Hissatsu!
Way of the samurai! Weapon superior to all others! If your opponents dare to differ and refuse to clear your path, clear their legs from the earth! Unleash your hissatsu! Hissastsu means “finishing move”! And thus you shall attain shouri! Shouri means “victory”!
The Long Sword is a weapon that has extraordinary range and medium fast combos, but its claim to fame is its spirit gauge. Build it up and then you will experience a major boost to attack depending on which level you are in (starts in white, then goes to yellow, and caps off at red). The Long Sword’s other claim to fame is the sheer ease with which is knocks fellow players on their butts. So be careful if you take Long Sword online.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Medium fast speed and still has high raw power | You have to get to red spirit aura and maintain it for maximum damage |
| Large range both vertical and horizontal | The large range makes it super easy to trip other players online |
| All spirit attacks will never bounce | Spirit attacks leave you vulnerable because they take a while to execute |
| The Fade Slash move lets you reposition and attack at the same time |
| Controls | Attack (Guild Style) |
|---|---|
| X | Basic attack. When unsheathing, lunges forward. Combo 3 times |
| X+A | Fade Slash. You will attack and move in another direction depending on how you hold the circle pad |
| A | Poke attacks. Combo twice |
| R | Spirit attack! Press R four times to finish with your roundslash HISSATSU! If the roundslash meets its target you push your spirit gauge up a level! |
Guild Style
A word on the spirit gauge. You gain spirit gauge every time you land a basic attack/combo. Once your spirit gauge is full or nearly full, you will have enough gauge to perform the spirit attacks! Note that each R you press consumes your spirit gauge so you won’t be able to push your spirit gauge up a level unless you have enough spirit gauge to handle the four-attack combo that is your R-mashing combo. You must land the roundslash attack that concludes your spirit attack or else you fail and waste your spirit gauge oh no!
Your red spirit will only last 1 minute, then it will drop down to yellow, then to white, and then to nothing. Yellow and white last a fair bit longer and you can use your spirit attack combo while in yellow or white to push yourself up back to the level you were at previously. Proper, well-practiced play can result in you never not having some level of spirit gauge active!
In general, try to hit the monster with the middle of your Long Sword instead of the tip. You have long range and it’ll definitely come in handy but if the opportunity presents, hitting your enemy with the middle of your sword will increase your damage by 12% and that adds up.
Guild Style can equip two Hunting Arts, making this a solid style for Long Sword.
Striker Style
You know how you can use the fade slash to reposition yourself by toggling which direction you’re moving in as you perform it? Well, in Striker Style, you can only fade slash backwards now. Sorry, no more side to side repositioning. This slightly simplifies the weapon but almost all your other combos remain intact. In exchange, you can equip three Hunting Arts! A very fair trade if I do say so myself.
Aerial Style
Aerial Style gives the Long Sword a slightly bigger makeover: You cannot perform spirit attacks on the ground anymore! Instead, you must successfully vault off of the monster, press X for a double swing attack, and from there you can start a spirit attack and start off in the second combo attack instead of the first. Once you’re at white aura or above, you will be able to do a triple swing attack in the air that you can then combo directly into the roundslash, skipping the entire spirit attack series! Sweet.
Aerial Style as a result has a bit of a “slower start” than the other styles. You need bigger openings when below white aura than for other styles due to the fact that you need time to vault before you can even begin your spirit attack. But once you’re at white, it quickly begins to snowball and you become very powerful indeed. Aim to constantly vault so that you can constantly unleash your best attacks! Aerial Style can equip one hunting art.
Adept Style
Unlike Striker, you lose your backward fade slash and can now only fade slash left or right. You also cannot regularly perform your roundslash at the end of your spirit attack. Instead, if you successfully perform the perfect evade, you can press X during your follow-up sprint to do a powerful horizontal slash attack. Press R immediately after and you will unleash the “spirit reckoning”, a very powerful twin-hit strike attack that will push your spirit gauge to the next level! This is faster than the roundslash attack and if the monster is harrassing you quite a bit, provides an amazing opportunity for you to rapidly get to red level without breaking a sweat. It does consume a modest amount of spirit gauge so you can’t be empty and push.
Adept Style as a result is not so great if you’re fighting the slower, more hulking monsters that don’t attack so much as just walk on top of you. Adept Style can equip one Hunting Art.
Recommended Skills
If you are having serious trouble filling your gauge, you can consider Focus , which will help increase slightly the rate at which your spirit gauge increases. However it is hard to notice and is thus considered a luxury. Rather, focus on skills that help with your evasion and offense. Critical hit skills, attack skills, etc. are all great to have, in addition to things like Evasion +1/+2 (non-Adept/Aerial Style as always), and also Razor Sharp and Sharpness +1/+2 . You get automatic Mind’s Eye effect on all spirit slash attacks but not on any of your regular attacks so consider bringing the skill if you have it.
Aerial Style players, since the most bang for your buck comes from the air, will definitely appreciate the boost Airborne provides, but don’t prioritize it over your other, more general offensive skills.
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