Monster Hunter Wilds Title Update 2 has finally been revealed following a PlayStation leak which already kind of revealed it. A raft of weapon balance changes round out the patch, which is packing two new monsters in Lagiacrus and Seregios, not to mention a souped-up Arch-tempered version of our old friend Uth Duna.
Several notoriously overpowered strategies and attacks have received a hit from the nerf bat, and some glaring holes in other move sets have been filled. But I'm left here pacing like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction wondering where my lance buffs have gone to.
First, the good bits from the patch notes. And to be fair, the patch is almost entirely good. Long sword definitely didn't need a buff, but its normal and spirit combos have been adjusted in a way that should make playing the weapon less repetitive than the current optimal combo.
Dual blades are in a similar spot; the weapon should be more responsive and dynamic after these changes, with Demon Mode now allowing changes in direction right after a dodge, movement speed buffed during Demon Mode, and multiple basic moves and combos buffed to offset small nerfs elsewhere. Demon Boost Mode granting less raw and more elemental scaling stands out to me, as elemental damage really needs help in Wilds and Dual Blades are one of the few good applications for it.
Sword and shield, handily one of the top weapons in the game, has had its massive Sliding Swipe invulnerability window toned down (Capcom mistakenly said it was getting buffed at first, sending my sides straight into orbit), and Guard Slash spam will now be "harder" to pull off. A few motion values have also been reduced, and I'm counting this as a good thing because the weapon is frankly ridiculous right now.
Hunting horn has some fun new tech with Focus strikes, soundwaves are even more potent, and several moves and melodies have been improved. Switch axe, meanwhile, is getting quality-of-life control improvements, damage and elemental scaling buffs, and some comfy Switch Gauge adjustments. Charge blade, to my delight, should have more than one viable play style now, with the currently laughable phial explosions getting a boost and the dominant Savage Axe getting a nerf. That said, we can finally guard point into Savage Axe, which is big.
Hammer is probably the biggest winner of the patch. It has new offset attacks on the Charged Upswing and Mighty Charge Upswing moves, a new special follow-up move for its offsets, charge levels will increase faster after a dodge into a Charge Step, Big Bang combo damage is going up, and hitboxes have been "adjusted" to presumably make things easier to land. It's a good day to bonk.
Great sword (they don't call it the good sword), the light and heavy bowguns, bow, insect glaive, and gunlance have received next to no changes, which isn't a huge surprise. It does feel like the bowguns need a little help – and I guess the heavy bowgun will generate slightly more Ignition Gauge from spread ammo – but the other weapons already look and feel great. A little wonkiness in the insect glaive camera and aiming could probably be refined. But in fairness, all of the weapons in Wilds feel good to use even if there is a huge power gap between some of them.
This brings us to lance, which is consistently one of the least-popular weapons in Monster Hunter, and which has ranked among the worst times for speedrun clears since Wilds was released. (On top of that, the recent super-bosses have hard-countered it with AoE that makes the weapon miserable to use.) Yet instead of any real buffs – just to pull something out of the hat, perhaps for the counterattacks that have had their lunch eaten by every weapon under the sun getting offset counters of their own – lance got some Focus strike quality-of-life fixes. That's... it.
Long sword, one of the best weapons in Wilds, got a net buff while lance got next to nothing. Truly, the lance main reputation is deserved: our fate is to suffer while other weapons get better versions of what should be our best moves. I love the lance's new mojo, but I'm also attracted to power and these hunt times ain't gonna shorten themselves, so at this rate I'm going to be a great sword and hammer main exclusively.
The good news is that Capcom is at least aware that lance kind of sucks. In an August update coming after TU2, it's shooting to "reduce the differences in strength outliers between different weapon types." Lance is on the list of targets for these buffs, alongside the bowguns, hunting horn, and dual blades.
Be sure to check out our Monster Hunter Wilds review, as well as our tier list of the best Monster Hunter Wilds weapons.
