MHW Best Sword and Shield Build | SnS Fatalis Builds

Pre-Fatalis SnS Build

The Fatalis delivered one of the best weapons and armors for MHW meta. In this guide, we take a look at the current best Sword and Shield (SnS) builds in MHW, featuring True Fatalis Sword, Fatalis & Arch Tempered Velkhana.

This guide will also discuss some of the best ways to play as SnS, featuring this awesome speed run by Zen

True Fatalis Sword | The Best SnS in MHW


Weapon image are from kiranico.com db

With 490 Base Damage, you can never go wrong with this SnS. This comes with -30% Affinity, you can reduce this with Affinity Augmentation. For the most optimal build, go with Affinity, Health & Element Augmentation on True Fatalis Sword.

A typical True Fatalis SnS Augmentation

Fatalis Armor | King of the Meta


Aside from giving you the best decoration slots available, Fatalis bonus skills Inheritance and Transcendence unlock the level cap of any Secret Skills (Divine Blessing, Free Meal…) as well as boosting your HP/ Stamina to it’s max level when you start the fight.

Did I mention True Razor Sharp/ Spare Shot? Yes, Transcendence bonus also gives you this.

You are good to go with 4 pieces of Fatalis armor. As Dragonhead provides you with Stun immunity, most players choose this in their build.

The remaining armor pieces depend on your preference and playstyle. Currently, there are two most common pieces of armor that are combined with Fatalis

Kulve Taroth’s Wrath Alpha

A nice addition to max out Critical Boosts, this also has a boosts to Peak Performance. If you already Health Augmentation, Peak Performance is pretty easy to proc. If you don’t like Peak Performance, pick the beta variant and you will have a free level 4 decoration to use.

Rimeguard Greaves Gamma

From Arch Tempered Velkhana, this piece max out Peak Performance and add a nice utility skill – Quick Sheath. SnS has higher sheathing speed compare to other melee weapon already, but this can make the animation even faster! allow you to perform crazier maneuver with SnS.

Depend on your pick, the following can be used as a base template for SnS Meta Build

SnS Builds Compilation


After picking a template for your SnS Builds (Either Kulve Taroth or AT Velkhana Leg) you can then think about what skills you want to prioritize.

For comfort and general hunt (Guiding Land) Skills like Divine Blessing, Free Meal is pretty good to have. You can add in Gobbler (Speed Eating) for a more optimal experience.

For multi-players, add in Wide Range and you will guarantee to get the Support Specialist medal at the end of the hunt.

Fatalis SnS Support Build

This is where Fatalis Armor shines, with all those level 4 decoration slots, maxed out support skills like Fast Eating or Free Meal can also let you increase more points for offensive skills like Critical Eye and Attack Boosts (Gobbler/ Attack Jewel 4 or Satiated/ Expert Jewel 4)

With this build, you still get powerful DPS skills like Agitator level 7, an addition boost is Peak Performance

Fatalis SnS DPS Build

This is pretty straight forward. Let just drop all those healing and eating boosts, bring in those Attack Jewel 4 and you are good to go.

This builds max out Attack Boost & Critical Eye with Attack/ Expert Jewel 4. Critical/ Protection jewel is used for both Critical Boosts and Divine Blessing.

Dragon Jewel 4 is also used to enhances damage against monsters that are susceptible to Dragon Element. For other monsters, the raw number is enough.

Fatalis SnS DPS Build w/ Frostcraft

AT Velkhana updates the Frostcraft Build for SnS. The full set will provide you all the utility skills you need for Frostcraft Build (Quick Sheath, Critical Draw) This build is also pretty unique to use and can be used for general play if you are bored with that Black Dragon look.

Other SnS Build with Fatalis


The main advantage of Sword and Shield in MHW is always about flexibility. With SnS, you can block with your shield, stunning the monster with Shield Bash, evade the monster’s attack with Leaping Slash. Did I mention elemental build with SnS?

With the help of Fatalis armor, you can now freely choose some other unique element for your SnS builds

  • Offensive Guard – This is the main skill of Lance, but technically you can use this with SnS. The main drawback is your Shield is not as strong as Lance, so pick small attacks to guard and activate Offensive Guard. Offensive Guard gives you a big 15% DPS bonus at level 3 and lasts for 4 minutes.
  • Slugger – This is rarely used with SnS, mainly because of the bad animation from the Shield Bash combo, but similar to Offensive Guard, this is technically possible with SnS as well. I suggest trying this out on Multi-Player, so you can surprise your teammate with some KO here and there.
  • Heroic – When you pick Heroic as a way to increase DPS, you must re-check your level with the current weapon. Heroic is the best DPS increase in MHW (40% at level 7) but you will drop all those HP recoveries to remain at 35% HP for this to trigger, are you up for the challenge?

SnS Fatalis Heroic Build | King of DPS SnS Build??


In the above video, SnS Fatalis build with Kulve Taroth’s Wrath was used.

The hunter used Heroic (upgraded level cap with Fatalis armor) to increase 40% Damage and 150 Defense while active. As Heroic is activated when your HP is below 35%, True Fatalis Sword is augmented with all three Affinity, thus increase True Fatalis Sword’s affinity to 25%.

Maximum Might is maxed out to compensate for the lack of Critical Eye in this build. As Maximum Might depend on stamina, this dude also adds 1 point in Consitution with Mighty/ Physique jewel.

Tool Specialist is used to reduce Mantle cooldown, boosting DPS in this fight.

This build doesn’t have slots for Divine Blessing, survival entirely depends on Dodging, making Evasion Window is a must (Maxed out with Mighty/Evasion & Phoenix/ Evasion Jewel)

Coalescence adds a nice DPS boost with Fatalis Fire blight. Shaver Jewel is used to enhancing the Tenderizer effect >> indirectly boost the DPS. Finally, Evasion Mantle was used to fully increase SnS damage (Increase damage after you dodge at the exact moment)

This approach is definitely not for new players to SnS. All QoL skills are dropped for the sake of DPS and DPS only. Another thing to note is that this requires superb experience with SnS, as you fight Fatalis with 35% of your HP all the time without any recovery method.

In the above video, the following techniques were used to increase DPS as well as survive Fatalis’s powerful attacks.

If any of the below is too hard for you, don’t even try to use this build!!!

  • Normal Combo >> Redirect Slash (Repeat) – This is SnS 101 now. Before Perfect Rush, this is the main way to boost SnS DPS. Perform by pressing Directional + Triangle/Y this reset normal combo animation.
  • Dodge by Leaping Backward – The Leaping Slash startup is one of the best evades manuever in MHW, but you will need to time it right.
  • Guard >> Perfect Rush – The fastest way to perform Perfect Rush. If you just watch the video, this can give the impression of Perfect Rush out of nowhere. Perform by pressing R2/ RT for Guard followed by Back + Circle/B for Leaping Slash >> Triangle/Y for Perfect Rush.
  • Slinger Shot >> Perfect Rush – Another Perfect Rush shortcut, it is slower than the above, but can still be used as a quick way to access Perfect Rush.
  • Perfect Rush >> Roll >> Perfect Rush – This is the best DPS combo for SnS at the moment, as the last move in Perfect Rush has a lot of recovery frames, only the first part was used to deal damage.

MHW Iceborne Builds | Fatalis & AT Velkhana Editions

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