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The best Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Dual Blades build

Every item and the Switch Skills you need to equip to get the best Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Dual Blades build for all five elements in the game

Best Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Dual Blades build: a hunter standing with his blades drawn and Demon Mode activated in front of a cliff on a sandy beach.

Want to make the best Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Dual Blades build? While several of the 16 weapon types received big buffs recently, perhaps the one that saw the most dramatic rise in the rankings from the RPG game’s expansion is the Dual Blades. This is partially due to the new skills and a rework of existing ones to exploit elemental damage.

As a result, the best Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Dual Blades build for all five elements requires lots of endgame items. Many need you to defeat some of the new Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak monsters, but it’ll take time to get them all. Some materials, such as Supple Piel and Purecrystal, only require tracking down ore veins or smaller creatures.

How to craft the best Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Dual Blades build

There are five configurations for the best Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Dual Blades build, one for each element in the game. We’ll break it down by each core part to avoid this getting complicated quickly.

Best Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Dual Blades build: the weapon tree showing the Mud Slicers+, which is one down from the Mud Shredders on the Almudron tree.

Weapon

Despite my personal preference for putting a heavy emphasis on status ailments, the biggest buff to Dual Blades in Sunbreak is in elemental damage while in Demon Mode. On top of that, the base stats for elemental damage on the later Master Rank tier weapons are astronomically high. Naturally, your weapon will constantly change, depending on the hunt.

  • Magma Shredders – Fire
  • Mud Shredders – Water
  • Gelid Heart – Ice
  • Double Discharge – Thunder
  • Crimson Twinwing – Dragon

All of these are endgame weapons, so you’ll need to hunt down some of the Anomaly monsters to get the highly coveted Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak afflicted materials. Here are all the parts for each of the best weapons:

Weapon Weapon tree Materials
Magma Shredders Magmadron tree Afflicted Fang x5
Afflicted Shell x5
MR Magma Almudron parts (30 points)
60,000 Zenny
Mud Shredders Almudron tree Afflicted Claw x7
MR Almudron parts (30)
60,000 Zenny
Daora’s Ventus Kushala tree Valstrax Spineshell + x2
Daora Lash x2
Large Elder Dragon Gem x1
MR Kushala parts (12)
60,000 Zenny
Double Discharge Narwa tree Scale of Origin + x2
Horn of Origin + x2
Narwa Hardclaw x2
Mantle of Origin x1
60,000 Zenny
Crimson Twinwing Valstrax tree Shimmering Shard x3
Valstrax Talon x4
Valstrax Spinshell + x2
Red Dragonsphire x1
60,000 Zenny

The one thing most of these weapons have in common is that they give us a Rampage level 3 jewel slot. In this, we will assign the Elembane Jewel 3, which slightly increases damage whenever your attack exploits a foe’s elemental weakness. The higher the value of the weakness, the larger the attack. For those without a Rampage level 3 jewel slot, look for an alternative jewel that increases your attack or affinity.

Armour, decorations, and talismans

As there are five configurations for the best Dual Blades build, each has different jewels equipped to buff your character’s elemental attack bonuses. As there are a ton of items you need to grab, we’re just going to list the monsters you need to hunt to get their parts in the table below. Here are all five armour combinations for the best Dual Blades build:

Elemental build Build equipment Material locations
Fire build Storge Helm
Archfiend Armor Baulo
Kaiser Vambraces X
Archfiend Armor Ura
Kaizer Greaves X
Shagaru Magala
Any MR blue or white Mining veins
Gaismagorm
Malzeno
Teostra
Magnamalo
Rathalos
Water build Storge Helm
Archfiend Armor Baulo
Kushala Grip X
Archfiend Armor Ura
Grand God’s Peer Feet
Shagaru Magala
Any MR blue or white Mining veins (Ultima Crystal)
Gaismagorm
Malzeno
Kushala Daora
Flooded Forest blue or white Mining veins (Purecrystal)
Rajang
Any of Chameleos, Kushala Daora, Narwa the Allmother, or Teostra (Pure Dragon Blood)
Ice build Storge Helm
Archfiend Armor Baulo
Kushala Grip X
Archfiend Armor Ura
Grand God’s Peer Feet
Shagaru Magala
Any MR blue or white Mining veins (Ultima Crystal)
Gaismagorm
Malzeno
Kushala Daora
Flooded Forest blue or white Mining veins (Purecrystal)
Rajang
Any of Chameleos, Kushala Daora, Narwa the Allmother, or Teostra (Pure Dragon Blood)
Thunder build Ibushi’s Pure Helm
Archfiend Armor Baulo
Ibushi’s Pure Pauldrons
Ibushi’s Pure Fauld
Narwa’s Pure Foot
Wind Serpent Ibushi
Rathian
Gaismagorm
Malzeno
Rathalos
Narwa the Allmother
Dragon build Ibushi’s Pure Helm
Archfiend Armor Baulo
Ibushi’s Pure Pauldrons
Ibushi’s Pure Fauld
Narwa’s Pure Foot
Wind Serpent Ibushi
Rathian
Gaismagorm
Malzeno
Rathalos
Narwa the Allmother

Every build has the Archfiend Armor Baulo in the chest armour slot. It has great stats and includes a level 3 and level 2 jewel slot, so you can load them up with a Critical Jewel 2 in each to add two points of Critical Boost. It also has Chain Crit, Weakness Exploit, and Resentment.

The Fire, Water, and Ice build all have the Storge Helm, which gives you the Bloodlust and Coalescence skills. It also gives you a level 3 jewel slot that should always contain Breath Jewel 3. They all have Archfiend Armor Ura too, which gives you a level in Weakness Exploit and two in Chain Crit.

For the Fire build, you should put on the Kaiser Vambraces X and Kaiser Greaves X for two levels in Teostra Blessing, increasing fire attack and blast buildup by 10%. It also has a 40% chance of not losing sharpness whenever you land critical hits – a vital skill, considering you want to be in combat for a long time.

Best Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Dual Blades build: a hunter finishing his spinning attack with his Dual Blades in the middle of the forest.

For the Water and Ice builds, Grand God’s Peer Feet will boost your critical hits and flinching resistance while also giving you Latent Power, temporarily increasing affinity and reducing stamina depletion whenever, *checks notes*, “certain conditions are met”. Combine this with the Kushala Grip X for Kushala’s Blessing for increased water and ice damage, Agitator for better damage, and affinity while a monster is enraged, and a single level 1 Jewel slot.

It is tempting to go with a Dereliction build for the Fire, Water, and Ice builds, replacing the greaves with the Archfiend ones, or swapping Kaiser and Archfiend sets around in the case of the fire build. However, this setup constantly drains your health.

Both the Thunder and Dragon builds are very different. The Ibushi’s Pure Helm gives you a point in Wind Alignment, Focus, Evade Extender, and a level 2 jewel slot that you should slot in a Tenderizer Jewel 2. This helm also grants Thunder and Dragon builds the Stormsoul skill, which increases all Thunder and Dragon attacks, but at level 4 also bestows on the wearer +1 to all other pre-baked skills. This is, essentially, a free buff to every major skill in your equipment slot.

The Stormsoul skill is so critical to this build working that we’re adding three other items from related sets: Ibushi’s Pure Pauldrons, Ibushi’s Pure Fauld, and Narwa’s Pure Foot. Thanks to the Stormsoul’s effect, these items also give us access to three extra Wind Alignment and Evade Window slots, as well as two of Constitution, Stamina Surge, Thunder Alignment, Marathon Runner, and Power Prolonger.

Another crucial part of this build is the Talisman. You need to craft one at the Smithy with at least one level 3 slot and two level 1 slots. The pre-baked skills are a bonus, but if you can get Crit Element or Crit Boost, this will put you in good stead. This is because you want to put all the element-boosting jewels in these slots. For example, if you’re running a Thunder set, you want to have Hard Bolt Jewel 3 and two of Bolt Jewel 1 equipped.

Jewels

As there are several different combinations, it’s perhaps best to give you a list of priority jewels you should equip:

  • 1x Breath Jewel 3
  • 3x Critical Jewel 2
  • 1x Crit Element Jewel + 4
  • 1x Crit Element Jewel 2 (or 3x Crit Element Jewel 2 if Thunder/Dragon build)
  • 2x Tenderizer Jewel 2
  • 1x build element’s level 3 jewels (Hard Blaze Jewel 3 for the Fire build)
  • 2x build element’s level 1 jewels (Blaze Jewel 1 for the Fire build)
  • 1x Flywall Jewel 1 (Kushala Grip only)
  • 1x Attack Jewel 2 (Ice and Water Archfiend Armor Baulo only)

Switch Skills

Once you have sorted out your equipment, there is the thankfully more straightforward task of working out which Switch Skills to have on each Swap Scroll, a new feature to Sunbreak.

Altering these changes which attack you execute. One important note is that since the Demon Mode’s elemental damage got a massive buff in Sunbreak, it’s a mandatory pick over Feral Demon Mode. Here are our Switch Skill picks for this Dual Blades build:

Red Swap Scroll

  • Demon Flight
  • Demon Mode
  • Roundslash Combo
  • Spiral Slash
  • Ironshine Silk

Blue Swap Scroll

  • Demon Flurry Rush
  • Demon Mode
  • Slide Slash Combo
  • Spiral Slash
  • Shrouded Vault

Best Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Dual Blades build: a hunter running past the Palico and two Palamutes that handle the buddy system in Elgado. They're positioned in front of a ship.

Buddy builds

We won’t go too far into this, since this is entirely separate from your character’s build, but you can take at least one companion (two if playing single-player) into a hunt. New to Sunbreak are assignable Buddy Skills, and you should absolutely take advantage of them for extra healing. We recommend that you bring two Palamutes to every hunt (or one in multiplayer) and equip them both with the following loadout:

  • Gear Slot 1 – Guarding Parasol
  • Gear Slot 2 – Heal Blade Scroll (first Palamute) or Heavy Strike Scroll (second Palamute)
  • Skill Memories – Buddy Partbreaker, Knockout King, Status Attack Up

After equipping all of these items, you should now deal more than enough damage to topple all of the endgame monsters easily. We recommend saving your build into the presets at the chest since you’ll swap between them frequently. You may also wish to switch weapons and look at the best Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Longsword build for a less stressful time.

However, should you persevere, you may find you’re still missing some gear you need to make in order to craft the top-tier armour sets. Since you need to do this more than once per set, you may wish to learn where to find prized Pelts and Awegite so you can craft some Master Rank armour.