Summary
- Evade Extender can help Dual Blades users with perfect dodges by increasing dodge distance.
- Protective Polish aids Dual Blades users by maintaining sharpness for longer periods.
- Constitution can assist with stamina management for Dual Blades users during fights.
The first title update for Monster Hunter Wilds has brought players back to the game in full force to fight Mizutsune and grab their new gear sets. Others are still jumping into this mammoth franchise for the first time and discovering their favorite playstyles. Monster Hunter Wilds offers many weapons and playstyle choices, so there's something here for everyone.
There's a lot for new players to get to grips with, from crafting new weapons and armor to working out what skills will give the biggest advantages for their chosen weapon type. Skills from weapon decorations and armor pieces can make a big difference to a hunter's performance, but it can be tough to understand what they all do at a glance.
Monster Hunter Wilds: Best Set Bonus Skills, Ranked
There are several set bonus skills to make use of in Monster Hunter Wilds, but some are arguably better than others.
Skills can be offensive, defensive, or serve some utility purpose, like stamina management. Some skills will be more effective when combined with certain weapons, others are just useful across the board. To help players sort out the good from the so-so, these are the best skills to use with Dual Blades in Monster Hunter Wilds.
9 Evade Extender
Dodge Boost
- Effect: Increases evade distance
Evade Extender can be a useful defensive skill for any hunter, but Dual Blades users will be looking to pull off as many perfect dodges as possible in a fight, so they'll get a lot of use out of the skill. This skill increases the distance that players can dodge, giving a little more safety to those perfect dodges. While both this skill and Evade Window can be useful for Dual Blades users who want a little more safety, players should note that neither skill affects the perfect dodge timing window.
8 Protective Polish
Preserve Sharpness
- Effect: Weapon sharpness does not decrease for a set time after sharpening
Dual Blades are all about quick flurries of attacks, and players will be outputting a lot of consecutive attacks on monsters throughout their Monster Hunter Wilds campaign. That means that the sharpness of Dual Blades can diminish quickly.
Protective Polish can significantly prolong the time between sharpening, as this skill gives the player a window after sharpening where the weapon's sharpness won't go down at all. It's 30 seconds per level in this skill, so it's a big window to have no sharpness loss. This will keep Dual Blades users at max damage output for longer.
7 Constitution
Stamina Management
- Effect: Reduces stamina depletion when evading, blocking, or doing certain other actions
A lot of the best skills for Dual Blades are about extending the time that players can stay at their max damage output in their most damaging form. With Demon Mode draining the player's stamina, a lot of this comes down to stamina management.
Monster Hunter Wilds: 8 Best Armor Sets For Bow Builds, Ranked
Arming yourself with the best Bows is only half the battle as they need support through armor too.
Constitution won't help with this directly, but it does reduce the stamina cost of dodging, which means players will have consistently more stamina to play with throughout a fight. It's not the most valuable stamina skill for Dual Blades, but it's worth having as a utility if possible.
6 Weakness Exploit
Weakpoint Damage
- Effect: Increases the affinity of attacks that exploit a monster's weakpoints and wounds
Weakness Exploit has proved to be a popular skill in general in Monster Hunter Wilds, thanks to the frequency of wounds and the relative ease of building a critical hit/affinity-based loadout. The skill boosts affinity when attacking weakpoints and boosts it further when breaking wounds. It's a powerful offensive skill, but it only really works well for Dual Blades if players are specced toward high affinity and critical hit damage in other ways.
5 Adrenaline Rush
Perfect Dodge Synergy
- Effect: Temporarily increases attack power after executing a perfectly-timed evade
Dual Blades players will ideally be making good use of the perfect dodge mechanic to get their Demon Boost buff, as this innate damage buff is a key part of the weapon's mechanics. With Adrenaline Rush, players can enhance this buff even further.
Adrenaline Rush also activates on a perfect dodge, granting an additional attack buff that stacks with the Demon Boost buff, making it highly effective for any Dual Blades user. Just the first level of the skill gives +10 attack, with +30 if players stack all five levels in the skill.
4 Marathon Runner
Less Demon Mode Stamina Drain
- Effect: Slows down stamina depletion for actions that continuously drain stamina
Marathon Runner is probably the most useful stamina management skill that Dual Blades users can invest in. This skill reduces the drain rate for moves that continuously drain stamina, like the Dual Blades' Demon mode.
Monster Hunter Wilds: Best Weapons For Popping Wounds
Players who like to focus on popping wounds in Monster Hunter Wilds can't go wrong with the following weapons.
Since keeping Demon mode and Archdemon mode active for as long as possible is the key to doing the best damage with the Dual Blades, this skill is one of the best, as it extends that time without any additional effort on the part of the player.
3 Burst
Continuous Attack Boost
- Effect: Continuously landing hits gradually increases attack and elemental attack
Burst can be a powerful offensive skill in Monster Hunter Wilds, but only faster combo-based weapons like the Dual Blades can make effective use of it. With the Burst skill, players get a small damage increase the first time they hit a monster, which is replaced by a bigger damage boost when they land their fifth consecutive hit.
The buff increases both attack and element attack, so it works for any damage type players happen to be running. Dual Blades will easily land five consecutive hits with their basic combos, so Burst is a solid skill choice for Dual Blades users.
2 Focus
Faster Gauge Charge
- Effect: Increases the fill rate for weapons with gauges and charge rate for charge attacks
Focus is a good utility skill for any weapon with a charge gauge, and Dual Blades are no exception. This skill increases the rate at which players gain charge for their gauge, in this case, the demon gauge.
Having level three in this skill means that players can fill the demon gauge with just a few hits in Demon mode, meaning Archdemon mode can be activated earlier and maintained more easily. Focus also tends to be easy to work into a set, as it comes as an innate skill on a lot of weapons.
1 Power Prolonger
Extended Archdemon Mode
- Effect: Allows powered-up weapons to stay powered-up longer
Power Prolonger is an obvious skill choice for the Dual Blades, as it directly affects the time that players can keep Archdemon mode active. What this means is that players will see the demon gauge drain more slowly while Archdemon mode is active and will be able to top up the gauge with their attacks more easily as they have a longer window in which to do so.
It's worth having this skill at level three and pairing it with Marathon Runner if players can, as this will give Dual Blades their longest Demon mode / Archdemon mode up-time.
-
OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 89 /100 Critics Rec: 95%
