Blocking an attack is one of the 3 main defensive answers in Monster Hunter, with dodging and getting out of the hitzone. But how does it work ingame? This article is based on the data from MH World, they can differ between game but the principle stays the same overall (the numerical values are different in Rise for instance, notably due to the perfect counters with wirebugs).
Credits to Seymor62 on the Gathering Hub Discord who figured out how perfect guard works and helped me to better grasp power guard and guard thresolds cap interactions in Wilds.
Attack knockback power
Obviously a block is paired with a monster’s attack. But each attack has various parameters that should be considered. For this example, I’ll use the data from World’s Rathalos issued from Kiranico et select a few moves.
Aside from the japanese name, we can see:
- damage to players based on if they use a blademaster or gunner weapon, explaining why gunners tend to take more damage as a trade-off for the safety of fighting at a distance (this changes in Wilds with a common value for both due to weapon swapping)
- a status sometime, including stun or status damage (here fire-blight or poison)
- a power determining how your hunter react to the attack (small flinch, falling on the butt, thrown to the ground, etc)
- a knockback power stat and guard requirements
The requirements are conditions that needs to be fulfilled to properly block that attack. They can include depending on the move:
- enough stamina (based on the knockback endured, explained below, each blocked attack consuming stamina)
- being at the good angle (each weapon has a guard angle, the attack needs to hit within that angle; attacks not requiring an angle are often AoE like tremors or stompings)
- having the Guard Up skill, a skill required for some attacks that can’t be blocked (for instance here Rathalos grab, grabs being among the most commons unblockables moves)
- or you simply can’t block that hit at all (in World when the monster is launched in a direction with the slinger, you can’t block that hit; these totally unblockable hits are also sometimes huge novas like Jin Dahaad great thermal explosion in Wilds).
So how does the knockback power stat interacts with your hunter?
Guard thresholds and knockback
Knockback power interacts with your weapon guard thresholds, the most important notion to understand here. Each weapon has its own guard thresholds and a guard angle as explained before.
| Weapon | Angle | Low threshold | Medium threshold | High threshold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GS | 140° | 14 | 39 | >39 |
| SnS | 120° | 14 | 20 [Wilds 39] | >20 [Wilds >39] |
| Lance | 220° | 39 | 49 | >49 |
| GL | 220° | 39 | 49 | >49 |
| CB | 140° | 14 | 39 | >39 |
| HBG (1 shield, Wilds) | 120° | 14 | 20 | >20 |
| HBG (4 shields) | 120° | 39 | 49 | >49 |
It’s pretty easy to understand: with a GS for instance, if you block both the first and the second attack from the previous table with a power of 40 and 55 respectively, you’ll endure a strong knockback (>39). If you do the same with a Lance, the first hit will still deal medium knockback (between 39 and 49) but the second hit will deal strong knockback (>49).
The knockback is the animation your character is subjected to when he blocks an attack, with various effects. If weak and medium knockbacks allows you to fight back, strong knockback will often push you backwards and prevents you from reacting so it should be avoided.
| Knockback level | Stamina consumption | Damage sustained |
|---|---|---|
| Weak | 10 | 0% of the original attack |
| Medium | 25 | 10% of the original attack |
| Strong | 40 | 20% of the original attack |
Skills
Guard
The Guard skill increases your guard thresholds, allowing you to take lower knockbacks when blocking. It also reduces your stamina consumption.
| Level | Guard thresholds | Stamina consumption reduction |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | +10 | 0% |
| 2 | +10 | -15% |
| 3 | +20 | -15% |
| 4 | +20 | -30% |
| 5 | +30 | -50% |
In Wilds, Guard only has 3 levels, using World lvl 2, 4 and 5.
Guard Up
As explained before, Guard Up is a requirement to block specifics moves (grabs, lasers). In World, having the skill was enough to block unblockables moves like regular moves, receiving knockbacks based on the attack power.
The skill changed in Rise, making you take reduced damage based on the skill level. If the level 1 is enough to block Rajang’s laser, you’ll still endure 70% of the original damage. You can find a detailed breakdown of all unblockable moves from Rise/Sunbreak here (in french).
Wilds also use the skill levels from Rise but with the guard revamp making guard way more efficient, there are way less moves requiring Guard Up. You can find a full list of the unblockables moves in Wilds here.
Special cases
Keep in mind that some games have a limit on how much you can increase your guard thresolds (Wilds for instance only let you add up to +30).
Alternative attacks
In some games like Wilds, some monsters gets variants of their attacks in their harder versions, changing the numerical values of these moves, allowing them to deal more damage and knockback. For instance, Seregios uses EX versions of some attacks like his Spinning Kick, used for its 8 and 9 star tempered version.
| Stats | SpinningKick | SpinningKickEX |
|---|---|---|
| Damage | 80 | 90 |
| Knockback power | 70 | 90 |
| Bleeding damage | 50 | 100 |
In Wilds, these more powerful monsters also have a specific modifier, adding to the knockback power of all their attacks. This modifier is different between monster species (for instance, Seregios has a +5 modifier, meaning the real SpinningKickEX knockback power is actually 95).
Guarding with the blade for GS and CB
Both these weapons use their blades to block the monster’s attacks. Therefore, blocking moves with them tends to dull your weapon. Strong knockbacks cost a lost and should be avoided at all cost.
| Knockback | Sharpness consumption |
|---|---|
| Weak | 1 |
| Medium | 2 |
| Strong | 10 |
Lance power guard and guard dash
Lance can go in a power guard state by pressing X while guarding. This state drains your stamina quickly but when you block something, your guard is effective at a 360° angle (no more need to bother about guard angle), the knockback is reduced and the stamina cost is cancelled. In MH World, power guard also grants Guard Up when your shield glows blue. Regarding the knockback damage, the number varies between games.
| Knockback level | Regular guard | Power guard [World] | Power guard [Wilds] |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weak | 0% of the original move | 10% of the original move | 6% of the original move |
| Medium | 10% of the original move | 20% of the original move | 11% of the original move |
| Strong | 20% of the original move | 30% of the original move | 16% of the original move |
One of the main appeal of power guard is its powerful counter moves. When you enter power guard, the game starts counting up to 3. The count increases based on the knockback power from the moves you block during that instance of power guarding:
- <39 adds +1 to the count
- between 39 and 49 adds +2 to the count
- >49 adds +3 to the count
Blocking multiple hits within the same power guard will add to the count. You can track the state of the count based on the glow on your lance. You can exit power guard with various moves, these moves getting a raw buff based on the count final value.
- no glow on the lance: base damage
- white glow on the lance (count at 1): 110% raw
- yellow glow on the lance (count at 2): 140% raw
- red glow on the lance (count at 3): 170% raw
Keep in mind that the count checks the monster’s attack knockback power, not your own guard thresholds. Meaning you can block a 70 knockback power move with Guard 3, endure a weak knockback (70 < 49 + 30) yet still immediately go to a red charge full power counter.
Blocking an attack with a guard dash increase your guard thresholds by 10 during the move.
CB charged shield and guard points
Blocking with CB grants you energy based on the knockback endured (3/6/9).
Charging your CB shield with phials increases your guard thresholds by 10.
Guard points are a few frames during some CB attacks where the hunter is considered to be guarding, often happening while switching between the weapon 2 modes. Blocking an attack with a guard point redefines your guard thresholds 10 points higher. It’s an important nuance compared to the red shield buff since it means it bypasses the guard buff cap some games might had (like Wilds who cap at 30).
| CB | Low threshold | Medium threshold | High threshold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base | 14 | 39 | >39 |
| Guard point | 24 | 49 | >49 |
| Guard 3 + red shield | 14 + 30 | 39 + 30 | >39 + 30 |
| Guard point + Guard 3 | 24 + 30 = 54 | 49 + 30 = 79 | >49 + 30 = >79 |
Perfect guard [Wilds]
In MH Wilds, at the beginning of a guard, you get a few frames where blocking an attack will trigger a perfect guard. Landing a perfect guard is signaled with a visual effect and a special sound.
Perfect guard is different than regular guard. In Wilds, each attack has a few new parameters, one of them being « _IsTechGuardBreak ». If this parameter is set to false (as it is in most attacks), perfect guarding a move will trigger the weak knockback animation, no matter the guard thresholds (you can block a strong knockback move with a HBG who has the worst guard and a lance who has the strongest and you’ll end up in both case with a weak knockback). If the parameter is set to true, perfect guarding will trigger a medium knockback (10% of the original attack damage and 25 stamina cost).
Since TU4, perfect guard will prioritize weak knockback if your regular guard results in a weak knockback (most notably for lance and GL with the Guard 3 skill equipped).
For the following demonstration, I’ll use the Lagiacrus body press and the Seregios spinning kick. You can find the data for the body press under the video for those curious enough. Obviously the real data is way longer and I removed a lot of stuff to only show the most important parts.
{
"name": "",
"keyName": "BodyPress_Head",
"_Attack": 70.0,
"_GuardType": "[0]NORMAL",
"_VersusGuardPower": 60.0,
"_IsTechGuardBreak": true,
}
}
},Monsters with moves going through perfect guard
Going through the datamine, we can find a list of all monsters with moves with the _IsTechGuardBreak set to true. Some moves alas have no name and it can be hard to know what is what even with the names. This list has been established with this data and personal experience so some moves might be missing:
- Quematrice: tail spin
- Doshaguma & Guardian Doshaguma: moves where they ground pound with both paws at once, moves where they destroy the ground
- Uth Duna: double flying body press, tsunami in the dam lake, AT charge
- Rey Dau: wing downward strikes, all railguns
- Nerscylla: charge with the jaws open before a bite
- Hirabami: giant tail spin attack
- Ajarakan: meteor move, putting its legs in the ground and destroying it
- Nu Udra: body press, backside body press, grab, AT big oil explosion
- Jin Dahaad: body press, charged breath (when it inhales before breathing in a straight line), explosive breath right in front of him
- Guardian Fulgur Anjanath: AoE from the electric bite down
- Zoh Shia: ground pound with both wingarms into giant crystal explosion (both hits), charged fire ball, fire breath in front of his body, crystal bursting from the ground during phase transition, fire explosion when he digs both black legs in the ground, lightning sweeping breath
- Arkveld: dragon explosions (lines and nova), crushing attacks involving both wings at once (hammer and all chains forward), double chain sweep into crushing explosion (all 3 hits)
- Seregios: sweeping kick, kick following going airborne with a tail sweep, huge drop kick with the camera zoom out
- Lagiacrus: body press, side body slam, electric discharge (base and charged), rush into jump into huge thunder discharge (all hits)
- Omega: rampage in Pantokrator, flamethrower, 5 lasers patterns, Starboard/Larboard Cannon, Mustard Bomb, Nerscylla clone explosive shotgun laser
Les Carnets de la Wycadémie 