"Monster Hunter Now: Top Great Sword Build for Max Damage"

In the world of *Monster Hunter Now*, the Great Sword stands out as a formidable weapon, capable of dealing massive damage with each swing. However, its size makes it a bit unwieldy, requiring strategic gameplay to maximize its potential. To create an effective Great Sword build, you'll need to slow down the monsters, and thanks to recent updates, you can now craft sleep-based weapons using specific monster materials. To ensure you can trigger sleep effectively, you'll need the right combination of gear and skills.

Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Build

While the Long Sword excels with poison, the Great Sword shines with sleep-based attacks. To fully realize this build, you'll need materials from a rare monster, but most of the gear can be obtained from more common ones.

Full Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Build

Weapon

For a sleep-based Great Sword, the Frilled Blade is your best bet. It comes equipped with Evade Extender, which helps you gain some distance after dodging an attack. While not essential, this skill can significantly enhance your defensive capabilities. To craft this weapon, you'll need to hunt Somnacanth for its materials.

Helmet & Greaves

The core of this build is sourced from the Nightshade Paolumu, introduced in the first paid event. This monster provides crucial parts and skills, including the three levels of Rude Awakener, which boosts your damage by 100% for the first attack on a sleeping monster. Although Nightshade Paolumu are more common now, they might still require some patience to encounter, especially outside of events or as rare spawns in subsequent seasons.

Mail, Gauntlets, & Coil

The remainder of the build focuses on maximizing the Status Sneak Attack skill, ensuring sleep buildup when attacking from behind. Additional skills like Evade Extender and Artful Dodger enhance your evasion capabilities. Tzitzi-Ya-Ku, a more common monster thanks to the paintball tracker, is your target for these parts.

Best Monster Hunter Now Great Sword Driftstone Slots

This build benefits from a relatively low requirement to unlock all its Driftstone slots. Ideally, you'd want to allocate five slots to Sleep Attack for maximum sleep buildup. Alternatively, you could enhance your evasion with Artful Dodger and Evade Extender, or boost your damage with Sneak Attack when striking from behind.

• Sleep Attack - Increases the weapon's sleep buildup value. 50 at rank 1 and 150 at rank 5. (Azure only)
• Sneak Attack - Increases the damage dealt to a monster when attacked from behind. 10% at rank 1 and 30% at rank 5. (Pale only)
• Artful Dodger - Makes evading easier to perform. Slightly easier at rank 1 and significantly so at rank 5. (Azure only)
• Evade Extender - Extends evasion distance. Very slightly at rank 1 and massively at rank 5. (Pale only)