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 | |
| 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.
The following set is your best general bet.
It does NOT assume Might Seed, Demon Powder, Mega/Demon Drug or specific food skills due to how annoying they are to farm. They DO however assume the Power Charm, obtained by doing the Double Ajarakan Arena quest (“As Gatekeeper”) from Rex’ Questline in Suja.
Additionally, Mantles will not be accounted for unless otherwise specified, as they do not reset between quests without the use of third party mods.
Overall, the current Meta is strongly reminiscent of Iceborne’s Fatalis Meta.
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.
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Requirements:
- Artian Weapon with at least 200 Raw, aswell as 2 Sharpness Reinforcements, preferably Paralysis status,
- 1x BurstChain, 3x AgitatorChallenger, 3x Max MightMighty, 2x AntivirusSane Armor Decorations,
- Counter Strike III 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 taken from here (google sheets).
If you wish to submit your own, you can do so here (google forms).
At the time of writing, these were:
- 66% Agitator,
- 13%/80% Burst Stages 1/2 respectively,
- 67% Counterstrike,
- 97% Maximum Might,
- 70% Black Eclipse
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 a free 1-Slot.
Additionally, this set is one for one the same as Greatswords' Meta Set, meaning it's a prime candidate for Weapon Swapping.
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:
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.
ASSArmor Set Search Links:
Agitator is generally stronger and preferred, but for some specific Matchups like the Guardians, where its uptime is particularly low, Wex can beat it.Due to the nerf to Phials compared to previous games, and to Element compared to Rise/Sunbreak, the biggest Matchup Variants are Speedrun and Script specific and will not be listed until they become casually relevant.
Open image in new tab4.0A - If it breathes, it's weak to
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: ASSArmor Set Search Links:
Requirements: Gameplan: Recommended Comfort: Shockproof 1 for MP, Weapon Deco: Power Prolonger 3/Handicraft 1 Decoration, Stun/Tremor… Res, Aquatic Mobility 1, Quick Sheathe, Speed Eating, Adaptability 1… Weapon Alternatives: ASSArmor Set Search Links:
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 a free 1-Slot.
G. Arkveld 2 Piece bonus grants 25 HP every time you pop a wound. Given how FRS can create and pop wounds in the same Motion, this offers a very comfortable solution for all the Chip Damage you will take from Counter, Hyper Armor and misplays. The main draw of this set is how forgiving Decimator I is, especially for new players.
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.
Agitator is generally stronger and preferred, but for some specific Matchups like the Guardians, where its uptime is particularly low, Wex can beat it.
Full Release Slash. Counter Strike procs off of FRS hyper armor and counters, and lasts for 45 Seconds at level 3.
This Set in particular has a lot of options in terms of extra Skills and comfort slots.
Upon taking any elemental damage, Convert Element activates and stays active for 120 seconds, after which it cannot activate again for 90 seconds. Dealing (raw) Damage while it is active can proc additional Damage, similar to Scorcher, Whiteflame and Flayer.
We don't care about the boost to Element it provides; we only care about that proc. It potentially has some winning Matchups, but overall mostly contributes with extra Visual Effects through Element Convert procs, synergizes well with how our counter works and Counterstrike, and offers a lot of freedome to build and experiment otherwise.
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.
Due to the extremely limited set building in this game, there is no meme build yet.
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 announced on
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!
a thus far rather lackluster Event Rotation, alongside upcoming 'Downward adjustments'. Whatever that means remains to be seen.
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
- Q: Why no Rapid morph?
- A: It's a Weapon Deco. While it offers an alternative playstyle, the damage loss and added juggling of Buff States in Amp and Power Axe make it overall not worthwhile for the purposes of optimization.
- Q: Why not Focus?
- A: Because it doesn’t really do anything and competes with Crit Boost and Power Prolonger, which means it doesn't.
- Q: Why no element sets?
- A: The big issue with it is that phials were a post-modifier and are now a base modifier. So instead of having your full set be scaled by the 45% element provides, it only scales off of the 20-43 you can get at most. Additionally, the ele cap is very low (it scales with the base element of the weap). Due to the resulting smol numbers, some rounding issues come up, which I wasn’t able to replicate in the calculator I built to determine meta sets. Elemental skills like Ele Attack and Crit Ele compete with crit boost, which means that they don’t compete with crit boost. Additionally, all Phial Ticks have an elemod of 0.35 instead of 1, putting them in line with Iceborne rather than Sunbreak.
- Q: Why are there no mantles?
- A: Because they don’t reset on Quest Start/End. After the Nerf to it, Corrupted Mantle still offers an Alternative Playstyle with Rising Slash over Full Release, but Evasion is potentially stronger, and Mending some much desired Comfort. It’s hard to justify optimizing around either of them when they could be up from anywhere between every 4th to every other quest.
- Q: Why not Partbreaker, it says it increases Focus Strike damage?
- A: It does currently not increase Focus Strike damage. It does, however, increase the 30 or so damage wounds deal when they are broken, by the specified amount in the skills description.
- Q: Why do the sets overcap affinity? Frenzy gives 15% and Antivirus 3 gives 15%!
- A: Frenzy gives 15% when cured. Antivirus only gives 10%. The description is wrong. Addendum: In english. Apparently, Japanese text is correctly stating it to be 10%.
- Q: How long does Amp last? Why is Power Prolonger 3 good?
- A: Base Amp duration is 45 seconds. Power Prolonger 3 doubles this to 90 seconds.
- Q: What does Power Axe do?
- A: Only while in Axe Mode, it grants +10 Raw.
- Q: How much does Power Charm add?
- A: Power Charm grants +6 Raw.
- Q: How to make Artian weapons? What’s the best one?
- A: Section 2.2.1 covers Artian weapons.
- Q: How does the Offset work? Why does it topple so inconsistently?
- A: As far we know, Offset operates on a threshold. At the start of the hunt, the threshold is really low, everytime the actual offset happens, the threshold increases. This explains why the offset effect (big shotgun sound effect) appears on your screen, but the actual topple doesn’t happen. You need to reach the threshold everytime. Note that even if you don’t get the topple, you can still follow it up with a Heavy Slam.
- Q: How does Scorcher work?
- A: Similar to how Status works. It “randomly” (likely pre-determined chance like status, i.e. 10 out of 30 hits; needs testing) procs an extra hit of pure fire damage. That proc does not scale with Attack and doesn’t care about innate weapon element, but scales with Burst, Coalescence and Fire Attack. I go over it a little bit in this video (youtube).
- Q: What does Frenzy Mantle do?
- A: While equipped, it drains health, but procs an additional hit on some combos, depending on Weapon Type. For Switch Axe, the attacks this procs on are:
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. - Q: How to farm nourishing extract?
- A: Double Guardian investigations drop a lot of them. - Pinky
- Q: What does Gore 4 Piece bonus do?
- A: 2P will infect you with frenzy while fighting monsters. 4P will additionally grant 10 Raw while infected, which becomes 15 Raw (total!) after clearing it.
- Wilds Ass, found here
- Somewhat accurate Swaxe Damage Calculator, found here - Unmaintained until Version 2.0 has been fully developed.
- Wilds database through Kiranico, found here
- Rudimentary Focus and Rapid Morph comparison, found here and here, respectively (youtube)
- Uptime Collection Sheet found here
- Uptime Submission Form, found here
I would like to thank:
- The team behind the Armor Set Search, for the Armor Set Search
- Kat for bouncing ideas, testing and verifying data
- Upgreid for writing and providing the template to this guide
- Krea for testing and finding obscure but important info
- Juzzi and Ragna for early set optimizations
- Juzzi, again, for testing, verifying and networking
- dtlnor and the other miners, without whom this would’ve taken several weeks
- the Wiggler team for being good sport and company
- MHGH’s Switch Axe chat for testing, verifying and general feedback