Blocking is objectively more important on the Chargeblade than the SnS. CB utilizes it's guardpoints to combo directly into the discharges as a hard punish. With also some utility to charge the shield, sword and axe.
Also in Iceborne, sling burst counter right after blocking. But his point still stands since Charge Blade can do both blocking and evading. Like for Savage Axe, you might change your playstyle and block much less.
I forgot about MHW, but in Rise you get a direct boost to dmg on the UAED after a guardpoint. For ppl who opt for axe mode, yes dodging is prevalent, but you can also argue for using the guard switchskill that allows you to guardpoint without losing axe charge. Even if axe playstyle will primarily use wirebugs for dodging.
I have never thought of playing in this way. This changes everything I knew about monster hunter. Ever since I started watching your videos a week ago, I have completely changed how I view the game. It went from a boss rush type of game that I played occasionally to actually understanding that it is much more than that. Considering which attack to use after a monster attacks to now considering how to anticipate how a monster attacks in order to capitalise on the small window of attacking. It’s Incredible. I thought trying to attack a monster every time would make me kill faster but it’s actually the opposite. My kill times have improved from averaging 15 minutes down to 10 minutes. Thank you for all this.
As a sns main, i confirm that lance is a very offensive weapon with the best defensive option, and can change between them quickly. A good lance main should aim to have 70-80% of their engagement time with the monster attacking. For those who think lance is for tanking, they have a mmo way of thinking. All weapon are ment to deal damage. Lance is ment to deal constant damage, consistently non stop. Most people dont play lance because of the high skill floor, once you learn it. You feel like a modern tank facing off the monster head on
lance is the easiest melee weapon to learn with the smallest movepool and only has 1 playstyle There is no high skill floor at all But the real issue is it suffers from low dps despite its high damage uptime. Its toothpick pokes
@@martinerhard8447 skill floor is higher than other, if you statement is true, more people will be willing to use it. lance hops is usually the main reason its difficult to pickup and play, it demand dedication, concentration, and understanding of yours and monster to unlock its full potential. those whose grasp the lance capability can face of monster with minimal damage or uses 0 healing pot per encounter.
@@zakwancu3 Higher than what other melee weapon? Lance is extremely easy to play. No complex moveset, no micro management, very forgiving counter windows, low amount of moves...The skill floor is low What should be hard about the hops? Gunlance has those too and a much bigger and more complex moveset than lance. Lance is not played more because of the low dps and its rather one dimensional playstyle. I would still recommend to pick it up especially since its so easy to pick up.
@@martinerhard8447 Skill floor is about more than just buttons. The buttons for Lance are easy to learn, sure. But making the most out of them in a hunt is not so easy. You are slow, you have a tiny hitbox. The monster is fast. Staying on the monster and positioning so that you have maximum up time on weak spots requires a ton of precision and monster knowledge. Now, all weapons require monster knowledge to some extent. But some are way more forgiving than others. I main Charge Blade. While it's regularly considered one of the most complicated to learn in terms of buttons, in terms of monsters, I can roll up to anything sight unseen and be reasonably confident I can kill it on the first go fairly quickly. Why? Because I have a ton of maneuvering options and I have massive hitboxes that mean I don't even need to be that precise most of the time. Someone playing Lance with equivalent skill is going to take longer simply because they don't know the fight yet and are forced into bad positions more often. Give a new person a Charge Blade and then give them a Lance and I can almost guarantee that most of the time a new person is going to have a much harder time with Lance.
I think IG belongs to the outer edge of Dodging, because even most of the combos start or end with a movement that (with proper knowledge and input) will bring you out of the monsters attack zone and into a place where you continue to deal damage. It's the only weapon that can vault over beams,tails and charges, and can evade midair. Profits alot from evasion skills in general and fits perfectly in your definition of the Dodging end of the spectrum.
Blocking with Charge Blade is actually quite important, when your shield is charged and the monster hits it and you block they get damaged, not to mention guard points act as pseudo-counters if you nail them they charge your phials and allow to instantly access your Super Amped Elemental Discharge move after a monster attack. Sure Axe mode is more focused on dodging but you can still use guard points even in Axe mode (the animation to switch between Axe mode and S&S mode is a Guard point)
You will still need to dodge just as often as you use your guard points tho. You can’t guard point when monsters do combos which the majority of them does often. The guard point in axe mode is not very reactive unlike the other shield weapons. I definitely agree with CB laying somewhere in the middle.
@HerEvilTwin Hmmmm, fair enough, though I'd still nudge it a little bit to the right of the Sword and Shield which doesn't have any mechanics that specifically focuses on blocking like charging your Shield to damage attackers or guard points.
@@HerEvilTwinErm. Hm. CB main here. I general, you don’t stay in Axe Mode unless you have a fairly huge opening and you’re using the spinny combos a lot. Some CB users like to dodge a lot and stay in Axe Mode but that’s very atypical. Most CB users block, even when using Savage Axe as their main offensive weapon. It’s untrue that you need to Guard Point to shortcut to SAED. You can shortcut to SAED off of a normal block so long as you elicit a low or a medium block reaction. In fact, you can’t SAED off of a minimal block reaction, so you shouldn’t GP a weak attack for a countermove because you can’t do the shortcut if the guard reaction is too small, and GP increases the guard power a bit. You can easily just block all of the attacks a monster does in a combo and then counter after the last block. That’s quite easy to do.
LS often times prefers to stand where the monster is going to strike so they can counter just like the block weapons. I would argue that CB is more of a block weapon than SNS. The hunter is super slow when unsheathed and it gets stun + extra SAED damage when it pulls off a GP.
I'm so glad that you put SnS right in the middle lol I usually still build for evasion, but if I know I can block some monsters with low knockback then I'll actually block it since I don't have to give up my position. Used to work super well back in MHP3rd against Jho's stomp tremble!
hey michael, thanks for the thoughtful and straightforward content. im not a technical person when it comes to mh, but its very helpful to watch and learn from your breakdowns and opinions.
You're a very competent person that's able to clearly back up the points you make, I hope people take after you when it comes to talking about gameplay strategies. Or anything, really.
Gunlance also right in the middle. Its very very common to play GL with evade extender and evade window maxed instead of blocking. How would you rate the GS tackle?
really enjoy your videos bro. also found out you raid ultimates on ffxiv which is the other game I play! thanks a lot for the informational videos on mh
Strong shield with follow up - lance Strong shield no follow up - gunlance Weak shield with follow up - charge blade Weak shield no follow up - sword and shield
Gunlance can follow up guard with the guard poke, which can be followed up with either shell or up swing, both of which can be followed up further with either more attacks, or hop/guard. Just know the time you have before the monster start attacking again and pick your moves accordingly.
In MH Rise I have a fun fully defensive life steal IG build that yea, doesnt do much damage but you can do whatever you want to without having to worry about getting hit cause you do not take much damage and your kinsect heal you back to full very fast. Not good for speedruns but fun to mess around with lol.
I'm a SnS main, and I used to only dodge attacks. However that changed with Rise. It added a pseudo Guard Point to your Guard Slash, which lets you immediately follow up with Perfect Rush (you can even skip the first leap, so you start PR in the same spot you guarded). The catch is, you need to at most have a medium knockback for it to work. That means, investing into guard levels. I'm currently running a very inefficient variant of this build, maxing out both Guard and Evade Window, as well as getting two levels of Evade Extender, but it's a lot of fun. Sure, I could probably drop Evade Window, considering how garbage roll s are in Rise, but there are some moves I'd rather dodge than try to counter. And obv, this being SnS, you cannot counter every attack, some still have too much knockback even with Guard 5. Still, it made some of the more frustrating fights for me, like vs Diablos, into rather enjoyable ones. Plus it's incredibly satysfying to pull off
If you are using backstep keep in mind that evade window does nothing for that (unless that has changed), it's 20 frames regardless of level. I am personally really disappointed with evade window in risebreak, 5 frames for 5 skillpoints just seems like not enough for too much investment, especially when a few ranks in evade extender has you dodgeroling halfway to Narnia.
@@Ederick1936 Yeah, I know. I'm just kinda bad at using Backstep defensively. I always either misjudge how long the hitboxes linger or get hit on my follow-up Advancing Slash/Perfect Rush/Charged Slash. That's said the EW 5 does help with rolling through fast attacks and projectiles, so I'm keeping it for now. Maybe I don't need it, but I'd be very uncomfortable without it. And I don't really think I need more damage. I'm not a speed runner, and my hunts usually take about 20mins (that's including about 5-7min spent collecting spirit birbs and other mats before actually engaging the monster) and that's fine by me.
@@Grzester23 oh for sure, EW will be a benefit, In my mind i'm just comparing it to evade extender thinking if you had to choose one or the other. Guard might actually be a better investment over EW if you are using it primarily for fast hits (provided those hits are small). i was experimenting with it a few weeks before this video came out (i'm in no way an SNS main, my three weapons are IG > Hammer > SNS) and i was finding it suprisingly useful for small hits. ultimately it comes down to what fits your playstyle best in regards to keeping uptime high, that's the real damage boost
@@Ederick1936 It also very much depends on the matchup. For some monsters, it's better/easier to evade their attacks (i.e. Rajang), some are better dealt with by guarding and countering from there (i.e. Diablos). I myself need to learn what I can and cannot Guard Slash counter, cuz I only been using this build for about 2 weeks and haven't fought all the monsters with it yet. In any case, it's a very nice tool to have in your back pocket when in unfavourable matchup. Chances are, something will go wrong, and then you'll be glad you could shrug off a hit with a Guard and quickly counter attack, instead of being sent to the other side of the map cuz you get heavy knockback. And that's true about EW. I probably could skip it, but I won't. There aren't many other skills I'd pur there anyway. Most of them would be a passive buffs to my damage numbers, which is way less interesting than a new playstyle. Only real outlier would be Partbreaker, cuz I love breaking parts, and monsters usually don't have enough HP for me to break everything lol
I found a mixed evade and guard set for lance to be much more successful in Sunbreak. Perfect guard really de-incentivized running guard skills, the fact there are literally unblockable attacks even with guard up, and the multi hit box attacks, incentivized evade for lance. I ended up with Evade window 3, Evade Extender 2, Guard 1, Embolden 1, Offensive guard 3, and status trigger + build up boost. Plus a bunch of other damage skills, but that was the core of the set that I ended up enjoying in SB for lance. Also with Guard 1 + Embolden 1 + guard dash, it gives you the all important guard 3 knock back level, so you can still push through most attacks with a guard if needed BUT still giving you a low enough knock back threshold to consistently get lvl3 anchor rage on more attacks.
SnS being in the middle is perfect. an example is against safi'jiiva. Whenever he slams the ground and make everything explode, i just shield. You can shield the explosion facing ANY direction. meaning you can make the block push you towards the weak point you're looking to attack. And Safi doesn't move too much until all explosions occured. I gain a lot of dps in every hunt on this, while people just run away. And what's also great with blocking and having SnS, once you blocked that explosion enough, you start to understand the exact timing to roll through the explosion. Meaning : you win even more dps. (SnS main, yes, i know i'm obvious :p)
But wouldn't long sword then be on the blocking side because it will want to counter the attack then hit the weakpoint instead of dodging out of an attack into the weakpoint? Like you just explained
Nice can't wait for part 2, I would love a video about items: flash pods/screamer pods/barrel bombs/traps things like that. I always wonder if they're even worth using on hunts.
Question, I was taught that blocking for Gunlance is usually not the best option and should only be used in a pinch. I've been doing the little hops with some Evade Extender/Window to avoid damage (and chain back-hopping to close distance). I'm not a GL main and there's probably a more nuanced answer based on which type of GL you use, just curious. Thanks for your videos, they're very helpful filling in a lot of my knowledge gaps.
Mostly because your dmg comes from your gun, not your lance. So you're mostly gonna block by reloading or putting your slinger ammo into your gun. Tho it still is a very potent block, you can guard even Fatalis big cone flame
You can argue that dodging with gunlance is more pre-emptive positioning than reactive because of the heavy animation commitment, and you can probably make the case that it's not really dodging. To be fair, since fullburst playstyle especially on late game cause of Fatalis GL is the way to go, I actually have offensive guard on my Fatty set. The slam, sweeps, and your wyrmstake cannon contribute a ton of damage. Honestly it depends on what point you are in the game since you might also be playing wide and long shell, which make it easier to dodge reactively. Although, yeah personally I would put gunlance on the lower end of blocking, below Heavy Bowgun.
From what i have been able gather. Gunlance dont have a counter attack like lance. Damage spread between raw and artillery, so offensive guard is a little limited. Raw only build only exists after fatalis weapon. Offensive guard is great with raw only build, but that playstyle typically only seen during fatalis and ATV. But of course blocking in a pinch is still great with or without guard up. In fact some attack i will actively tank with guard with no guard skill because i know i wont die i just want to reduce the damage some what like AT namielle vibe check So, conceptually, and practically, block away with the gunlance. It’s unlikely to be a detriment, though it could. But ideally, optimally, you want to evade.
I would say with GL you could build for both evade and block, with the amount of decorations you will eventually get, you will be able to build for both with no problems, and skill have enough room for all your damage skills
I am a GL main and I can say that ideally you want to use your hops way more than your guard. You can i-frame some monster attacks with it or be a great repositioning tool(i always invest into evade extender, at least 2 but I value 3 a LOT). Guarding while fine doesnt convert into anything since you dont have a counter , you will probably get knocked back as well depending on the attack and your investment on guard. I also disagree with him saying that gunlance doesnt run earplugs since it can Block roars; earplugs is great, everytime a monster is roaring you can wyvernfire for free. If you are playing a GL with the normal shelling type, earplugs can give you a few more burstfire loops, which deal tons of damage as well I watched a good ammount of this guy content and until now it has been pretty good info and hints, maybe he doesnt play a lot of gunlance idk, it is a pretty weird weapon tbf. If you want some specific gunlance content I highly recommend Caoslayer and rurikhan, I learned a lot from them. Happy hunting!
As a Charge Blade main since they released the thing, I'm kinda scratching my head. I do roll on occasion. Sure. But equal to the amount of blocking I do? Especially with the introduction of Offensive Guard? I mean, I'm not exactly keeping count but I would be amazed if those numbers were even close to even. There are some attacks where a roll is preferable to a block for the sake of positioning. But those are kinda the minority in my experience and even then, it's not as though they are happening all the time during the fight. The number one reason that I roll is to reposition, not to avoid damage. So to my mind that doesn't fit into this overarching theme of defense. I'll just say that I'm curious about the reasoning here.
I enjoy CB a lot though I wouldn't call it my main. I feel like monsters are a bit too fast (in iceborne) to capitalize on guard points. I also feel like offensive guard is only worth it with the lance but is a trap for other shield weapon. Which would make dodging more efficient overall
@@del78magnum95A gp is much faster in terms of landing an aed or saed. Rolling is for positioning or while in axe mode, which is only relevant if you are using savage axe for the most part. You can't saed after every gp, it will probably be aeds for the most part at higher ranks. It also builds up stun, gps do something without you even attacking. They are always preferable. If you aren't capitalizing on them, you aren't reading the monster well.
@@del78magnum95 "I feel like monsters are a bit too fast..." This is very much an issue of monster knowledge, understanding the timing of the weapon and the hitbox of the shield. As long as you're keeping on top of tenderizing parts, you should be able to reliably move between claggers, KOs and trips such that you create tons of openings. And of course, the most satisfying thing on the planet is to KO off a Guard Point and transition into an SAED. I get tingles just thinking about it. Rise makes this all much easier though since you have such a wide angle to redirect and you don't have to plan it out ahead of time.
the thing is: cb is played in two styles, you either guard point + AED/SAED for punishment or you switch to savage axe the single moment you have enough fials and in SA you have really limited options for using a GP which means for the sake of DPS you play it like a Switch Axe, therefore you evade more than you guard, that's what he was talking about
You still can block attacks that have secondary effects with your shield (roars, flashes, earthquakes, etc) apart from that you can use items with the weapon unsheathe at any moment making it extremely versatile(sometimes you can make a monster detonate a big bomb by themselves or you can flash fliying monsters much more consistently)
Your Gunlance placement is fine for more casual play, but if you watch a more skill-focused Gunlance run you'll see it's almost exclusively treated as a dodge only weapon. You don't have a way to combo into Guard, your combos out of Guard are relatively limited, and you aren't really rewarded for Guarding. Lance and ChargeBlade have the ability to Guard midcombo and have various counterattack options, while Gunlance kind of just has nothing? You have to wait for your animations to recover to go into Guard, yet for most attacks your recovery is faster for a Dodge than a Guard. And once you are in Guard, you have access to only Guard Poke and Wyvernsfire. Guard Poke can go into Rising Slash, Quick Reload > Slam (which can go into Sweep or Fullburst), or Poke > Charge Shell which can be good, but it's nothing like how Lance and CB can combo and counter off of their Guard abilities. Gunlance just tends to benefit more from using evasion and position over Guarding. With evasion and position you can go into Thrust, Shell, Rising Slash, or Lunging Thrust very quickly and easily. If you Guard, your options are more limited and don't really get rewarded for it in most cases. Running Offensive Guard is significantly less rewarding or viable for Gunlance in the majority of cases (outside of specific niche setups) do to your lack of Counter-play, not to mention only half of your moveset getting to scale with the Raw buff. Saving Position can be very comfortable and there are things you can do with it, but it's easy to see the vast majority of Gunlance runners seem to get more out of evasion and positioning than they do Guarding.
Ive played mostly longsword since it became a thing in Freedom 2 (I know, I was very much a weeb). When world first came out I wanted to try out the horn since that was one of the weapons I never really gave a shot before and it was the first game I'd play with friends, so HH being always "the crappy support weapon" I wanted to try that for fun. And it actually was a ton of fun! But at some point I noticed that SOMEHOW I ended with most playtime on lance instead, a weapon I had no initial interest playing because it was so different to how I was used to playing. But being able to just eat hits while attacking almost non stop felt really good. I guess I discovered I have an affinity to guard weapons. I ended up advising my friend to switch from bow to a guard bowgun and she found her true calling that way.
I have the full velkhana y+ frostcraft GS build but I prefer a normal fatalis build and taclking reposition with slinger. Tho i also made a build with offensive guard. The attack bonus is quite potent and can stack up with the attack bonus from evasion mantle. You can go up to 2600 attack with this, even without heroics and fortify...
I feel like not enough people have seen what an SnS is capable of with a proper guard build If you know how to properly play it (I don't btw, but I've seen some beasts at it and I try to emulate it), you can keep offensive guard active basically the whole fight and stay in the monster's face at all times, it's crazy
as an IG wierdo who flirts with SNS, and thinking about Lance and perhaps even gunlance and CB, would a video explaining Guardpoints and how to anticipate and use them be a future possibility? I honestly don't really know what they are.
Quick explanation of GPs: They're just points in attack animations where the shield is in front of you, giving you an automatic shielded state that has some additional benefits over regular guarding. Unless I'm misremembering, there are 5 total GPs you can do with CB. Not sure about the other weapons since I pretty much exclusively play CB lol. For CB, the benefits include: -With a charged shield, a free phial explosion counterattack happens when the shield is hit -Your Guard (armor skill) increases by 1 level (on top of 1 level with a charged shield) meaning you stagger less on heavier moves for more AED/SAED openings -Specifically with the SnS Mode to Axe Mode GP, you can cancel your attack cooldown frames to instantly block. The only downside is if you time this wrong, you're left wide open since you'll just go into axe mode. This GP also applies for sheathed state to Axe Mode attack. -For AED/SAED to Savage Axe GP, that one is nice in case you want to cancel from a bad AED/SAED and block. This one has pretty tight timing and can be a bit awkward to get right. -The rest of the GPs come from some form of the roundslash animation ending and feels pretty natural. You're likely to land this one by accident a lot if you're not used to CB.
tbh i said its the alpha and the omega because its the beginner weapon and the weapon all veterans (usually) converge back to its both simple and complex the beginning and the end the alpha and the omega
Blocking is objectively more important on the Chargeblade than the SnS.
CB utilizes it's guardpoints to combo directly into the discharges as a hard punish. With also some utility to charge the shield, sword and axe.
Also in Iceborne, sling burst counter right after blocking.
But his point still stands since Charge Blade can do both blocking and evading. Like for Savage Axe, you might change your playstyle and block much less.
I forgot about MHW, but in Rise you get a direct boost to dmg on the UAED after a guardpoint. For ppl who opt for axe mode, yes dodging is prevalent, but you can also argue for using the guard switchskill that allows you to guardpoint without losing axe charge. Even if axe playstyle will primarily use wirebugs for dodging.
I have never thought of playing in this way. This changes everything I knew about monster hunter. Ever since I started watching your videos a week ago, I have completely changed how I view the game. It went from a boss rush type of game that I played occasionally to actually understanding that it is much more than that. Considering which attack to use after a monster attacks to now considering how to anticipate how a monster attacks in order to capitalise on the small window of attacking. It’s Incredible. I thought trying to attack a monster every time would make me kill faster but it’s actually the opposite. My kill times have improved from averaging 15 minutes down to 10 minutes. Thank you for all this.
これは最高のゲームです
@@naota909 you said you have no main, but it looks like your a weeb, so longsword maybe ? XD Jk, accurate analyse as always, keep it up !
As a sns main, i confirm that lance is a very offensive weapon with the best defensive option, and can change between them quickly. A good lance main should aim to have 70-80% of their engagement time with the monster attacking. For those who think lance is for tanking, they have a mmo way of thinking. All weapon are ment to deal damage. Lance is ment to deal constant damage, consistently non stop. Most people dont play lance because of the high skill floor, once you learn it. You feel like a modern tank facing off the monster head on
lance is the easiest melee weapon to learn with the smallest movepool and only has 1 playstyle
There is no high skill floor at all
But the real issue is it suffers from low dps despite its high damage uptime. Its toothpick pokes
It became my main and favourite weapon once i saw how to properly use it
@@martinerhard8447 skill floor is higher than other, if you statement is true, more people will be willing to use it. lance hops is usually the main reason its difficult to pickup and play, it demand dedication, concentration, and understanding of yours and monster to unlock its full potential. those whose grasp the lance capability can face of monster with minimal damage or uses 0 healing pot per encounter.
@@zakwancu3
Higher than what other melee weapon?
Lance is extremely easy to play. No complex moveset, no micro management, very forgiving counter windows, low amount of moves...The skill floor is low
What should be hard about the hops?
Gunlance has those too and a much bigger and more complex moveset than lance.
Lance is not played more because of the low dps and its rather one dimensional playstyle.
I would still recommend to pick it up especially since its so easy to pick up.
@@martinerhard8447 Skill floor is about more than just buttons.
The buttons for Lance are easy to learn, sure. But making the most out of them in a hunt is not so easy. You are slow, you have a tiny hitbox. The monster is fast. Staying on the monster and positioning so that you have maximum up time on weak spots requires a ton of precision and monster knowledge.
Now, all weapons require monster knowledge to some extent. But some are way more forgiving than others. I main Charge Blade. While it's regularly considered one of the most complicated to learn in terms of buttons, in terms of monsters, I can roll up to anything sight unseen and be reasonably confident I can kill it on the first go fairly quickly. Why? Because I have a ton of maneuvering options and I have massive hitboxes that mean I don't even need to be that precise most of the time.
Someone playing Lance with equivalent skill is going to take longer simply because they don't know the fight yet and are forced into bad positions more often.
Give a new person a Charge Blade and then give them a Lance and I can almost guarantee that most of the time a new person is going to have a much harder time with Lance.
I think IG belongs to the outer edge of Dodging, because even most of the combos start or end with a movement that (with proper knowledge and input) will bring you out of the monsters attack zone and into a place where you continue to deal damage.
It's the only weapon that can vault over beams,tails and charges, and can evade midair. Profits alot from evasion skills in general and fits perfectly in your definition of the Dodging end of the spectrum.
Blocking with Charge Blade is actually quite important, when your shield is charged and the monster hits it and you block they get damaged, not to mention guard points act as pseudo-counters if you nail them they charge your phials and allow to instantly access your Super Amped Elemental Discharge move after a monster attack.
Sure Axe mode is more focused on dodging but you can still use guard points even in Axe mode (the animation to switch between Axe mode and S&S mode is a Guard point)
You will still need to dodge just as often as you use your guard points tho. You can’t guard point when monsters do combos which the majority of them does often. The guard point in axe mode is not very reactive unlike the other shield weapons.
I definitely agree with CB laying somewhere in the middle.
@HerEvilTwin Hmmmm, fair enough, though I'd still nudge it a little bit to the right of the Sword and Shield which doesn't have any mechanics that specifically focuses on blocking like charging your Shield to damage attackers or guard points.
Axe mode also has another guardpoint, savage axe activation
@@HerEvilTwinErm. Hm. CB main here. I general, you don’t stay in Axe Mode unless you have a fairly huge opening and you’re using the spinny combos a lot. Some CB users like to dodge a lot and stay in Axe Mode but that’s very atypical. Most CB users block, even when using Savage Axe as their main offensive weapon.
It’s untrue that you need to Guard Point to shortcut to SAED. You can shortcut to SAED off of a normal block so long as you elicit a low or a medium block reaction. In fact, you can’t SAED off of a minimal block reaction, so you shouldn’t GP a weak attack for a countermove because you can’t do the shortcut if the guard reaction is too small, and GP increases the guard power a bit.
You can easily just block all of the attacks a monster does in a combo and then counter after the last block. That’s quite easy to do.
@@RoxlimnI’m not trying to be mean but this is the first time I’ve seen someone unironically use “erm” in a comment I just thought it was funny
I love this shorter format, information loaded content! Thank you!
LS often times prefers to stand where the monster is going to strike so they can counter just like the block weapons.
I would argue that CB is more of a block weapon than SNS. The hunter is super slow when unsheathed and it gets stun + extra SAED damage when it pulls off a GP.
When you start to think about all of this, and then factor in the number of different monster you can hunt, it's overwhelming 🤯
That's why MH is the best game.
I'm so glad that you put SnS right in the middle lol
I usually still build for evasion, but if I know I can block some monsters with low knockback then I'll actually block it since I don't have to give up my position.
Used to work super well back in MHP3rd against Jho's stomp tremble!
You could try Evade Lance, but it's not easy to nail the dodges. My Lance setup is really defensive but still able to dish up some nasty damage
And in old MH you can have the ultimate dodging weapon : the lance with evasion +3
hey michael, thanks for the thoughtful and straightforward content. im not a technical person when it comes to mh, but its very helpful to watch and learn from your breakdowns and opinions.
You're a very competent person that's able to clearly back up the points you make, I hope people take after you when it comes to talking about gameplay strategies. Or anything, really.
Gunlance also right in the middle.
Its very very common to play GL with evade extender and evade window maxed instead of blocking.
How would you rate the GS tackle?
really enjoy your videos bro. also found out you raid ultimates on ffxiv which is the other game I play! thanks a lot for the informational videos on mh
Gameplay theory yummy in me wyvern brain
Based on this theory of defense, CB is absolutely deep in the block territory. You generally want to bait attacks, block them, and then counterattack.
Strong shield with follow up - lance
Strong shield no follow up - gunlance
Weak shield with follow up - charge blade
Weak shield no follow up - sword and shield
Charge blade shield is 3rd strongest and is almost as strong as the lance when powered up and using guard points (35 vs 40 for lance)
Gunlance can follow up guard with the guard poke, which can be followed up with either shell or up swing, both of which can be followed up further with either more attacks, or hop/guard. Just know the time you have before the monster start attacking again and pick your moves accordingly.
In MH Rise I have a fun fully defensive life steal IG build that yea, doesnt do much damage but you can do whatever you want to without having to worry about getting hit cause you do not take much damage and your kinsect heal you back to full very fast. Not good for speedruns but fun to mess around with lol.
dude you're a godsend, teach me more
I'm a SnS main, and I used to only dodge attacks. However that changed with Rise. It added a pseudo Guard Point to your Guard Slash, which lets you immediately follow up with Perfect Rush (you can even skip the first leap, so you start PR in the same spot you guarded). The catch is, you need to at most have a medium knockback for it to work. That means, investing into guard levels. I'm currently running a very inefficient variant of this build, maxing out both Guard and Evade Window, as well as getting two levels of Evade Extender, but it's a lot of fun. Sure, I could probably drop Evade Window, considering how garbage roll s are in Rise, but there are some moves I'd rather dodge than try to counter. And obv, this being SnS, you cannot counter every attack, some still have too much knockback even with Guard 5. Still, it made some of the more frustrating fights for me, like vs Diablos, into rather enjoyable ones. Plus it's incredibly satysfying to pull off
If you are using backstep keep in mind that evade window does nothing for that (unless that has changed), it's 20 frames regardless of level.
I am personally really disappointed with evade window in risebreak, 5 frames for 5 skillpoints just seems like not enough for too much investment, especially when a few ranks in evade extender has you dodgeroling halfway to Narnia.
@@Ederick1936 Yeah, I know. I'm just kinda bad at using Backstep defensively. I always either misjudge how long the hitboxes linger or get hit on my follow-up Advancing Slash/Perfect Rush/Charged Slash. That's said the EW 5 does help with rolling through fast attacks and projectiles, so I'm keeping it for now. Maybe I don't need it, but I'd be very uncomfortable without it. And I don't really think I need more damage. I'm not a speed runner, and my hunts usually take about 20mins (that's including about 5-7min spent collecting spirit birbs and other mats before actually engaging the monster) and that's fine by me.
The GP added in Rise is a great addition IMO
@@Grzester23 oh for sure, EW will be a benefit, In my mind i'm just comparing it to evade extender thinking if you had to choose one or the other. Guard might actually be a better investment over EW if you are using it primarily for fast hits (provided those hits are small). i was experimenting with it a few weeks before this video came out (i'm in no way an SNS main, my three weapons are IG > Hammer > SNS) and i was finding it suprisingly useful for small hits. ultimately it comes down to what fits your playstyle best in regards to keeping uptime high, that's the real damage boost
@@Ederick1936 It also very much depends on the matchup. For some monsters, it's better/easier to evade their attacks (i.e. Rajang), some are better dealt with by guarding and countering from there (i.e. Diablos). I myself need to learn what I can and cannot Guard Slash counter, cuz I only been using this build for about 2 weeks and haven't fought all the monsters with it yet. In any case, it's a very nice tool to have in your back pocket when in unfavourable matchup. Chances are, something will go wrong, and then you'll be glad you could shrug off a hit with a Guard and quickly counter attack, instead of being sent to the other side of the map cuz you get heavy knockback.
And that's true about EW. I probably could skip it, but I won't. There aren't many other skills I'd pur there anyway. Most of them would be a passive buffs to my damage numbers, which is way less interesting than a new playstyle. Only real outlier would be Partbreaker, cuz I love breaking parts, and monsters usually don't have enough HP for me to break everything lol
I found a mixed evade and guard set for lance to be much more successful in Sunbreak. Perfect guard really de-incentivized running guard skills, the fact there are literally unblockable attacks even with guard up, and the multi hit box attacks, incentivized evade for lance.
I ended up with Evade window 3, Evade Extender 2, Guard 1, Embolden 1, Offensive guard 3, and status trigger + build up boost. Plus a bunch of other damage skills, but that was the core of the set that I ended up enjoying in SB for lance.
Also with Guard 1 + Embolden 1 + guard dash, it gives you the all important guard 3 knock back level, so you can still push through most attacks with a guard if needed BUT still giving you a low enough knock back threshold to consistently get lvl3 anchor rage on more attacks.
wait you can block the roars????
SnS being in the middle is perfect. an example is against safi'jiiva. Whenever he slams the ground and make everything explode, i just shield. You can shield the explosion facing ANY direction. meaning you can make the block push you towards the weak point you're looking to attack. And Safi doesn't move too much until all explosions occured. I gain a lot of dps in every hunt on this, while people just run away. And what's also great with blocking and having SnS, once you blocked that explosion enough, you start to understand the exact timing to roll through the explosion. Meaning : you win even more dps. (SnS main, yes, i know i'm obvious :p)
But wouldn't long sword then be on the blocking side because it will want to counter the attack then hit the weakpoint instead of dodging out of an attack into the weakpoint? Like you just explained
sure.
I respect your opinion, however I would never be caught dead with a shield mod on my Heavy Bow Gun lol.
Nice can't wait for part 2, I would love a video about items: flash pods/screamer pods/barrel bombs/traps things like that.
I always wonder if they're even worth using on hunts.
All of these increase your damage output either directly (wake up bombs) or indirectly (by creating openings), so I'd say yeah, bring items!
ive learned so much from your vids, great stuff
I disagree with probably half of these, but I'm glad you actually included your reasoning. Good video regardless.
Question, I was taught that blocking for Gunlance is usually not the best option and should only be used in a pinch. I've been doing the little hops with some Evade Extender/Window to avoid damage (and chain back-hopping to close distance). I'm not a GL main and there's probably a more nuanced answer based on which type of GL you use, just curious. Thanks for your videos, they're very helpful filling in a lot of my knowledge gaps.
Mostly because your dmg comes from your gun, not your lance. So you're mostly gonna block by reloading or putting your slinger ammo into your gun. Tho it still is a very potent block, you can guard even Fatalis big cone flame
You can argue that dodging with gunlance is more pre-emptive positioning than reactive because of the heavy animation commitment, and you can probably make the case that it's not really dodging. To be fair, since fullburst playstyle especially on late game cause of Fatalis GL is the way to go, I actually have offensive guard on my Fatty set. The slam, sweeps, and your wyrmstake cannon contribute a ton of damage.
Honestly it depends on what point you are in the game since you might also be playing wide and long shell, which make it easier to dodge reactively. Although, yeah personally I would put gunlance on the lower end of blocking, below Heavy Bowgun.
From what i have been able gather. Gunlance dont have a counter attack like lance. Damage spread between raw and artillery, so offensive guard is a little limited. Raw only build only exists after fatalis weapon. Offensive guard is great with raw only build, but that playstyle typically only seen during fatalis and ATV.
But of course blocking in a pinch is still great with or without guard up. In fact some attack i will actively tank with guard with no guard skill because i know i wont die i just want to reduce the damage some what like AT namielle vibe check
So, conceptually, and practically, block away with the gunlance. It’s unlikely to be a detriment, though it could. But ideally, optimally, you want to evade.
I would say with GL you could build for both evade and block, with the amount of decorations you will eventually get, you will be able to build for both with no problems, and skill have enough room for all your damage skills
I am a GL main and I can say that ideally you want to use your hops way more than your guard. You can i-frame some monster attacks with it or be a great repositioning tool(i always invest into evade extender, at least 2 but I value 3 a LOT).
Guarding while fine doesnt convert into anything since you dont have a counter , you will probably get knocked back as well depending on the attack and your investment on guard.
I also disagree with him saying that gunlance doesnt run earplugs since it can Block roars; earplugs is great, everytime a monster is roaring you can wyvernfire for free. If you are playing a GL with the normal shelling type, earplugs can give you a few more burstfire loops, which deal tons of damage as well
I watched a good ammount of this guy content and until now it has been pretty good info and hints, maybe he doesnt play a lot of gunlance idk, it is a pretty weird weapon tbf.
If you want some specific gunlance content I highly recommend Caoslayer and rurikhan, I learned a lot from them.
Happy hunting!
Does anyone know if vaal gl still the best for charge shot or did fatalis gl take it spot
As a Charge Blade main since they released the thing, I'm kinda scratching my head.
I do roll on occasion. Sure. But equal to the amount of blocking I do? Especially with the introduction of Offensive Guard? I mean, I'm not exactly keeping count but I would be amazed if those numbers were even close to even.
There are some attacks where a roll is preferable to a block for the sake of positioning. But those are kinda the minority in my experience and even then, it's not as though they are happening all the time during the fight.
The number one reason that I roll is to reposition, not to avoid damage. So to my mind that doesn't fit into this overarching theme of defense.
I'll just say that I'm curious about the reasoning here.
I enjoy CB a lot though I wouldn't call it my main. I feel like monsters are a bit too fast (in iceborne) to capitalize on guard points. I also feel like offensive guard is only worth it with the lance but is a trap for other shield weapon.
Which would make dodging more efficient overall
@@del78magnum95A gp is much faster in terms of landing an aed or saed. Rolling is for positioning or while in axe mode, which is only relevant if you are using savage axe for the most part. You can't saed after every gp, it will probably be aeds for the most part at higher ranks. It also builds up stun, gps do something without you even attacking. They are always preferable. If you aren't capitalizing on them, you aren't reading the monster well.
@@del78magnum95 "I feel like monsters are a bit too fast..."
This is very much an issue of monster knowledge, understanding the timing of the weapon and the hitbox of the shield.
As long as you're keeping on top of tenderizing parts, you should be able to reliably move between claggers, KOs and trips such that you create tons of openings.
And of course, the most satisfying thing on the planet is to KO off a Guard Point and transition into an SAED. I get tingles just thinking about it.
Rise makes this all much easier though since you have such a wide angle to redirect and you don't have to plan it out ahead of time.
the thing is: cb is played in two styles, you either guard point + AED/SAED for punishment or you switch to savage axe the single moment you have enough fials and in SA you have really limited options for using a GP which means for the sake of DPS you play it like a Switch Axe, therefore you evade more than you guard, that's what he was talking about
Greatsword down in the complex plane as "tanking the hit anyway to land a TCS" be like: 🛒
My question is, if you're using SnS and not using the shield, why aren't you using dual blades?
Yes
You still can block attacks that have secondary effects with your shield (roars, flashes, earthquakes, etc) apart from that you can use items with the weapon unsheathe at any moment making it extremely versatile(sometimes you can make a monster detonate a big bomb by themselves or you can flash fliying monsters much more consistently)
Your Gunlance placement is fine for more casual play, but if you watch a more skill-focused Gunlance run you'll see it's almost exclusively treated as a dodge only weapon. You don't have a way to combo into Guard, your combos out of Guard are relatively limited, and you aren't really rewarded for Guarding. Lance and ChargeBlade have the ability to Guard midcombo and have various counterattack options, while Gunlance kind of just has nothing? You have to wait for your animations to recover to go into Guard, yet for most attacks your recovery is faster for a Dodge than a Guard. And once you are in Guard, you have access to only Guard Poke and Wyvernsfire. Guard Poke can go into Rising Slash, Quick Reload > Slam (which can go into Sweep or Fullburst), or Poke > Charge Shell which can be good, but it's nothing like how Lance and CB can combo and counter off of their Guard abilities.
Gunlance just tends to benefit more from using evasion and position over Guarding. With evasion and position you can go into Thrust, Shell, Rising Slash, or Lunging Thrust very quickly and easily. If you Guard, your options are more limited and don't really get rewarded for it in most cases. Running Offensive Guard is significantly less rewarding or viable for Gunlance in the majority of cases (outside of specific niche setups) do to your lack of Counter-play, not to mention only half of your moveset getting to scale with the Raw buff. Saving Position can be very comfortable and there are things you can do with it, but it's easy to see the vast majority of Gunlance runners seem to get more out of evasion and positioning than they do Guarding.
Ive played mostly longsword since it became a thing in Freedom 2 (I know, I was very much a weeb). When world first came out I wanted to try out the horn since that was one of the weapons I never really gave a shot before and it was the first game I'd play with friends, so HH being always "the crappy support weapon" I wanted to try that for fun. And it actually was a ton of fun! But at some point I noticed that SOMEHOW I ended with most playtime on lance instead, a weapon I had no initial interest playing because it was so different to how I was used to playing. But being able to just eat hits while attacking almost non stop felt really good. I guess I discovered I have an affinity to guard weapons. I ended up advising my friend to switch from bow to a guard bowgun and she found her true calling that way.
I have the full velkhana y+ frostcraft GS build but I prefer a normal fatalis build and taclking reposition with slinger. Tho i also made a build with offensive guard. The attack bonus is quite potent and can stack up with the attack bonus from evasion mantle. You can go up to 2600 attack with this, even without heroics and fortify...
great info, thx
I feel like not enough people have seen what an SnS is capable of with a proper guard build
If you know how to properly play it (I don't btw, but I've seen some beasts at it and I try to emulate it), you can keep offensive guard active basically the whole fight and stay in the monster's face at all times, it's crazy
Option 3: sheath weapon and run away
as an IG wierdo who flirts with SNS, and thinking about Lance and perhaps even gunlance and CB, would a video explaining Guardpoints and how to anticipate and use them be a future possibility? I honestly don't really know what they are.
Quick explanation of GPs: They're just points in attack animations where the shield is in front of you, giving you an automatic shielded state that has some additional benefits over regular guarding. Unless I'm misremembering, there are 5 total GPs you can do with CB. Not sure about the other weapons since I pretty much exclusively play CB lol.
For CB, the benefits include:
-With a charged shield, a free phial explosion counterattack happens when the shield is hit
-Your Guard (armor skill) increases by 1 level (on top of 1 level with a charged shield) meaning you stagger less on heavier moves for more AED/SAED openings
-Specifically with the SnS Mode to Axe Mode GP, you can cancel your attack cooldown frames to instantly block. The only downside is if you time this wrong, you're left wide open since you'll just go into axe mode. This GP also applies for sheathed state to Axe Mode attack.
-For AED/SAED to Savage Axe GP, that one is nice in case you want to cancel from a bad AED/SAED and block. This one has pretty tight timing and can be a bit awkward to get right.
-The rest of the GPs come from some form of the roundslash animation ending and feels pretty natural. You're likely to land this one by accident a lot if you're not used to CB.
Now "Buried the Light" is the Sword&Shield theme.
You said it. It's the alpha & the omega 😂
tbh i said its the alpha and the omega because its the beginner weapon and the weapon all veterans (usually) converge back to
its both simple and complex
the beginning and the end
the alpha and the omega
Nice