Agile Defender SNS, High Crit Ice and Blast Dual Blades, 100% Affinity Insect Glaive - Monster Hunter World Mixed Sets

written by Justin Prince (@prince_justin)

Three more builds uploaded to my personal YouTube channel, three new way to kill giant dinosaurs. In the months leading up to Iceborne, here are a few more endgame builds. This time I have for you an SNS build with an incredibly resilient guard, an update to my original “Song of Ice and Fire” build, and a 100% affinity precision IG build that not only utilizes the Dragoon armor pieces, but lives up to the legendary Final Fantasy character class.

Save for the Precision Dragoon, the first two builds are once again ATED reliant, so I hope you took down every ATED as they cropped up.

Laughs in Guard + Guard Up

What happens when an unstoppable force butts heads with an immovable object? What happens when that immovable object has the agility to dance around the unstoppable force? When you think of bulwark defenders, fleet-footedness doesn’t generally follow… but that’s what we get here.

Equipment

Weapon: Barroth Club III Sword & Shield (Slot Upgrade Augment+your choice)
Head: Kushala Glare γ
Chest: Bazel Mail β
Arms: Empress Vambraces γ
Waist: Empress Coil γ
Legs: Kushala Crus γ
Charm: Ironside Charm III

Decorations

Weapon: Shield, Vitality, Attack
Head: Elementless
Chest: Attack X2
Arms: Attack, Jumping
Waist: Jumping
Legs: Evasion

Skills

Evade Window 5 (MAX)
Guard 5 (MAX)
Attack Boost 4
Health Boost 3 (MAX)
Evade Extender 3 (MAX)
Handicraft 2
Agitator 2
Guard Up 1 (MAX)
Non-elemental Boost 1 (MAX)

Set Bonus

Stamina Cap Up

Dealing with a Teostra about to set off his Supernova? You got this… Nergigante heading in for a dive? You got this… dealing with an angry Odogaron swiping at you? I think you know where I am heading with this. A swift and agile build with an immovable shield. Max in Guard plus Guard up ensures that you can deal with whatever a giant monster sends your way. Max in Evade Extender and Evade Window lets you dive further and offer a more forgiving window for dodging attacks. Attack Boost at 4 plus Non-elemental Boost allows this rarity 6 SNS to hit hard, bridging the gap between some of the harder hitting rarity 7 and 8 sword and shields in the game. Overall, the TL;DR of it is your capabilities to guard and evade are ramped up… you don’t have to choose one or the other.

A Song of Ice & Dynamite

A true update to a similar build from my first Monster Hunter World build article. Trading out the standard Zorah and Rathalos gear for the ATED Zorah gear coupled Azure Starlord gear. Still utilizing one of my favorite dual blades in the game, a gimmicky dual blade that doles out both ice and blast damage.

Equipment

Weapon: Fire and Ice Dual Blades
Head: Zorah Headgear γ
Chest: Azure Starlord Armor α
Arms: Azure Starlord Gauntlets α
Waist: Zorah Spine γ
Legs: Zorah Spurs γ
Charm: Handicraft Charm III

Decorations

Weapon: Tenderizer
Head: Tenderizer
Chest: Tenderizer
Arms: Handicraft
Waist: Expert X2
Legs: Expert, Sharp

Skills

Critical Eye 7 (MAX)
Handicraft 5 (MAX)
Weakness Exploit 3 (MAX)
Windproof 2
Recovery Up 2
Blast Attack 2
Bombardier 2
Protective Polish 1 (MAX)

Set Bonus

Critical Status
Critical Element

The difference between this build and my last one is in the affinity. Without any augments, you will have 90% affinity when you hit weak spots (40% base plus 50% from Weakness Exploit). If you augment the weapon for affinity you get that full 100% affinity but honestly I’m fine with 90%, mostly because when I can I always opt for health regen. Because of both Critical Status and Critical Element you’re going to want to crit as often as possible. Aiming for weak spots should be your primary objective since when you crit and apply the status or element it will be ramped up thanks to both set bonuses. Handicraft at max ensures the most white sharpness you can get with Protective Polish allowing you to keep that white sharpness for longer. Dual blades are notorious for losing sharpness quickly, you’re gonna want to mitigate that as much as possible.

100% Affinity Precision Dragoon

Time to take to the skies with a true Dragoon. High crit with beefy attack make this a must have build for Insect Glaive mains. It’s fairly straight forward but very powerful, and honestly is one of my most “meta” builds to date.

Equipment

Weapon: Vice Insect Glaive w/ Pseudocath Kinsect
Head: Dragonking Eyepatch α
Chest: Drachen Mail α
Arms: Drachen Vambraces α
Waist: Drachen Coil α
Legs: Drachen Greaves α
Charms: Earplugs Charm III

Decorations

Weapon: Tenderizer
Head: Earplug
Chest: Earplug
Arms: Critical, Flight
Waist: Attack
Legs: Elementless

Skills

Critical Eye 6
Earplugs 5 (MAX)
Attack Boost 4
Critical Boost 3 (MAX)
Weakness Exploit 3 (MAX)
Power Prolonger 1
Airborne 1 (MAX)
Non-elemental Boost 1 (MAX)

Set Bonus

Elemental Airborne
Master’s Touch

The main reason I build this is because I love the Vice Insect Glaive, but it isn’t exactly meta at the moment. While it does have max white sharpness, it’s lacking in the raw damage department. Attack boost level 4 plus Non-elemental boost make this an ideal way to bridge the gap on this aesthetic AF Insect Glaive. Much like any high affinity build, your goal is to hit weak spots since the main thing that gets us to the 100% affinity is Weakness Exploit, but if you don’t hit weak spots you still have a 50/50 chance to crit. Critical boost amps up the crit damage while Airborne further amps up your mounting damage. Powerful and fairly straight forward, but gets the job done.

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So there we go! I don’t know how many more of these videos I plan to do before Iceborne releases but I will at least get you 3 to 6 more builds… so 1 or 2 more of these articles before Iceborne drops. With rarity 9 being a thing in the expansion… I’m ready to watch all these builds go obsolete come September. Until then, let’s have some fun hunters!