Wild Hearts Maul weapon guide for beginners

The Wild Hearts Maul hammer is a weapon that extends its handle for increased damage and impact on every strike. The Maul is one of Wild Hearts' slowest, biggest weapons, smashing through defenses and doing high damage every time it lands, but it takes some getting used to, especially if you're ramping up the damage by extending the shank with well-time combos. This Wild Hearts Maul weapon guide will take you through all the basics, allowing you to shatter whatever comes your way. 

How to use the Wild Hearts Maul

The Maul in Wild Hearts is slow, heavy and powerful - it's a blunt force weapon that does serious damage, and increases that damage if you can time your button inputs correctly. This is based around extending the handle by pressing the trigger buttons during flashes, and as the handle gets longer during the combo, the Maul does more and more damage during it, but resets when the combo is over. It's probably the slowest of the Wild Hearts weapons, but each attack does huge damage.

Maul moveset and attacks

The Wild Hearts Maul has the following attacks and moveset to keep in mind.

• Square/X: Pound attack
• Triangle/Y: Jumping Smash (slower, higher damage)
• R2/RT: Power Smash (consumes stamina, very high damage, destroys nearby Karakuri structures)
• R2/RT during combo (when Maul flashes): Extends handle and increases damage for remainder of combo.

Beyond that, there's an extensive range of (slow-hitting) combos to learn, all of which can be empowered by handle extension - let's talk about that.

Maul handle and shank extension explained

The big feature of the Maul is the ability to extend the handle, or "Shank". You do this mid-combo: while swinging it around, you'll notice that the head flashes after every strike - press R2/RT when it does, and it'll extend the handle, increasing the damage for the rest of the combo. 

You can do this multiple times in a combo, massively boosting the Maul's damage along the way, but it's important to remember that you still need to input the rest of the combo to keep it going! So you press the handle extension button, but you also have to quickly input the next stage of the combo too, otherwise it'll just end there and reset you back to zero. 

Maul tips and tricks

If you feel like it's hammer time in Wild Hearts, here's some basic advice to get you off the ground - and flying through the air with a giant blunt force instrument.

• The Maul extension trigger burns a little stamina, though not much. Just keep it in mind in case you need to dodge away.
• The Maul has no defensive abilities and moves slowly, so much of your play will be about holding back and looking for the opportunity to attack. 
• If an enemy stops for any reason - falling over, resting after an attack, etc - that's your moment to rush in for a high-damage combo!
• The Maul's Power Smashes will destroy any nearby Karakuri you've built. This can occasionally help if you want to clear the battlefield, but it's more likely to be a hindrance, annihilating structures you've set up and may need. Make sure you're clear before crashing your way through.