun kit. Speedruns with that thing are just an endless chain of spiral thrusts and I can't be the only one who finds that a little underwhelming and not that enticing to get into. (For the Record: No, I don't main LS)
@@-siranzalot- I have no problems with balance, but I always get on edge when people say things like bring all the weapons up to LS levels. That would ruin the fun. I've switch to solo lance in rise purely because it takes more work to get the same results. I enjoy the extra work personally. (side note, spiral thrust isn't even the worst meta we've had for lance; shivers in GU. Also in Rise there are some fights were its not spiral thrust centric but this is an issue lance has had for a while, so I agree with you there) Anything speed running will take 100s of hours to master. Speed running is also a tiny fraction of the game, and I'm not bothered by how fast LS can kill a monster. I know people use that as a sole metric, but I think there is more to weapons than timed runs. LS is the easiest/safest weapon in the game compared to every other melee weapon, which isn't the end of the world. Only issue I have with LS is role creep. Outside of that its people wanting to justify LS by bringing every other weapon up to LS levels. And as I stated in the earlier post I'd rather have LS just be stupid strong than other weapons brought up to LS levels.
@@sean_thomson I think you might be the first person I ever found in a comment section with whom a discussion on this topic feels worthwhile and not toxic at all. Sorry If I got that across wrong, but I wasn't really arguing from the speedrunning angle, nor have I ever really gotten into that. It's just that most MH content in which we really see the weapons in action on YT is quite speedrunning centric and everytime I think about getting into another weapon myself, I watch some of those to see if an effective playstyle of the weapon in question seems fun enough to me to give it an honest try. I was interested in the Lance at one point but the top level gameplay I saw of it just didn't spike my interest enough to warrant putting real hours in. I also don't think that it would be right, necessary or even organically possible to just crank "low tier" (air quotes on purpose) weapons up three notches but I think we can agree that it feels weird that LS got a major rework over the last few iterations which changed it's playstyle by a lot and other weapons feel more or less completely neglected in that department. Don't get me wrong, I don't want for the weapons to eventually all facilitate an easier game, just a more rewarding incentive for actually learning them. This can and should go hand in hand with cranked up monsters, too. If more monsters got updated moves and more aggression as e.g. Rathalos in Rise, maybe the current LS wouldn't have spiked such a heavy controversy in the first place - provided some of the more neglected weapons would have gotten a new interesting thing sprinkled in here and there as well. These are just my two cents on all that. The one thing I'd say current state of LS is good for is that it serves as quite the gateway drug for beginners to get into the game ;-)
I feel like such a noob when I couldn't predict the monster's next attack 2 seconds in advance and nail the spirit counter reliably, but now I just feel stupid for never noticing they were using quick sheathe. The thought that it affected iai stance never even crossed my mind.
Well, that settles it, you've made some very good points and convinced me that the longsword is just too overpowered. Well, only one thing can be done about this problem, we're gonna have to nerf the gunlance again.
Don’t forget to give the longsword two more abilities.
Maybe let it stun monsters better than the hammer and make its red charge let your character move around like they’re in dual blade demon mode
@@firenze6478 I’d be cool with that 💪💪💪
As a gunlance main this is sadly true.
@Firenze 64 Next game, longsword will gain the ability to bash monsters with the sheath. Of course, to balance it, the ko values will be half that of the hammer. But to reward "skilled" players, we'll give it 2.95 seconds of i-frames where it would deal triple the ko and fill half the spirit gauge.
the fact that it have better defense than the shield weapons is the real crime in my eyes.
Wait
WHAT
@@shirosame7 shields need guard improvements to not be pushed by the recoil with no chance to counter, with longsword if you are good you can ignore anything the monsters toss you and just keep attacking with 0 decision making of what you should or shouldn't block. All while suffering 0 chip damage.
U cant rly ignore fast attack chains with LS counters. There are downsides for sure. Just not big enough for most monsters
@@Zamoxino He went through the whole quick sheith thing in the video, you absolutely can. Shields technically handle that kind of thing a little better. However, with how fast quick sheath can be the difference is negligible.
@@cameronstandifird8210 im pretty sure piss zinoger is still too fast even for QS3. but im stuck on my PC and i dont rly follow LS players around so who knows
Long Sword, a weapon originally designed to elegantly move between risky combos and dodging: ahaha *3 gem slots to make no-chip-damage become instant* ahaha *counter into high damage follow up into counter into high damage follow up into counter into high damage follow up into...*
Lance, a weapon designed around holding your ground with impeccable defense: My entire armor loadout revolves around maxxing out Guard and Guard Up and I still take chip damage :(
Boggles my noggin that not a single one of LS counter has a window as small as perfect guard. They nerfed guard decos across the board and don't even let you get that kind of treatment. I was hoping beyond hope that Rise's PC launch would come with a rebalancing so the weapon didn't feel like complete muck when it hits.
I disagree a bit. I think quick sheathe deserves to be tossed into the gutter. The weapon has the entirety of it's kit and a fade slash. Getting to twitch into an insane i frame counter is way too much.
@@themur880 I think quick sheathe being the way it is is fine so long as there's more reason not to spam special sheathe. They should definitely lower the window for landing spirit slash, reduce the I frames a tad, and make it so you can't dodge cancel it once you activate it. Players should have some kind of repercussion for using special sheathe at the wrong time and getting rid of the dodge cancel is one of the easiest ways to make people think a little more about when to use it because at least then they'll be forced to do one of two moves. If neither move is good for the situation? well tough shit. Should of thought of that before using special sheathe.
@@sgtpancakes450 So my opinions on this are somewhat not very complicated.
LS gets counters that ignore guard-up ignoring unblockables, takes no chip, uses no stamina, and can go into them at relatively the same speed as the windows between two lance pokes.
It's resistant to multi-hits by design due to the movement and the length of it's i-frames, and unlike the backhop with SnS starts out at full power. No evasion necessary.
Iai should have it's own deco line and that deco line should be 2 slotters that cost 5 points for max power just like guard. The trigger frames should be the lance perfect block window and require skills (evasion) to get to slightly better than IB window.
Lastly sheathe should burn stamina as rapidly as powerguard does while you hold it, impacted by Marathon runner.
That'd be "fair" though I admit it would obviously not be very fun.
@@themur880 how about instead of ruining LS because Lance is shit, like many seem to want, we buff Lance while making LS harder to use.
The main crux of the issue is that LS in rise is too easy to be good with, not that LS is good so how do we fix that? Well I can tell you it’s not by artificially capping the weapons potential, that’s fairly obvious because doing that won’t actually fix the problems.
@@domp2729 Now I'll preface this by saying this isn't the main focus of the point I was making. With that out of the way, LS was perfectly fine without the buffs it got so I'm not sure how that would be ruining the weapon if you return to a pre-overdone buffed state. It was still one of the most used weapon for world/IB.
Ease of use has nothing to do with it. Because the end result is still a weapon with no drawbacks.
How do you fix it? The same way they "fixed" Lance and Gunlance. A bunch of nerfs. They hit skill slotting, mobility, and stamina regen. Clearly they thought this was the correct choice of balance.
Secondly, Lance doesn't need sweeping buffs, it needs a reversion of inane nerfs. The last thing this game needs is more LS tier weapons running around trivializing fights as hard as sticky raining gunners.
Naturally this wouldn't be a fun outcome. But it'd be in line with the consistency every other weapon got. Naturally I'm not advocating for such wide sweeping tomfoolery. I'm just applying exactly what other weapons got and showing how little fun that would be.
The only thing I personally want is QS to be thrown into the gutter. That move has no reason to be that quick with that most access to the entire rest of your moveset upon successful execution of your counter.
Personally I think one of the most simple minded ways but maybe also decently effective ways to balance the weapon would be to make its special moves cost stamina. I mean just look at how a longsword player flies around the map just using their attacks, without any stamina cost despite their movement. If Insect Glaive jumps cost stamina why shouldnt Longswords? That would make stamina skills more viable for longsword gameplay similar to dual blades.
Won’t fix much if they just drink dash juice lmao.
Nope, the simplest way is to remove counters in all non shield weapon. The hunters are too overpowered and it's not fun. The game stopped become fair in gen 5.
@@regaliaex1338 maybe prior to World, but after World Dash Juice only reduces stamina loss by 25%, still encouraging the usage of Stamina skills or item extenders as well to maintain their stamina better just as other weapon types slot specific skills too.
@@pemuda7075 while that would be even simpler it would alianate a huge part of Longsword users by removing half their movesets. One could consider nerfing the counters making their movement and i-frame range dependent on skills like Evade extender or evade window, that way skill managment could still allow for players to feel like the "new old ways" while still stopping them or punishing them from overextending their stamina loss.
Imagine being mad about "balance" in a non-competitive, non-Player v.s. Player game
Besides, of course Longsword is overpowered in Rise, the theme for this mh game is "weeb"
Imagine being a lance player that has to slot in guard 5 and still takes chip dmg and loses stamina while a long sword has better defense than you while also doing massive dmg and increasing the spirit gauge for even more dmg
Weapon diff
I am that victim, wallowing in this state of mediocrity.
@@kidomni5283 i just gave up lol
thats me, if at least they increase the attack buff duration of anchor rage, maybe i wont cry in the shower
who is cutting unions in my room :(
the thing that ticks me off the most, is the decision to give long sword all of these advantages with easy counters, meanwhile, lance's special counter move is super tight, leaves you super vulnerable, and has worse range. at this point, long sword has just taken lance's playstyle away from it.
gunlance also apparently got a nerf to it's shelling damage to make up for the silkbind move's damage increase but gunlance wasn't strong in the first place so it just becomes weaker. they've essentially kept buffing the weapon that was already fine multiple times while reducing the effectiveness of all the others for seemingly no proper reason.
I was super pumped to use the Lance Insta-Guard because I liked adept Lance in GU, but man that timing:reward ratio is too narrow for me to consider it worth learning
I'll be honest, I'm a LS main but in my MHGU run I'm going full blown CB due to the complexity and defense capabilities of the weapon (i play adept and striker style). An I must say even playing Rise or World/Iceborne I feel like CB is overall more fun to play then LS due to actually having a riskier moveset.
Gunlance also had wyvernfire heavily nerfed too.
I think gunlance for me had a bit of a buff. Back then in world, it was regular shelling in high rank and charged shots plus wyrmstake. Full burst still does top damage I think but leaves you open too much.
In rise, with a counter move that restores sharpness and another silkbind move that has a really long hyper armor and reduces damage taken by a lot. With those 2, you can do the fullburst playstyle better.
That being said, i tend not to use longsword much anymore because quests seem too easy with it. It does annoy me a bit that they still buff longsword and bow when they are already strong
TBH, I don't think they should nerf LS for future game, it would be far better for the game to bring other blademaster weapons up to LS level. It's super fun to play LS in rise, and the counter frames for Iai and foresight are tight enough to require good knowledge of monster patterns.
Longsword has better defenses than defensive weapons, better counters than counter focused weapons, better burst than burst weapons (great sword is a burst weapon) and hits faster that most speed weapons.
It quite literally does the job of eveyr other melee weapon better than every other melee weapon.
It really bothers me that I feel the longsword is a far better defensive weapon than the lance in rise- as a matter of fact, I feel like they completely dropped all fun back and forth play with the monster on lance and put it on lingsword for... some reason?
@@gamecavalier3230 shields are trash
If you use shields you’re trash too
@@gamecavalier3230 no, capcom hates the lance and gunlance
c'mon, drop the weapon already so we can delete it next game without repercussions
If you want to know something really stupid Guard 5 SNS with offensive guard is a thing in rise that actually works. 15% damage boost at all times, enough chip damage to keep up resentment, and the insane mobikity and utility of SNS. They really screwed lance out of its identity lmao
@@gamecavalier3230 I was more just adding another nail into the coffin for lance. Since Guard Slash acts sort of like another level of guard now, it basically lets you tank some hits that would cancel your combo otherwise and jumps you straight into perfect rush, even giving you a couple decent damage numbers on the shield bash. Since you can guard slash out of any combo you can basically just never move away from the monster. No idea why they seem to be out to kill the pokey weapons but they are.
@@FractileSoriah You use SnS defensively?
From a Bushido Lance main it saddens me that everything has better counter options and damage than Lance :( I love when I can turn Monster Hunter into a massive Sekiro boss. The dopamine release after parrying three zinogre slams is unmatched to me.
One thing they can do to “nerf” the ls is by bringing back the punishment spirit gave if used incorrectly.
Example:
If you time a spirit slash correctly, you gain a gauge.
If you time it incorrectly, you lose a gauge.
This will not only help players from not abusing the move too much, it also help the longsword being balanced (i think).
Yeah that's what I want. And if players can't nail the timing they can practice in the training area.
Maybe also make it that, if you fail a spirit slash, you cant cancel out of it like in World
This would be the sweet spot for LS in my opinion. In MHWI failing to time the spirit slash is a great punishment while timing it correctly is just ok. In MHR is the opposite, there is no risk for not timing it correctly, and reward for doing it is huge, so spamming is normal. This move should be high risk high reward.
One thing people seem to miss about World ISS is that it isn't you still get full damage if you mistime a counter, while in Rise is does no damage if you don't counter. so if you wanted to nerf it back to World you would also have to give back back the damage on a "miss".
Personally I didn't like the punishment feature as it just resulted in LS players having really big egos and it wouldn't fix LS's insane dps for speedruns. Maybe narrowing the timing a little bit and just making it's damage less insane. The punishment also makes LS less fun, and while it's broken rn, it's DAMN fun. Simply culling the damage a bit and maybe the timing would make it less broken while retaining the fun.
My issue with LS in rise is simple.
They gone far enough where you don't even have to play the game like it's monster hunter.
Just keep attacking non-stop with the monster feeling more like a punching bag with teeth, than a deadly creature.
ya, all the counter and the silk thread just allow you to hug the monster non-stop and beat them up. I just don't have the fear of giant monster chasing my ass like before, even if the monster about to use big move, you can easy move away without any problem.
Amazing video, I would love to see a video like this about why gunlance is sadly never really a better weapon
GL just needs more damage and maybe something like elemental shelling.
But if you buffed up the damage it would actually be fine. It's a complex weapon so it's never gonna top popularity charts but that doesn't mean it has to be bad.
@@HeavyWings Gunlance especially needs a shell level rework. It's a shame there is currently only 5 levels which makes every gl that has 4 and under obsolete
They should make it so if their shelling level is 4 or below they make up for it with something, like higher raw damage, better sharpness etc
Gunlance and Lance are not powerful in meta simply because they are designed to avoid damage with the use of shields. As a weapon design philosophy, if you don't need to retreat, then stop and heal, you can keep dealing damage.
But meta play is already a style with the goal of never taking damage (except in rare examples where taking damage is advantageous), so this is no longer an advantage for these weapons.
So, in summary, if you get hit by monsters, the other weapons are not better in your hands. Enjoy your relatively equal Gunlance ✌️
I was hoping to bring back the raw damage equivalent to your weapon in wyrmstake man. And to amplify the damage of the shelling I hope they will also bring back the WSB. I am loving gunlance!
A big thing that'd help lance:
Consolidating guard up back down to just one level. Attacks you block use a special value called "Stability" or some sort of similar hidden value to determine how much guarding chip dmg you take. Guard skill improves stability, and hence reduces impact and damage. Guard Up in World just made it where you could block certain ordinarily unblockable attacks (with some exceptions), and those attacks relied on your stability value.
In rise, its like they just threw out a perfectly fine system when it came to guard up, and made arbitrary dmg reduction values.
And they took away Power Guard Boost too, a thing in World where if you sustained PG for a couple seconds, you'd get Guard Up. Until i could get Uragaan Armor/Shield Jewel in World, I had fun learning monster attack patterns so i could PGB just before a big, normally unblockable attack would go off... feels like they took that fun and threw it at the LS.
Would love to see a vid covering the lance. As a lance main Rise's handling of it was really frustrating
I need to play a lot more Lance in a lot of different games before I could make a video like that, but I'll look into it!
From what I remember playing World and Rise, 5th gen lance suffers too much from recoiling after guarding, even with appropriate guard skills. I feel like I rarely encounter that problem in older MH games because I feel the guard skills actually worked to make almost all monster attacks feel like they are just raindrops hitting an umbrella.
@@gamecavalier3230 Oh yeah. Man 5th gen really hates shields lol
@@wamken619 Master Rank basically required guard 5 to be able to stand up to most monsters recoil. It was super frustrating because lance also required either master's touch or a good chunk of handicraft. It's a sharpness hog
I use to be a lance main but i chose to learn a new weapon in Rise and haven't played lance in Rise yet. Could you explain the problems with Lance in rise? Sad to hear 😔
Part of me tells me that LS is given some preferential treatment is because MHR Kamura is literally Japan themed. So longsword *cough* 'Katana' *cough* makes sense in a patriotic way.
With that said... I really hope Sunbreak buffs the Lance/Gunlance since if Kamura is Japan themed, then Elgado looks very much Western themed...
I agree. I'm excited to see how/if they'll change up the weapon novelists like they did in Iceborne. Only time will tell, though...
The issue with this statement though is the fact that LS becoming OP didn't start with Rise, it started in W. Foresight Slash is literally one of the best counter moves in the game and it's more forgiving than Lance's counter move in terms of timings.
The counters LS had in Iceborne were already pretty ridiculous, but then Capcom thought it was a good idea to add even more that had no repercussions of missing and had timing windows the size of Plesioth's hitbox
Meanwhile CB gets its phial hit detection gimped, Lance gets a half-assed counter move and IG gets its downward thrust gated by wirebugs. I'm just so confused and hope that Sunbreak puts all weapons back on the same relative playing field again
I'm new to CB, what's with the phial hit detection?
@@adhdasdfroflxd123 It is so strict that you cant hit all 5 or 6 phials when you SAED a monster unless they're really long. You also cannot hit airborne monsters with SAED anymore. Part of the reason CB doesn't feel as good to play anymore, but it's not a bad weapon in Rise
IMO the biggest offenders are QS3 and ISS buffs, specifically gaining a level on a successful ISS. Those two buffs alone are why spamming special sheath and ISS are optimal. You can literally build to red blade and spam helm breakers without even touching regular attacks, the spirit combo, or even gaining spirit because of ISS. QS3 just means you can use it like foresight slash. I don't think the level loss on whiff needs to be added back, but removing the level up would make the rest of the moveset more relevant again. It also means it takes more than 10 seconds to get to red blade
Edit: Lotta comments talking about re-adding the punishment to Iai Spirit Slash, but the issue, so to speak, is with Longsword's power, not its weakness. Being able to level up with ISS is insanely powerful, and once you've gotten it down, it is THE main way to level the spirit gauge. With so much uptime on red blade the only gate on Helm Breakers is wire bugs.
Yeah its becoming pretty stupid but you need to know the monster moveset and know your weapon to really destroy monster with LS give it to someone who don't know the weapon or someone who had experience with previous iteration of the weapon and you will see the difference the only problème with LS now is that the player who use it every hunt are becoming more and more good with it
In world/iceborn I still mostly used ISS with draw attack sets. It was mad annoying to lose a gauge level for missing, so I was glad to see it changed in rise. However, it's like you said. ISS is to strong now. I find myself in most hunts waiting in special sheath or just doing the thrust so I can have foresight slash at the ready. I literally almost only do this and spirit helm breaker. It's a problem in rise. Why wouldn't I use ISS in rise when it's that good? I dont want it nerfed back to what it was like in world, so I think giving it no gauge increase on correct timing but not taking away gauge on miss is perfect. I also think that if you get the timing right that you should be put into the last attack of the combo like foresight slash does. Make ISS an alternative instead of the go to. I miss dancing around monsters in world with the fade slash and foresight slash all to set up the Iai Spirit Slash into spirit helm breaker stagger combo
@@sparkraido that's every weapon though not really a draw back you have to know the monster to destroy them with any weapon
@@lillysol4196 yea. Ikr i hate the aggrument of "yOu HaVe tO kNoW tHe MoVeSeTs"
As if other weapons (MELEE)doesnt work the same way.
@@prophetmuhammad3890 right like I have heard that argument so many times and I hate having to say the se thing every time
I think it's crazy seeing how many crazy upgrades other weapons get, while I'm still out here playing Lance getting excited that I can slide forward after poking the monster now.
Lance does need some more attention I feel. It does what it does well, it always has, but when you look at every other weapon having this crazy shit and you're still pokey boi with big shield, it feels kinda diminishing fr.
Lance and Gunlance should be the weapons that revolve around counters, not long sword.
And they both are, the problem is that they are also dogshit in rise.. The problem isn't with mechanics it's just the fact everything else is very weak when compared to LS, nerfing LS wouldn't fix anything, buffing other blademaster weapons would..
@@hua.. No. Nerf overpowered weapons. Hunters have been getting stronger and stronger in general, we need to be weaker.
"Longsword doesn't need to be butchered like the CB in generations"
That sentence was too real... And painful
Its so painful, especially when I went through a phase where I was just binging every MH game. Going from 4U straight to GU was....
Let's just say it put me on the road to maining LS lol
@@HeavyWings it kind of happened to me with the transition from world/ib to rise: In world the SAED are too crispy, but in rise they BUTCHERED it's hitbox
Then i played GU and ended up saying "look how they massacred my boy"
@@soulr666 here's the reason, capcom said yhey didn't want "SAED spam" then made a weapon like the LS. I just want my World Kjarr CB back..
@@1ztype343
Capcom with iai slash spam: Working as intended
Capcom with SAED spam: Alright. It's time to make this weapon completely useless
Suprised to see Greatsword do consistantly well. I guess if you truly master the enemy patterns, you can do some nasty punishes. Mounting in 4 seems to benefit it very well because the difficulty as of high rank isn't as drastic as people have told me.
Oh, great sword has usually had a good spot in being a damage king. You have the usual big damage of the lvl 3 charge with the hit and run style. Can always guarantee that if you know a monster inside and out, crit draw is free 100% affinity and punish draw for certain matchups with head sniping for access to KO by exploiting ai. Throw in some good staggers with the high raw, and some monsters will just crumple. It helps that the main goal plan of the gs is so simple, once you know the weakest hitzones you're usually fine.
Oh, and you free a space for an extra skill because you aren't as reliant on razor sharp like other weapons.
Because big numbers that's why.
You objectly can't underperform if you use the weapon with the highest motion values.
Mastering Great Sword is not learning how to deal more damage with your attacks the best, but how to attack more, because every attack deals the most damage the best.
@@ScorpiusRexXIII I feel like since GU Crit Draw is not that required anymore, except on Striker and maybe Alchemy Style.
Valor had you with your weapon out a lot of the time since you could just slide charge, no need to sheathe and run to reposition.
World is a lot about True Slash, but Crit Draw is more valuable here than in GU Valor thanks to Frostcraft bumping up your damage.
Rise you can spam slide charges with wirebugs and for optimal damage you cancel the normal chage slash into a True or Rage Slash, removing the Crit Draw bonus.
Crit Draw still good and playable don't get me wrong, but the playstyle seems like it's falling out of favor with Capcom.
Greatsword is massive damage
Nothing beats doing 500+ damage with a nice, well positioned charge attack.
The flying kick + helm breaker cooldown on wirebug is far lower then sakura slash as well. but FAR more powerful. Makes the sakura slash entirely pointless as without the helm splitter, you literally have nothing to spend gauge on and it's super easy to maintain it using the slash.
Honestly backwards.
I do get where they were coming from, because Sakura Slash is the easier-to-use Silkbind for people who aren't good at building meter with other methods, so it's supposed to be the weaker alternative to Helmbreaker that helps maintain your damage buff for you (and also gives you easy ammunition for Serene Pose since that's still locked in your moveset). But once you actually get good at fighting monsters with Longsword, there's very little reason not to just run Soaring Kick. I read that Sakura Slash is still superior for element/status damage, but that would be about it
@@PerfectDarkly now in sunbreak why not both omg
Great points on why LS is overpowered. Another thing about counter is that in Rise there are a lot of '2-hit combo attack'. Meaning you can't just do your counter attack after every successful block/parry because you will get punished. Unless you are using LS, you get a lot of i-frame and repositioning using Iai Spirit Slash if successful.
Provided you counter correctly, LS can avoid triple combo attacks with counters. Lets use Valstrax's triple wing slam
first slam - foresight slash
second slam - sheathe after the first foresight hit, counter.
third slam - serene pose
I think the problem with people asking for nerfs is this. Specially for lance, gun lance etc players, why ask for nerfs when you can ask for some buffs or moves changes to the weak weapons. Like LS plays really smooth and other weapons feel really clunky, why not fix the other weapons
This. Exactly this. Make other weapons fun factor as good as the LS instead of nerfing the longsword.
It's not a pvp game. Up the fun factor, not degrade it.
This. Stop asking for shit to be taken away.
because power-creep. Eventually by only powering up other weapons you get to the point where all weapons are too overpowered to have any challenge. Seeking only nerfs is almost as bad since nerfing has more affect. So this actually is an incomplete if not dumb suggestion. Do both not one or the other.
IMO just add back the punishment for a missed counter and nerf the sheathing time back to world standards, I don't mind that you can roll out of the counter stance.
It's just no risk spamming the insanely buffed counter slash.
Except the risk that you get hit in the face if you mistime it.
Adding punishment to counters is fine
But nerfing sheathing time again?
No way
Screw you lol
Ls is really fun with faster sheathing
@@AWanderingSwordsman if you're mistiming on such a massive window that only requires you to land 1 frame idk what to say
@@Artameful If your not ever missing them, then the game is trivial no matter what weapon you use.
@@AWanderingSwordsman it IS called the easiest game of the series for a reason
Thanks for the analysis/chart/statistics. It is an honor to hunt with people who understand the game mechanics at such an intimate level but who still keep an open mind to the possibilities of MH.
It should also be noted that Serene Pose makes an extremely powerful wakeup option when paired with a small barrel bomb.
Wake-up and tail cut in one.
Serene pose if we’re talking in a speed run sense, IE like this video, is actually a horrible option
Its also still weaker that GS anyways
What exactly does greatsword have to do with this?
@@renutus1580 probably wake up damage
What now?
U wanna nerf each and every little thing until ls becomes the worst? The wakeup is good and costs 2 wirebugs
Get lost
As a longsword main my completely biased opinion is who cares whether or not it it might need a nerf, this isn't a competitive pvp game, you're not losing games because somebody in your team chose your weapon. Every game has its "most powerful", even if longsword gets nerfed another weapon will take its place. I enjoy flowing all of my attacks into a chain and it's not like it makes people want to stop playing because somebody chooses longsword. Longsword is a choice, you are not forced to pick it, you are not forced to stay away from it, whether or not you want to use it is up to you. Play. Your. Way.
(but also as a longsword main, yeah we should lose a spirit gauge if we don't land the spirit counter slash, as in land the count AND hit the monster)
Longsword basically plays like a frontier weapon now, a bunch of counters and a ton of I-frames. it just doesn’t look as flashy so people don’t notice it.
I wouldn't be against more weapons using that design philosophy but that would mean the whole game would have to be designed around it, and that way LS would just be one among many OP weapons designed for equally OP monsters.
@@zeehero7280 that’s basically what frontier was. By the end of the games lifespan every monster could cart you in 2 hits (some could with 1) because every weapon had at least 2 ways to completely negate damage on the fly. I used to play frontier, but I don’t want the mainline games to end up like that.
17:10 How do they go about it? Make not every melee weapon be a mediocre Longsword
It does more damage than the others, it has more mobility, it has great horizontal and vertical range, safer than even shield weapons and other dodge based weapons, 4 fucking counters where 2 of them can act as panic buttons and one can be used from draw, all with good damage; a super long range gapcloser with a shit ton of damage, the easiest time refilling it's special meter and spending it is super fast and reliable
It has everything other weapons have but better, it excels at everything sacrificing nothing in return and everyhing else is mediocre at best in comparison in ANY regard. I'm not even sure buffing other weapons by a lot would make it even close right now, it needs a nerf
It's a PvE game. Coming from someone who mains SnS and GS, I'd rather they just buff all other weapons except for LS by adding new/better moves to them, and reducing/removing chip damage for big shield users.
Tried lance in the demo and you really do need armor skills to make the weapon worthwhile. At this point why even play lance when LS makes you an unstoppable fortress with zero need for guard skills
Lance's base bug moves also suck allot. Twin Vines costs way too much, is super hard to land, and breaks almost as easily. Anchor Rage actually looses damage if you have more guard.
and zero skill as well because you have like 10 year timer to hit a counter attack
Going into Rise once it landed on PC I had a variety of weapons I traditionally liked to choose from, landing on Insect Glaive. That same day one session my Girlfriend picked up her favourite weapon in World where she started, the Lance. She was miserable with it. She felt it was unusable. I didn't realize how bad it was and suggested she might be out of practice. Two hunts later she nearly refunded before trying to land on a new weapon. She ended up on SnS. It felt the most likely the parts of lance she liked. Which was a defensive yet surprisingly mobile weapon with no fancy resources to manage.
@@squirrel_killer- Yeah, it's a bit of a what moment when just about every weapon in the game now has defensive options that can exceed that of the Lance and still have far better dps to boot - even SnS. And Lance was at a good point in prior games where we finally could have guard builds that felt satisfying and it wasn't just the build that ironically enough doesn't block at all (evade lance in MH4 was fun... but way too broken). I hope they consider making some big changes to it's silk binds and maybe rewarding more aggressive play with it.
@@squirrel_killer- i honestly don't get it. Even with generations the changes they did to it made it feel like shit. They fixed them in world and then changed it again to feel like shit for rise.
I don't understand how they keep messing up a weapon with the basic gameplay loop of 3 pokes and a hop.
It’s literally a crime that gunlance is as bad as it is. This video hits it on the head, not only does it need armor skills to be viable, even with the MOST OPTIMAL skills it’s still the worst weapon in the game. By a long shot. Which is a shame cause the playstyle and blast dashing is the most fun I’ve had in this series. Still love longsword, but man. I can’t believe they butchered some of these other weapons. If they don’t buff them in the dlc I’m gonna be so upset.
Every game they try to nerf gunner weapons but end up giving them two buffs for every nerf and they stay broken. Every game they try to buff gunlance but end up giving it two nerfs for every buff and it stays shit.
I really liked your video! It covered every qualm I had with the LS changes in Rise!
Note: A successful Iai spirit slash in iceborne actually does not raise the spirit gauge level as mentioned in 5:10. It KEEPS the current level (if done perfectly) and increases the speed of a follow up spirit helm breaker should the player choose to perform one. (I could not tell you if this sped up helm breaker mechanic is still a thing in rise but I don't think so) MH Rise added the changed of increasing the spirit gauge after a successful Iai spirit slash on top of no punishment for missing which is just another reason LS is OP.
Oh wow I had no idea! I thought I was just mistiming the counter everytime.
I'll add a correction in the description. Thanks for telling me!
lai slash makes spirit blade faster in rise
reason why you feel so satisfy when you successfully counter with lai spirit slash because of how difficult it is compared to rise. you have to prepare the slow sheath, commit to it and pray to the rng god that the AI decide to atk you.
The most broken part of longsword isnt its speed or amount of counters. Its how forgiving it is. If the Iframes for the counters were much tigher and harder to pull off for example it would be a bit better. Also a more interesting idea of a nerf would be Lai as if you missed it you lost gauge but of you hit it you gained gauge. I doubt it would happen but if both nerfs happened it would actually take a bit more skill and a bit more balanced
Edit: Just a random thing Id LOVE to see the valor counter replace foresight but make the timing even less forgiving then guard points.
If any of the counters on the LS were as tight as the bow's counter it would be way more balanced
@@rouge-ish324 Why are you talking like bow is not busted already? you dont even need to be close to the fucking monster lmao
Lai?
It's important to note in base World the longsword could foresight slash at any time regardless of the gauge state. They only added the minimum gauge requirement to the FS in Iceborne. Also part of why base World (High Rank) runs were faster than Iceborne.
One small nerf i’d make to LS immediately is making the LS counters adhere to the unblockable rules
If they wanna counter certain beam attacks, or hell GRABS, they should have to spec for the skill, boom now they can at least stack less damage
That skill is half the reason LA and GL suffer
That fact LS just in validates LA, as a parry weapon having parries that lack any downside when used and have generous windows
And then they can’t even give LA better damage despite its lack of crazy movement
And GS id supposed to be the true powerhouse and yet it has to split its skills between…
Guard
Guard up
Weapon damage
Shell damage
Sharpness
It really feels like they viewed the weapons in a vacuum without the foresight of armor skills
I agree, and although you're not the first with this idea, it is still great. It is fair, and makes sense. The only issue, is that you would have to force the other weapons with counters to abide by that rule. Further nerfing them.
@@cameronstandifird8210 They already do, you can't guardpoint something like a Valstrax laser without guard up.
@@NameYouCantPronounce I'm referring to the Hammer counter, or other weapons that have counters, but no shields.
@@cameronstandifird8210 oh my bad, misunderstood you
@@NameYouCantPronounce it's all good, I wasn't really clear in all honesty.
I've taken a look through the comments and I couldn't agree more: the fact that the LS has more counters - and more *effective* counters - than the shield weapons makes no sense to me, and I say this as an LS main. As much as I enjoy playing LS I don't want my enjoyment to come at the cost of others'; my favourite weapon should not be allowed to steal another's mechanical identity.
When I picked up LS in World, I did so because of one move: the Fade Slash. The idea of being able to reposition in the middle of a combo while still doing some damage was really cool to me. I would love nothing more than a playstyle based around the Fade Slash (as suggested in the video), and I think that would be a really cool way to shift the LS's playstyle away from the counter-heavy one it's in currently while still maintaining the LS's identity as a graceful, mobile melee weapon.
The simplest solution to that is to either not play LS when playing with others, or have everyone in the party play it. I really hope for Sunbreak, they would buff the other weapons by adding better moves and add little to nothing for the LS since it literally has everything. I decided to main GS and SnS to start off with in Rise. I tried LS for a couple of hunts and I could tell immediately how much more utility it has compared to the other two. More counters than the GS or SnS and it has more melee range.
I agree with the fact of instead of nerfing the long sword, just buff the other weapons. I think it’s ok with the type of game Monster Hunter is, not PVP.
The problem is, when you make everything that good, there is no limitation to your ability. When you can do everything, you do the best thing every time. For me, limited options force you to work around flaws, consider timing more, and respect the monster, ultimately increasing my satisfaction when mastery is achieved. If every class was buffed, the gameplay would just become hack and slash mixed with counter spam, and I would lose interest rapidly
First of all, just because it isn't a PvP game doesn't mean there shouldn't be any form of balancing. Imagine how stupid it is to see overtuned weapons all across the board, with monsters staggering, tripping, and KO'd 24/7 much much worse than the smoothest TA run you can ever witness.
Secondly, MH is all about the player being the clear underdog in the battle. A mere mortal up against a force of nature, while it tries everything in its power to bring it down. Gen 5 LS, and Rise in particular, is not "ok with the type of game Monster Hunter is", and it's quite frankly very debasing to reduce it as just "not PvP". Low risk for extremely high reward was never on the table, until LS got its counter in World and is now virtually untouchable in Rise. It says a lot when my first time playing Longsword in Gen 5 gave me an S rank clear on an arena quest with barely any practice.
Lastly, LS definitely needs hard nerfing. World's version wasn't too demeaning and carried with it a sizeable amount of risk for bad play. There's none of that type of commitment in Rise whatsoever that I can just pick up a mediocre LS loadout and absolutely decimate an Apex monster with Peak Performance at 100% uptime.
I started playing MH with World. I picked up the long sword before Iceborne came out so I adopted the FS, helm breaker playstyle. Was fun. Haven't touched LS since.
Decided to play the base game from the beginning when Iceborne came out but this time with CB as my main. "Holy hell, CB is my new daddy," I thought.
I see LS now, and how vastly different (and albeit easier) it is to use from when I last touched it. It makes me wonder what it would feel like to be able to spam SAEDs continuously, being able to guard-point immediately afterwards, never lose any phials in the process, all while not having to spend skills on Guard, Guard-Up, Artillery, etc.
Lemme tell you, CB would feel a lot more cheap.
Thats essentially what 4U CB was. Just SAED spam nonstop.
You know it's funny cause I think CB was and still is a ridiculous, somewhat poorly tuned weapon but nu-LS does make it look reasonable at this point.
This was the most comprehensive, level-headed explanation on MHR’s LS issue I’ve ever seen, well done! I’m glad you took the time to explain how it is unbalanced, and why that matters to the community.
I’m genuinely looking forward to you addressing those other topics and concerns you mentioned at the end of the video!
It's insane that the Hammer is so low on the list. I picked that up and absolutely demolished everything in my way to the point it got boring.
Yeah i usually run LS, and I'm usually as awestruck as the monster when I see a nice Hammer or HH user.
Tbh, I felt the buffs immediately going into Rise but I wouldn't have guessed that LS was ever bottom tier or high tier until this vid.
Because you know I'm a normal guy and get giddy if i manage to do two back to back Iai's, maybe did a flawless quadruple back in World once mind you lol.
And in GU i was just happy with everything. I tried diff weps just for the sake of seeing how different they could all be.
Capcom: "ALL weapons are equal but you are special Longsword."
I love all my children equally, but I LIKE this one more
All weapons are equal but longsword is equaler.
"All weapons are equal, but some weapons are more equal than others"
As a gunlance main I've accepted I use the worst weapon in the game but it's way to fun to put down. At least greatsword will always be there for me since that's been my true main since Freedom Unite.
I was a greatsword main since FU, i just tried Gunlance in MHR cuz a friend challenged me to do it. So i did. And now i'm a better gunlance user than said friend when i have 60+ uses and he has some 500+ uses. But man, gunlance is hella fun.
Maybe us gunlance mains should start claiming it's op so Capcom will actually buff it. Saying it stinks doesn't help. But at least the boomstick is fun.
Seems like modern Monster Hunter balance has been every game they try to nerf gunner weapons, but end up giving them some broken shit anyway, and they try to buff gunlance, but are afraid it'll be actually good for once so they give it two nerfs for every buff.
Look at it this way, Rise is so easy that your weapon being shitty kind of makes the game more fun.
I'd rather be a GL main than a LS main right now. LS is so boring.
I remember playing the demo and thinking long sword was way too strong (the demo honestly put me off the main game just due to the weapon changes, so I've yet to play rise). It baffled me that they both increased the reward of the Iai slash, made it easier to pull off, and even let it go straight into another special sheathe; the fact that it was strict, behind a fairly long sheathe animation, punished you for missing not just by being open but also by lowering your gauge, and could only go into a helm after use in iceborne (which itself was a far higher commitment move than the current soaring kick into splitter, forcing you to know the monster to get it off often), meaning if you used it all the time the monster was going to follow up on you, did a lot to reign in what could easily have been a ridiculously powerful move, and left it in what I always felt was a good state... With Iai's inability to work against grabs aside anyway.
Defensive options that allow you to maintain offensive pressure go an extremely long way in monster hunter in general, so the fact the longsword was designed in this way just seems so baffling to me. Making one aspect of a weapon so centrally powerful leads to that one aspect overshadowing all your other options with that weapon in most situations, making them, at least in my opinion, far less interesting to play.
Ls mains like myself feels like the longsword isn’t that good helmbreaker got nurfed hard and cool downs for soaring kick and the slash are very long in the demo and that’s with wirebug 3 but who knows we will find out June 30th
I have played LS (and all the other melee weapons, as well as the ranged weapons in some outings) throughout my monster hunter career. Soaring kick is much faster than World's helm, and the cooldown for kick in particular also isn't very long, especially considering that you need to build back up to red before you use it again. It's much more small opening friendly in particular compared to the old helm breaker, which would require more creativity and monster mastery for more constant use that didn't lead to punishment. special sheathe is extremely powerful due to its ease of use, spammability, and so on. The blade has access to very strong offensive and defensive-offensive options, which is why it ranks on top of melee weapons for speed-running.
I'm gonna play the main game soon (probably starting today), so it may change my opinion as compared to the demo, but in the demo the LS was very clearly one of the best weapons move-set wise.
I was pretty baked when I said that comment tbh and I know trust me I killed astalos with my 3 buddy’s all using longsword in 5 mins on the dot and now that I think about it with the new moves we’re getting in the real game the damage is gunna be insane sorry for my stoned comment lol
With Foresight slash already rewarding you with gauge on hit, I don't see why ISS also needed it. That's my biggest gripe. You're given full liberty to spam it as much as you want. At least with the Valor counter and IB ISS, there was risk involved. In Rise you are free to do as you please. All the speed, and no gauge drop if you miss. In the hands of anyone moderately capable, you are no longer playing the game. Long Sword is playing the game for you.
I think it would be overall better if they brought up the other weapons. Lance and GL need help. CB feels weird. Hunting Horn lost the strategy and thinking ahead that made it fun to play. Hammer's damage is frontloaded onto Impact Crater.
As an LS player, I agree; I'd be perfectly happy just not losing a level of spirit gauge if I don't land the ISS just right, and it feels unnecessary for me to gain a level of gauge for landing it. Actually, with how much less strict the timing for it is in Rise, I'd actually probably be okay with losing the gauge level for missing, but that was one of my least favorite parts of IB LS. 🤷♂️
This video must have been released before iai spirit slash had its damage nerfed by 50% and the counter window was made tighter. The longsword is only as good as the player that is using it. I’ve talked to people that struggle with using it, it doesn’t just play the game for you so I think calling it this overpowered at this point is a little hyperbolic. Yes it’s very versatile but there is a tremendous skill gap between novice longsword users and experienced users, it requires a lot of monster knowledge and skill to use optimally. The longsword tends to get me slower times than charge blade and greatsword in a lot of match ups in World and Rise. Those are the three weapons I play and even though i’m the best at using longsword it still doesn’t kill the monster as quickly as other weapons often times
You should make a video about why Gunlance is so bad for 95% of the games it is in
It's because it's safe and hitzone agnostic and they are afraid of another AGGL.
@@AWanderingSwordsman It's actually not way too safe, after pretty much every attack you are left vulnerable since it lacks lance's counter. You can only block for a neutral state, which isn't good reactively, only good proactively. In rise they finally gave it some much needed safety with it's wirebug block. Pure shelling is also really bad and arguably it's best move, wyrmstake, is affected by hitzones.
If you want a weapon that's really safe and hitzone agnostic, look no further than Sticky Bowgun.
@@FrostyTheCookie pure shelling is bad in terms of dps but it's top tier in terms of safety and it will still kill the monster. We are talking about rise here as well where it got a solid counter.
Sticky bowgun is very busted (as is slicing). It's arguably less safe for bad players, because of the lower defense, but in even an average players hands, lbg is brain dead easy mode.
@@AWanderingSwordsman Yeah LBG is the easiest weapon in the game.
And regarding the first paragraph, anything can be top tier in terms of safety if you use exclusively weak but safe attacks. There's arguably safer ways to play that can deal more damage too. Just tapping the enemy and bailing is safe, this can apply to pretty much any weapon. Never filling up your spirit gauge with longsword isn't good for damage, but it sure is safe. There's better ways to play a horribly weak yet safe weapon than pure shelling.
@@AWanderingSwordsman Yeah LBG is the easiest weapon in the game.
And regarding the first paragraph, anything can be top tier in terms of safety if you use exclusively weak but safe attacks. There's arguably safer ways to play that can deal more damage too. Just tapping the enemy and bailing is safe, this can apply to pretty much any weapon. Never filling up your spirit gauge with longsword isn't good for damage, but it sure is safe. There's better ways to play a horribly weak yet safe weapon than pure shelling.
The weapon usage will never be evened out, many people pick weapons because they think it's cool, (looking at you gunlance users) and not because it's really good. I'm pretty sure even if you could balance out the potential damage output of all weapons people will still gravitate to long sword as it's one of the more fluid weapons to use and its arsenal of moves just makes it easy enough to use that people will still use it over the Lance, hunting horn, and switch axe.
As for me, well I tend to use every weapon in every game, buy my most used weapon is the hunting horn whole my least used is the great sword. As of rise anyways. I love the performance mode i-frames.
And then there is the charge-blade crowd that's going monke
I like the gun lance because if how versatile it is
Also being able to block enemy attacks and do decent damage with a bit of range is very useful
Vulcano, not sure of what you talking about, when we got first demo MHR , many people or majority of people were using exclusively HH because the damage was very hight in the first demo. When the full game came out, they nerfed HH. I m very sure, if devs give some kind of boost dmg on Lance weapon, many people will follow. Of course I agree with you to the fact that people usually follow some weapon because of the style and fluidity it might have, but if I m very sure about something is that majority of people will try to use a weapon that deal much more damages that other to get the job done without having to lose wasting time during the run. Me for exemple, I stopped to play LGs because it's not for me to use it. I m not good at counter, so I can not do alot dmg as I would like. And this apply to many other players like me.. many people love to use LGs but they sucks at counter and when you meet that kind of rando in multiplayer online mode, what you could do solo for 4 min , you will take like 10 min And all of them use LGs and they sucks on it only because the gameplay is fluid, but they don't do alot dmg.
If I take exemple about the trio Apex quest (Misutzune, Rathalos, Zinogre) when we don't have HBGunner in team or lbgunner , the run will really suck,and will take more time than necessary.
Serene pose is kinda worse than crit junc but the funny thing is that serene pose gave LS a GS level wake up attack. Small barrel bomb > ISS is also one of the funniest things to do
I did think about bringing that up but I decided it was unecessary
I really liked the video, I had some clues of why the weapon was so buffed but now I think I comprenhend almost conpletely the problem and sole possible solutions, thanks pal
I just think that we need buffs more than nerfs. I've been testing so many different things in rise. CB is a great example because it has that amazing slide, which evades almost anything, and that beautiful silkbind counter is god's miracle. Another thing I love to use is a full Narg HBG set with evade extender and evade window and boy.... Let me tell you... To make a long story short, the only way you're getting hit by a monster when you have that set on is if you reload at the wrong time, other than that the monster literally can't touch you. I could go on but I think I'll stop by saying I do not think the LS needs super major nerfs. The only thing i would need is the quick sheath, make it just a little bit faster than world's but not too much. I love using LS but I love to use other weapons so I think it'd be much better to BUFF the current weapons rather than NERFING current weapons. If longsword is going to be broken, make every weapon broken and make the G rank monsters op. Broken weapons, harder fights, I think it'd all balance out.
No we dont need even more buffs to the hunter
@@funpox5062 oh great, more people like you. If you want to play with the same old stiff and slow hunter, go play dark souls. Go suck off nostalgia and play FU.
@@renutus1580 rise is my second monster Hunter, i dont even know what FU means
@@funpox5062 Monster Hunter Freedom Unite I think
So longsword went from dante to vergil gameplay wise. Hard to master but looks cool when you do. Much easier to master looks cool no matter if you aren't that good.
As a player back in the 4U days, I have never and will never touch Long Sword despite how fun it seems to be. Not only is it the most popular weapon, but I constantly flinch from it. I prefer more niche and satisfying weapons like Great Sword and Lance, in fact Lance is my main weapon in Iceborne, and because how how they butchered Guard Up, I don't feel like I can play Lance in Rise, not to mention the fact I like my Guard which is hard to slot in.
getting 2-3 minute kill times when you first start playing the weapon was what kept me, you feel like a god
I kinda feel the same. Playing nothing but the GS from FreedomU to 4U has made it hard to appreciate the LS. Sure it keeps getting OP, but it doesn't have that chunky *lag* that happens when you hit the monster.
@@PsycheTrance65 the thud is pretty satisfying
you have something very slightly wrong, in Iceborne the Iai spirit slash doesnt increase the level on a successful, just keeps it the same, that part wasnt added until Rise
A few things I think it's worth pointing out,
1. How to determine whether a weapon is overpowered? By its DPS or the difficulty of using it? If that's the case, the most overpowered weapon should be either HBG or LBG since they require little to no skills but still produce a top 3 DPS. With LS, you have to get really good at reading the monsters' moves before you master the weapon. The learning curve can be long but ends up pretty rewarding.
2. What would be the reason to nerf a well designed weapon with a big player base? I personally wouldn't think in a way to nerf the LS, but to buff the other fun weapons to make them more enjoyable. At the end of the day, every weapon is fun to use. Some prefer one over another. The simplest way to buff the other weapons is to boost attack damages for the all-in offensive weapons like the switch axe and boost the attack damage to a less degree for the primary defensive weapons like the lance. Nothing will be overpowered by then, except for the HBG and LBG.
3. When you say LS doesn't need any armor skills, I can guarantee that you're not a regular LS user. Level 3 Quick sheath is ESSENTIAL to LS, from what I can remember, the armors that have quick sheath don't have a good defence rating. Besides, your argument is totally based on someone that does perfect iai and foresight slashes. But not every player is Peppo or even Peppo himself can't guarantee he placed every counter perfectly. Some monsters have one or multiple combos that literally breaks the LS game's rhythm and if you're a speedrunner, that means start over.
For the ones who think LS is op, please master it first. I've been a LS user since p3, I feel like I'm having the most fun in MHR. The game feels more smooth and flawless. Wouldn't that be a good thing if it happens to the weapon you love to use? So buff the other weapons instead of nerfing the LS. If anything deserves a nerf, LBG.
LS main and I agree. But I woudn't complain even if LS received a minor nerf, say, halved i-frames on Foresight and losing/gaining gauge depending on whether you whiff ISS.
@@lemuelszeto True. This gives the new users a longer learning curve and for LS mains only a marginal adjustment. I wouldn't complain about this type of nerf either.
I've played multiple weapons before but in MH:World, the weapon I ended up using the most is Bow, Charge Blade and Dual Blades.
Back when it was the PSP Era, I played all of the MH Series using Long Sword but it ended up not being fun to me anymore seeing how there was no challenge anymore when using Long Sword. There's no risk when you master these counters and knowing the monster. There's no danger to fighting anymore when you know what you're doing and when to do it. Though it breaks my heart to see that Charge Blades has sunk so low now that it feels so different from back then, I still love the Charge Blade. The fact that the Bow Guns are at the top is kind of disappointing to me but not surprising. Since using advanced Tech would definitely give you an advantage. I was hoping that the Mechanical Type weapons would do better...
At least CB is better in world and Rise than Generations or GU
Ranged weapons have dominated speedruns in pretty much the whole series. It's just that with the old generation it was typically GS that was top dog with it's high reward for knowing monsters inside and out. Now LS has taken that role in rise.
Even i don't use LS or like that weapon a lots, but I think Capcom shouldn't nerf its move set. It looks so cool. Maybe just slightly adjust its damage output or increase the sheathing time a bit
That or just revert it back to its older risk and reward playstyle, or bring back Valor style, or just make it it's world counterpart. LS went from strong to full on brain dead op. Granted bow guns are also incredibly strong but only reason people don't complain about them. Is the amount of prep it requires to be good. It's not busted off the bat like Rise's LS. Best change to it would be make Iai spirit slash take a bar but not give it back like it does currently. In its current state the move is free it cost spirit bar then gives it back immediately once it lands. It has 0 drawbacks for being spammed. It's an incredibly easy weapon to learn and is quite fun (in older games at least rise LS is quite boring).
@@itsyaboiguzma pretty much nailed it.
Rise LS is too easy to use so hitting the skill ceiling is a lot simpler. I wouldn’t say increase the sheath time though, world’s was horrific and QS didn’t do anything to help.
I’d make the actual counter windows smaller, Let’s say the game runs at 60hz, I’d say the counter windows should be between 6 and 12 frames so between 1/10th and 1/5th of a second depend on their risk/reward. As well as making stuff like ISS more punishing on misses like in world.
Idk that I agree with having a missed counter eat a level of gauge is necessarily the best decision, especially since this game has a lot of jank interactions where a monster will aim an attack directly at you and just flat out miss cause of shitboxes (looking at you, Apex Diablos.) A better avenue might be having sheathe counter not interact with gauge whatsoever, and do significantly less damage than it does now if you miss the counter. Would also make FSS more than just a "the monster is putting out two hitboxes" button. Then just make soaring kick more expensive (probably two bugs instead of longer cooldown?) and the counter windows smaller and LS would be more balanced while still being good and retaining its identity.
Special Sheathe should slow down stamina regeneration and should cost like half of your stamina bar just to be used to reduce the spamming. In World, Iai Spirit Slash was used to either reduce or net neutral your spirit gauge. If you countered with it, you gained an extra hit, but the window for Iai Spirit Counter in World was so INCREDIBLY small. It felt justified getting a counter, because it was something like 3 to 7 frames depending on how much Evade Window you had.
However, I've been an LS user since before I can even remember. This video makes a lot of good points, but I'm not going to apologize for the weapon I love finally being at the top.
I don't think small adjustments are gonna be enough for this thing, personally.
It might've not been the strongest speed run weapon in WIB but it was definitely the most versatile one, being effectively the only weapon in the roaster with a fool proof way to avoid any and all damage for any monster attack if timed correctly sort of screwed with the game progression for anyone playing the weapon. There weren't as many walls in the game if you picked LS, and getting through them was more about trying a few times until you got the counters, it didn't really require you to think about your gear or strategy just learn to do foresight at the proper time.
Compared to every other weapon in the game, the long sword could consistently kill any monster you threw at it without any armour skills other than DPS ones, which encouraged the meta playstyle and made other weapons seem pathetic, for example the defensive weapon if the game the Lance taking half of its health in chip damage from rajang with guard, or getting pinned through its shield even with guard up.
There's just no place in this game for a weapon like the long sword, huge damage is supposed to be a trade off for brutal difficulty, if a weapon can perform even remotely competitively while being this easy and versatile without even a proper set then it throws off the balance of the entire game.
That was absolutely not the case in world and IB. Many weapons need basically nothing. Hammer, LS, SnS, IG all use exactly the same endgame builds. HH needs horn maestro, one extra 4 slot. SA can use that same meta build or go for power prolonger. It also in no way made other weapons seem pathetic, as it's damage
Is very average. All it has is very consistently fine matchups across the board.
Lol u have no idea WTF u are talking about, there are lots of weapons waaay more powerful and easier to play in WIB than LS, esp in endgame. The only reason people like u think it's OP is cause it popular, so automatically u think it must be OP. I can tell u as a LS main with tousands of hours playtaime that for most of the hardest encounters in WIB i didn't even use LS cause other weapons were just stronger and waaay easier to use. ZSD SA spamming, Frostcraft GS, Bow, LBG and HBG are all both easier and stronger for 99% of encounters. LS was a midtier weapon at best in WIB. I would agree that it's very strong in Rise compared to other melee weapons, but it's still miles below Bow, LBG and HBG, so yeah not even that OP.
Personally, I think LS needs heavy nerfs. Even without any counter move, LS is still very versatile with its mobility, speed, long range, being relatively easy to learn, and its spirit attacks lets you ignore sharpness (and don't require aiming to break specific parts)
It didn't have any significant weaknesses so it was already very beginner friendly, besides having to commit to long combos to get big damage and lack of defensive options.
That's why the counters felt like an overkill, because now you can continue your agression withour mayor risks, while still keeping the mobility and range. It even has better defense than shield weapons because you aren't restrained by the stamina meter and neither has to worry about chip damage.
If it needs to keep the counter moves, make it like in GU where the timing was stricter and had to consider where the attack was coming from.
Where is the mobility in LS if u take out ISS and fade slash...?
@@benhzy9609 It has above average speed while unseathed. It has the reach of a GS and the speed of a SnS.
The fade slash is fine because it's balanced by not being instant nor invincible, and being limited to 3 directions. Also, being able to attack while being very moving, even if only in 3 directioms, is very good.
ISS is instant, invincible and can be used at any direction. It needes spirit meter, but getting it is kinda the focus of the weapon, so you won't have trouble.
BG is the most OP wp in Rise. You literally stand still and press fire until the monster dies (stun lock)
Also most boring
"It turns it into a third person shooter where the main goal is to keep the gun away from your mouth"
-max0r
Then there are greedy LS users still ranting about the hitlag, and asking for a buff. Said removing the quick sheath is fine, bring back no hitlag.
If Rise has ISS i-frame and same punishment (lose a level when u miss) like Iceborne itd be a decent balance.
Anyway, you guys know what counter is the most punished when you failed?
Bow with Dodge Bolt, super tight i-frame like a flash, and if you miss, its a OHKO even with full upgrades and health birds, buffed magnamalo and apexes doenst care.
As LS having a plenty of invulnerable window with ISS, like Apex Zino with hand stomp attack, smth around 0.2 secs you can counter with ISS when it touches you. While bow only having a short likely instant. For me if Capcom want to buff Bow, it should be after a successfully dodge bolt give you Herculean Draw effect for like 3secs, or max out the charge, raise only one charge is a crime with such punishments if you fail.
I think the team needs to give buffs to other weapons to make it just as flexible like the ls, keeping the balance amongst other weapon users. (I miss charge blade)
I don't think the MonHun developers should try to balance things only around speedrunning, since it's a fairly niche way of playing the game, and not necessarily the best perspective to view game balance from. Given how most speedrunners' fastest times only count their best or near-perfect runs, they do not represent how hunts usually play out.
I do wish you could play Rise's Long Sword in a way that felt more like the older games, without it feeling very inefficient and wasteful. I was thinking of a Switch Skill that replaces the Iai Spirit Slash, or the Special Sheathe as a whole, with some kind of Great Sword-style charge attack. Since the counter-based playstyle is all about exploiting Monster's attacks, having a charge attack that requires you to stand still and be vulnerable for a few seconds would be focused on making the most of big openings instead, so it would be a good counterpart.
Imho basing nerfs on speedrun times is overall not healthy for the whole game.. Since only very minority of players opt for such very optimal gameplay where the weapon really excels...
And especially in Rise where Longsword is the tutorial weapon hence the reason for it to be streamlined even further (You can take it or leave it)..
I agree that nerfing some s can be good for the enthusiast part of the community but I highly doubt that aligns to Capcom's view of giving us a good new player experience in which Monster Hunter is not known for..
Yeah that's why I said I didn't want any major nerfs because that's what happened to Charge Blade in Generations - that weapon was murdered.
mh3u was my first mh game and LS was the sole reason why i got into the series so it feels extremely jarring seeing LS go from a careful positioning weapon to letting the monster kill itself
That's true in older games you really needed to learn every move from the monsters because the LS was slow AF
In addition to the dmg in counters, you also can factor in what you need for it in the hunt and in a set.
GL, Lance and CB all need some sort of guard or guard up ability to counter later monsters, up to 5 of them, depending on the attack. Also, with no health augment you have to get used to chip dmg.
There are counters that work regardless of guard (or even better with lower guard), but they all need wirebugs to work.
LS on the other hand needs no investment of skills to counter, no wirebugs and recieves no chip dmg.
Dude, he covered exactly this in the video.
The reason why gun lance is so weak is due to shelling being hard nerfed to do as much damage as the level prior in world (EG level 5 shells in rise are level 4 shells in world) along with either the removal or severe nerfing of the trip values that gun lance provided in world. Not to mention the removal of the blaster stake. (Okay technically your palamute can apply something like it, but half the time I can’t find the damn thing and the wolf ends up applying it somewhere that a gun lancer can’t make good use of, like the tail) if you addressed those issues, gunlance would probably go back to being a middle child, if not more given the fact that speed stake and wyvern fire spam now exists. (Basically after any counter, or charged shell, you can can immediately go into a doubled speed wyrmstake. this also works with the alternate silk bind move that temporarily levels up your gun lance, but if you keep the hail cutter, you can combine it with long lances inherently shorter wyvern cool down, artillery’s cooldown buff, and all you need to do is use hail cutter twice and your good to go again!)
I started with World and been maining IG, it really got my attention that one generation earlier IG was S tier. I'm ok with it having low damage in World because the extra mobility is awesome, but damn what happened? From 1st to 10th that's crazy
Oof, I feel this. I picked up IG on World (also my first game but I knew of IG from the previous generation as well) and loved it, especially the additions it got from Iceborne but when I used it in Rise, it just felt off
Instead of nerfing the LS they should buff the other weapons to this level. LS feels amazing to play, I want other weapons to feel this awesome too.
If the monsters then need a buff as well, that's fine.
They absolutely shouldn't revert the weapon. I have so much fun playing LS, and it was very frustrating at times in World. They basically just fixed the bugs World had. No other weapon makes you feel like you're in a dance with the monster like LS. Instead, just buff the lacking weapons so they can compete. Why should lance have tight counters when LS doesn't? Buff everything to this level.
Why make the player feel slow and limited just so they can keep up with the monster design? If monsters need to be faster or less predictable, that's where we should put our criticisms.
Agree
Instead of nerfing everything they should buff the others
Although there are a few things they could nerf
But that shouldn’t be the main focus
Also buff the monsters to compensate
@@The.Brother.in.Christ Especially considering that LS isn't even as good as the least powerful ranged weapon according to speed run statistics. But you don't really hear anyone complaining about HBG
longsword been the most popular weapon not because it is overpowered, but its fast pace and flashy style. if you look back in previous version, LS is always on the top of popularity chart even when the speed run clear time are below avg among the 14 weapon types.
LS in iceborne was already pretty good for non speedrunners, and yes was the most popular, but it was something like 23%, in rise we double this value, that is something strange going on here right
Most likely reason for doing this was because lots of people considered LS to be a newbie weapon for its versatility, ease of use, and incentive to learn monster attack patterns, but its damage was outclassed by other weapons, meaning the skill ceiling was much lower compared to weapons like the dual blades.
Iai slash was completely ignored by most players as a counter as it was much harder to land than a foresight slash, and missing had much more dire repercussions; you would remain locked in an animation for a dangerous amount of time and you would spend an entire spirit level for no reward.
Easiest fix for the latter and the former was the same; buff the special sheath stance.
As for the Helmbreaker's speed and damage buff, I feel like that's warranted considering you now spend a wirebug on top of the spirit level. The investment is increased, therefore so too should the payoff.
I feel like the buffs did their job in transforming LS from a beginner weapon to an actual identity; a counter-focused damage dealer that relies on gambling resources (spirit gauge, spirit level, wirebugs) with ample payoff, and a diminishing risk as you become more acquainted with the monster you are hunting. They buffed the Iai slash counters, they nerfed the foresight slash (no longer has two hit boxes for attack registration, thus making spirit gauge a bit more difficult to replenish), and they integrated the LS moveset into the wirebug mechanic very smoothly.
You could argue that the Silkbind counter is a bit obnoxious, but same concept applies; risk and reward with diminishing risk as you become more acquainted with a monster's moves. It has a long active phase, it deals damage, and it builds up a mount. Yes, that's a lot, but it also puts two wirebugs out of commission for a while, so you can't spam it, you need to use it sparingly, and you have to decide if it's better to use the Silkbind counter or a Helm Breaker, because in most cases, you can't have both.
I have no issue with this rework, but I do play a bit more Charge Blade and Hammer than Long Sword anymore. I just don't feel like it needs to be changed any more than the Dual Blades from World.
I really miss the old long sword play style, it used to be one of my mains back when it was a dodge play style, but since it turned into a counter machine and since I'm quite bad at countering, I've just fully switched to DBs as my main
It may be busted. But it's busted in a fun way, instead of nerfing it, everything else should be buffed. It's a mentality a lot of the best fighting games have and I think it could apply really well here. It's a game about fighting monsters and picking flowers, so the monster hunting parts should feel awesome.
I just dont understand the reasoning behind making the weapons carrying a shield actually be the worse defensive weapons in the game.
Well now it makes sense why veteran players kept saying I (GS main) would like longsword. The positioning and timing aspect sounds super fun. But I hate, HATE using counter/parry mechanics in games. I just thought this was always how longsword worked.
really good video, i went into it thinking "wait, it's not" but you mention that gunner weapons are stronger... i agree on pretty much everything
that said, i like rise's longsword, i'm not particularly mad at ls being this busted, it's fun ant that's the important thing since it's not a competitive pvp game
BUT i'm really mad about the other weapons not being nowhere near (i'm looking at you gunlance)
buffs >>> nerfs
Non pvp games also need to be balanced. As it stands, LS isnt.
@@ramondelgado6029 true, but is not that bad as in pvp games
and franckly speaking, ls doesn't have anything wrong, is incredibly fun to play and that's the only important thing
the problem is the other blademaster weapons being lackluster in comparison
buffs > nerfs
You have the best take here
Agree completely
I started out as a lance main, but i was very disappointed in my damage, and when i went to look it up i saw someone saying "if you like counter based playstyles, just play long sword lol"
And i did and now it's almost impossible to play any other weapon! The longsword is VERY strong, very safe, and also very fun, so i feel no reason to swap out of it. What i will say tho is that instead of nerfing longsword, i think they should buff the other weapons (SPECIALLY lance)
I don't want to see Longsword gutted in Sunbreak, it is still a really fun weapon, i just think the other options are too inferior to even bother, so they should be brought up a notch
I heavily despise that the Lance even with heavily invested guard skills still results in chip damage. Lance is my favorite weapon Becuase I enjoy a slow and steady tank build while also feeling like a tactician on my pokes.
Make Quick Sheathe not SO quick can fix the problem. The Player just shouldn't have time to counter every second attack. Also losing one level of spirit bar after an unsuccessful counter looks like a good decision. Or, as a decision, the counter has take a bug, successful or not.
They could make it so that when you incorrectly use the lai spirit slash you lose all levels of the spirit gauge. The Lance as a start could get a damage buff and have guard up on all blocks or counters. Gunlance could use a small raw buff, some raw scaling based of offensive skills, and the addition of elemental/status damage to shelling that scales with both artillery and element/status boosting skills.
This doesn't have much to do with the video but I need Hunting Horn to go back to the way it was in World or be fused with it's GU counter part. They could try using World's moveset with the addition of double notes to start. I just hat what they did to Hunting Horn it feels like a completely different weapon and justifies my fear that monster hunter will become a hack and slash over the top game in the near future. Most weapons I think are really good in rise, it's just that you can't actually feel it the same way you did in World or to a smaller extent in GU. The switch controller has HD rumble why do they not use it, the controller gives way more feedback then Xbox or PS4 controllers, so why not use the tech to their advantage.
Why does gunlance need elemental shelling? Feel like the point of flat damage is being missed here.
I don't think losing all levels of spirit gauge on a failed iai spirit slash is a good nerf. I'd rather they just make it the same in iceborne tighter counter windows and if you fail you lose 1 level of spirit gauge and also make it so that quick sheathe is back to world standards as well.
@@ligaar0849 yeah I guess. One thing is that all explosives in Monster Hunter have an absolutely mineschule amount of fire damage. It could be a separate shelling type. The thing is shelling quickly caps out in usefulness. Gunlance's application of flat damage is not as good as the blowgun application through sticky and cluster. If they increased the scale then it not only would directly increase damage but make shelling more applicable. In every game shelling has run into the problem of being weak. GU had the stupid heat gauge, World completely ignored shells as it was such a waste since slap/swinglance is better, and rise is fully reliant on the silkbind that also buffs. It would be neat of element/status was not just a waste on gunlance. It's impossible to make a perfectly balanced game but they could try a lot to not make entire weapons a joke.
Honestly I’d like if they just gave Lance and Gunlance built in guard up.
As for the state of ls now in sunbreak, personally, it now has 2 main strong playstyles using the 2 sheathe switch skills, sacrdd sheathe firstly is a lot of fun and honestly no complaints really it allows the use of silkbind sakura slash and also the new redirection skill added and now with the addition of wind mantle and frostcraft i couldnt be happier
As for spirit sheathe it had its numbers cut in half and instead moved to the new silkbind harvest moon which has too many issues that make it so awkward to use, soaring kick also had its damage halved and wirebug cooldown rate decreased but thats fine really, the new way to play spirit sheath is to use more of its moveset, adding in serene pose and that one hit of spirit reckoning for repositioning but the main issues lies with harvest moon, why did they make it so it disappears when you put your weapon on your back, step out of the circle or after a period of time, it didn't need the first 2, also its completely useless in multiplayer
I think it should stay when you sheathe your weapon (maybe), allow you to step out of the circle without it disappearing or knocking you back in, and make it so other players get a small buff to their counters when they step in it like pls bro i dont even want stat changes i just want it to not be so bloody awkward
God I've never thought that LS became that much busted since its introduction, hope they nerf it a bit in sunbreak so people use other weapons. Great Video
Just a bit. I don't want them to destroy the weapon like they did with CB in Generations, but make jesus just tone it down just a bit.
Also thanks!
@@HeavyWings i agree with you about CB, it hasn't felt right since the nerf, i've not been able to use it since because it feels so.... off
40% of people are playing this one weapon rn lol I hope people try smth else too
Honestly, if they really want to keep the mechanics for Sunbreak, then they need to buff the living shit out of all the weapons. The fact that hammer has way less damage output than not only LS, but also DB, seems illegal to me. Make the damage somewhat equal, then I'll be happy. (DB main speaking here, btw.)
@@THE_Mirage Christ that’s horrid balancing lmao
Very true.
Although, I believe rather than nerfing longsword there should be buffs for other weapons. Leaving the current play style alone (with slight modifications, like adding more options centered around normal attacks) may level the playing field between weapons without provoking those that prefer the counter centric play style.
But that's just a theory. I play all the weapons so I don't have the specialized knowledge that some may have.
Nah I think they gotta tone LS down slightly, at least the special sheathe related moves. It is just way too busted
Yeah, you're right. I may not be great at using longsword but after looking at certain skills like the evasion skills and Barioth armor in general, I have to admit the longsword is far too forgiving.
Also, I'm so sorry for not realising who responded to my comment until recently.
The video was really well made, good job. I agree with pretty much all your saying. One thing I want to point out is how long the counter for longsword stay out in comparison with something like gunlance, Critical juncture has alot more active counter frames than other weapons counters, which makes it really good in comparison with other weapons
Thanks!
Critical Juncture was strong, yes. But it also took a really, really long time to charge up so that kind of justified it's strength.
@@HeavyWings i’m sorry, I meant serene pose, my mistake, I still call it critical juncture while playing rise because of how similar they are
@@betashark9776 ah lmao
Honestly most people dislike the Serene Pose because yes, it has more active frames, but the counter itself is slow and uses up a whole spirit gauge level, which would be better used on a soaring kick. And it uses two whole wirebugs.
Like I said in the video, it does have a use for emergency counters for monster combo attacks, but I didn't mention that it's also used for wakeup hits.
It's alright but it's not ideal, and I don't consider it to be a significant factor into why the longsword is overpowered.
I don't see why would that be a problem considering that in the previous games there were other melee weapons that were best in slot for speedrunning.
I think that the game is catering to what is fun rather than anything else. The fact that speedrunners have a favourite weapon does not mean that the weapon is OP. I bet in the next installment there'll be a new favourite weapon yet again
I understand where you're coming from, but consider how the longsword has continually been receiving buffs since MHXX/MHGU. Valor style was busted for its counter, the special sheathe moves in World, Rise adding more counter based wirebug skills, bringing back Sakura Slash, making it easier to pull off the Helm Splitter and the Quick Sheath skill being far more impactful than in World/Iceborne. MH3U LS was when it was at its best in my opinion. If you wanted to block an attack, you had to pick a Lance or a Gunlance. You either dodged or got hit. Nowadays, the spirit meter mechanic has been significantly. It is easier to level up the meter and to keep the meter at a certain level without much hassle. I wish Capcom would do a complete revamp on all weapons based on community feedback. That's my take on the matter anyways.
As a more or less new hunter, i feel like a rare breed for picking the lance as a main weapon :) the reason i mostly hate the longsword is because longsword players wont let me move and sometimes even get me hurt because i cant even raise my shield when they are interruptong me
Use a flinch free decoration :)
@@Shadoow585 you shouldn't have to suffer for your teammate's poor positioning.
flinch free was a mistake
@@Shadoow585 I think there is an issue with friendly fire causing shields to block, even without flinch free. Very annoying
@@Shadoow585 use your brain cells :)
@@mrblooper1994 you deal most damage to the head. So you kill the monster the fastest when everyone aims for the head. Capcom implemented friendly fire, so why is it so difficult to use one level 1 slot for flinch free? Most level 1 decos are useless anyway
i play longsword in iceborne and i tought it was quite braindead untill i saw this vid showing how strong it is in rise
And dude, if you thought it was braindead... Then check sunbreak. (Both ls and lance)
As Lance main I have this weird distaste for Longsword in World, Iceborne and Rise (and kinda Gen and GenU but to a lesser degree).
Lance revolves around using that big shield of yours to stay your ground and be opressive with the essential use of counters.
However, It has some problems that haven't been properly adressed like the movement since Lance has no reliable way to reach the monster mid combat except for the charge (which isn't that fast to begin with and you have to commit to it with few fluid follow-ups), the guard advance which i have no problems with as it functions as a guarding hop with a decent lunge attack (and it's already guarding frame one so it's the more reliable to use after attack than any other blocking/counter except for the silkbind ones), the weird guarding charge switch skill that replaces the original one (it's a lot faster but has a limited travel distance AND melts your stamina so much it's not worth using at all since Lance heavily relies on stamina to block and counter) and the Twin Vines silkbind that has a very short range to apply the teather to the monster, costs two silkbugs which are crucial for Lance in Rise and the teather can be easily broken if the monster get's too far which oddly happens more often than you'd think. Also, without World's and Iceborne's health regen augments, the nerf to Guard Up, the insistance of keeping Guard lv 2 and 4 when both are very redundant and useless and the overall lack of ways to deal with both chip damage and stamina consumption, Lance is in a pretty tight spot.
In the other hand, Long Sword not only gets tons more love than other weapons like Lance or Gunlance, it started to be THE counter weapon which makes playing Lance quite obsolete when you could get a lot more results with less effort and a strong moveset with Long Sword's strong counter arsenal. In Gen and GenU, I had no problems with Critical Juncture because it required you to deal damage to charge AND the charge meter was long. In Rise, Serene Pose has a shorter overall charge time and the only thing you have to do is wait. The Iai Counter had it's miss penalty from Iceborne removed and Quick Sheath allows you to easily spam it. Foresight Slash has too many counter frames (I remember that it was quite challenging to pull of at the start of World's life but got gradualy buffed with more and more counter frames up to Iceborne).
I agree with you on that they need to buff the other weapon instead of mass nerfing the longsword in to the ground
I'm still mad about what Generations did to Charge Blade
I'm pretty indifferent ngl. Been playing for a long time and I've seen weapons be completely busted time and time again. Even individual weapons can be dumb. Kelbi bow anyone? I just want every weapon to be good. Idc if there's a best weapon. Just as long as every weapon is close enough to eachother. Too many people are saying "hunters are becoming too powerful". I seem to have forgotten when this game became dark souls. World made the game more casual and accessible. Be thankful that world was such a success that we can continue having monster hunter games to begin with cause gen ain't do too good and genU wasn't even gonna come out.
Even with the counters World and iceborne added, they still had a high level of commitment and risk:reward.
Rise removed that and turned it into the super easy-to-use weebstick we all know.
also, uh... what? no, CB DOESN'T need Guard and Artillary to make it good. Guard isn't really that necessary if you can time your CPP well, and Artillary isn't a huge buff to phial damage. Another point on CB- why didn't you show the the CES counter from CPP? I believe that can do more damage than a UAED- it has in my experience.
If you checked the recent changes Longsword being OP is now an understatement. Might as well call it the dragonator from now onwards.
I do want to make a follow up to this video, but I think it's better to wait until Sunbreak is actually out before we make any sweeping statements.
Like Harvest Moon seems very strong, but it's possible Sunbreak nerfed Longswords counter damage to balance it. In addition to this, the description of the attack seems to imply we can't leave the circle, or we get nerfed when we leave, which could be a problem against monsters that move a lot.
Like I said, best to wait.
One less obvious mechanic of the longsword that isnt talked about as much, is the delay in hits. It isnt significant at first, but becomes a VERY comfortable part of its moveset that allows easy decision making.
Because of the delayed hits in the sheathed counter and helmbreaker, the LS user always has more window to react to a flinch/stagger as they can already start moving during the flinch animation. Other weapon classes will still be locked into a roll, a sheathe, or in attack recovery animation for a few more frames during the monster's flinch animation.
During the flinch the LS user may have already sheathed into iai slash, or can silkbind jump into helmbreaker.
Basically what im trying to say is, LS has more window to react to a flinch over any other melee weapon class.
That said, it's also the reason ranged weapons are so powerful, coz they dont miss a stagger/flinch window to add shots and stack up on damage dealt.
Longsword was always a relatively balanced weapon
Valor LS was strong but you could still die to things like side-hitting Hitboxes and the Valor Gause running out
Then World came and everything went downhill
In World and Iceborne it was strong, but not *that* strong.
Rise removed just a few tiny drawbacks but it was enough to tip things over the edge.
I did not know about quick sheathe level 3 oh my god. That's so broken
In world, ls was a weapon that was easy to learn but hard to master. In rise, anyone who can see an attack coming can speed run.
Speedrun records disagree with you.
the valor style was and is op af, i mained LS since i discovered that move, and this style is op in almost every weapon too
Valor Longsword is just a upgrade version of Rise Longsword. People are saying Rise Longsword is to op actually never played Gen U since Valor Style is completely BUSTED
@@mickaelgoodenough9024 but all weapons can make use of valor
I heavily disagree with the notion that LS should get any nerfs but hard agree with buffing other weapons
Reason : it’s fun , why take away the fun?
just balance out the fun of other weapons instead and make them just as viable
Couldn't agree more
LS is a bit mindless and easy. I'd even say it trivializes a lot of the content. It would kill the game for me if they ramped up every weapon to SL levels. I'd rather there be imbalance with LS auto pilot on top and other weapons just being weaker.
@@sean_thomson It is relatively easy to pick up yes, but it still takes time to learn to use properly. Playing it in Peppo mode is nothing a beginner can pull off, they still need a few hundred hunts to get all the counter timings down for the weapon to work optimally.
It also wouldn't hurt weapons like the Lance to get a more fun kit. Speedruns with that thing are just an endless chain of spiral thrusts and I can't be the only one who finds that a little underwhelming and not that enticing to get into.
(For the Record: No, I don't main LS)
@@-siranzalot- I have no problems with balance, but I always get on edge when people say things like bring all the weapons up to LS levels. That would ruin the fun. I've switch to solo lance in rise purely because it takes more work to get the same results. I enjoy the extra work personally.
(side note, spiral thrust isn't even the worst meta we've had for lance; shivers in GU. Also in Rise there are some fights were its not spiral thrust centric but this is an issue lance has had for a while, so I agree with you there)
Anything speed running will take 100s of hours to master. Speed running is also a tiny fraction of the game, and I'm not bothered by how fast LS can kill a monster. I know people use that as a sole metric, but I think there is more to weapons than timed runs.
LS is the easiest/safest weapon in the game compared to every other melee weapon, which isn't the end of the world. Only issue I have with LS is role creep. Outside of that its people wanting to justify LS by bringing every other weapon up to LS levels. And as I stated in the earlier post I'd rather have LS just be stupid strong than other weapons brought up to LS levels.
@@sean_thomson I think you might be the first person I ever found in a comment section with whom a discussion on this topic feels worthwhile and not toxic at all.
Sorry If I got that across wrong, but I wasn't really arguing from the speedrunning angle, nor have I ever really gotten into that. It's just that most MH content in which we really see the weapons in action on YT is quite speedrunning centric and everytime I think about getting into another weapon myself, I watch some of those to see if an effective playstyle of the weapon in question seems fun enough to me to give it an honest try. I was interested in the Lance at one point but the top level gameplay I saw of it just didn't spike my interest enough to warrant putting real hours in.
I also don't think that it would be right, necessary or even organically possible to just crank "low tier" (air quotes on purpose) weapons up three notches but I think we can agree that it feels weird that LS got a major rework over the last few iterations which changed it's playstyle by a lot and other weapons feel more or less completely neglected in that department. Don't get me wrong, I don't want for the weapons to eventually all facilitate an easier game, just a more rewarding incentive for actually learning them.
This can and should go hand in hand with cranked up monsters, too. If more monsters got updated moves and more aggression as e.g. Rathalos in Rise, maybe the current LS wouldn't have spiked such a heavy controversy in the first place - provided some of the more neglected weapons would have gotten a new interesting thing sprinkled in here and there as well. These are just my two cents on all that.
The one thing I'd say current state of LS is good for is that it serves as quite the gateway drug for beginners to get into the game ;-)
I feel like such a noob when I couldn't predict the monster's next attack 2 seconds in advance and nail the spirit counter reliably, but now I just feel stupid for never noticing they were using quick sheathe. The thought that it affected iai stance never even crossed my mind.