What's new in Wilds

Major game mechanic changes

• Focus Mode: all attacks can be aimed mid-animation by holding the Focus Mode button
• A rideable Seikret accompanies you during hunts
• Hunters can now bring 2 weapons to a hunt. You must get on your Seikret to change weapons.
• All weapons can wound monsters parts by dealing damage to them, increasing their hitzone value similar to tenderizing in Iceborne. Weak points can be "popped" with your weapon's Focus Strike to deal damage and flinch/stagger the monster (this removes the wound).
• Almost all attacks can now have their ending lag cancelled by character movement or regular guarding (previously, only other attacks or dodging could do this) (video). This can have the side effect of unexpectedly cutting short the animation of an attack you intended to link into another attack.

Major changes for Charge Blade

• New move: Focus Slash: Double Rend can be used in Focus Mode from either Sword or Axe mode. If it hits a monster's wound or weak point, automatically performs a powerful attack that destroys the weak point and activates Power Axe mode.
• New move: Axe: Amped Element Discharge Follow-Up can be used after Amped Element Discharge. This new move can link into SAED.
• New move: Shield: Elemental Boost can be used after reloading phials or after Shield Thrust to immediately consume all phials to charge your shield (an alternative to Elemental Roundslash). This move has a Guard Point.
• Power Axe Mode (Savage Axe) returns from Iceborne/Rise, with a few changes (see section below)
• Charge Blade (and all weapons that can guard) can now Perfect Guard by pressing guard just before being hit. Perfect Guards have reduced recoil compared to regular blocking/Guard Points, and some options can only be accessed after a Perfect Guard. See Perfect Guard section below for more details.
• Charge Blade (and all weapons that can guard) can perform a Power Clash by repeatedly blocking a monster's attacks. Eventually, a clash will be triggered and by mashing the attack button, the monster will be staggered for a moment.
• Super Amped Element Discharge can no longer be used after Sword: Shield Thrust or from neutral in Axe mode. It can now only be used after blocking an attack (with regular Guard, Guard Point, or Perfect Guard), or directly after AED/AED2.
• Phials can now be "overcharged" by continuing to reload phials after having full phials. Overcharged phials deal more damage than normal when consumed by Axe attacks, and also grant more charged shield time if used for charging the shield.
• Axe: Amped Element Discharge no longer transforms back to Sword mode as part of the attack (SAED still does)
• After blocking an attack and receiving large knockback, you can still perform actions like SAED (previously you could only counter after small or medium knockbac)

Minor changes

• Axe mode can now Fade Slash to the side or backwards after another move, by pressing the same input as Dash Slam but sideways or backwards
• Axe: Element Discharge 1 has been significantly buffed in damage, but is slower
• Axe attacks that used to link into Axe: Element Discharge 2 (skipping ED1) now link into Element Discharge 1
• Axe: Amped Element Discharge now has 2 phial explosions instead of 3. Axe: Amped Element Discharge Follow-Up has 3 phial explosions.
• Charged Shield duration granted per phial is slightly less than in World, but maximum shield duration is higher
• Charged Sword buff lasts longer than in World and Rise
• Charged Sword buff now also prevents non-phial Axe attacks from being deflected

Power Axe Mode

Power Axe mode is a buff (sometimes called savage axe, spinning axe, charged axe, etc) that in Wilds lasts a fixed 120 seconds. It doesn't have an upkeep cost like in World, and the buff remains when sheathing or switching to Sword mode. If the buff is refreshed before the duration runs out, it will be extended back to 2 minutes.

How to activate Power Axe mode

• After a Perfect Guard, use Savage Axe Slash*
• After a Power Clash, use Savage Axe Slash*
• Perform a mounted finisher on a monster
• Use Focus Slash: Double Rend on a monster's weak point

Power Axe mode effects

• By holding down the attack button, all Axe mode attacks can deal up to 4 additional hits of physical damage***
• Axe: Element Discharge 1 and Element Discharge 2 no longer cost phials
• Axe: Amped Element Discharge and Amped Element Discharge Follow-Up now cost 1/2 of a phial instead of 1 phial

*Savage Axe Slash is not a normal move like in Iceborne, it can only be used in these two specific scenarios.

***Holding down either of the attack buttons or the guard button (or multiple buttons) work for enabling the multi-hit attack

Perfect Guards

This is a new mechanic similar to adept guard in MH Generations. When using regular block (not Guard Point), if you block an attack right after starting to block, it will count as a Perfect Guard. As mentioned earlier, in Wilds you can interrupt actions with regular blocking so you can almost always Perfect Guard in situations where you can Guard Point.

Perfect Guard effects

• Has unique recoil animations which are faster than Charge Blade's regular block/Guard Point recoil animations (see below for details)
• If your shield is charged, creates a phial explosion just like a Guard Point
• You can follow up with Savage Axe Slash

Compared to Guard Point

• Morph to Axe Guard Point comes out about 0.1s sooner than Guard if used after another attack (video)
• You cannot follow up with Savage Axe Slash after a Guard Point

Recoil

Note that Perfect Guard does not just add block strength in the same way that Guard Point and Guard skill do. It has its own animations for small and medium knockback which you would never see when using regular guard or Guard Points. In addition, the thresholds for monster attack power where small knockback would become medium knockback are different for Perfect Guards compared to regular guard/Guard Points, so you could have 2 different attacks that inflict small and medium knockback to Guard Point but both inflict small Perfect Guard knockback to Perfect Guard. Perfect Guard can also benefit from Guard skill to increase the thresholds for what counts as larger than small knockback.

Other info

• A Guard Point cannot also be a Perfect Guard. Even if you perform a GP within the timing necessary for a Perfect Guard, you cannot follow up with Savage Axe Slash.
• The timing window for Perfect Guard is smaller than the morph to Axe Guard Point (video)
• There is a bug/edge case where you can use GP and it will trigger a perfect guard, but you must block an attack on the first frame after inputting GP, after starting a block that would trigger a PG (video). For all intents and purposes the GP doesn't actually happen, but the training room input display still picks up the input. Thanks to NuK for finding this!

Miscellaneous

Buff durations

• Power Axe mode: 120 seconds
• Charged Shield duration granted per phial consumed: 25/40 seconds (for regular/overcharged phial)**
• Max Charged Shield duration: 200 seconds
• Charged Sword duration: 90 seconds