yes this is correct. I meant "fastest way to get into axe mode and spend a phial" (morph1 and charge>ED1 both require the exact amount of time to execute and return to neutral, both 3.08s) morph1 does slightly more dmg without skills, but charge>ED1 allows you to charge and start spending phials immediately. they are both pretty equal with minor differences, my main concern is that people abuse morph1's GP trying fish for SAEDs they have no business doing so it is usually worth it to use morph1 purely for the dmg gain especially since you really won't be using it post-axe transformation, assuming your phials are already charged once you're in axe, you don't have access to morph1 anymore so ED1 is going to be your quickest way to attack and spend phials and return back to neutral as Nephv2 pointed out below charge>ED1 will outperform morph1 if you need to charge and go to axe immediately
Yeah one requires a move before it and the other is straight from neutral so it's really only faster if you're already gonna be charging your phials when you need to go axe.
Hey man, I just wanna let you know so far as I know you are the only youtuber who posts contents catered for players in between "booting up the game" and "speedrunning" level, and they are all extremely helpful. I will be watching and supporting your channel as much as I can.
One of the misconceptions people have about SAED shortcuts is that it can only link from Shield Thrust, which can only link from the forward attack. Not true. Even Mike here isn't really quite on the money. Shield Thrust can link from any sword move. This means it can link from Weak Slash, but also Phial Charge and Sliding Slash. The finishing Round Slash, as well. Any move can link into Shield Thrust. Thinking of Shield Thrust as a committed SAED is also wrong. You can nope out at any time. In fact, you can delay inputting the SAED shortcut for a bit, if you want to confirm your window before committing. On top of that, it is also sometimes better to just Morph Slash into SAED or AED. It gets you an extra axe hit, and you are a lot more certain about the distance and aim.
I switched my main from CB to Lance when I encountered Velkhana. CB has such a fun move set. It's almost like a fidget toy. In response to my input, it makes satisfying noises; changes shape, and lights up (phials, shield charge, sword charge, savage axe).
I'm a GS main that just dabbles in other weapons, so not super adept with CB. I remember watching a charge blade speedrun of Brute Tigrex in MH4U where the runner never used SAED until the very last hit of the fight when the monster was limping away, and that was quite eye opening to me. He mostly used the A-A-X loop in axe mode, canceling into regular AED for the last hit, then heading back to the phial/shield charging flowchart. Really helped me understand how much you could get out of regular axe attacks instead of fishing for SAED.
Played 4 a long time ago, so take this with a grain of salt, but in 4 it was pretty much never optimal to burn resources for SAED. If you take a look at speed runs with the weapon today you wouldn’t see anyone save that for the last interaction because pumping and dumping your phials makes for better dps and doesn’t take as long to get all resources back. Specifically, in mh4u, your shield buff is spent along with your phials for the SAED, and the shield buff happens to put a MASSIVE damage buff on all attacks with it (I’m reading 20%). Getting phials and shield back up to full after that is more pain than the SAED was worth.
@@labcoatgorilla6784Thats not true. Its the very same thing in Iceborne since Savage Axe is the best phial spender. Outside of Axe mode, its just charging combo and Guardpoint into AED to fish for trips and KOs SAED is only optimal at the very end, when monster is running away if Savage Axe will need to be recharged as a result, or before recharging the shield if need be.
"but what if the monster attack lands after the roundslash/spinning slash guard point?" Mike: ~*looks at that nifty tool you have in your hunter's right hand*~
And if it lands before, you can potentially morph slash into axe form and use the guard point as a parry of sorts (since most sword moves can cancel into morph slash). Hard to pull off, but for people who know the timings, it can be very useful.
It's kind of crazy how you are the only one that covers these "inbetween" topics for people that are ok at the game but wanna get a bit better and get more out of their hunts. Really enjoying your videos, they made me a better play for sure!
As a new player who loves charge blade because of these “guides” I always assumed that always aiming for SAED is best way to deal the most damage even though it didn’t even mathematically make sense to me on paper, I thought maybe it’s different in practice lol.
Charge Blade is so awesome and versatile. There are so many playstyles and guides with differing approaches to the point where after a bit of reading the only way to actually figure out how to play Charge Blade is to actually go and play Charge Blade. Its like that old expression where if one source says its raining and one source says its not, its your job to figure out the actual state of the weather by going outside. Except instead of the weather its about SAED or Savage Axe Mode or Elemental Discharges and whatnot, and its up to you to find out what play style you can incorporate best. Very well made video, I see a lot of new CB players try to seamlessly combo into SAED when that may not be the best strategy for them just yet (or ever). Either way the fact remains, Axe-sword-shield-chainsaw is the best no matter how you spin it and you'll be totally awesome either way.
Your point about phial usage is a reason why I think focus 3/3 tends to be a noob trap for CB users. When I watch average people play, I notice the focus makes them over extend on phial filling.
That's fair enough, with proper weaving of axe to sword and sword to axe you constantly fill your phials, but if you are just beginning to use CB and don't know all the moves or don't feel comfortable weaving in and out of axe mode focus 3 is amazing and very useful.
No way this video comes out 4 hours after my whinny rant post on your last video. ED1 was literally the move I've been looking for this whole time, particularly when I have red phials (or yellow). It's literally my most overlooked move atm. Thinking about guard points your way, it's semi-easy to "get out" of a hairy situation with CB by simply pressing a direction+circle after any action to dodge slide into a round slash that ends in a guard point too. Funnily enough guard points aren't even the hard part about using CB since they are either at the start or end of a move. Basically turns your though process into "if I can fit a round slash in, it's safe to do" which is very easy to understand. The trap is watching too many speed runs where everything is scripted and it makes you feel like you have to act after a guard point or you are missing out on hUGe DAmAgE. Thanks for the great upload.
This is an excellent guide. I think a lot of new players see highlight reel perfect fights with 50 SAED's and immaculate guard points and think that's normal gameplay, instead of the culmination of hundreds of hours of practice and complete understanding of a fight. this is a way more practical approach for a normal player
I've been playing World coming from Sunbreak so this is actually helpful for me. I think it's a good idea if you make demonstration video showing the tips that you stated here like the narrated sns hunts that you did in the past. That would be helpful for us beginners at using CB.
There is a lot to absorb with CB. Knowing all your attacks and their windows is pretty important. Discharging phials efficiently and quickly isn’t quite the point. After all, you can always “spend” your phials by activating Savage Axe mode and just letting that run for a bit. Haha. Folks don’t “get” CB because they only compare it to GS and SnS. But it can and should also be compared to Lance. Use the shield and the Guard Points offensively, not to proc a counter, but to protect yourself while increasing uptime with sword attacks. Sword attacks with a charged sword are pretty efficient uptime for small windows, and the charging animation itself is a pretty meaty attack. It loses value because folks don’t think of it as one. It’s pretty long, but you can fit it into some windows. Use the Condensed Element Slash as an attack. Then you also have a bit of time where you can spam sword attacks with some efficacy.
when you attack with clutch claw you also end up in axe mode, which is pretty nice when you have a window and get to tenderize and deal damage at the same time.
The saed brain doesnt let you see how strong the AED is, often creating openings to spend more phials and dealing very good damage in the process. But I see so many gamers ignore AED completely, waiting for that SAED opening with full phials
I’ve been playing loads of charge blade recently, the best tip here for me is going into an ED1 instead of just trying to unga bunga an SAED. I’m totally gunna try this to reprogram my brain and get used to it thank you.
You can go straight to SAED with just regular blocking. Guard Point just helps you block stronger attacks so you can still hold your ground, with a bonus of a little phial damage when your shield is charged. Of course as you said, Guard Point works greatly for insurance in your combo.
Normal blocking is pretty much always worse than Guard Point if you can pull it off. The only scenario you’d normal block is vs a monster you’re not confident guard pointing or something like Black Diablos’ burrow where it has 3 variations with different timings and no tells.
@@AB-xe9nkNo. That’s not quite right. Guard Points increase guard power against attacks. If you intend to go into AED or SAED or into either of the other cancels (shield charge or Savage Axe activation), then you need to have at least a medium or strong but not severe knockback reaction from the block to go into AED or SAED. If you have a minimal block reaction, the shortcut doesn’t work. So you have to know how much block reaction an attack elicits, and if your guard power with a Guard Point turns that into a minimal reaction, you should use a normal block instead.
@@mrmanolomax7328 Minimal knockback is when the attack barely registers any reaction animation at all. Your character just moves back a teeny bit. It is possible to get that much knockback mitigation with higher levels of guard, a charged shield, and guardpointing.
@@Roxlimn Just tried it out and You can perform an SAED no problem. Shield Charged+guard 5+guard up with the barrel bomb in the training area, varely moved a meter from the knockback.
One day will I hear this MH master talking about mistakes and how to play SA correctly? I hope so You're saving my gameplay. How many times have I copied and tried to understand the "youtube math and combo experts" and gotten so frustrated at the thought of stopping playing my favorite Boss Fighting game... Thank you, Miguel
Solid content for intermediate cb users, but eventually you goes back to the basic sword to axe morph when playing savageaxe, and use more savageaxe gp following into a saed, sliding slash is also a really nifty move to incorporate into your combo.
As a charge blade main for 2k hours in MHW, really wish I had these kinds of videos to watch when I started playing, would have saved me a lot of pain figuring out how to play better. The reason why CB is so hard to play is that your damage comes from really slow moves like AED/SAED(don't even mention the painful recovery animation) which only do "decent" damage, sure they are faster than TCSs and do more damage than helm splitters, but TCSs are worth it since it does crazy damage and helm splitters are faster(you can also perform foresight slash right after the attack). Also, CB has resource management, making SAED whiffs more painful, not to mention savage axe which requires extra knowledge and experience to know what you should do with your phials during various situations or different monster matchups. Due to these two reasons, many CB newbies struggle to do good DPS compared to more straightforward weapons like hammers or greatswords. There are also a lot of subtle things new CB players might find unimportant but are actually quite crucial. Like memorizing what combo gives you yellow/red phials, for example, normal slash->charged double->round slash is the fastest combo to give you red phials(focus 3), or charged double->shield thrust->charged double when you don't have focus. Another useful combo is guard point->side hop->round slash, round slash gives you 3 points of energy compared to normal slash(1), charged double(3+6), this GP combo is a very good way of charging up your phials while dancing with the monster. Memorizing these combos will greatly reduce your chance of overcharging your sword and make your CB gameplay so much more efficient. After you have learned all the subtle things about CB gameplay and know the monster moves. Congratulations, you are ready to play at an intermediate to advanced level. There are four main playstyles for CB, impact SAED(easiest, but lowest DPS), elemental SAED(requires positioning), elemental AED mixed with savage axe(most enjoyable playstyle), and pure savage axe(spam the up/down swing combo). You can beat most monsters sub-10 at this level if you know the monsters well enough. At this point, CB gameplay just becomes a natural instinct, you will be able to predict what speedrunners will do in the next frame when you are watching a video. The intermediate level revolves around reactive gameplay. I mean why wouldn't it be? You have a strong shield and cool guard points. However, it wouldn't be truly advanced gameplay without predictive plays, although only a few matchups require you to do predictive stuff, like dunking rathalos with predictive AEDs, fitting in AEDs through AT namielle's tight punish windows, AED furious rajang's head when he spits five lightning balls. It is really hard to find guides that cover these topics, so most people have to learn them by themselves to get gud. I really appreciate Mike putting in the effort to make these videos to help new players improve. Also, I am currently stuck between the intermediate and advanced level, so I would be glad if Mike could explain what separates speed runs apart from casual runs(like what makes you lose so much time).
to be quite honest, you're probably more qualified to comment on CB than i am i'm just here to add some common sense discussion to the weapon that might help newbies that being said, the biggest factor in speedruns is uptime * crowd control (typically topple). unless you can guarantee a flinch on an SAED, 80-90% of a monster's moves are not safe to GP>SAED
Not a speedrunner, so take this with a grain of salt, but what separates them from us mortal folks is of course almost perfect monster knowledge and their ability to quite literally script the whole fight, removing most if not all variables that come from behavior of monsters AI (which is stunlocking monsters for the most part, with the use of topples and flinches). Clearest example I've seen of this is Velkhana and LS. Same combo, with Helmbreaker being done 5 or so times and she was dead.
I never really thought of the Roundslash GP too much cause U normally do a Shield Thrust after Charged Slash into Weak or Charged Slash again given how situational it is but I suppose this is a way to look at it
My problem playing charge blade is that I always greed way more when playing CB. I play way more safe and consistently with pretty much every other weapon.
Yeah ED2 is the biggest trap in CB since it's the 2nd hit in most strings (easy to get into), and the animation commitment is extremely large. Morph1 > ED2 ED1 > ED2 Smash > ED2 > Repeat SB > ED2 > Repeat
If CB had sword in right hand, you would do SAED over the left shoulder instead of right Not that it would be a problem but it would sure feel weird at this point lol
The speed of the monsters in Iceborne really kneecapped the hell out of Charge Blade, in my opinion. It's definitely still playable - and you'll wreck face if you're good, no doubt - but most people are better off with a much faster, lower commitment weapon.
You’re in shield mode the vast majority of the time for Savage Axe anyway. Your best punishes link directly from guard point so there’s no point staying in axe all the time.
really good guide but one thing im always confused about is when to guard. do i guard as much as i can or only to keep favorable positions and stuff? its the only weapon i use with a shield so im always split between turtling and completely forgetting about it.
you can use morph1 instead its totally fine both are equal in terms of speed its just once you're in axe, you don't have access to morph1 so your fastest move becomes ED1 (no charge>ED1)
Something I noticed with CB is that it's very easy to spam SAED's on multiplayer, which makes forming bad habits really easy. Playing this weapon solo is a completely different experience and you need to learn the monster to use the CB effectively. A small disagreement I have with the video is that if you play Savage Axe, then you'll want to maximise your timeon axe, mode to mantain a good DPS.
@@AB-xe9nkIt’s true that your best punish using Savage Axe is the AED which links from a block reaction. It’s not quite true that there is no benefit to staying in Axe Mode. It depends on the monster, what it’s doing, and where you are. If the monster is currently targeting the Palico and a Shield Stooge, it will sometimes spam a bunch of attacks that have predictable hitboxes you can exploit to keep doing Savage Axe attacks, even though the monster isn’t stunned. For instance, both Paolumu and Pukei Pukei have hopping attacks that keep them in place and pretty much only hit in the front. You can stay slightly behind to either side and just punish the attack while it is occurring. Zinogre’s stomping routine is punishable this way. As is his electrical discharge attacks. No nearby hitboxes. Stays put. I believe Rathians also have a bunch of moves like this and if she just keeps doing those moves, you could conceivably just keep spamming SA attacks and beat out a huge bit of HP from her pretty fast. The main issue is that you need to be able to read the monster accurately and quickly while you’re up close. Provided you can do that, you could find more time for SA punishes than you might think.
@@AB-xe9nk not sure what you mean? If you are in axe mode you can directly use AED by pressing Y+B. The only reason to go back to sword mode to block is if you have offensive guard, otherwise evading and punishing is faster.
@@elcugo it’s not faster at all? Your move speed slows to a crawl and you lose your ability to block which is pretty massive. I just mean you lose no moves by switching to SnS because all the best moves can be accessed from SnS anyway. Also not running Offensive Guard on CB is insane. 30% damage for free.
I see speedrunners go full saed on multiple different monsters without ever having to use aed so I don't see the problem with using sword mode until an exploit comes in especially since you can use it as a counter.
i seriously do not know why these types of more in depth technical guides are so seldom seen in this series. tired of these guides that just share basic info
![SahBabii - Viking [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/D37cL92JX0I/mqdefault.jpg)
They both seem to be the same speed to get into axe mode.
yes this is correct.
I meant "fastest way to get into axe mode and spend a phial" (morph1 and charge>ED1 both require the exact amount of time to execute and return to neutral, both 3.08s)
morph1 does slightly more dmg without skills, but charge>ED1 allows you to charge and start spending phials immediately.
they are both pretty equal with minor differences, my main concern is that people abuse morph1's GP trying fish for SAEDs they have no business doing
so it is usually worth it to use morph1 purely for the dmg gain especially since you really won't be using it post-axe transformation, assuming your phials are already charged
once you're in axe, you don't have access to morph1 anymore so ED1 is going to be your quickest way to attack and spend phials and return back to neutral
as Nephv2 pointed out below charge>ED1 will outperform morph1 if you need to charge and go to axe immediately
Yeah one requires a move before it and the other is straight from neutral so it's really only faster if you're already gonna be charging your phials when you need to go axe.
Hey man, I just wanna let you know so far as I know you are the only youtuber who posts contents catered for players in between "booting up the game" and "speedrunning" level, and they are all extremely helpful. I will be watching and supporting your channel as much as I can.
"I don't know why you're on this video. Please get off, you're gonna confu-" *cuts off*. Idk why but that got a chuckle out of me lol
"The reason i know you're doing it that way....is because i used to do it that."
And i took that personally
@yugnok Mine too. That's why it hurt lol
One of the misconceptions people have about SAED shortcuts is that it can only link from Shield Thrust, which can only link from the forward attack.
Not true. Even Mike here isn't really quite on the money.
Shield Thrust can link from any sword move. This means it can link from Weak Slash, but also Phial Charge and Sliding Slash. The finishing Round Slash, as well. Any move can link into Shield Thrust.
Thinking of Shield Thrust as a committed SAED is also wrong. You can nope out at any time. In fact, you can delay inputting the SAED shortcut for a bit, if you want to confirm your window before committing.
On top of that, it is also sometimes better to just Morph Slash into SAED or AED. It gets you an extra axe hit, and you are a lot more certain about the distance and aim.
I switched my main from CB to Lance when I encountered Velkhana. CB has such a fun move set. It's almost like a fidget toy. In response to my input, it makes satisfying noises; changes shape, and lights up (phials, shield charge, sword charge, savage axe).
you can also use the guard point to cancel the SEAD and charge your shield that way too. possibly the fastest way even
I'm a GS main that just dabbles in other weapons, so not super adept with CB. I remember watching a charge blade speedrun of Brute Tigrex in MH4U where the runner never used SAED until the very last hit of the fight when the monster was limping away, and that was quite eye opening to me. He mostly used the A-A-X loop in axe mode, canceling into regular AED for the last hit, then heading back to the phial/shield charging flowchart. Really helped me understand how much you could get out of regular axe attacks instead of fishing for SAED.
Played 4 a long time ago, so take this with a grain of salt, but in 4 it was pretty much never optimal to burn resources for SAED.
If you take a look at speed runs with the weapon today you wouldn’t see anyone save that for the last interaction because pumping and dumping your phials makes for better dps and doesn’t take as long to get all resources back.
Specifically, in mh4u, your shield buff is spent along with your phials for the SAED, and the shield buff happens to put a MASSIVE damage buff on all attacks with it (I’m reading 20%). Getting phials and shield back up to full after that is more pain than the SAED was worth.
@@labcoatgorilla6784Thats not true. Its the very same thing in Iceborne since Savage Axe is the best phial spender. Outside of Axe mode, its just charging combo and Guardpoint into AED to fish for trips and KOs
SAED is only optimal at the very end, when monster is running away if Savage Axe will need to be recharged as a result, or before recharging the shield if need be.
"but what if the monster attack lands after the roundslash/spinning slash guard point?"
Mike: ~*looks at that nifty tool you have in your hunter's right hand*~
And if it lands before, you can potentially morph slash into axe form and use the guard point as a parry of sorts (since most sword moves can cancel into morph slash). Hard to pull off, but for people who know the timings, it can be very useful.
It's kind of crazy how you are the only one that covers these "inbetween" topics for people that are ok at the game but wanna get a bit better and get more out of their hunts. Really enjoying your videos, they made me a better play for sure!
As a new player who loves charge blade because of these “guides” I always assumed that always aiming for SAED is best way to deal the most damage even though it didn’t even mathematically make sense to me on paper, I thought maybe it’s different in practice lol.
Charge Blade is so awesome and versatile. There are so many playstyles and guides with differing approaches to the point where after a bit of reading the only way to actually figure out how to play Charge Blade is to actually go and play Charge Blade. Its like that old expression where if one source says its raining and one source says its not, its your job to figure out the actual state of the weather by going outside. Except instead of the weather its about SAED or Savage Axe Mode or Elemental Discharges and whatnot, and its up to you to find out what play style you can incorporate best. Very well made video, I see a lot of new CB players try to seamlessly combo into SAED when that may not be the best strategy for them just yet (or ever). Either way the fact remains, Axe-sword-shield-chainsaw is the best no matter how you spin it and you'll be totally awesome either way.
Your point about phial usage is a reason why I think focus 3/3 tends to be a noob trap for CB users. When I watch average people play, I notice the focus makes them over extend on phial filling.
That's fair enough, with proper weaving of axe to sword and sword to axe you constantly fill your phials, but if you are just beginning to use CB and don't know all the moves or don't feel comfortable weaving in and out of axe mode focus 3 is amazing and very useful.
Nah if you play SAED, focus 3 is a must even at high-level playing, you only drop focus 3 when you use savage axe.
No way this video comes out 4 hours after my whinny rant post on your last video. ED1 was literally the move I've been looking for this whole time, particularly when I have red phials (or yellow). It's literally my most overlooked move atm. Thinking about guard points your way, it's semi-easy to "get out" of a hairy situation with CB by simply pressing a direction+circle after any action to dodge slide into a round slash that ends in a guard point too. Funnily enough guard points aren't even the hard part about using CB since they are either at the start or end of a move. Basically turns your though process into "if I can fit a round slash in, it's safe to do" which is very easy to understand. The trap is watching too many speed runs where everything is scripted and it makes you feel like you have to act after a guard point or you are missing out on hUGe DAmAgE.
Thanks for the great upload.
This is an excellent guide. I think a lot of new players see highlight reel perfect fights with 50 SAED's and immaculate guard points and think that's normal gameplay, instead of the culmination of hundreds of hours of practice and complete understanding of a fight.
this is a way more practical approach for a normal player
This video feels like it was made for my exact skill level
I've been playing World coming from Sunbreak so this is actually helpful for me.
I think it's a good idea if you make demonstration video showing the tips that you stated here like the narrated sns hunts that you did in the past. That would be helpful for us beginners at using CB.
I didn't even know I could do elemental axe hit right out of charge phial holy.....
Dante's CB has a unique animation/effect for guard points for anyone unfamiliar with all of them
If you play generations every guard point in that game has a visual effect to indicate it
There is a lot to absorb with CB. Knowing all your attacks and their windows is pretty important. Discharging phials efficiently and quickly isn’t quite the point. After all, you can always “spend” your phials by activating Savage Axe mode and just letting that run for a bit. Haha.
Folks don’t “get” CB because they only compare it to GS and SnS. But it can and should also be compared to Lance. Use the shield and the Guard Points offensively, not to proc a counter, but to protect yourself while increasing uptime with sword attacks. Sword attacks with a charged sword are pretty efficient uptime for small windows, and the charging animation itself is a pretty meaty attack. It loses value because folks don’t think of it as one. It’s pretty long, but you can fit it into some windows. Use the Condensed Element Slash as an attack. Then you also have a bit of time where you can spam sword attacks with some efficacy.
when you attack with clutch claw you also end up in axe mode, which is pretty nice when you have a window and get to tenderize and deal damage at the same time.
I love charge blade it feels complex enough that it isn’t boring but versatile enough you start crying when going vs fatalis without savageaxe
The saed brain doesnt let you see how strong the AED is, often creating openings to spend more phials and dealing very good damage in the process. But I see so many gamers ignore AED completely, waiting for that SAED opening with full phials
i was already aware of all of this and yet still feel like dew dew when playing CB D:
I’ve been playing loads of charge blade recently, the best tip here for me is going into an ED1 instead of just trying to unga bunga an SAED. I’m totally gunna try this to reprogram my brain and get used to it thank you.
You can go straight to SAED with just regular blocking. Guard Point just helps you block stronger attacks so you can still hold your ground, with a bonus of a little phial damage when your shield is charged. Of course as you said, Guard Point works greatly for insurance in your combo.
Normal blocking is pretty much always worse than Guard Point if you can pull it off.
The only scenario you’d normal block is vs a monster you’re not confident guard pointing or something like Black Diablos’ burrow where it has 3 variations with different timings and no tells.
@@AB-xe9nkNo. That’s not quite right. Guard Points increase guard power against attacks. If you intend to go into AED or SAED or into either of the other cancels (shield charge or Savage Axe activation), then you need to have at least a medium or strong but not severe knockback reaction from the block to go into AED or SAED. If you have a minimal block reaction, the shortcut doesn’t work. So you have to know how much block reaction an attack elicits, and if your guard power with a Guard Point turns that into a minimal reaction, you should use a normal block instead.
@@RoxlimnUh, I was sure it works even on weak knock back, uhmmmm, may test it later.
@@mrmanolomax7328 Minimal knockback is when the attack barely registers any reaction animation at all. Your character just moves back a teeny bit. It is possible to get that much knockback mitigation with higher levels of guard, a charged shield, and guardpointing.
@@Roxlimn Just tried it out and You can perform an SAED no problem.
Shield Charged+guard 5+guard up with the barrel bomb in the training area, varely moved a meter from the knockback.
Love your mh vids. Btw it would be cool if you made some kind of alatreon guide
One day will I hear this MH master talking about mistakes and how to play SA correctly? I hope so
You're saving my gameplay. How many times have I copied and tried to understand the "youtube math and combo experts" and gotten so frustrated at the thought of stopping playing my favorite Boss Fighting game...
Thank you, Miguel
As a CB main with over 9500 kills, I approve of this vid.
Just saed until monster dead because it looks cool. Gotcha!
Solid content for intermediate cb users, but eventually you goes back to the basic sword to axe morph when playing savageaxe, and use more savageaxe gp following into a saed, sliding slash is also a really nifty move to incorporate into your combo.
i feel like this man is making content souly for me
As a charge blade main for 2k hours in MHW, really wish I had these kinds of videos to watch when I started playing, would have saved me a lot of pain figuring out how to play better.
The reason why CB is so hard to play is that your damage comes from really slow moves like AED/SAED(don't even mention the painful recovery animation) which only do "decent" damage, sure they are faster than TCSs and do more damage than helm splitters, but TCSs are worth it since it does crazy damage and helm splitters are faster(you can also perform foresight slash right after the attack). Also, CB has resource management, making SAED whiffs more painful, not to mention savage axe which requires extra knowledge and experience to know what you should do with your phials during various situations or different monster matchups. Due to these two reasons, many CB newbies struggle to do good DPS compared to more straightforward weapons like hammers or greatswords.
There are also a lot of subtle things new CB players might find unimportant but are actually quite crucial. Like memorizing what combo gives you yellow/red phials, for example, normal slash->charged double->round slash is the fastest combo to give you red phials(focus 3), or charged double->shield thrust->charged double when you don't have focus. Another useful combo is guard point->side hop->round slash, round slash gives you 3 points of energy compared to normal slash(1), charged double(3+6), this GP combo is a very good way of charging up your phials while dancing with the monster. Memorizing these combos will greatly reduce your chance of overcharging your sword and make your CB gameplay so much more efficient.
After you have learned all the subtle things about CB gameplay and know the monster moves. Congratulations, you are ready to play at an intermediate to advanced level. There are four main playstyles for CB, impact SAED(easiest, but lowest DPS), elemental SAED(requires positioning), elemental AED mixed with savage axe(most enjoyable playstyle), and pure savage axe(spam the up/down swing combo). You can beat most monsters sub-10 at this level if you know the monsters well enough. At this point, CB gameplay just becomes a natural instinct, you will be able to predict what speedrunners will do in the next frame when you are watching a video.
The intermediate level revolves around reactive gameplay. I mean why wouldn't it be? You have a strong shield and cool guard points. However, it wouldn't be truly advanced gameplay without predictive plays, although only a few matchups require you to do predictive stuff, like dunking rathalos with predictive AEDs, fitting in AEDs through AT namielle's tight punish windows, AED furious rajang's head when he spits five lightning balls.
It is really hard to find guides that cover these topics, so most people have to learn them by themselves to get gud. I really appreciate Mike putting in the effort to make these videos to help new players improve. Also, I am currently stuck between the intermediate and advanced level, so I would be glad if Mike could explain what separates speed runs apart from casual runs(like what makes you lose so much time).
to be quite honest, you're probably more qualified to comment on CB than i am
i'm just here to add some common sense discussion to the weapon that might help newbies
that being said, the biggest factor in speedruns is uptime * crowd control (typically topple). unless you can guarantee a flinch on an SAED, 80-90% of a monster's moves are not safe to GP>SAED
Not a speedrunner, so take this with a grain of salt, but what separates them from us mortal folks is of course almost perfect monster knowledge and their ability to quite literally script the whole fight, removing most if not all variables that come from behavior of monsters AI (which is stunlocking monsters for the most part, with the use of topples and flinches). Clearest example I've seen of this is Velkhana and LS. Same combo, with Helmbreaker being done 5 or so times and she was dead.
Please show us a hunt with the charge blade the way you use it! *drools*
Well the thing is I don’t use saed or aed much at all cause savage axe attacks are just so much better
You were right I'm confused and I'm just gonna use a normal weapon
if you're a new player - don't use charge blade.
I never really thought of the Roundslash GP too much cause U normally do a Shield Thrust after Charged Slash into Weak or Charged Slash again given how situational it is but I suppose this is a way to look at it
I mean you still need to do roundslash eventually b/c it's the only way to charge your shield
I don't know anything about CB so... Guess I'll go watch a tutorial or two now :)
just don't play CB ez
kekw
My problem playing charge blade is that I always greed way more when playing CB. I play way more safe and consistently with pretty much every other weapon.
Yeah ED2 is the biggest trap in CB since it's the 2nd hit in most strings (easy to get into), and the animation commitment is extremely large.
Morph1 > ED2
ED1 > ED2
Smash > ED2 > Repeat
SB > ED2 > Repeat
I just noticed the sword is in your left hand on charge blade and sns. that's opposite of irl.
If CB had sword in right hand, you would do SAED over the left shoulder instead of right
Not that it would be a problem but it would sure feel weird at this point lol
The speed of the monsters in Iceborne really kneecapped the hell out of Charge Blade, in my opinion. It's definitely still playable - and you'll wreck face if you're good, no doubt - but most people are better off with a much faster, lower commitment weapon.
or u can just use pizza cutter and roll through everything which has more good matchups than saed
You’re in shield mode the vast majority of the time for Savage Axe anyway. Your best punishes link directly from guard point so there’s no point staying in axe all the time.
When in axe mode you can use slinger shots similar to that of the GS. I havent messed around with it too much but maybe a quick way to do something???
you can use it to spam ed2 without having to do an upswing
really good guide but one thing im always confused about is when to guard. do i guard as much as i can or only to keep favorable positions and stuff? its the only weapon i use with a shield so im always split between turtling and completely forgetting about it.
Guard on hit gives you access to instant SAED, SAEDround, SAEDsavage (the fastest options for the finishers in SnS mode)
I feel like the biggest issue is how horribly unintuitive charge > ed1 is as a quick opening attack.
you can use morph1 instead its totally fine
both are equal in terms of speed
its just once you're in axe, you don't have access to morph1 so your fastest move becomes ED1 (no charge>ED1)
What if you have already activated savage axe mode? Is it worthwhile to quickly spend a phial doing ED1 or is it better to save the phial for ED2?
Something I noticed with CB is that it's very easy to spam SAED's on multiplayer, which makes forming bad habits really easy. Playing this weapon solo is a completely different experience and you need to learn the monster to use the CB effectively.
A small disagreement I have with the video is that if you play Savage Axe, then you'll want to maximise your timeon axe, mode to mantain a good DPS.
All your best punishes for Savage Axe links directly from guard point. There’s no benefit in staying axe mode outside of stuns.
@@AB-xe9nkIt’s true that your best punish using Savage Axe is the AED which links from a block reaction. It’s not quite true that there is no benefit to staying in Axe Mode. It depends on the monster, what it’s doing, and where you are. If the monster is currently targeting the Palico and a Shield Stooge, it will sometimes spam a bunch of attacks that have predictable hitboxes you can exploit to keep doing Savage Axe attacks, even though the monster isn’t stunned. For instance, both Paolumu and Pukei Pukei have hopping attacks that keep them in place and pretty much only hit in the front. You can stay slightly behind to either side and just punish the attack while it is occurring.
Zinogre’s stomping routine is punishable this way. As is his electrical discharge attacks. No nearby hitboxes. Stays put. I believe Rathians also have a bunch of moves like this and if she just keeps doing those moves, you could conceivably just keep spamming SA attacks and beat out a huge bit of HP from her pretty fast. The main issue is that you need to be able to read the monster accurately and quickly while you’re up close. Provided you can do that, you could find more time for SA punishes than you might think.
@@AB-xe9nk not sure what you mean? If you are in axe mode you can directly use AED by pressing Y+B. The only reason to go back to sword mode to block is if you have offensive guard, otherwise evading and punishing is faster.
@@elcugo it’s not faster at all? Your move speed slows to a crawl and you lose your ability to block which is pretty massive. I just mean you lose no moves by switching to SnS because all the best moves can be accessed from SnS anyway.
Also not running Offensive Guard on CB is insane. 30% damage for free.
@@AB-xe9nk seems like we are arguing past each other. My comment was specifically about savage axe style.
W
I see speedrunners go full saed on multiple different monsters without ever having to use aed so I don't see the problem with using sword mode until an exploit comes in especially since you can use it as a counter.
i would look at the aggregate of a speedrunner's runs and not the best run
@@naota909 Normally what I do is that I just memorize moves I know I can land a saed on.
i seriously do not know why these types of more in depth technical guides are so seldom seen in this series. tired of these guides that just share basic info
Because technical guides require more knowledge than just "press Y / Triangle to do basic attack"
Brother you gotta fix your noise gate on that mic; the cutting out at the end of every phrase is super jarring
Fix Deez nuts
(Sorry I had to go for it)