The Sword & Shield is the workhorse of the Monster Hunter quest. This is especially true in MHGU: Whilst you’re busy trying to reach that perfect critical distance or lining up the perfect vault, the Sword and Shield hunter is busy chopping away at the monsters ankles. They’re also probably using a status that will eventually make your hunt easier. It’s hard working, adaptable and surprisingly powerful in the right hands.

Today the Sword and Shield in MHGU will be celebrated by taking some time to recommend three Low Rank alternates that we feel are the best you can lay your hands on! If you’re not a user of the Sword and Shield, be sure to thank your hunting friends for their service and kindly direct them here.

3. Spiked Circle

Firstly, a little about the Sword and Shield: The intention with this weapon, much like the Dual Blades, is to slay the monster with a lot of small instances of damage, or ‘death by a thousand cuts’ as the community like to say. Unlike the Dual Blades however, the Sword and Shield has the ability to both block and direct it’s attacks somewhat better.

Given that the Sword and Shield will hit the monster often, it’s a great idea to either pick up a weapon with either elemental damage or status damage, since it can add these both up very quickly.

In terms of an early game status set then, we absolutely loved the Spiked Circle. It reaches green sharpness which is great whilst respectable raw damage, and comes with that sweet Paralysis damage. Yes, it’s a low amount, so you’ll have to get quite a few hits in, but that’s the whole point of Sword and Shield – get in there get slashing!

Shopping List:

• Najarala Sounder: Wound the back of a Najarala & capture it for the best chance at this.
• Najarala Hide: Best found in carves & quest rewards. Moderately rare.
• Najarala Fang: You’ll get plenty of these from carves & quest rewards, not too rare.

2. Djinn

From a status based Sword and Shield, we move over to an elemental one, and in particular one that will serve you well as you move out of Low Rank and into High Rank – you’ll be hitting those fire-weak monsters again soon, and you’ll be happy to have Djinn by your side.

The raw damage is respectable and the green sharpness is significant in length, but mainly you’ll be using this for that huge amount of fire damage. 24 might not sound like a lot, but it really does add up very quickly. Fair warning though, it’s not super easy to craft at this stage..

If you’re a really wily hunter, and one that doesn’t mind taking your time to hunt specific monsters more than once, you can grab an early set of equipment that ups your elemental damage, making these kind of weapons even more deadly!

Shopping List:

• Rathalos Shell: You’ll carve & get plenty of these when hunting Rathalos.
• Rathalos Scale: You should get quite a few of these during Rathalos hunts too.
• Rath Marrow: Wound a Rathalos’ back and carve it’s tail for the best chance at these.
• Flame Sac: You’ll get these regularly in Low Rank carves & quest rewards.

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1. Kirin Bolt Ultimus

If taking down Rathalos multiple times wasn’t hard enough, well we’re upping the stakes here a bit: You’ll have to jump into the Hub quests to get your hands on this, and it’ll require hunting Kirin a few times. Yes, this can be daunting, but Monster Hunter is nothing if not challenging.

The weapon statistics speak for themselves here: Blue sharpness is excellent for such an early game piece of kit, the raw damage is respectable and the added thunder is huge. This is also helped by some very difficult monsters being weak to the thunder element. In fact, this weapon is so good that end game kits still use it’s upgraded version. That +10 defence is just a nice bonus! Shame it’s not in effect whilst taking on said shocking pony..

It’s not an easy one to get into your inventory, that’s for sure, but it’s very much worth it. Good luck fighting all those Kirin!

Shopping List:

• Kirin Thunderhorn: You’ll need to wound the Kirin head for this one.
• Kirin Mane: Good chance to carve these or get them as a quest reward from the 3 star Hub quests.
• Wyvern Fang: You’ll get huge amounts of these throughout low rank hunts.
• Rubbery Hide: You’ll have to hunt some Gypceros to get these, Sorry!

You can check out more Monster Hunter lists, tips and tricks HERE.