The Monster Hunter series is known for its great variety of weapons and, of course, its many fearsome (and sometimes creepy) monsters to hunt down. But across these many weapons, it can be hard to pick out even the type you want, let alone a specific one from the vast crafting trees.
One of the most well-known of these weapons, and one that seems to have gotten a lot of love in Rise, is the Longsword. Longswords operate not unlike many Japanese swords, focused more on timing and precise strikes with a good ability to cover ground more than the Great Sword. But of course, what’s best for you? Though there’s no exact “best” depending on how you play, this is a strong selection of favorites from the community.
Updated July 13, 2022, by Hilton Webster: The Monster Hunter Rise expansion, Sunbreak, has finally launched, bringing with it a treasure trove of new mechanics and monsters rivaling the base game, with more promised to come. With the introduction of Master Rank, all new weapons need to be crafted to face these threats, and these are just a few recommendations.
13 Defender Long Sword
The grind is the whole gameplay loop of Monster Hunter, chasing down fearsome beasts and breaking specific parts to gather the materials to make the biggest and set builds you can, all to get even better at, well, monster hunting.
With the release of Sunbreak though, it might seem daunting to go through such a long journey to reach the new expansion you paid for, and that’s where the Defender gear comes in. Far and away it is the strongest base game weapon set. There are no frills to them, but they’ll serve you well until you specialize or reach Master Rank.
12 Wind Thief Scimitar II
Monster Hunter Rise may be more inviting and explanatory than earlier games, but that doesn’t mean it still isn’t dizzying to look at the massive weapon trees for the first time, and they don’t offer much guidance through them either. Thankfully, one of the better Longswords you can get is the Wind Thief Scimitar II, craftable from one of the first monsters you’ll hunt.
Styled after the Great Izuchi you make it from, the Wind Thief Scimitar is all about affinity, Monster Hunter’s critical hit chance. There are other early weapons that have higher damage, but mastering affinity now is a great step towards later weapons, as Rise really loves high affinity builds.
11 Hidden Saber I
The natural progression would be to the Hidden Saber. Any veteran players of Rise will tell you that Nargacuga weapons rule the meta and with good reason. The Hidden Saber is far from the best weapon in the game, but it will easily carry you through the early game’s Low Rank Hunts.
The Hidden Saber is again a high-affinity weapon, with pretty good sharpness to boot. If you’ve already been building out an affinity build, it will easily carry you into later affinity builds and will let you cut through those Low Rank hunts with speed. Nargacuga is going to become either your favorite or most hated monster after all these hunts.
10 Julienne Blade
Entering into High Rank for the first time, you are introduced to a big difficulty bump, and with it, new and improved weapons and armor sets since much of your original gear will start to lag behind. So one of the better pieces of better gear to start off your High-Rank journey with is the Julienne Blade.
The Julienne Blade is relatively simple. It doesn’t come with anything fancy, no elements or big special effects. Instead, it has decently high damage for its rank and some strong blue sharpness to boost. Coupled with attack boost for the rampage skill and some armor to bring you higher, the Julienne Blade will carry you until you reach greater heights.
9 Big Menacing Scythe
One could argue, perhaps rightly, that the Big Menacing Scythe isn’t really a longsword at all. And to that statement, Rise would tell you it doesn’t care, and demand you use the Big Menacing Scythe as a longsword. Be the grim reaper you’ve dreamed of being.
In truth, the scythe deals poison damage, which can actually be a hefty chunk of extra damage alongside its already quite powerful attacks. And when paired with armor and talismans that boost poison and crits, the weapon can hold its own quite well. Death comes for all, even monsters.
8 Wyvern Blade Maple
The Wyvern Blade Maple is an interesting inclusion in the game. It’s quite strong in raw damage, but not the strongest. It comes with no affinity by default, and its sharpness is a decent blue, but nothing higher. What it excels in, however, is great elemental damage.
Elemental damage can be quite situational in Rise, depending more on specific monsters to really bring out its benefits. But the amount of fire damage it deals is genuinely quite large on top of already powerful attacks that means even against monsters not weak to fire it can hold its own, while it can rip through those weak to it.
7 Rampage Blade
Newly introduced in Rise are Rampage Weapons, weapons of all types designed for you to customize as much as you want. Unlike other weapons, they come with multiple rampage skill slots to let you more precisely fine-tune your build, which is perfect for a game with no “perfect” weapon.
That said, Rampage weapons have sometimes failed to match the more handcrafted experiences of other weapons, which you could argue is the one downside of such customization. But the latest update has given more skills to let you be a bit more free. It can work well for powerful elemental builds or raw damage builds to fit with any armor set you like. Plus, rampage weapons have the unique ability to be layered with any other weapon of the same type, so fashion choices give it an extra positive.
6 Reddnaught Blade
Crimson Glow Valstrax is a terrifying monster. Rightfully so, even it was designed after a comet and can ambush divebomb you at a moment’s notice for devastating damage. So it’s only fitting then that its weapons are also incredibly powerful, especially when paired with Valstrax’s own armor set.
The Valstrax set has the unique effect of inflicting you with Dragonblight when below a certain amount of HP, boosting your Dragon attacks massively and boosting your resistances, letting you tear through enemies weak to dragon. On top of that, even without the unique set bonus, the massive amount of white sharpness on the weapon makes it an easy fit into other builds too to boost its raw damage and affinity.
5 Deepest Night
An expected entry in this collection is the Nargacuga longsword, Deepest Night. Nargacuga weapons have something of a monopoly on the top spots of the various weapons. Like Nargacuga itself, its weapons are all about fast attacks that dig deep, hence the incredibly high affinity.
Even by default, the affinity is gargantuan, with some white sharpness keeping your damage nice and high. As such, the best places to focus this weapon are on retaining sharpness and boosting affinity even further. It has absurd damage, possibly even surpassing higher raw damage sets if you can play it right.
4 Tigrine Need
The Tigrine Need fits a wider demographic than many weapons. It’s almost a pick-up and forget kind of weapon. It has negative affinity, but this is countered by majorly high damage, one of the highest raw damage values on any longsword in the game. Unlike many High-Rank builds, the Tigrine Need lets you equip it and play. No matter what, you’ll be dealing high damage.
In theory, other builds can get you higher damage with some precision and expert play, but Tigrine Need negates that necessity. And if you’re paired up with a hunting horn partner who can negate that negative, and maybe even push it to a positive, the weapon’s one major downside gets pushed to the side.
3 Phantom Mirage
While there may be no exact “best” longsword in the game, the Phantom Mirage is currently dominating the high-rank scene for its great versatility. It already has high blue sharpness and strong affinity, but incredibly high raw damage as well. In fact, there’s not even a clear consensus on the best build because it allows for such versatility.
Phantom Mirage comes with a bunch of decoration slots for extra customization, but also has the unique Chameleos Soul ability. This gives a random chance to boost one of your stats for a time. Or you could vie for an attack or defense boost instead. It offers great diversity. It takes a bit more thought to bring it into a great place than weapons like Tigrine Need, but the number of ways you can build it gives it an edge over many others.
2 Darkest Night
In the base game, Nargacuga had something of a monopoly on many high-level builds, affinity being the way to master the game in Sunbreak. Nargacuga is probably etched into your memories as a rival at this point. Though Sunbreak has introduced many more viable builds, there’s no beating raw power.
In a new tier for Nargacuga’s tree, Darkest Night has the same high affinity but even more raw damage and sharpness. With even more freedom with decorations, you can probably boost that affinity past 100 percent, but it’s a bit overkill at that point anyway.
1 Abyssal Flicker
Sunbreak adds a veritable bounty of new monsters, all coming with their own armor and weapon trees, some with new and unique abilities. Plenty of those weapons are great, and maybe with time and specific scenarios can become part of incredible builds by themselves. For now though, Abyssal Flicker is intense.
Abyssal Flicker comes from the Gaismagorm tree, meaning it doesn’t come until you’ve finished the story. It has incredibly high damage and sharpness, but comes with some steep trade-offs of no general decoration slots and -25 percent affinity. It takes effort, but if you can cancel out the negative affinity, you’ve got a monster of your own in your hands.
