Monster Hunter World Top 5 Dual Blades

With Monster Hunter: World coming to PC, I thought I’d take the time to showcase some top weapons to build for. May the streamstones ever be in your favour. But really, with a little bit of thinking and Athena’s ASS (Armor Skill Search), you too can have equipment to chase for. In this list, I’ll feature three weapons that were part of initial launch, with the last two being event or DLC dropped weapons post-launch. A quick note, the values I list here are the raw weapon values. The ones you see in-game are often referred as bloated values, factoring the motion value or the “power” behind each attack. Also, it makes it a lot easier maths wise to compare the raw over the bloat values.

Let’s not beat around the bush, Dual Blades have always been a staple elemental weakness exploit build focused set. Their motion values are quite low, and pushing that ultra-crit set just doesn’t net that much of a boost in the grand scheme of things. But fret not, because there are some pretty cool builds that aren’t entirely useless. Although building the element critical sets using the Rathalos armour skill is almost a given, which might warrant another article just for exploiting the elements. Not just for surprise.

Chrome Slicers II - 180 Raw + (270 Poison)

Slots left empty just because this is very versatile, acting a nice cookie cutter for either poisons.

The baseline weapon you get in the game once fully upgraded isn’t something to write home about. Especially compared to Nergigante’s offering of the Decimation Claws, but what sets these out is the poison and lengthy blue. Whilst there is an upgraded version of this with Kulve Taroth’s Taroth Daggers "Poison", the 10 extra raw, lower Handicraft levels for white, and stronger poison is at first glance an improvement. The drop in two augments make it a tougher choice, especially when the extra poison will only help for much longer hunts. Just throw on an Apothecary Mantle if a hunt is lasting for longer almost to counter this downside. Plus, with Poison Up from the Pink Rathian armour set skill, having stronger poison will result in a lot of unused attacks, assuming you’re fully building for poison damage. With the three augments, you’re able to counter the drop in 10 raw by augmenting twice for attack and still have enough for either a health or affinity augment.

The true kicker though is the drop in an extra slot, whilst there are a bunch of great decorations the bulk are Lv1 jewels. Packing ten slots, seven Lv1 and three Lv2. Unless you wanted to put a Brace Jewel for Flinch Free, the drop in an extra slot isn’t that great. However, this set easily accommodates Kulve’s variant so swapping the Poison 3 for Handicraft 3 will net you easy access to white sharpness. Add a Sharpness Jewel for Protective Polish and Item Prolonger 3 to keep that white for longer, should you feel inclined to give it an overall upgrade. This build variation will have less slots to play, unless you drop the Poison 3 altogether which you can do since Taroth’s Daggers “Poison” has a base 330 Poison.

Bazelhawk Rookslayer: 200 Raw + 150 Blast

Attack would be better, but as is, it's hard to beat for best Raw damage.

Blast may be progressively getting weaker in feel, but it’s still a dangerous status to inflict. And in the right hands, it can destroy Monsters with easy racking up the blasts to inflict fixed damage. At lower levels, Blast is almost overpowered. Especially with the Apothecary Mantle meaning you’ll being always hitting with Blast with each attack. So with the latest addition of Monster Hunter Monsters who inflict PTSD comes our very own B52 bomber, Bazelguese. Wielding a giant pair of axes, the easy access white is almost as bad as the Deviljho selection of weapons. But the real kicker is how much you’re able to push the weapon’s raw potential. Against some Monsters, this is somewhat of a dud weapon compared to the previous offering. And as great as infinite sharpness Odogaron weapon build, the Sin Dual Blades lack the raw to shine with Bazelhawk beating this weapon on practically every Monster.

I will fully admit, I built this to try and get a TA against Nergigante, but the biggest hindrance to this build is that people are just doing the slope mount attack spam. But that’s just how the state of the game is, some attacks are just superior on use compared to other attacks. As you can see though, this is the typical ultra crit build but with emphasis on sustain.

Fire and Ice: 180 Raw + 240 Blast + 240 Ice

Depending on the monster, swapping for Handicraft may be more effective than 85 Affinity

No Dual Blade set would be complete without the addition of some kind of unlimited sharpness using Master’s Touch to not lose sharpness on a critical hit. You’re probably thinking that this is excessive, but this is extremely effective against the likes of Odogaron and even Kulve Taroth once she loses her golden coat. Once again Apothecary Mantle and Affinity Booster for extra power if needed, although I run this with Evasion Mantle for an addition 30% attack increase. Without the need for sharpening as you’re able to keep its blue for nearly forever since it packs high base affinity already. Since Dual Blades are easy to readjust, keeping the offensive to proc Weakness Exploit is a sinch. The only shame is that Dual Blades kind of plain sucks against Elder Dragons right now, and that only Lunastra is weak to ice. Where Luna’s Weakness Exploit area is her wings, and whilst attacking her back legs will cause her to trip, reaching them is not convenient at all. But at least Diablos and Black Diablos are weak, so not all is lost for regularly using them.

Wrathful Predation: 220 Raw + 180 Dragon

This could be better optimised with Protective Polish and Agitator 5.

Now I built those B52 blades quite early on, near the game’s launch back before the first round of weapon buffs and changes were made. But if you really wanted to push for raw, then the jho has your back. Packing great raw and easy to get Handicraft for white, it’s an almost one size fits all weapon. Against the likes of Rathalos and Rathian, this just chews them out and spits out their mats like a savage. Simply creating a set for these is very difficult since you can build for raw, dragon element crit, sustain, and everything in between. The build I’ve got is somewhere in the middle, not the best and can easily be improved. But for showcasing something, this fits the bill. Packing your usual mix of ultra crit, I’ve also managed to add Critical Element. The Agitator 3 is a plus since that’s just extra raw and affinity. But to round it off, five Lv1 slots. This means pushing the base affinity to 0%, or an extra 15 attack. Or anything in between to keep your sustain, just be warned that Dual Blades can make short work of the Handicraft 3, so having grinder may be extremely handy if you’re struggling to maintain optimal damage.

Empress Daggers “Styx”: 180 + 180 Blast

Rather insane, swapping the Critical jewels for Peak Performance will push the damage further.

And as if prophesied, Lunastra has reemerged with her Xeno Razor Sharp weapons again, it’s probably getting boring but Razor Sharp as weapon skill raises a weapon’s power considerably. Plus natural white, solid raw, and more blast. Honestly, with these Dual Blades, they kind of make the B52’s offering mute. That’s not to say my previous set isn’t good, it’s just that this offers much better sustain options over them. Using a similar ultra crit build, this is almost another cookie cutter build that employs just an insidious damage push. Pushing for Attack 7, Critical Eye 7, Weakness Exploit 3, and Critical Boost 3 is easily achieved thanks to the two Lv3 slots in Dual Blades by default. This set is just good at one thing, and that’s keeping your attack up. Of course swapping to Handicraft 3 would mean not having to sharpen at all in a fight. Possibly. Although dropping the Attack 3 charm will reduce the effective raw to 386, but if it means not ever sharpening it’s something to contend with, in terms of net damage.

And there you have it, five dual blades and builds. But a real problem how these just can’t necessarily compete against critical element weakness exploit builds. They unfortunately live and die on a Monster’s weakness. Who knows, maybe I’ll get around to fully upgrading my armour for showcasing my Critical Element Builds. Or getting the decorations to even build them.