Great Sword

How it plays

• Stay out of reach, read the monster's attack, and step in only for the length of the charge.
• Take the hit on purpose with the tackle rather than dodge, when dodging would cost the charge.
• Leave at once: the great sword has no business staying in contact between blows.

Focus Mode and wounds

Focus Mode is used here to correct aim during the charge: the blow lands where you are looking, not where the character was facing. The Focus Strike puts the impact on a wound, the only reliable way to land the big hit on the part you meant to hit.

Defending

It guards, but poorly and slowly: the block is there to survive a misread, not to hold ground. The defence that matters is the offset attack, which crosses the monster's blow — it does not protect, though, the hunter still takes the hit.

What it brings

• The highest per-hit value in the game: it turns a short opening into a large slice of the health bar.
• Hits hard enough to break tough parts, where a fast weapon bounces or chips.

What loses hunts

• Staying in contact: every hit taken without the tackle cancels the charge in progress.
• Hitting the body because it is there. A charged blow on a mediocre hitzone is worth less than an uncharged one on the head.

What the data says ?

• Its displayed attack is inflated by 4.8 — the highest coefficient in the game after the hammer. That is what makes comparing it to another category on the sheet value meaningless.

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• It is one of the six categories that can offset, and the only one whose offset attack charges — up to level 3.

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• No great sword in the game carries blast: it is a limit of the category, and there is no way around it.

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Defence

• Guardyes
• Power Clashyes
• Offset attackyes
• Offset Rising Slash — chargeable jusqu'au niveau 3