This guide was written by Sasch, Feedback is very welcome either via DMs or in the Monster Hunter Gathering Hub’s Switch Axe Channel, aswell as in our discord.
All Sets listed in the following Sections generally assume players to have general knowledge on moveset options and knowing Swaxe's kit and general matchup knowledge, aswell as having reached endgame and general access to the higher tier decoration quests.
| Importance | Skill, Level, (Abbreviation) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Counterstrike 3 | Counter Strike now procs on Hyper Armor and Counter, meaning essentially a free 25 Raw for 45 Seconds at level 3. |
| 1 | Maximum Might 3 | All these Skills share two crucial things in common: They give affinity and are on Armor. Every single important move in Swaxes kit can Crit. |
| 1 | Agitator OR WexWeakness Exploit 5 | |
| 1 | 2 Piece Gore + Antivirus 3 OR Latent Power + 2 Piece Rey | |
| 2 | Burst 1 | Grants 10 Raw at Stage 2. Very efficient Skill for that, the Element does not matter to us. |
Fig. 2.1A - Offensive Armor Skill “Priority” | ||
The table is called “Priority”, because there is no actual priority. You will fit all these skills together, most other skills are either immensely situational or overly nerfed, to the point of being not worthwhile to use.
| Importance | Skill, Level, (Abbreviation) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Power Prolonger 3 | Significantly improves Amp uptime, resulting in more Full Release Slashes. |
| 1 | Critical Boost | Undisputedly the best Skill in the Game. Again. |
| 2 | Handicraft | Only useful if rolled as a secondary skill on Power Prolonger 3 Decoration. |
| 3 | Rapid Morph | It’s way, way weaker than it sounds and does not even remotely live up to how good it was in Rise/Sunbreak, but enables a morph based playstyle nonetheless. Usable for “Fun, Alternative” Sets, but has no place in the meta unfortunately. |
| -9999 | Focus | It's really bad, Source (youtube). |
2.1B - Weapon Skill Priority Table | ||
Food Skills:
- First Slot: Meat as a base for food grants +2 Raw.
- Second Slot: Caprice Meal (Hi) (Airy Egg) gives +15 Raw in random intervals during its Duration, which last for 10 seconds each. Alternatively, Tumbler Meal (Mud and Turbid Shrimp) grant additional Iframes on dodges.
- Lastly, Moxie Meal (Specialty/Slid Garlic) can prevent one cart.
- Third Slot depends on Set and Location.
Out of quest-set:
Items consumed in the Hub/”Safe Area” persist into quests. Equipping a set with Mushroomancer and Item Prolonger and then consuming buffing items will increase their duration and make farming for them significantly faster, due to only needing mushrooms and seeds. Whether that is something you want to deal with is up to you.
Cat:
The current consensus is to either give it a Para Weapon or to leave it at home. Para is the preferred status, as it does not interfere with Agitator, which is taking a more central role in this Meta again.
Cat unlocks extra abilities by doing its Side Quests, namely:
- Revive on cart with half health (once/quest)
- Spawn Vigor Wasps
- Steal materials
- Buffing Players’ Attack Stat
The Current meta revolves around Artian Weapons. The Materials to craft the good ones are obtained from HR41+ Tempered Investigations. The Three materials needed to craft a Switch Axe are 2x Blade and 1x Device. To craft an Artian Switch Axe, talk to Gemma and select the Forge Artian Weapon option. Next, Select the parts: Each part has an Element (or a Status), and either Attack or Affinity associated with it. Using two of the same Element/Status makes the resulting weapon have that Element/Status. For Switch Axe specifically, this also impacts the Phial Type the resulting Weapon will have. Using the same Element/Status three times boosts the value a bit. It is preferred to use the same Element/Status three times for that reason. The “Infusions” on these parts always resemble 5. Current Highest Tier Artian Weapons have a base of 190 Raw and 5% Affinity, aswell as 20 Units of White Sharpness and a Dragon Phial. They always have 3-3-3 Slots. If you, as an example, use 2 Attack Infusions and 1 Affinity Infusion, the resulting weapon will have 190 + (2x5) Attack and 5+(1x5)% Affinity. The results thus work like this:
| Part 1, Element, Infusion | Part 2, Element, Infusion | Part 3, Element, Infusion | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blade, Fire, Attack | Blade, Water, Affinity | Device, Sleep, Attack | 200 Attack, 10% Affinity, Dragon Phial (26) |
| Blade, Dragon, Attack | Blade, Dragon, Attack | Device, Ice, Attack | 205 Attack, 5% Affinity, Element Phial, 26 Dragon Element |
| Blade, Water, Affinity | Blade, Water, Affinity | Device, Water, Affinity | 190 Attack, 20% Affinity, Element Phial, 28 Water Element |
| Blade, Paralysis, Attack | Blade, Paralysis, Affinity | Device, Paralysis, Attack | 200 Attack, 10% Affinity, Power Phial, 8 Para |
| Blade, Sleep, Attack | Blade, Poison, Attack | Device, Sleep, Affinity | 200 Attack, 10% Affinity, Power Phial, 6 Sleep |
Fig. 2.2.1A - Artian Crafting Examples | |||
Note that you cannot mix and match Parts of differing Rarity. Rarity 6 and 7 Artian weapons are strictly not worth it.
Proceeding with the currently widely applicable pick of 3x Para, the weapon is crafted with the stats from the Result tab. After crafting comes Reinforcing. This is done via the “Reinforce/Dismantle Artian Weapons” Menu option at Gemma.
Pick the Reinforce option and the Weapon you want to gamble on.
Reinforcement Materials can be obtained by trading with the secondary forge in Azuz. Trade your unneeded Monster Materials and Licenses for Oricalcite.
It takes 10 Oricalcite per roll, for a total of 5 rolls = 50 of those ores.
This is where the weapons are truly made. Each “Reinforcement” adds 1 of 4 possible rolls on the weapon.
These are:
- +5% Affinity;
- +3 Element/Status (bloated to 30);
- +5 Raw;
- +30 Units of Sharpness.
Gains above 210 Attack are generally not worth chasing, as they become increasingly rarer. As long as you avoid Element Boost, you’ll be fine.
Due to the RNG factor, you’re likely to end up with a trash weapon. Dismantling an Artian weapon returns the Ore used to Reinforce it back to you. You lose the Parts (2x Blade, 1x Device) used to craft it, but the Ores are one less worry you need to have.
Ele Matchups are kind of somewhat relevant again a little bit as of TU2, come TU4 there will be a proper matchup chart again. Until then, enjoy this meme.
Open image in new tab3.0A - If it breathes, it's weak to
The following sets assume the use of Might Seed, Demon Powder, Mega Demon Drug, aswell as eating meat in any capacity, with shrimp being the recommended second ingredient.
Additionally, they assume the Power Charm, obtained by doing the Double Ajarakan Arena quest (“As Gatekeeper”) from Rex’ Questline in Suja.
As mantles now finally reset between Quests, there are three theoretical, but really only two practical options:
Evasion Mantle,
Which unfortunately doesn't have great synergy with any of Swaxe's currently relevant playstyles,
Corrupted Mantle,
Which briefly turns Rising Slash Spam into the optimal DPS combo and buffs Attack enough to actually matter, even post-nerf, and
Mending Mantle,
Which applies constant healing for it's duration and is generally the recommended comfort choice unless you're using Resentment in any capacity.
Due to their short uptimes, however, the Sets below are not optimized for their use - mainly because frankly, there just aren't really other Skills to even go for. We've been at this exact loadout since TU1's Festival.
Strictly speaking, the baseline requirement for most sets is HR51.
Due to the Talisman and Weapon upgrades, aswell as the Artian Weapon Meta, most sets will only fully come online at around HR70-80, depending on grinding strategy and deco/material RNG.
Every Non-Level 3 Decoration becomes target meldable at HR 100, meaning you’ll never truly be locked out of a set completely. In situations of extreme strokes of bad luck, you might have to give up 1 level of crit boost, which hurts, but has no hunt-breaking impact given how short lived monsters in Wilds seem to be.
For the "high end" sets, the baseline requirement is HR100, because that's when RNG Charms start to become available. Realistically, however, all sets except 1 incorperating them are theoretical, as the drop chances for these charms are so astronmically low, you're unlikely to ever see them legitimately.
The sets below are listed from strongest to weakest, based on average uptimes and uptime phases.
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- Requirements:
- Artian Weapon with at least 200 Raw, aswell as 2 Sharpness Reinforcements, preferably Paralysis status,
- 1x BurstChain, 2x AgitatorChallenger, 1x Max MightMighty, 1x CounterCounterstrike, 1x Latent PowerThrottle Armor Decorations,
- Rarity 8 Charm with Attack Boost 3, and 1 point towards any of: Agitator, Burst, Latent Power
- 1x Crit boost 3 + 1x Crit Boost 2 OR 2x Crit Boost 3 Decoration, and 1x Power Prolonger 3 Decoration, as well as 1x Attack 1 Decoration in both cases
- Uptime Assumptions:
- 63% Agitator,
- 21% Burst Stage 1, 70% Burst Stage 2,
- 62% Latent Power,
- 78% Counterstrike,
- 87% Maximum Might,
- and 100% Guts.
If you wish to submit your own, you can do so here (google forms, opens in new tab).
Gameplan:
Full Release Slash. Counter Strike procs off of FRS hyper armor and counters, and lasts for 45 Seconds at level 3.
This set also comes with empty 1-Slots, depending on your charm.
Due to a significant amount of complaints regarding Hyper Armor leading to Stun Buildup, Stun Res will now be prioritized on Armor sets.
Recommended Comfort:
Shockproof 1 for MP, Weapon Deco: Power Prolonger 3/Handicraft 1 Decoration, Speed Eating...
Recommended Upgrades:
Artian Weapon with 220 Raw and 2 Sharpness, 0 Affinity and 0 Element Upgrades. Blast and Sleep are options for some matchups for very high-end optimization; casually playing, stick to Paralysis.
Lagiacrus/High Bolt Axe can be used for Seregios and Uth Duna, and typically slots Thunder Res 3.
Weapon Alternatives:
Best in Slot is technically an Artian Weapon with 220 Raw, 5% Affinity and 2 Sharpness (so crafted with 3x Attack of same Status, and only rolling 2x Sharpness and rest Attack).
Blazing MahaiahZoh Shia has to drop 2 levels of Critical Boost, as Power Prolonger is more impactful, but can beat even a perfect Artian roll, depending on your luck with Whiteflame procs.
While technically superior on paper, it looses the 1-2 paras per hunt, which in turn means less aggressive FRSFull Release Slash spam, resulting in Lower DPS, depending on playerskill and about a dozen other factors.
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- Requirements:
- Artian Weapon with at least 200 Raw, aswell as 2 Sharpness Reinforcements, preferably Paralysis status,
- 1x BurstChain, 3x AgitatorChallenger, 1x Max MightMighty, 1x CounterCounterstrike Armor Decorations,
- Charm with a Level 3 Slot and either Counterstrike 2 or Max Might 1 and Counterstrike 1; ideally has Attack Boost
- 1x Crit boost 3 + 1x Crit Boost 2 OR 2x Crit Boost 3 Decoration, and 1x Power Prolonger 3 Decoration
- Uptime Assumptions:
- 63% Agitator,
- 21% Burst Stage 1, 70% Burst Stage 2,
- 62% Latent Power,
- 78% Counterstrike,
- 87% Maximum Might,
- 15% on Resonance Near,
- 34% on Resonance Far,
- and 100% Guts.
If you wish to submit your own, you can do so here (google forms, opens in new tab).
Gameplan:
Full Release Slash. Counter Strike procs off of FRS hyper armor and counters, and lasts for 45 Seconds at level 3.
This set also comes with empty 1-Slots, depending on your charm.
The assumed Uptimes on both versions of Resonance were tested in 2-Player scenarios and can be significantly better for full group hunts.
Resonance Near grants 20% Affinity if at least 1 other Player (or NPC) is within the circle, while Resonance Far grants 10 Attack while at least 1 other Player (or NPC) is outside of the circle.
The desired Bonus is Far, as we have no struggle hitting capped Affinity in any case, but Near can show its worth during Latent Power downtime.
For further explanation on what this Bonus does, Shincry has a good Video on it (youtube; opens in new tab).
Recommended Comfort:
Shockproof 1 for MP, Weapon Deco: Power Prolonger 3/Handicraft 1 Decoration, Speed Eating...
Recommended Upgrades:
Artian Weapon with 220 Raw and 2 Sharpness, 0 Affinity and 0 Element Upgrades. Blast and Sleep are options for some matchups for very high-end optimization; casually playing, stick to Paralysis.
Lagiacrus/High Bolt Axe can be used for Seregios and Uth Duna, and typically slots Thunder Res 3.
Weapon Alternatives:
Best in Slot is technically an Artian Weapon with 220 Raw, 5% Affinity and 2 Sharpness (so crafted with 3x Attack of same Status, and only rolling 2x Sharpness and rest Attack).
Blazing MahaiahZoh Shia has to drop 2 levels of Critical Boost, as Power Prolonger is more impactful, but can beat even a perfect Artian roll, depending on your luck with Whiteflame procs.
While technically superior on paper, it looses the 1-2 paras per hunt, which in turn means less aggressive FRSFull Release Slash spam, resulting in Lower DPS, depending on playerskill and about a dozen other factors.
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- With the exception of the Sets in Section 5, every somewhat optimized Switch Axe Set has the same gameplan, playstyle and vaguely the same damage output, if you hit the Core Skills.
- Critical Boost 5
- Power Prolonger 3 + Handicraft 1
- Latent Power 5
- Agitator 5
- Counterstrike 3
- Max Might 3
- Burst 1
- Guts 3 This exact loadout will produce hundreds of Sets and has no significant upgrades left in the current state of the game.
Typically, the skill loadout will be (exactly) the following:
As such, consider clicking here to search for a Set that fits you (Wilds Armor Set Search, opens in new tab) - all the Skills are already filled in. Any of these Sets will perform vaguely the same.
Consider opting for more Thunder Res if you want to use High Bolt Axe, or 2 Piece Rey Dau if you want better Latent Power Uptimes.
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Requirements:
- Artian Weapon with 0 extra Affinity, aswell as 2 Sharpness Reinforcements, preferably Paralysis status,
- 1x BurstChain, 2x AgitatorChallenger, 1x Max MightMighty, 1x CounterstrikeCounter Armor Decorations,
- Challenger II Charm
- 1x Crit boost 3 + 1x Crit Boost 2 OR 2x Crit Boost 3 Decoration, and 1x Power Prolonger 3 Decoration
Uptime Assumption:
Uptime Assumptions are:
- 63% Agitator,
- 13% Burst Stage 1, 60% Burst Stage 2,
- 65% Latent Power,
- 81% Counterstrike,
- 81% Maximum Might,
- and 88% Guts.
This is the same set since the Arch-Tempered Rey update in Title Update 1. It is still one of the strongest sets available, so much so that even the godcharm sets barely outdamage it under the assumed (and playtested) conditions listed above.
Gameplan:
Full Release Slash. Counter Strike procs off of FRS hyper armor and counters, and lasts for 45 Seconds at level 3. Latent Power activates both on a Time Condition (120s in Combat), and a damage taken condition (130 damage taken), allowing for some form of synergy.
This set also comes with 3 free 1-Slots and Evade Extender 2, aswell as the 2-Piece Zoh Shia Setbonus, granting passive health recovery.
Please understand that both 2P Zoh and Evade Extender 2 are dangerous to get used to, as they enable bad habits which can limit your ability to use Sets that don't have the space for them in the future.
Recommended Comfort: Speed Eating, Shockproof 1 for MP, Weapon Deco: Power Prolonger 3/Handicraft 1 Decoration, Stun/Tremor… Res, Aquatic Mobility 1, Quick Sheathe, Adaptability 1…
Weapon Alternatives:
Best in Slot is technically an Artian Weapon with 220 Raw, 5% Affinity and 2 Sharpness (so crafted with 3x Attack of same Status, and only rolling 2x Sharpness and rest Attack).
Blazing MahaiahZoh Shia has to drop 2 levels of Critical Boost, as Power Prolonger is more impactful, but can beat even a perfect Artian roll, depending on your luck with Whiteflame procs.
While technically superior on paper, it looses the 1-2 paras per hunt, which in turn means less aggressive FRSFull Release Slash spam, resulting in Lower DPS, depending on playerskill and about a dozen other factors.
If you're fresh into endgame and are limited by your Decorations, Rath Blaze SplitterRathalos and EisengeistGore Magala both perform very similarly, depending on Matchup.
For some Matchups, like Gore and when targetting Rey Dau's feet for example, replacing CBCritical Boost3 with Mind's Eye 3 is technically stronger.
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Requirements:
- Artian Weapon with 0 extra Affinity, aswell as 2 Sharpness Reinforcements, preferably Paralysis status,
- 1x BurstChain, 1x Flayer, 3x CounterstrikeCounter Armor Decorations,
- Attack Boost 3, Weakness Exploit 1 Charm (rarity 8) OR Attack Boost 3, Burst 1 Charm (rarity 8) OR Attack Boost 3, Flayer 1 Charm (rarity 8)
- 1x Crit boost 3 + 1x Crit Boost 2 OR 2x Crit Boost 3 Decoration, and 1x Power Prolonger 3 Decoration
Uptime Assumption:
Uptime Assumptions are:
- 63% Agitator,
- 13% Burst Stage 1, 60% Burst Stage 2,
- 65% Latent Power,
- 81% Counterstrike,
- 81% Maximum Might,
- 71% Accuracy for Wex,
- and 88% Guts.
Gameplan:
Full Release Slash. Counter Strike procs off of FRS hyper armor and counters, and lasts for 45 Seconds at level 3. Latent Power activates both on a Time Condition (120s in Combat), and a damage taken condition (130 damage taken), allowing for some form of synergy.
This set also comes with some free 1-Slots, depending on charm, and Evade Extender 2.
Please understand that Evade Extender 2 is dangerous to get used to, as it enables bad habits which can limit your ability to use Sets that don't have the space for it in the future.
Recommended Comfort: Speed Eating, Shockproof 1 for MP, Weapon Deco: Power Prolonger 3/Handicraft 1 Decoration, Stun/Tremor… Res, Aquatic Mobility 1, Quick Sheathe, Adaptability 1…
Somehow, a lot of people keep asking for a Weakness Exploit set over Agitator. This set has a higher Average damage than the above listed ones, until either all the Skills are active at which point it outright looses, or if you miss a Wex-zone just once with an FRS. This makes it significantly harder to play for a noticably worse payoff. Additionally, it requires one of the above listed very rare charms. Despite that, however, it technically has winning Matchups against Guardian monsters, as their enrage works differently than normal hunts.
Weapon Alternatives:
Best in Slot is technically an Artian Weapon with 220 Raw, 5% Affinity and 2 Sharpness (so crafted with 3x Attack of same Status, and only rolling 2x Sharpness and rest Attack).
Blazing MahaiahZoh Shia has to drop 2 levels of Critical Boost, as Power Prolonger is more impactful, but can beat even a perfect Artian roll, depending on your luck with Whiteflame procs.
While technically superior on paper, it looses the 1-2 paras per hunt, which in turn means less aggressive FRSFull Release Slash spam, resulting in Lower DPS, depending on playerskill and about a dozen other factors.
Unlike other sets that could opt for Mind's Eye on hunts such as Gore or Rey, this one cannot, as Mind's eye and Weakness Exploit have directly opposing conditions.
Requirements:
Gameplan:
Recommended Comfort: Shockproof 1 for MP, Weapon Deco: Power Prolonger 3/Handicraft 1 Decoration, Stun/Tremor… Res, Aquatic Mobility 1, Quick Sheathe, Adaptability 1…
Weapon Alternatives:
Requirements:
Gameplan:
Recommended Comfort: lol.
This set is played as normal, meaning you Full Release as much as you can. The change kicks in once you would heal for the first time.
Instead of healing, you use the The Blackest Night option, which will raise a shield around you. The goal is to have this shield broken by monster Attacks, at which point you unleash
an attack, dealing in the realm of 800-1k damage and leaving you at 1 HP, with your entire health bar being turned into recoverable, red health.
For a short while after this, attacking things will also apply some healing on a relatively long internal-cooldown, to the point where even non-stop Full Release spamming will not amount to significant amounts of health.
You will have to freestyle and play aggressively to recover back to reasonable levels of health, and stay at those levels - ideally using as little hyper armor as possible while still maintaining Counterstrike.
From that point onward, TBNThe Blackest Night should be used on cooldown.
While weaker than the Standard set(s), this is a genuinely different playstyle, revolving around staying at just barely living amounts of Health.
Thanks to Jackscin for insisting on testing.
Blazing MahaiahZoh Shia has to drop 2 levels of Critical Boost, as Power Prolonger is more impactful, but can beat even a perfect Artian roll, depending on your luck with Whiteflame procs.
While technically superior on paper, it looses the 1-2 paras per hunt, which in turn means less aggressive FRSFull Release Slash spam, resulting in Lower DPS, depending on playerskill and about a dozen other factors.
This set is played as normal, meaning you Full Release as much as you can.
You aim towards healing as little as possible, and similarly using Counter as little as possible, in order to maximize uptime on having red (recoverable) HP.
This set will be strictly weaker than the Standard one in section 4, unless you hit a Resentment Uptime of 70% or above.
As the Theorycrafter, Playtester and Author of this guide, I am unable to produce that uptime - but maybe you can, and if you can, this set might be for you.
Due to the extremely limited set building in this game, there is no meme build yet.
TU3 added Omega and it's savage variant, from FFXIV fame. Unlike
Both Sets are interesting: The "normal" Set offers an Elemental version of Resentment for its 2-Piece bonus, and 4-Piece unlocks the TBNThe Blackest Night Action, which
does a few things at once. While using it, instead of dying, you don't (at first), your entire health bar becomes recoverable, red HP and for a short while after proccing it (getting the shield broken), a health augment-like effect is applied.
This Updates Arch-Tempered monster is Nu Udra, the Squid.
The fight itself is a little unintuitive. Generally speaking, moves that deal chip damage when taken to the face have the capacity to outright kill the unsuspecting counter-user, virtue of hyper armor the weapon.
TU2 added Seregios and the long-awaited return of Lagiacrus. Remember Tri?
Tempered Seregios and Lagiacrus both do very well in highlighting the weaknesses of this our weapon, specifically how our entire kit revolves around Hyper Armor. Steve's bleed can quickly become insurmountable if not prepared for, and Lagiacrus' Discharges are multihits that can and will kill us through Hyper Armor if we don't keep our health high.
Meta-wise, neither of the pieces related to these two have any actual impact and present sidegrades at best. Seregios could have been an upgrade, but unfortunately clashes with our playstyle so much that it quickly becomes an incoherent mess to juggle all the uptime skills with it. Lagiacrus is the de-facto weapon for the Seregios, Mizutsune and Uth Duna Matchups, and has a paper-matchup against Gore Magala, if you only ever hit the head.
Additionally, TU2 Later added Arch-Tempered Uth Duna, which had a similar impact to the other two additions, namely: None. Technically speaking, on Sets that opt for Lagiacrus' Swaxe, it was even a pretty noticable downgrade due to the negative Thunder Resistance.
(Un)fortunately, the "Downward Adjustments" weren't meant for FRS, which instead got a sizable buff: the travel distance in Focus Mode was greatly increased, making it easier to land after a Focus Strike, further improved by lowering the knockback on Sword Mode's focus strike finisher while holding forward. The Morph after Spiral in the FRS Loop got +8 MV per hit for a total of 16 MV.
The last big update was the fixing of the Antivirus' description. Arch-Tempered monsters are no longer on Event Rotation and remain permanently accessible, for now.
TU1 added Mizutsune and a rematch with Zoh Shia, which can now also spawn as investigation. Tempered Mizu has a situational Oneshot with an interesting conditional Weapon Skill, which is unfortunately Stuck on an Element Phial, rendering it insultingly weak. Zoh on the other hand boasts about twice as much Health as every other Monster in the game, having just about 50.000 hitpoints.
It's chest piece is a new fan favourite, being an efficency monster if compared to other available armor pieces. It's weapon rivals and arguably beats even min-maxed Artians, depending on dozens of factors of course.
Phial Ticks no longer magnetize to hitzone hit, Max Might is now easier to maintain which technically is a nerf to 2p fulgur, largely removing it from the meta landscape.
Newly discovered was the ability to Lean by the repeated usage of the Azuz Greeting Gesture. This led to, eventually, players falling through the floor, certain Aerial attacks like Hammers Slide -> Spin and most prominently Sword and Shields backhop followup to proc an unfathomable amount of times - until they inevitably became one with the void. This was relatively quickly patched.
Skill descriptions remain largely made up, somehow translating 10% from japanese to 15% in most other languages and certain skills claiming they have activation conditions that they just don't. Additionally, we're happy to report that we collectively learned that there is 2 Stages to being Wet.
Arch-Tempered Rey Dau was released and brought us a new Toy: Guts. The (almost) 5% attack it provides makes it not only relevant, but also generally beat every other setbuilding archetype. Rey gamma kept its Rey Dau Setbonus intact, meaning the preferred 3-Piece variant also has longer Latent Power duration, a Skill Swaxe synergizes with very nicely, much to the dismay of many, author included.
Switch Axe had really, REALLY pathetic numbers during all three Open Beta Tests. Now, in the
Full release went from a doinky ~160 MV move for its damage loop to a 506 monster. Rising Slash combo is 123 MV. Absolutely absurd.
The performance has increased significantly, and the game was largely rid of any annoying actually functioning systems. Glitches and Bugs to permanently activate certain conditional Skills, like the 4 Piece Jin Dahaad set bonus, Latent power, Agitator and this game's version of Bloodlust are making any set optimization completely moot. Full Sets come with 5 points to 3-point skills, notably Ajarakan Alpha. Luckily, the Beta version of that set drops some skills in order to make room for Slots. Unfortunately, without fail, that skill is never Partbreaker.
There is a crazy attention to Detail in many instances, but it is evident that none of it went into making half of the new systems work.
On the bright side, they’ve managed to do what many people have desperately hoped for: Element and Raw have different playstyles. Unfortunately, Element has 0 winning match ups, as every good element skill, such as Element Attack and Critical Element compete with Critical Boost, which ultimately means, it doesn’t compete with Critical Boost.
The Crit Meta is finally dead. Long live the crit meta!
I would like to thank:
FanDeveloper Favourites Greatsword, Sword and Shield or Bugstick, we did not receive a weapon, despite FF14 having an Omega Axe.
The fight itself is best described as rough. A constant barrage of explosives and area denial, coupled with a small, erratically moving optimal hitzone in the hindlegs, combined with notably lower rates for aggro generation for Swaxe come together
into an experience that's either hectic and fun, or a frustrating clusterfuck as you whiff the umpteenth back-to-back FRS.
Set-wise, it's... not fantastic. Except the chest.
Once again, we get an Upgrade on the Chestpiece, going from Agitator 2 + a bit or Latent Power 3 to Counterstrike 2 and 2 3-Slots. This provides an upgrade, but leaves us hungry for competetive Pieces for other Slots.
Hands, waist and feet, anyone?
The big, well-telegraphed borderline one-shot moves on the other hand can safely be countered and even Full Released through with minimal chip damage taken in return, respectively.
Overall, Title Update 3 in it's completion offered yet again more sidegrades with little to no substantial changes to either the meta, Switch Axe or the game as a whole.
Capcom doesn't seem to, because element was really bad for Switch Axe back then, and Lagi's Swaxe is a Power Phial with a built-in pretty massive increase of element attack, in the form of Convert Thunder Resistance. Ironically, this is a blessing in disguise due to a convoluted modifier that has finally been mathed out around this time, applying exclusively to the flat increases to element Attack. Simplified: Power Phials are now better at element than Element Phials.
Bridging Slash, which is the first hit of Triple Slash, also received a buff of 10 MV, making it stronger than the first hit of double slash (which is the second hit of triple slash). The Gap between FRS and other playstyles thus widened even more, in FRS' favour.
Open Beta Test 3 Released Game, those numbers were cranked up to 11, and then they cranked 11 up to 50.
Fig. 7.BA - Set Design Competency on Full Display
Axe: Overhead Slash, Side Slash, Spiral Burst Slash, aswell as
Sword: Overhead Slash, Right Rising Slash, Left Rising Slash.
Additionally, while attacking with this mantle equipped, an invisible gauge is filled, likely based on how much MV the attacks have. Once cleared, this mantle also grants +10 Affinity aswell as +5% Raw.