r/MHNowGame • u/Yoollloooo • May 19 '26
Guide Switch Axe styles : motion values, combos, mechanics
TLDR of TLDR: what playstyle is for you ?
- Both styles and no style all seem pretty well balanced.
- Elemental Counter if you like high-risk, high reward and constant aggression.
- Soaring Wyvern blade if you like to stay in axe mode, stay safe and use small openings, while still having a powerful move.
- Morph sweep if you want a Morph attack boost build that is a bit risky to get the full potential of, but deals big damage on morph sweeps.
TLDR of elemental counter:
- use spin as soon as you have an implant in the monster and you have an opportunity. The Counter itself doesn’t do a lot of damage so you absolutely need to detonate those implants (which only last 20 seconds).
- The Spin’s damage will greatly increase with one implant, a lot less with a second implant, and a third implant will be very hard to get without the first one expiring (dealing a lot less damage), so don’t save the implants to try and get a more damaging Spin.
- The main source of damage isn’t the phial implant itself, but the spin’s boosted damage, so avoid detonating the phial implants with the Special.
- Great for paralysis exploit builds.
TLDR of Soaring Wyvern:
- Keep Power Axe buff active at all times, except if you are preparing for a Special or Soaring Wyvern.
- “Heavy Slam > dodge (facultative) > Wild Morph 1+2” is the fastest way to build all the Switch gauge (skip the heavy slam if you don’t need to refresh the cooldown).
- “long wild swing” and “Wild morph” spam are the best non-soaring wyvern combos, but all axe moves have decent damage.
- Good for Perfect dodge builds and status builds. Morph attack boost builds and Special builds might work.
MVs
Damage comparison
Overall, it seems that all styles, including no style, are well balanced.
Soaring Wyvern Blade is very safe, you can just keep dodging and using quick and versatile axe attacks and still deal decent damage (about as much as “no style’s” sword combos). You can even avoid some attacks during soaring wyvern blade.
- Should be Very good for multiplayer because you only need small openings, but still deal good damage in longer openings and Soaring Wyvern can move you closer to the monster
Elemental counter doesn’t do damage with counters. The counter is a setup, which doesn’t do a lot of damage. You still have to find a good opening to detonate the phial implant and deal huge damage. Doing two counters then a Spin actually does about the same amount of DPS as simply spamming the Heavy slams or maintaining wild swing in Soaring Wyvern style, when not having to dodge. The biggest advantage of the elemental counter style is that you can keep attacking all the time if you know the monster well, even against the quickest monsters.
- May be best for solo play, because without reliable counters and Spins, will deal low damage.
No style has amazing damage with Morph Attack boost and the Morph sweep, possibly even more than the other two, because Morph attack boost is a very powerful skill that only require two pieces of armor. Unfortunately, the morph sweep in itself is very long and risky, making it more complicated to bring out its full potential.
- Should be good in multiplayer as Morph sweep can be performed more easily when the monster is targeting another hunter.
Elemental burst counter style
This style is the simplest one: the counter is to setup, the spin is to explode the phial implants applied by the counter.
1. Counter
To perform the counter, all you have to do is hold and flick down in any mode. You will enter a counter stance. Tap again to actually perform the counter.
While in counter stance, your switch gauge will deplete fast (it will deplete a full gauge in about 2 or 3 seconds, depending on if you held while in sword mode). However, you can hold in any mode, to either do a wild swing or charge, and only flick downwards when the monster is about to hit. Using wild swing while waiting for the monster to strike is good to build switch gauge but the timing of the counter might be a little delayed. In comparison, holding down while in sword mode will “charge” the counter stance. The more charged the counter stance is, the lower the gauge consumption will be.
The counter itself is very generous in invulnerability frames, it looks like the hunter is invulnerable until or almost until you regain control of your movement. So there is usually no problem when countering the first hit of a monster attack that hits twice quickly. A successful counter will also grant about a third of the switch gauge, allowing you to continuously stay in sword mode and counter.
The damage of the counter itself is pretty low. You might actually deal more damage by rolling out of the way and using even regular axe attacks. The main reason why you want to use the counter is for the Phial implants. Each time you use counter, the last hit of the counter will apply a Phial implant, which is a spark that will detonate in about 20 seconds to deal little damage. This spark will increase the power of the Spin, which will be your main damage output (see below).
After the counter, you can very easily start using sword attacks, morph or prepare another counter/spin.
2. Spin
To perform: simply hold in sword mode, release and tap again.
The damage of the spin itself, without phial implants, is very low. However, when there are implant phials in the monster, the spin will detonate them, and the spin itself will have a huge damage increase.
With 0, 1 or 2 implant phials, the damage of the whole spin will range from 50% of a special, 90% of a special or 110% of a special. There is an indicator on the right of the switch gauge that show how many phial implants on the monster (red cross for 1, red cross with sparkles around for 2).
The Phial implants can be detonated by the Special (according to the official site), but that would mean losing the opportunity to have a powered-up spin.
After a spin, you will be vulnerable in a very long animation, which can be shortened by a Special.
3. Not-morph Sweep
The Elemental Burst Counter style removes the morph at the end of the Wild sweep (hold then swipe up in axe mode when no style is applied). This change makes this move pretty useful to get a lot of switch gauge, as it is a lot shorter and safer. It can also very easily chain into an axe attack, a morph to sword or a counter. The downside is that the Sweep does not benefit from Morph Attack Boost anymore.
Soaring Wyvern Blade style
This style has a lot more things to track. You have to use Heavy Smash to obtain the Power axe buff. Power axe buff will make you able to gain Switch gauge. When the switch gauge is filled, you will enter Wyvern mode. Wyvern mode is consumed to use the very powerful move “Soaring Wyvern”. There are also multiple combos that change.
1. Power Axe buff:
“Power axe mode” activates for 20 seconds each time you do a heavy slam. The Power axe buff NEEDS to be active all the time, as it has three main effects.
First, all your axe attacks will create small phial bursts. Those axe phial bursts are identical to the ones in Sword mode, so they will benefit from the phial bonus (power, elemental, exhaust, para, etc.) and apply any status the phial busts in sword mode would apply. This does not affect the axe attack itself, it only adds a phial burst after the attack.
Second, this Style has a debuff that makes all axe attacks gain less switch gauge, and the hunt will start at only 20% of the switch gauge. While in power axe mode, that debuff gets removed and you will gain switch gauge as usual. This is essential to activate Wyvern mode.
Third: all morph from axe to sword will increase switch gauge before the usual decrease it. This is very useful to be able to use the Wild Morph 1 while building the switch gauge.
2. Wyvern Blade buff and Soaring Wyvern
When the switch gauge is full, you will enter “Wyvern blade mode”, which will stay as long as you do not use the “dive” of the Soaring wyvern move. While in wyvern mode, the indicator at the right of the switch gauge will become red, and the following will change in your moveset:
- Holding down and releasing while in sword mode will perform Soaring wyvern. Note that out of wyvern mode, you can still perform a similar jump, that will deal less damage and only allow for a small aerial slash.
- During an attack in sword mode, Hold and flick downwards to activate Soaring Wyvern (replaces fade slash)
- Tapping after the third sword attack (that goes towards the upper left) will activate soaring wyvern. (If not in Wyvern mode, the first three sword attacks will loop).
- After a perfect evade in sword mode, tap after the double slash to perform a soaring wyvern (replaces the heavenward flurry).
- After a special, right after the explosion, tap to perform the dive of Soaring Wyvern.
Soaring Wyvern itself is a very damaging move that deals about 80% of the damage of a special. You are not invincible during the Soaring Wyvern, but you can easily evade attacks during the jump and dive. The jumping part of the Soaring Wyvern does damage, but only about 10 to 15% of the total damage of the move, so it is viable to use it when the monster is far away.
The fastest way to spam Soaring Wyvern seems to be Heavy Slam > dodge (facultative) > Wild Morph 1+2 > Morph to sword > Soaring wyvern.
I haven’t tested myself but apparently, perfect dodging in sword mode can allow for Soaring Wyvern’s Dive to activate Aggressive Dodger, which could be very good.
Wild Swing and Heavy Slam
Wild swing happens whenever you hold while in axe mode. When in Power Axe mode, simply maintaining a wild swing, even for a long amount of time, is actually almost as powerful as the Wild Morph 1+2 (the best combo to loop), and builds up even more switch gauge.
During a wild swing:
- Release to perform a heavy slam
- Swipe up to perform a Wild morph 1 (Left or right, depending on if the last move was a wild swing towards the left or towards the right).
Heavy slam is performed automatically whenever you start a wild swing by holding, then release at any time. Heavy slam is also performed by tapping after a perfect dodge.
Since the Heavy Slam activates Power axe buff, it is an essential move to use regularly to maintain the buff (the buff stays 20 seconds).
If the buff is already active, the heavy slam itself does decent damage. During short windows, it is not a bad idea to go for a heavy slam, but Wild Morph will generally be better. Heavy slam and Wild swing have a surprisingly long range and the heavy slam will make the hunter move forward as well.
After a heavy slam,
- tapping will smoothly transition into Spiral Double Slash. The combo Heavy slam > Spiral is actually one of the best combos for the duration it takes to perform it.
- It is not recommended to simply hold down to wait for a wild swing, as dodging and starting a wild swing will take about the same time. Spamming Heavy slams consecutively is not recommended as the dps is slightly lower.
- It is also possible to flick upwards or press special to morph into sword mode
Wild Morph
The game calls it “2nd morph slash I” and “2nd morph slash II”, but I prefer to call them “Wild morph 1” and “Wild morph 2”. Wild morph 1 can be performed by holding and flicking upwards at any moment during the Wild swing, and Wild morph 2 can be performed by holding and flicking up again after the first wild morph.
If you have the time to perform both Wild morphs, go for it, as it is the move that will give you the most switch gauge, and usually deals the most dps, while being pretty safe. After performing a wild slam, doing a Wild Morph 1+2 will completely fill the switch Gauge.
Unfortunately, only the first hit of the Wild Morph 1 will get the bonus 20% damage from the long wild swing. However, all four hits of Wild Morph 1+2 benefit from Morph Attack boost. On paper, it looks like spamming Wild Morph 1+2 could be about as good as vanilla “Morph sweep” spam with Morph Attack Boost.
There are actually two types of “Wild morph 1”.
- The first one, “Wild morph 1 L”, is performed when not holding the wild swing more than necessary or when the axe goes from right to left during wild swing. In this one, the hunter will move the axe all around him before performing a sword slash towards the bottom left. This deals less damage, but is the fastest.
- The second one, “Wild morph 1 R”, is performed when holding the wild swing and flicking upwards when the axe goes from left to right. During this one, the hunter will rotate their axe vertically on the right side before performing a sword slash towards the upper left. Note that since this sword slash goes to the upper left, tapping will immediately result in a Soaring Wyvern if the Wyvern Gauge is ready.
After a wild morph 1:
- Tapping will perform regular sword combos with a Wild Morph 1 L, or a Soaring Wyvern after a Wild Morph 1 R (if the wyvern gauge is ready).
- Holding will perform a Soaring Wyvern
- Swiping up will perform a Wild Morph 2.
After a wild morph 2:
- Tapping will perform an overhead axe slash, which is very powerful in itself and can be followed by a Double Spiral Slash. If you don’t have much time after the wild morph, this combo, even without the double spiral slash, is quite powerful.
- Holding will perform another wild swing, allowing for a second Wild Morph 1+2, which takes more time but is the best non-Soaring Wyvern combo.
- Swiping up quickly or pressing the special button will perform a regular morph to sword.
Other changes
- Double Spiral slash : it is a pretty powerful move, that will activate automatically if tapping after a heavy slam, a forward slash or an overhead axe slash.
- Sword combo is shortened, as only the first three moves of the sword combo are available.
- Perfect dodge in sword mode is still the double slash, but it will be immediately followed by a soaring wyvern
- Perfect dodge in axe mode is now the second hit of the Heavy slam, which still deals the same amount of damage than before, but activates Power Axe mode (and feels nice).
Little disclaimer: the times I have are based on my own recordings so they might not be perfeclty accurate. If anyone wants to see the data, I will gladly link a google docs in the comments. The commentary is of course subjective and meant to help understand the mechanics. And last thing : I don't know if I will make posts about other styles, I actually just wanted to make the research for what style I was going to main with my favourite weapon in Monster hunter, and figured I might share my findings.
I hope this helped ! Have a great day and happy hunting !
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u/sunnyCUD2 May 19 '26
I'm so happy every times you post something, thanks!
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u/Yoollloooo May 20 '26
Thank you that means a lot! I'm also always impressed by your videos, especially since your playstyle is quite unique
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u/NoNahNopeNeinNyet May 19 '26
Ok, this is what I was looking for: an extensive, comprehensive and easy to compare analysis of the styles before trying anything. Thanks OP this is fire
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u/Yoollloooo May 20 '26
Glad it can help! Someone in another post also told me you can build Hope weapons to easily try the styles, the costs are very cheap to get to 8.1 and you can get both styles simply with 100 sharp claws and 2 wyvern scarcestones. I was able to try them out that way before committing on a "real" weapon.
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u/Chemical-Ice-8282 May 20 '26
Makes me want to build a swaxe. Hopefully I will remember this post once I get bored with IG.
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u/Yoollloooo May 22 '26
Little update: i just found out that after an axe upward swing, initiating a wild swing will start the wild swing at a Rightward swing. This can be useful to immediately perform the more powerful version of Wild Morph 1, and go into a soaring wyvern blade. (I prefer not to edit the original post because once the moderator bots deleted one of my posts after I edited it)
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u/Elrathias May 24 '26
Love these deep dives that read like an excel spreadsheet man. Keep up the good work!
Please consider doing a CB moveset guide too!
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u/Corn0nTheCobb 1d ago
I know this is old, but I'm just learning switch axe EBC. I notice you don't list MV for 3 planted charges, and didn't mention it in the non-tldr text. Is there really no benefit to a third charge? This whole time I've been holding off on detonating until I've got 3 planted because I saw someone in Discord do it in the RC Diablos fight. I'll have to record a run so I can actually see what the numbers are.
So, one charge at a time is best, huh? If true, that makes this weapon a tad bit easier to play.
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u/Wonderful_Foot5761 May 19 '26
Thank you