Hey @dreamingsuntide, I've really enjoyed some of your math videos before, but as a someone who exclusively uses SnS in Sunbreak there were a few things that I found weird in this video. 5:20 Here, I want to know how you calculate k for combos. I'm not sure how you do it, so I am assuming you calculate k in a combo by calculating k for each individual hit and then averaging them. If my assumption is correct then I believe the Windmill combo that you showed here should have a k value of 3.7, not 3.3. I'm happy to be corrected though. I ask how you calculate k in combos because in the video you mentioned that SnS is a raw focused weapon, and I don't really disagree with that (I would even say that this is true in MH games pre-World), but you fail to mention SnS's best infinite combo which are its Roundslash combos (Lateral Slash > Return Stroke > Roundslash > Chop > Repeat, or Lateral Slash > Return Stroke > Roundslash > Chop > Side Slash > Repeat), and these combos, despite being raw focused, are more favorable to elemental damage than the ones you showed (the first combo I listed has k value of 3.97 if my assumption is correct). This isn't to say that the combos you listed aren't useful, the Spinning Reaper combo is the best burst combo as a matter of fact, but it misses out on the bigger picture. 8:50 I'm fairly certain Metsu Shoryugeki does not have innate Guard Up, and you'll need the skill to block attacks like Rajang's laser beam. 9:52 For Metsu vs Windmill, I'd say using Windmill is more from a matchup being unfavorable to Metsu and having the dogs spam the spinning attack than Windmill doing elemental damage since Windmill has 0.8 elemental modifier on the first 6 hits. If I wasn't clear I'm not trying to be rude or anything, it's just there were a few things that felt off due to my experience. I'm not the biggest math person so I'd be happy to be corrected. Overall this was a nice video, and I liked seeing this different perspective when it comes to this weapon.
First of all, thanks so much for your very detailed response! I genuinely value this feedback, particularly from weapon mains. 1. So I don't calculate the k for every move and then average out; I calculate the total raw damage of a combo, and total element damage of a combo, then calculate the k from all that. Mathematically this is what's actually useful; if one hit did 10 elem and 1000 raw (k=1), and a second hit did 0.1 elem and 1 raw (k=10) for exaample, the true k of the combo would be 1010/1001 or very close to 1; which makes sense since all your damage is dominated by the one attack, and not k =5.5 which is the average of the two. That being said, the infinite combo you highlight does have k = 3.7, which is on the one hand much better than I give it credit for. These are generally calculated for some "reasonable" high damage play, though, and you could, for example, apply the same logic and calculate for the Long Sword's low-commitment infinite (ie. Thrust -> Rising Slash) which has k = 6.2. I agree it is only part of the picture, but I do think that 1) calling it more raw than LS, and 2) calculating for lower values of k, are both reasonable assumptions. 2. That could very much be correct; I thought I tested this and read discourse on it online, but I'll get back to you. If needed though, it's quite reasonable to add more Guard Up if necessary. 3. That makes sense, thank you very much for your insight!! Thank you very much and I'm glad you enjoy the vid; I hope the oddities didn't sour you too much on the actual builds and content!
1. Ah, that makes a lot more sense. That would mean the second Roundslash combo I listed would have a k value of ~4. I won't really argue with you that SnS is a raw weapon because I agree, but the Roundslash combos are very integral to SnS due to getting KOs and potential knockdowns that emphasizing them a bit would be a smart move, and they obviously prefer having a bit more element. 2. I could be wrong, but from my many hours of experience and watching lots of speedruns Metsu doesn't have innate Guard Up. This run uses Guard Up, for example: th-cam.com/video/BZCyLLEVJjE/w-d-xo.html Yep, I enjoyed the video. I find the math to be useful, especially the k stuff.
This was very useful. Thank you. I appreciate the breakdown/options given and emphasising that the player can change the skills as they see fit for their playstyle.
Great and informative vid as always, it always felt like the raw SnS did better than elemental mostly since a lot of the DPS focuses around Metsu though I was not expecting Spicy Mango’s SnS to be slightly better than Lucent’s (or that applying status with SnS isn’t that great) if you’re doing suggestions I would love to see a Dual Blades vid next. Also love your haircut you look absolutely amazing!
I'm a new monster hunter player, and your vids have helped me a lot, the fact that you include and explain your calculations is awesome. I'm sad to hear sns is a mainly raw weapon, we need a charge blade vid!!!
i swear I'm loving you, I was literally planning to start a channel for god builds to justify my need to min max every weapon in the game and then you came along. I've put together a spread 3 anomaly progression build that gets 15 to 20% more damage than the ones that i found on both yt an reddit, and then came to your channel wich i used for many calcs for my own build adjustments and you made this SnS guide that get's 10 to 15% more EFR than the builds proposed on the meta reddit thread without the need of god talismans or augment cheating for a template, and with them for a fully optimized final product. Kudos and keep it up, I believe you've already saved me hundreds of hours of theory crafting and testing
I knew SnS was better as a raw weapon, just didn't know the math until today. Thanks for validating my intuition. As for the next weapon, please do Insect Glaive next.
You can also play evasion sns with Adrenaline Rush 3 (+30 raw) and Bladescale Hone which even at level 1 has a 50% chance to give u back 20 sharpness every time you evade. Tempest Helm gives u Evasion 5 naturally, and you can Skill + Qurio augment it easily, since Evasion 4 is more than enough. Sneak Attack 3 is also extremely powerful on some matchups, giving you +20% damage at level 3, which is quite substantial indeed. I wouldn’t focus so much on Guard and Embolden and would only keep Offensive Guard to boost my Shoryus. Guard to Perfect Rush is so very situational it gets almost no use at all in combat. Better focus on Evasion. Also aim for BuildUp Boost 3, Possibly coupled with Status Trigger, which also procs on Evasion, the damage boost from this combination coupled with Adrenaline Rush is absolutely massive.
I absolutely love this series and definitely hope to see it return. Insect Glaive and Switch Axe would be the next two I'd like to see if you do continue the series.
If you do happen to get a sleep when using SnS like from your buddies, it’s better to actually outspace the final hit of perfect rush to wake up the monster, and save the metsu shoryugeki for after the monster wakes up and roars. You can do this by standing a couple feet away from the monster’s weak point and then performing a double back hop into perfect rush, the final hit will deal a lot of damage
For a long time even up to now on the meta album for SnS, the Great Wroggi SnS has been considered the meta for embolden guard builds due to its absurd base raw and very high poison compensating for SnS's poor status applications, and Scorned is considered a matchup for Valstrax primarily. Any idea what makes this discrepancy?
With Guard 5 there were like 5 SnSes that were within like 1-2%; if you change your assumptions re: movesets, poison thresholds, etc., it's possible that Great Wroggi could lead in some situations (eg. assumptions for Unique Skills etc), so I'm not so surprised. Per my understanding, the Wroggi SnS loses out a bit more just because it lacks Purple, and so it lacks some potential once a build is fully maxed out.
I do feel a tab bummed out about the lack of raw, since you can really feel it even if you try for pure element. That being said, its a solid move for capcom to have at least SOME weapons that are optimal for raw and status. It opens the sns up in an unexpected way, and once you get used to it, it stands out nicely!
I have enough faith in my attacks but nothing can replace a good defense i stack all the guard skills and max defense im literally in the face of a teo bomb everyone one else running or diving not me tho spirit bird is a nice touch to make sure you can out heal ones that hit multiple times
Really nice and informative vid @dreamingsuntide, may I ask what builder you used to make these builds as the overview looks so nice and compact ? Thank you in advance.
Awesome video as usual. Did you run this for raw builds with no guard? Like personally rarely use perfect rush, and never use guard slash. I mostly just do the Metsu, and loop lateral slash into spinning reaper. I pretty much get no use out of guard, but I do still want offensive guard for Metsu damage. On another note you should totally keep doing this as a series. I think Switch Axe, and Insect Glaive would be pretty fun to do this for.
Some Guard would be good just to reduce damage taken from Metsu, and Embolden also isn't not toooo bad just because of all the evade window etc. I never did explicitly run the calc, but it'd end up being "get as much Buildup Boost/Mail of Hellfire as you can", and at that point the argument can possibly tilt towards QoL skills
i dont run guard on sns, i prefer just dodging as its a fqirly mobile weapon + it means i can utilise dodge skills well like evade window status trigger adreniline rush bubbly dance etc.
18:00 after all the old gen crab farming I REALLY DO HATE CRABS very interesting to see the element affixes for sns being so poor, obviously you should use poison against the elder that have severe susceptibility to it like KUSH and allegedly risen shaggy but i've never poisoned a shaggy because risen shaggy is an asshole.
The math Overlord is back Can u do math for older Monster hunter games like World and Tri in the future? It would be funny Sounds like is a lot of work but older games are simpler overall
World I probably won't do, since Fatalis gear is so strong that there's not really much there to optimise; was genuinely interested in doing MHGU though, just because EX monsters are insane and would be a fun optimisation challenge.
Hey @dreamingsuntide, I've really enjoyed some of your math videos before, but as a someone who exclusively uses SnS in Sunbreak there were a few things that I found weird in this video.
5:20 Here, I want to know how you calculate k for combos. I'm not sure how you do it, so I am assuming you calculate k in a combo by calculating k for each individual hit and then averaging them. If my assumption is correct then I believe the Windmill combo that you showed here should have a k value of 3.7, not 3.3. I'm happy to be corrected though.
I ask how you calculate k in combos because in the video you mentioned that SnS is a raw focused weapon, and I don't really disagree with that (I would even say that this is true in MH games pre-World), but you fail to mention SnS's best infinite combo which are its Roundslash combos (Lateral Slash > Return Stroke > Roundslash > Chop > Repeat, or Lateral Slash > Return Stroke > Roundslash > Chop > Side Slash > Repeat), and these combos, despite being raw focused, are more favorable to elemental damage than the ones you showed (the first combo I listed has k value of 3.97 if my assumption is correct). This isn't to say that the combos you listed aren't useful, the Spinning Reaper combo is the best burst combo as a matter of fact, but it misses out on the bigger picture.
8:50 I'm fairly certain Metsu Shoryugeki does not have innate Guard Up, and you'll need the skill to block attacks like Rajang's laser beam.
9:52 For Metsu vs Windmill, I'd say using Windmill is more from a matchup being unfavorable to Metsu and having the dogs spam the spinning attack than Windmill doing elemental damage since Windmill has 0.8 elemental modifier on the first 6 hits.
If I wasn't clear I'm not trying to be rude or anything, it's just there were a few things that felt off due to my experience. I'm not the biggest math person so I'd be happy to be corrected. Overall this was a nice video, and I liked seeing this different perspective when it comes to this weapon.
First of all, thanks so much for your very detailed response! I genuinely value this feedback, particularly from weapon mains.
1. So I don't calculate the k for every move and then average out; I calculate the total raw damage of a combo, and total element damage of a combo, then calculate the k from all that. Mathematically this is what's actually useful; if one hit did 10 elem and 1000 raw (k=1), and a second hit did 0.1 elem and 1 raw (k=10) for exaample, the true k of the combo would be 1010/1001 or very close to 1; which makes sense since all your damage is dominated by the one attack, and not k =5.5 which is the average of the two.
That being said, the infinite combo you highlight does have k = 3.7, which is on the one hand much better than I give it credit for. These are generally calculated for some "reasonable" high damage play, though, and you could, for example, apply the same logic and calculate for the Long Sword's low-commitment infinite (ie. Thrust -> Rising Slash) which has k = 6.2. I agree it is only part of the picture, but I do think that 1) calling it more raw than LS, and 2) calculating for lower values of k, are both reasonable assumptions.
2. That could very much be correct; I thought I tested this and read discourse on it online, but I'll get back to you. If needed though, it's quite reasonable to add more Guard Up if necessary.
3. That makes sense, thank you very much for your insight!!
Thank you very much and I'm glad you enjoy the vid; I hope the oddities didn't sour you too much on the actual builds and content!
1. Ah, that makes a lot more sense. That would mean the second Roundslash combo I listed would have a k value of ~4.
I won't really argue with you that SnS is a raw weapon because I agree, but the Roundslash combos are very integral to SnS due to getting KOs and potential knockdowns that emphasizing them a bit would be a smart move, and they obviously prefer having a bit more element.
2. I could be wrong, but from my many hours of experience and watching lots of speedruns Metsu doesn't have innate Guard Up. This run uses Guard Up, for example: th-cam.com/video/BZCyLLEVJjE/w-d-xo.html
Yep, I enjoyed the video. I find the math to be useful, especially the k stuff.
This was very useful. Thank you. I appreciate the breakdown/options given and emphasising that the player can change the skills as they see fit for their playstyle.
Great and informative vid as always, it always felt like the raw SnS did better than elemental mostly since a lot of the DPS focuses around Metsu though I was not expecting Spicy Mango’s SnS to be slightly better than Lucent’s (or that applying status with SnS isn’t that great) if you’re doing suggestions I would love to see a Dual Blades vid next.
Also love your haircut you look absolutely amazing!
Definitely a shame that elemental builds are so much less effective 🎃
I'm a new monster hunter player, and your vids have helped me a lot, the fact that you include and explain your calculations is awesome. I'm sad to hear sns is a mainly raw weapon, we need a charge blade vid!!!
Looking forward to you doing all the weapons.
i swear I'm loving you, I was literally planning to start a channel for god builds to justify my need to min max every weapon in the game and then you came along. I've put together a spread 3 anomaly progression build that gets 15 to 20% more damage than the ones that i found on both yt an reddit, and then came to your channel wich i used for many calcs for my own build adjustments and you made this SnS guide that get's 10 to 15% more EFR than the builds proposed on the meta reddit thread without the need of god talismans or augment cheating for a template, and with them for a fully optimized final product. Kudos and keep it up, I believe you've already saved me hundreds of hours of theory crafting and testing
Huh, never would have guesses that SnS is a Raw weapon. Great video as always.
Shield and Shield
Thank you very much for this detailed video ! Helped a lot as a SNS Main.
I knew SnS was better as a raw weapon, just didn't know the math until today. Thanks for validating my intuition.
As for the next weapon, please do Insect Glaive next.
You can also play evasion sns with Adrenaline Rush 3 (+30 raw) and Bladescale Hone which even at level 1 has a 50% chance to give u back 20 sharpness every time you evade. Tempest Helm gives u Evasion 5 naturally, and you can Skill + Qurio augment it easily, since Evasion 4 is more than enough.
Sneak Attack 3 is also extremely powerful on some matchups, giving you +20% damage at level 3, which is quite substantial indeed.
I wouldn’t focus so much on Guard and Embolden and would only keep Offensive Guard to boost my Shoryus. Guard to Perfect Rush is so very situational it gets almost no use at all in combat. Better focus on Evasion.
Also aim for BuildUp Boost 3, Possibly coupled with Status Trigger, which also procs on Evasion, the damage boost from this combination coupled with Adrenaline Rush is absolutely massive.
Just discovered your sunbreak content and really enjoy it. Great vids
I absolutely love this series and definitely hope to see it return.
Insect Glaive and Switch Axe would be the next two I'd like to see if you do continue the series.
I do know that switch axe specifically is so hilariously element focused that the very few raw options can't even hold a candle to the elemental axes.
Been looking for a video going over this exactly. Thank you
What website are you using to get those numbers and builds from? Do you have a link to the spreadsheet showing whether a weapon is element or raw?
the effort you put in this video is highly appreciated !
Thanks for all the info & videos, hope you'll be playing the next MH game!
I always assumed that longsword was more raw than the sns, that is so surprising.
If you do happen to get a sleep when using SnS like from your buddies, it’s better to actually outspace the final hit of perfect rush to wake up the monster, and save the metsu shoryugeki for after the monster wakes up and roars. You can do this by standing a couple feet away from the monster’s weak point and then performing a double back hop into perfect rush, the final hit will deal a lot of damage
For a long time even up to now on the meta album for SnS, the Great Wroggi SnS has been considered the meta for embolden guard builds due to its absurd base raw and very high poison compensating for SnS's poor status applications, and Scorned is considered a matchup for Valstrax primarily. Any idea what makes this discrepancy?
With Guard 5 there were like 5 SnSes that were within like 1-2%; if you change your assumptions re: movesets, poison thresholds, etc., it's possible that Great Wroggi could lead in some situations (eg. assumptions for Unique Skills etc), so I'm not so surprised.
Per my understanding, the Wroggi SnS loses out a bit more just because it lacks Purple, and so it lacks some potential once a build is fully maxed out.
I do feel a tab bummed out about the lack of raw, since you can really feel it even if you try for pure element. That being said, its a solid move for capcom to have at least SOME weapons that are optimal for raw and status. It opens the sns up in an unexpected way, and once you get used to it, it stands out nicely!
great vid!
This is like 200 hrs of research in 20 minutes! Thank you! *DO give this video a like!
Been waiting for this!!! 🎃
im watching this after spending so much time trying to make a blast build man dang😭
I have enough faith in my attacks but nothing can replace a good defense i stack all the guard skills and max defense im literally in the face of a teo bomb everyone one else running or diving not me tho spirit bird is a nice touch to make sure you can out heal ones that hit multiple times
yey, this is exciting!
Really nice and informative vid @dreamingsuntide, may I ask what builder you used to make these builds as the overview looks so nice and compact ? Thank you in advance.
Thanks a bunch! I made the cards on my own on Python; I believe I posted the code on Reddit at one point if you wanna look through r/monsterhuntermeta
Cool video. Gotta ask though, why is it spitting out the Flaming Espinas waist over the Primordial one? Charge Master isn't practical for SnS, is it?
Awesome video as usual. Did you run this for raw builds with no guard? Like personally rarely use perfect rush, and never use guard slash. I mostly just do the Metsu, and loop lateral slash into spinning reaper. I pretty much get no use out of guard, but I do still want offensive guard for Metsu damage.
On another note you should totally keep doing this as a series. I think Switch Axe, and Insect Glaive would be pretty fun to do this for.
Some Guard would be good just to reduce damage taken from Metsu, and Embolden also isn't not toooo bad just because of all the evade window etc. I never did explicitly run the calc, but it'd end up being "get as much Buildup Boost/Mail of Hellfire as you can", and at that point the argument can possibly tilt towards QoL skills
i dont run guard on sns, i prefer just dodging as its a fqirly mobile weapon + it means i can utilise dodge skills well like evade window status trigger adreniline rush bubbly dance etc.
For the blast build could i just use the non risen arnour parts?
please make a bow build for this
Are there scenarios where one would prefer Guard 10 over Guard 8?
What chest piece are you wearing?
why are you using the tigrex SnS for the side grade instead of the diablos one ? because diablos has the higher raw damage i think.
I dont think guard is wortth it for sns since rhe shield is really just to KO. You can just dodge and use those slots for something else
18:00 after all the old gen crab farming I REALLY DO HATE CRABS
very interesting to see the element affixes for sns being so poor, obviously you should use poison against the elder that have severe susceptibility to it like KUSH and allegedly risen shaggy but
i've never poisoned a shaggy because risen shaggy is an asshole.
dw i still wake up in cold sweats thinking about rustrazor ceanataur, but i think i already made that joke in the GS video
@@dreamingsuntide1 mate the double shell breaks
fuuuuuuck that shit
The math Overlord is back
Can u do math for older Monster hunter games like World and Tri in the future? It would be funny
Sounds like is a lot of work but older games are simpler overall
World I probably won't do, since Fatalis gear is so strong that there's not really much there to optimise; was genuinely interested in doing MHGU though, just because EX monsters are insane and would be a fun optimisation challenge.