Grace. Elegance. A self-centered need to out-damage everyone else around you.
The Longsword embodies some of the most essential parts of MHW:I’s multiplayer. But what are the best ways to build this weapon?
Remember to bring your Flinch Free decos, because here are the top 5 Best Longsword Builds.
Disclaimer: Safi builds are not included and will be covered in another article.
5. Lazy Longsword
My Personal Favorite Longsword Build | Perfect Combination of Offense & Comfort | MHW: Iceborne
I want to start this list out with one of the best comfort builds I’ve seen and tested.
This build focuses on keeping yourself alive through Divine Blessing and massive amounts of healing. I recommend using this if you plan on just cruising through hunts for the day.
What's Awesome About the Lazy Longsword
- Extremely comfortable. You have a lot of health to play with and can regain your health back through health augment and free meal.
- Since it’s based on raw damage, it’s great for Guiding Lands or just chain hunts where you don’t want to change weapons very often.
- One of the highest raw damage Longswords in the game, but doesn’t have an abnormal status effects.
Build Details
- This build comes with all of the skills you’ll ever need for damage and comfort. Listed from damage to comfort: Critical Eye 7, Attack Boost 6, Handicraft 5, Crit Boost 3, Weakness Exploit 3, Health Boost 3, Free Meal 3, and Divine Blessing 3.
- Since this build runs Free Meal Secret, it’s always advised to bring Max Potions and Ancient Potions. Eat them if you ever take a huge hit and don’t want to risk healing it back by attacking the monster.
- Free Meal Secret gives you a 75% chance of not using the item. Since the two items listed above have fast eating animations, you can heal extremely quickly with little risk to yourself.
- This is a Protective Polish set. If you run out of purple or white sharpness, it’s important that you find time to sharpen so you can make the most of Protective Polish while it’s around.
- To help with this, use Whetfish Fin+. This will help you sharpen your weapon extremely quickly compared to using your whetstone.
- Glider Mantle is recommended here since it stays on for a while and can hold more Agitator gems, which can increase your damage and crit rate when the monster is enraged.
4. Protective Polish Acid Glav
*BEST* Longsword Builds in the Game | 100% Crit, Insane Raw, & More | Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
Before we get to the beloved Master’s Touch sets, I want to touch on a build that is similar to the previous build, but trades some of the comfort for a little bit more damage.
Yes, this is a Protective Polish build which, If you’re not familiar with it, Protective Polish is a skill that will prevent you from losing sharpness for a short time after you sharpen. While that may seem bad, the best part about this build is that you can use the Acidic Glavenus Longsword and Handicraft to deal a massive amount of raw damage without losing any of your sharpness.
What's Awesome About Protective Polish Acidic Glavenus
- Different than Master’s Touch, which can be a great change of pace.
- Acidic Glavenus Longsword has high raw, but you’ll have to keep protective polish up as often as you can.
- Slotting in one level of Coalescence can help deal a lot more damage in some scenarios.
- Unlike with Master’s Touch builds, you aren’t as reliant on softened up spots for crit damage since wounding with a Longswordcan be a chore.
Build Details
- Against non-softened weak spots, you have 95% crit chance with Max Might. This can be crazy useful since other builds with Master’s Touch will run 50% critical chance with the other 50% relying on a softened weak spot.
- There are a decent amount of comfort skills here. The sword is augmented with 2 health augments, and there are some combo decos for sheathing which can be debatable at how useful they are.
- You’ll be surprised at how often Coalescence will activate. Against monsters where you notice yourself falling victim to different blights (fire blight, water blight, stun, etc) then Coalescence can theoretically out damage Agitator.
- For one point in Coalescence, you get 12 points of raw, which is the equivalent of an Attack level 4 (minus 5% affinity). This makes the skill pretty efficient for one level.
3. Shara Longsword
The Iceborne META Longsword Builds (MHW Iceborne MR 23-100+)
Our first Master’s Touch build is the Shara Longsword. This weapon has a crazy amount of raw, but it’s more of a stop-gap build until you reach our number 1 or 2 builds.
Despite that, the Shara Longsword is second in terms of damage and demands some pretty tight gameplay to keep its purple sharpness. But the pay-off is well worth it since this Longswordcan last you well into the end-game of Iceborne.
What's Awesome About the Shara Longsword
- Can get to purple sharpness for more damage than Hellish Slasher.
- If you’ve already built for Handicraft, then this build won’t be too hard to build into.
- Shara Longsword is only out damaged by the Gold Rathian Longsword.
Build Details
- Just like most meta builds, this runs with Master’s Touch, Weakness Exploit, and Critical Eye to give you an effective 100% crit when hitting a softened area.
- You can build some comfiness through a health augment for the Radiant Flow, Divine Blessing 1, and the flexible Level 4 slots.
- At Handicraft 5 you have 30 units of purple sharpness, which should be workable if you continue aiming for tenderized weak spots.
- Shara farming is pretty doable since there are some techniques to help you get Tenderplates and Gems.
2. Zorah Magdaros Longsword
I. CAN'T. BELIEVE. THIS. The Sleeper META LS (MHW Iceborne)
Our number 2 slot is a pretty great build if you’re looking for a weapon that’s different from our top Longsword. If you want a high damage Longsword that will require you to play as cleanly as possible, then give this build a try. This weapon uses blast to help make up for some of its damage deficits and comes with purple sharpness.
What's Awesome About Zorah Magdaros Longsword
- Competitive Damage to our number 1 Longsword.
- It doesn’t need Peak Performance to hit high damage thresholds
- Custom Upgrades and Augments can help fix negative affinity and increase its blast damage.
- Purple Sharpness prevents bounces.
- Blast damage can be effective for a variety of situations.
Build Details
- Against monsters that are only 1 star weak to poison damage, you only need about 3-4 blasts to out damage poison procs. This means against some matchups, Zorah Magdaros’ can dish out a lot of damage.
- Only has 20 units of purple and 20 units of white. You have to play clean in order to keep your 20 units of purple. If this weapon goes into white sharpness, you will lose a lot of damage.
- Against monsters with easily accessed, softened weak spots, you can deal more damage than the Gold Rathian Longsword.
- Usage of blasts means you’ll have an easier time breaking parts which means it can be more useful for farming runs.
- Master’s Touch sets will usually have some points into Blast Attack as a side effect of running the Teostra Armor pieces, which in turn help increase the damage behind this set.
- Runs Agitator in place of Peak Performance.
- Only 10 points of Raw behind Gold Rathian, but Zorah Magdaros can get to purple sharpness while Gold Rathian cannot. Beyond affecting damage calculations, against monsters where white sharpness can be more of a pain than a boon it may be better to run this weapon so you can be assured that you won’t bounce on anything.
1. Golden Rathian Longsword
The Iceborne META Longsword Builds (MHW Iceborne MR 23-100+)
If you’ve seen speed runs, or if you’re a huge fan of math, then you’re probably aware of this one already. Our number one Longsword is the Golden Rathian!
This weapon may have slightly less raw than some of the other Longswordss, but thanks to its poison element, it out damages the rest of the weapons by a long shot.
What's Awesome About Golden Rathian Longsword
- Highest damage for Longswords thanks to great raw and poison damage.
- Poison is effective against every match up. The only monster that’s immune to poison is just Zorah Magdaros. In every other match up, you’ll be doing more damage than any other build.
- Thanks to a massive amount of white sharpness and Master’s Touch, this build will rarely need to sharpen.
Build Details
- The Gold Rathian Longsword has more base crit and raw than the Zorah Longsword, which means if you’re not hitting a softened weak spot, this weapon will do more damage. On the other hand, if you are hitting a weak spot, then the damage is going to be fairly close to each other.
- More white sharpness than the other weapons, meaning you will have a far comfier hunt and can get away with very sloppy hunts.
- If you want an explanation as to why poison is such a great help, then you can either refer to the video above or read this post.
- Runs Peak Performance to max out damage. This means that a health augment and an aggressive playstyle helps you keep Peak Performance active.
- Be aware that you lose health if you take a hit during any of your counters. Against monsters that hit extremely hard like tempered monsters, you may not heal all of your health back from just your counter slashes. As a result, a more aggressive playstyle may be required to get your HP back to full.
Thanks for reading! If you're still interested in reading more about Monster Hunter: Iceborne, then please give these articles a read:
Monster Hunter World Large Monsters List: Weaknesses, How To Kill, and Location
