We’ve had our hands on Monster Hunter World for a little while now. A lot of people have put hundreds of hours in already and know exactly what they want and what they are doing. However, I’m here to provide some thoughts for anyone who is looking for what they want to wear as a Charge Blade user.

DPS Build

The first build that I’ve got running currently is what will simply be my standard DPS build for the CB. The idea behind this one is to max attack and the damage you put on a monster. The only requirement for the weapon is to have impact phials.

DPS Set Skill Amount Head Rathalos Attack Boost 2 Chest Rathalos Weakness Exploit 2 Arms Bone Slugger 1 Waist Nergi Attack Boost 2 Legs Anja Artillery 2 Charm KO Slugger 1 Weakness 2 Attack 4 Artillery 2 Slugger 2

The numbers on the side are the base stats — such as the KO charm not being upgraded at all. The plan behind this is to hit hard while focusing on the monster’s weak points, using Slugger and Guard Points to stun the monster and put them in a position for a big combo ending in a SAED (super amped elemental discharge) — which is the attack we CB users all want to end up smacking with eventually.

In summary, Attack Boost skills are causing us to do more damage, Weakness Exploit takes advantage of monster weak points, further increasing damage, Slugger helps stun the monsters to set up a SAED — which the Artillery skill boosts.

Now, you could upgrade the KO charm and remove the Bone arms to put in more Attack Boost, maybe a Capacity Boost to give yourself more Phials, or possibly Speed Sharpen so that you are spending less time not hitting the beast.

Crit Hit Build

This is a build that is more of a fun concept than raw DPS and will technically do less damage than the other build, but MHW allows you to play your way and this is what I recommend to do because anyone can simply stack attack and hit hard. The goal here is to be creative with the mechanics from different skills to create something a little unique. The concept of this build is to max affinity and keep swinging away.

Crit Hit Set Skill Amount Head Teostra Latent Power 2 Chest Rathalos Weakness Exploit 2 Arms Teostra Weakness Exploit 1 Waist Odo Crit Eye 2 Legs Teostra Latent Power 2 Charm Master’s Crit Eye 1(3) Crit Eye 3(5) Weapon: Latent 4 Odium Weakness 3

The main component of this build is maxing your Affinity (critical chance) and using the Teostra armor set bonus — Master’s Touch — to keep your damage going. The set bonus prevents your weapon from losing sharpness during critical hits. The weapon that I recommend with this build is Odium from the Garon tree. This CB has the highest sharpness of all the CBs and also the highest natural affinity, helping reach 100% affinity.

Weakness Exploit is important because it gives such a huge boost to affinity that you can control. Latent Power also provides a significant amount of affinity but is only for set amounts of time. This is a basic set and can be further improved with decorations to allow swapping out of pieces for Critical Boost or Attack Power. With Odium’s natural affinity, Weakness Exploit, and Critical Eye, you will have 95% affinity when hitting weak spots — with a max Master’s Charm.

That much affinity allows you to keep doing extra damage from not only critical hits, but also because you are maintaining maximum sharpness for longer.

Do these builds work for you, are there pieces you would swap out, or decorations that work wonders for these builds? Or are you just out here to look better than everyone else?