Safi’Jiiva has arrived and he’s doing some winter meta cleaning.

Every weapon has received a buff from the new Safi weapon/armor lines through new and improved builds. But which ones have had the largest changes?

For most of the older builds, you could keep the armor the same, swap the weapon to a Safi weapon, and just aim for attack awakenings. But some weapons will open up different armor builds or completely replace the former meta builds. Let’s take a look at the top 5 weapons that have had the biggest makeover thanks to everyone’s favorite red dragon. 

Disclaimer: Before I start, I just wanted to point out that this article will be looking into high damage sets and speed runs as examples. The reason for this is that you can swap out some of the damage skills or damage oriented augments for more comfy skills and still keep the core of the build functional. Also if you're on PC, then you can look forward to these builds in March when Safi is released!

5. Lance MT Safi Resentment

This Lance build is optimized for damage. You can customize it for a little more comfort if you wanted to.

Every weapon in the game can now run the new combo of Safi Jiiva + Master’s Touch. But few benefit from it like the Lance does. The Lance has always had a problem of needing too many skills with too few slots. Before Safi, a typical Lance build want would want to run the usual damage skills (Weakness Exploit, Critical Eye, Attack 4, Critical Boost, and if there was any room left, Agitator) and also skills for comfier hunts like Guard, Guard Up, Handicraft, and Offensive Guard. Other weapons could use skills like Peak Performance, but that was too expensive for most Lance builds.

Now with the new Safi weapons and armor, you can run Master’s Touch and Safi’s set bonus to get a boost to your element and affinity when your weapon is out, which as a lance, is almost all the time. While Peak Performance was too expensive to build, Resentment is fairly easy to build and gives a decent DPS increase. 

The final effect is a huge elemental and raw increase for the Lance which is one of the best ways to increase your damage since Offensive Guard increases your total raw based on a percentage.

MHWI イャンガルルガ ランス ソロ 3分20秒 Yian Garuga Lance Solo

What's Awesome About MT Safi Resentment

• This is the highest damage Lance build. It’s also recommended to match Elemental weaknesses to your target for a little bit more damage. 
• Flexible slots since you can drop a Furor jewel for Guard up, and switch the charm to Fury if you need to block unblockables.
• Comfort skills can also be replaced with attack boost jewels.
• Not reliant on Handicraft which was expensive to build into Lances.

Build Details

• High risk, high reward. The Safi Jiiva set increases your damage by a fair amount, but it comes at the cost of health for each attack. Luckily, the set bonus also heals you back to full health if you land enough attacks.
• Avoid sheathing your weapon. Each time you sheath your weapon, it resets the number of attacks you need to do before you get healed back to full health.
• Since you’re reducing your own health through the set bonus, you will have Resentment on for most of the hunt. Resentment allows this set to out damage most of the other builds in the game. 
• Running health augment in this set can be bothersome. While it can lead to comfier hunts, you will lose damage because you’ll be healing back your red health and losing Resentment.
• Alternatively, if you can’t live without Health Augment, you can run Brute Tigrex Chest/Garuga Legs, 2x Attack V, 2x Sharpness V, and 1x Attack VI and still do some decent damage.
• You can also swap out the charm for Guard 5 if you need the extra points, and replace the Guard decorations with Challenger 4, and an Expert jewel.
• With your weapon out, you’ll be at 50% affinity. If the monster is in rage mode, then you’ll have 60% affinity. This can help ease the need to always focus on a weakened spot if you want to keep your sharpness up through Master’s Touch.
• As I said above, you want to match the Elemental weakness of your target for more damage. If you’re looking for a more generalized build, then you can run with Blast or Para since its damage isn’t too far behind the Elemental lances.
• If you need a comfier build, you can go back to the 3x Teostra pieces, 1x Brute Chest, 1x Garuga legs, and just equip a Safi Lance with a health augment. You’ll lose some damage, but the build still works incredibly well.

4. Insect Glaive MT Safi Resentment

Awakening: Teostra Essence, Attack VI, 3x Attack V. You can replace the charm and weapon for whichever element you need to use.

Similar to the Lance, Insect Glaive wants to run Raw with Elemental Damage. Unlike the Lance however, the Insect Glaive wants to lean a bit more heavily into Elemental damage. This set is able to incorporate a megaton of raw thanks to Safi’s awakened Attack buffs, while also benefiting from the Elemental damage increase from both the corresponding skill and Safi’s set bonus.

MHWI ティガレックス 操虫棍 03'02"93 TAwiki rules/Tigrex Insect Glaive

What's Awesome About MT Safi Resentment

• Safi Elemental sets are much higher damage than the previous elemental and raw sets.
• You can swap out the elemental charm and decos for the relevant element you’re switching to.
• Resentment adds a massive amount of Raw at the cost of health, which can be healed back by landing 10 attacks.
• 40 hits of white with Master’s Touch provides some comfort for play.

Build Details

• Health Augment isn’t ran on this set for the same reason as the Lance’s MT+Safi set: for more damage. Health augment can turn off the buffs from Resentment which can be a loss of 25 additional attack. 
• Once you have a weakened spot, you can use Vault+Descending Thrust to reposition yourself toward the weakened area.
• If you’re not comfortable with using Safi’s set bonus, then you can aim for a more comfortable set that focuses on Raw/abnormal status damage. It would look like this:

• This set won’t run Safi’s set bonus and allows you to run a Health augment and Peak Performance for more damage.
• Agitator is important in these builds because, in order to weaken the monster, you have to latch onto the monster, do 3 claw strikes, then do your dismounting attack. This will create a tenderized spot, but will also enrage the monster. If you have Agitator, then this can be an additional 20 attack and 10% Affinity.

3. Heavy Bowgun Safi Burstcannon

Safi's Heavy Bowgun does what its predecessors did, but better. You also get more flexibility too!

Heavy Bowguns use pretty much a full Safi build - everything from the weapon to the armor are from Safi’Jiiva. The reason for this is so you can get the full damage increase from running the 5 piece Safi’Jiiva set, and the weapon itself can be upgraded to be the strongest Spread build in the game right now. 

If the Jiiva set is too risky, you can also run a shield build with the Safi weapons that can put out some really good damage. You’ll find that a fair number of runs use shields just for the comfort and consistency that comes with it.

Monster Hunter World:Iceborne HBG solo Silver Rathalos /銀火龍 02'08'95

What's Awesome About Safi Burstcannon

• Lots of damage. This set does 4.9% more damage than the previous Glutton builds.
• This set comes with sleep ammo, more affinity, and since you’re running Safi, access to Resentment like the previous builds. 
• Less reliant on spare shot RNG for damage.
• The weapon can be built for more comfort through a shield build.

Build Details

• The scope can be a bit disorienting. If you don’t like it, then you can replace the scope with a recoil mod, then drop the Recoil Awakening to add another Attack V. 
• Just like with the previous builds, you’re using Resentment for its fat attack increase. This is also the reason why Health Augment is missing from the weapon. 
• An alternate, and slightly more comfy, build that uses Shields would look like this:

• This build will allow you to block when you need to and still keep up damage. 
• This build also runs spare shot so you can shoot more often than the original build.
• It’s also the closest to a direct upgrade from the Glutton/Zinogre builds since the playstyle is close to the same, but it offers more damage, utility, and an additional Close Range mod.

2. Silver/Zorah Long Gunlance

Image courtesy of CaoSlayer.

All of the Gunlance shells got something new. Long became more flexible, while Wide and Normal became more damaging. I could probably write an entire article on all the new builds that Gunlance has now, but for this article I wanted to focus on the new Long shelling build that was shown by Caoslayer. 

Thanks to the Safi’Jiiva weapon, you can now pair the extremely important Zorah Magdaros set bonus with another set bonus. While wide and Normal may use the Zorah/Safi set bonuses + Resentment for damage, Long has become more flexible with Zorah/Silver Rathalos’ set bonuses since they also have a spare armor slot to play with. This build allows you to get Slinger Capacity Secret so your Wyrmstake Blasts can last even longer.

[MHWI] 嗚呼、マッスルボディ　05'00"81　ガンランス　ソロ/噢，健美身體 銃槍/Muscle Monkey Madness (Rajang×2) Gunlance Solo

What's Awesome About Silver/Zorah Gunlance?

• Long shelling is the safest of the Gunlance styles since you can shell from a range that allows you to react to whatever problems may be thrown at you.
• Thanks to Slinger Capacity 5, you can get an additional 40 seconds of Wyrmstake Blast, which can help you get more damage with Artillery 5.
• Extremely flexible decoration slots, so you can build in almost any direction you want between damage and comfort.

Build Details

• Thanks to your flexible decoration slots, you can slot in whatever defensive abilities you need. 
  • If you want a good standby for hunts, I recommend slotting in Guard and Guard up. You’ll very rarely go wrong with these skills since you can reach Guard 5 with this build.
  • If you go up against a monster where guarding isn’t a good option, then you should have room to include Evasion Up or Evasion Distance Up. 
  • You can also slot in Earplugs in either of those situations if you are having trouble staying on top of Monster screams.
• Focus is necessary so your full charged shelling takes almost no time at all.
• If you get Zorah Magderos Essence, you have a free armor slot. In the picture above, CaoSlayer uses a Gold Rathian waist for comfort, but you can also replace that with another armor piece that can be more comfortable to use. 
• If you decide to not run Zorah Magderos Essence on your Safi Gunlance, then you can go back to the 3x Zorah armor and 2x Silver Rath armor.
• While the sleep element will very rarely trigger, it can be useful in case you need the extra damage from sleep bombing.

1. Raw Sword And Shield

This set isn't going to be the most comfortable, but it will definitely be the most damaging. 

Sword and Shield has had the craziest change of all the weapons. This isn’t just because of the Safi weapons either. In recent patches, the Sword and Shield received several buffs to their Uppercut Claw and Perfect Rush. Uppercut claw is now able to create tenderized spots, and Perfect Rush has had its motion values buffed.

Combined with Safi weapons, and the Sword and Shield has transformed from an elemental heavy weapon into the newest member of the raw weapon family.  

【MHWI】特殊闘技場 ‎ジンオウガ亜種 覚醒片手剣 ソロ 2’52 TA wiki rules/Stygian Zinogre Sword and Shield Solo

What's Awesome About Raw Sword and Shield

• Perfect Rush is your go-to move with this build.
• Since it’s a raw build, it’s flexible against most of the monsters out there.
• Uppercut Claw allows you to safely create tenderized parts on monsters.

Build Details

• With just the first 5 hits of the Perfect Rush, you deal almost as much damage as a Great Sword True Charge Slash. If you roll after those first 5 hits, you can stay mobile and still do a ridiculous amount of damage.
• Building a blast Sword and Shield is ideal since you get Blast Attack as a side effect of wearing Teostra armor. 
• Just like with the other raw heavy sets, you want to run Resentment and Agitator for maximum damage. 
• With your weapon out, you should be able to hit 50% affinity. Hitting a tenderized weak spot should make up the other 50% so you’ll never lose sharpness.
• Some points in Handicraft are here to help mitigate the times where you don’t hit the weak spot.

Also be sure to check out these articles:

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• Top 15 Games Like Monster Hunter World (With Awesome Boss Fights)
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• 10 Things We Love About Monster Hunter World
• Monster Hunter World Guide: 50 Tips and Tricks
• Best Monster Hunter World Tips, Tricks and Secrets
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• Monster Hunter Live Action Movie Release Date, Cast, Trailer, Story, News
• Monster Hunter World Large Monsters List: Weaknesses, How To Kill, and Location
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• MHW Tier List Iceborne (MHW Best Weapons)