If you love smashing your enemy heads, then Wild Hearts Maul is your go-to weapon in the game. The Maul is currently the heaviest weapon compared to other Wild Hearts weapons. Each strike will hit like a tank, taking down the foes quickly and swiftly.
Though each strike does a lot of damage, the overall attack speed is slow. There is hence a high learning curve and difficulty ceiling with the Maul. You have to understand the speed of your attacks and the range they are used at.
The key to becoming the master of the Maul is practice. This way, you will have the attack inputs on your fingers, and you might be able to land every single combo to erase every type of monster in Wild Hearts.
And if you are interested in using some other type of weapon like a Bow in Wilder Hearts, we have an extensive guide for that as well.
How to use the Maul in Wild Hearts
Since the Maul is a heavy weapon, it takes away your attack and animation speed but allows you to deal substantial raw damage and provide the highest-impact attacks.
With the highest damage stats in the game, you also have the option to extend your attacks to make them cover a longer range. You can even reach enemies using extended jumping smash – an aerial attack – which is not possible with Hammers in other particular games.
This makes Maul an excellent anti-Kemono weapon to hold in Wild Hearts. Additionally, all the other weapons in Wild Hearts require you to fill out some type of gauge before doing the maximum damage.
Each hit from Maul can cause maximum damage irrespective of the place or time. You don’t have to wait for any gauge to fill before bringing havoc on the enemies using Maul attacks.
Moreover, since you do not have a Power Gauge with the Maul, you will mostly be relying on the different types of combinations that the weapon has to offer.
The Maul has one of the most complex combos out of all the Wild Hearts weapons. It hence becomes crucial to understand the combinations of attacks and learn about the precise timing.
As you are attacking with the Maul, at some point it starts to glow orange. That is your cue to press the next key and execute a combo.
Aside from learning all of the different combos, the time window that you have to execute those combos is also pretty difficult to master. You will hence require a lot of practice in timing the attacks before you can set out to put the best Maul combos to good use.
Best Maul combos
The Maul falls in the pummel-type weapon by default, but you can change this by progressing in the game. To understand the basic attacks, you need to go to your controller and mouse/keyboard settings to understand the buttons that allow you to perform specific actions in Wild Hearts.
Since the game is released on different platforms, we will be using the terminologies as set within the game.
Attack 1 will be represented by A1, Attack 2 with A2, and similarly, the Special Attack with SA, and Stow Weapon/Sprint/Grab with SW. Lastly, we will be using the KS keyword to indicate the Karakuri Stance.
Given below is a list of all the basic and advanced combos for the Wild Hearts Maul.
| Combos | Inputs |
|---|---|
| Pound | A1 |
| Jumping Smash | A2 |
| Power Smash | Hold SA |
| Extended Maul Helve | Hold SA, A1 |
| Pummel | 3x A1 |
| Extended Smash Burst 1 | A1, SA, A1, SA, A1 |
| Extended Smash Burst 2 | A2, SA, A2, SA, A2 |
| Extended Smash Burst 3 | A1, SA, A2 |
| Centrifugal Smash | KS, A1, SW, Sprint, A2 |
The first few combos are your basic attacks. You will use them to initiate your attacks, and then build those attacks up at the right time and finish with one of the advanced combos – like the Pummel, for example.
As for the aerial combos with the Maul, you will need to use the Karakuri to gain some height, and then use the attack keys to execute aerial combos.
There is a lot of variation with the combos mentioned above as well. You will not be using all of them all the time though. There are a selected few which are the best combos for the Maul, which you will be using most of the time.
Some of the best combos for the Maul include:
- Pummel
- Extended Smash Burst 1
- Extended Smash Burst 2
- Extended Smash Burst 3
The Pummel is your most basic Maul combo. These attacks will be your fastest, and consist of 3 consecutive hits. Additionally, you can press the SA button during any one of these attacks to perform a Maul Extension and execute one of the three latter combos.
You can even combine some of the combos in between for a different effect. This may sound very confusing, so let me break it down for you.
Attack 1 combo
Your attack one combo is three hits with a couple of variations you can learn to deal extensive damage. If you are doing the standard play, there will be three quick hits, but you will notice that your hammer flashes after every hit for a moment.
You can press a special attack to perform the Maul extension one. As the shaft lengths increase, your range will increase, and you can perform ranged hits.
Your lengthened Shaft (called Shank) changes your next attack in the combo by altering the direction of the next hit. The attack will deal more damage but slower than your basic three hits.
If you use extended attacks on your first and second attacks, the third hit will be a big, massive hit which will cause a giant slam down. You will deal substantial damage, causing a small earthquake near your target. This is going to be your bread and butter in most fights.
Attack 2 combo
Your attack two is just a single aerial hit unless you extend it by pressing the special attack just when your weapon flashes. Press the attack two buttons again to launch yourself in the air and make a flipping attack.
This cycle can be repeated several times as you just have to hit the extension button every time your Wild Hearts Maul flashes. You can keep performing this flip attack if your stamina is available; each attack will drain it.
Attack 1 and 2 combo
If you are in the air, press the attack one button to perform a downward spinning finisher by flipping until you hit the ground.
You can also perform the same flipping combination during your attack 1. Press attack one, then extend the attack and repeat the process before pressing attack 2 in your third attack.
Special attack combo
If you use this attack from a standing position, you start spinning the maul and landing one hit per spin. The damage output from this attack is low, but it drains stamina. It is better to combine it with other attack combos.
Combine the special attack with your attack one combo by using it after extending your Maul in Wild Hearts. You can do extra damage this way and land more hits per spin. You can end the spin by pressing attack 1 to land the big attack causing extreme damage and shaking the impacted area.
Maul and Karakuri interactions
The Maul uses the Karaki in a special way as well, and you can only do this with this particular weapon – no other. Place the basic Karakuri on the floor and use the special attack to spin your Maul. Hit the Karakuri to send it toward the Kemonos to deal damage upon impact.
This will only cost you one thread, but the damage output is not excellent. You can use the box attack to perform the jump attack that allows you to land the finisher of attack 1 in mid-air.
You can do much more damage by using the Spring and Glider Karakuri. This will cost you more in terms of threads, but the damage output is great, as the Glider one even lands multiple hits through the piercing effect on the Kemonos. With the spring Karakuri, you can make aerial flips attacks that can last long.
The Celestial thread is a Karakuri that you will unlock later in the game. You can use it to move fast toward your targets by combing it with your Maul. It is one of the fastest ways of movement in Wild Hearts.
The torch Karakuri allows you to perform a flaming slam as Maul passes through Kemonos. Follow it up with your attack 1 to get an overhead smash, dealing a lot of damage.
Best Maul skills
The freedom with all of the different combos, the high damage, and the unique Karakuri usage makes this a great weapon, but we can make it even better with the best Maul skills equipped.
Every weapon has a different set of skills that improve some aspect of their function – of which some may be better than others. The best skills for the Maul in Wild Hearts may vary from build to build depending on what improvement you want though.
Here is a general list of the best Maul skills that you can use in most of the builds:
| Skill | Effect |
|---|---|
| Extended Rap | Increases the amount of damage dealt by extended attacks |
| Tunnel Vision | Increases the overall damage output at the expense of the extension time window |
| Shockwave | Allows you to target Kemonos’ weak points, knocking them out much quicker |
| Desperation | Increases the overall damage output at the expense of defense |
| Shockwave | Increases the damage output of the Maul for attacks landing before a Kemono roars or attacks |
Best Maul build in Wild Hearts
The Wild Hearts Maul is the only weapon in the game that lets you deal large amounts of raw damage consecutively without the help of a Power Gauge. At the expense of this huge raw damage though, comes a slower attack speed with longer attack animations.
Although we cannot do much about the attack speed, we can make the damage output of this weapon even higher, finishing the enemy before they take the advantage of our slower attacks.
We can account for that upgrade and fix all of the problems with the best Mauld build in Wild Hearts. For this build, we will choose armor sets, skills, and talismans that would help us focus on the problems we want to solve.
Starting off with the armor, we will be choosing ones with the right set of skills to increase the attack damage and defense. These armors will typically have the Deaf Ears skills, which nullifies the effects of Kemonos’ roars. Other skills that work in a similar fashion are Lunar Protection, Poison Recover, and Blackout Recovery.
- Sable Mara Mengu
- Sable Mara Body Armor
- Sable Mara Tekko
- Sable Mara Kusuzari
- Sable Mara Sune-ate
Moving on to the best skills for this build, our priorities will remain the same, which is to increase attack damage and defense.
These will include skills like the Extended Rap, which increase the overall attack damage of extended attacks. You can even use the Karakuri Coordination skill with this build to make better use of the Karakuri with the Maul.
Other skills working in the same manner you can choose for this build include:
- Surprise Attack
- Hawk Eye
- Shockwave
Lastly, for the Talismans, you have a lot of freedom. Typically any Talisman would work with this build since they don’t have a major effect. You can still use the ones from our recommended list to get the most out of this Wild Hearts Maul Build.
- Hawk Eye
- Battle Spirit
- One-Strike: Fury
These must-have skills for any Talismans that you plan to choose for this build
