Sword and Shield Guide
Sword and Shield always has an answer. The shape of each incoming attack and the length of the opening it leaves tell you whether to meet a single readable hit with a Perfect Guard, evade a sequence, or keep your sword loop moving; when the monster stops, choose a short finisher or a fully timed Power Perfect Rush. Those small decisions flow into one another, and you can use an item without sheathing when the hunt changes suddenly.
Sword attacks deal severing damage, apply the weapon's element or status, and consume sharpness. Shield attacks deal blunt damage and build stun when they hit the head, but they do not apply element or status or consume sharpness. The shield has less blocking power than the larger shields, so its best defensive use is precise timing rather than holding it through every attack.
This guide covers Title Update 4. For complete button inputs, use Weapon Controls in the in-game Hunter's Notes; the official manual entry point links to the current manual. Combat Mechanics explains why the same swing can deal different damage. Motion Values lists the values for every move.
If this weapon is new to you, try it in the Training Area first. Use the in-game Hunter's Notes to practice its basic attacks; this guide explains how to connect them into a hunt.
Reading attacks and openings
A successful Perfect Guard lets you retaliate immediately. Use Counter Slash when the guarded hit ends the monster's attack and the slash can reach. A quick multi-hit sequence can catch you before that retaliation finishes, so evade or keep guarding when the next hit will arrive first. A normal block does not grant the same immediate follow-ups, and enough knockback can also deny them; reduces that knockback and the stamina spent while guarding.
Power Perfect Rush is a separate choice, started from Backstep rather than from a Perfect Guard. In Focus Mode, you can Backstep from idle instead of making a sword attack first. Press each of the three follow-ups near its flash. An early or mashed input produces the weaker version of that phase, and the later phases carry much of the sequence's damage, so reserve the full route for an opening that will keep its target in reach.
Between Power Perfect Rush attacks, enter Focus Mode and guard if the opening closes. From that guard, you can Backstep into another route. After the second attack, you can instead finish early with Spinning Reaper or an enhanced Charged Chop.
Backstep and Sliding Sweep both provide evasive movement, but neither is a guard. Backstep's invulnerability begins immediately; Sliding Sweep gains its invulnerability after the move begins. extends the evasion window of Backstep and rolls, but it does not extend Sliding Sweep.
Charged Chop is a multi-hit sword attack that can follow most attacks. It becomes the stronger, enhanced version after a combo-chain finisher or Spinning Reaper. A Perfect Guard can lead directly to the base version, not the enhanced one. When the opening is too short for the full Power Perfect Rush, use Spinning Reaper into the enhanced chop and then return to your sword loop.
Vital Stab
The Focus Strike, Vital Stab, behaves differently on a partial weakspot and a complete wound. On a partial weakspot, it performs repeated hits and can flow into Spinning Reaper or an enhanced Charged Chop. The Focus Mode reticle uses the wound shape on a partial weakspot, which helps identify this opportunity before the wound fully opens.
On a complete wound, ordinary attacks can benefit from the wound while it remains. also grants additional affinity when a qualifying weak point is wounded. Deal some regular damage first if you can keep hitting the part, then use Vital Stab before those attacks destroy the wound. Use Falling Slash to close it quickly, or Upswing Bash when the wound is near the head and you want stun buildup from the aerial shield follow-up.
Fight loop
During normal pressure, use compact sword attacks and keep the intended part in reach. When a single readable attack arrives, time a Perfect Guard and answer with Counter Slash if the retaliation is safe. Evade a rapid sequence or an attack that will move the monster beyond the counter. Hold a normal block as an emergency response when neither timing nor movement is reliable.
Judge the opening before choosing a finisher. Use a fully timed Power Perfect Rush when the monster will remain still and its final attacks can reach. Use Spinning Reaper into an enhanced Charged Chop when the opening is shorter. Return to compact attacks instead of forcing another finisher as the monster recovers.
Aim sword attacks at the part you want to sever or pressure with element or status. Aim shield attacks at the head when you want stun or need to preserve sharpness. Use Vital Stab immediately on a partial weakspot; on a complete wound, take the available regular hits before closing it. When you need an item, use it without sheathing, but still wait for an opening long enough to complete the item animation.
Skills
Choose skills for the actions you can perform consistently. A build centered on Perfect Guard gets more from than a build that usually evades, while sharpness management matters more when sword attacks dominate the loop. Combat Mechanics explains wounds and the separate weapon and armor skill budgets.
Core choices
| Weapon skill | When it earns its slot |
|---|---|
| Use it when the build has enough affinity for critical hits to occur regularly; it raises their physical damage. | |
| Use it when you can trigger precisely timed guards often enough to attack during its temporary Attack bonus. | |
| Add affinity when the build needs a reliable source that does not depend on a hunt state; affinity above 100% has no effect. | |
| Add Attack when another source of affinity or a conditional bonus would not be active often enough. |
| Armor skill | When it earns its slot |
|---|---|
| Use it when you can keep attacks on qualifying weak points; a wound on that point adds more affinity. | |
| Use it when continuous hits keep its temporary Attack and elemental Attack bonuses active. | |
| Use it when the monster spends enough of the hunt enraged for its Attack and affinity bonuses to matter. |
| Defensive skill | What problem it solves |
|---|---|
| Reduces guarded knockback and stamina loss, which can preserve a Perfect Guard follow-up against stronger attacks. | |
| Allows ordinarily unblockable attacks to be guarded and reduces damage taken while guarding. | |
| Sometimes reduces incoming damage. | |
| Shortens stun, or prevents it at Lv 3, when attacks get past your defensive timing. |
Add when allied attacks or your attacks are causing damage reactions in multiplayer. It has no target to affect in a solo hunt.
Sharpness management
Sword and Shield spends sharpness quickly when its sword loop stays active, so choose a way to preserve sharpness or shorten the interruption needed to restore it. has the strongest fit when affinity is already high; is a reliable alternative that does not depend on critical hits.
| Skill | What it does |
|---|---|
| Extends a sharpness gauge that has room to grow. | |
| Prevents sharpness loss when an attack is a critical hit. | |
| Prevents sharpness loss for a fixed time after sharpening. | |
| Gives attacks a chance not to consume sharpness. | |
| Shortens the whetstone sequence. |
Comfort
| Skill | What it changes |
|---|---|
| Increases health restored by recovery effects. | |
| Shortens meat and item consumption, including items used while the weapon is drawn. | |
| Restores the red portion of the health bar faster. | |
| Adds Defense and, at higher levels, elemental resistance. | |
| Protects against elemental blights. | |
| Shortens the recharge time of specialized tools. | |
| Prevents roars from interrupting actions at the levels that cover those roars. | |
| Extends invulnerability for rolls and Backstep, but not for Sliding Sweep. | |
| Extends evasive movement; check that the extra distance does not carry the next attack away from its target. | |
| Reduces stamina depletion from evading and certain other actions. | |
| Sometimes consumes a food or drink item without removing it from the pouch. |
Styles
Power Perfect Rush concentrates physical damage into a long opening, while rapid sword attacks continue to apply element or status. Shield attacks apply neither element nor status.
| Style | Skills |
|---|---|
| Element | Use the matching element attack skill, then consider when the build also has enough affinity to land elemental critical hits. |
| Status | Use the matching status attack skill when the hunt rewards additional applications of that status. |
This hunt
These skills answer specific hunt conditions rather than belonging on every set.
| Skill | Use it when |
|---|---|
| You want to create wounds more easily and add its buildup-based non-elemental damage. Some attacks are excluded from that buildup. | |
| Breaking parts or increasing Focus Strike wound-destruction damage is part of the plan. | |
| Wind pressure is interrupting committed attacks. | |
| Ground tremors are interrupting committed attacks. | |
| The hunt gives you useful opportunities to improve flash items. | |
| You plan to use explosive items; Sword and Shield can place them without sheathing. | |
| Water, oilsilt, or streams are impairing movement. |
Use the matching resistance when bleeding, blastblight, poison, paralysis, sleep, webbed status, or frostblight is the problem that prevents you from executing the loop.
Common misreads
- A Perfect Guard leads to Counter Slash and other short follow-ups, not directly to Power Perfect Rush. Begin Power Perfect Rush from Backstep.
- Do not mash Power Perfect Rush. Each mistimed phase uses weaker motion values, and most of the route's payoff comes late.
- Do not build element or status for shield attacks, because those attacks apply neither.
- improves rolls and Backstep, but does not extend the invulnerability of Sliding Sweep.
- is not automatically disabled by one Backstep. Its affinity remains while stamina is kept full, and the later part of Power Perfect Rush can benefit after stamina recovers. Repeated stamina spending still lowers its uptime.
Settings
Set automatic sheathe to Manual so the weapon remains available for guards and unsheathed item use. In Focus Mode, Backstep from idle can begin Power Perfect Rush without a prior sword attack.
Keep the camera slightly above the monster during Perfect Rush so the later hits stay readable. A camera that drops behind the body mid-rush hides whether the next input still connects on the head or has slipped to the shoulder.