Charge Blade

How it plays

• Charge in sword mode during the phases when the monster moves.
• Charge the shield before the weapon: that is what makes guarding usable and extends everything else.
• Move to axe to spend on a clean opening, then return to sword without waiting to run dry.

Focus Mode and wounds

Focus Mode counts double here: the discharges are slow and commit for long, and a discharge aimed slightly off wastes an entire opening. The Focus Strike puts the axe where the wound pays.

Defending

It guards, and the charged shield guards markedly better — one of the few weapons whose defence improves through an offensive action. It triggers Power Clash on a perfect guard.

What it brings

• The best return in the game on a long opening, once setup is done.
• Serious defence and heavy damage on one weapon, which no other category combines to this degree.

What loses hunts

• Spending as soon as phials are full, without waiting for the opening that justifies the commitment.
• Forgetting the shield: without it, the weapon has neither the guard nor the uptime it is credited with.

What the data says ?

• The impact phial dominates the category by a wide margin, on 61 charge blades against 22 for element.

  profiles.charge-blade.mechanics.phial.impact

• Blast is out of reach: no charge blade in the game carries it.

  profiles.charge-blade.missingStatuses

• Its true raw caps at 240, below the 250 of most melee categories: the compensation is in the phials, not the blade.

  profiles.charge-blade.trueRaw.max

Defence

• Guardyes
• Power Clashyes
• Offset attackno

What belongs to it alone ?

• Phials

  impact 61element 22