MH4U: The Switchaxe (SA) Overview!

The Switchaxe or SA is a weapon that morphs to a Sword and an Axe. Both have their perks and tricks so mastering both axe and sword mode can grant you a versatile approach to a good monster beat down. The axe or the sword can individually be used by themselves but where's the fun in just sticking to one mode?

Let's check the Axe mode first:

(Image from MHwikia)

1. Unsheathing the weapon while moving does a side chop.

2. The Upswing has a lot of vertical range but also sends teammates flying so do be careful. Doing a dodge roll and pressing X can go directly to an Upswing opening up a lot of room for a combo.

3. After the Upswing you can go to either the Side to Side attack (eats up stamina per swing) or the Overhead chop.

4. The Side to Side attack can lead to a strong finisher when the R button is pressed and pressing R again will change it to Sword mode. The Side to Side attack can also be finished with the Overhead chop.

5. The Axe thrust can immediately go to Sword mode when R is pressed.

6. You can run whilst in Axe mode.

7. The frames for the attacks are wide so you can evade at any point of the after attack delay making  great use for the evasion+ skills.

8. The jump attack of Axe mode is equivalent to that of an Overhead chop.


Now that we know the Axe portion well now go to Sword mode also known as ESP mode! Yes it has an innate ESP skill where it prevents your attacks from being deflected by hard monster parts!

Sword mode:

(Image from MHwikia)

1. When unsheathing your weapon press X+A+R to go directly to sword mode.

2. The Sword mode has a new Double Slash. It can be done after the Horizontal slash when X is pressed. This is good for inflicting status or elemental damage and it does quite a hefty amount of raw damage as well.

3. The Double Slash can immediately go to Elemental Burst without any delay (X+A)

4. You can now do the infinite upward and downwards slashes by pressing X,A,X,A... and so on.

5. The coating only affects Sword mode not Axe mode.

-Power - Increases raw damage by 1.20
-Elemental - Increases elemental damage by 1.25
-Status coatings - Boosts status damage.

6. You can go to an Upward slash after a dodge roll.

7. Coatings must be reloaded when the gauge hits below 50%.

8. When jumping of cliffs you can go to Sword mode or even do an Elemental Burst when you hit the ground.

9. The Elemental Burst final hit can be quickly set off by holding the analog stick back while pressing X. Though the damage is a bit lower when you set it off earlier than supposed to.

10. You can go to Axe mode by pressing R after the Horizontal slash.

11. You can only walk whilst in Sword mode.

Note: The Switchaxe cannot block

Hope this guide helps guys! And don't forget to bring whetstones!! Happy Hunting!

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