SA is considered fairly low tier atm, for soloing. It has weird ass party mechanics though where you detonate other people phials when you're charged or whatever the fuck, sounded like some buggy shit but like on any enemy you can wail on without a problem(which is really only AT zorah), SA has the highest sustained damage output. It's a fun weapon I've been playing it every now and then as my secondary weapon with longsword and IG.
The difference is basically the new claw grab move. When you use it with SA, if your weapon is charged, you can use the Zero Sum move. That's the one where you climb a monster, pop your charged sword in their eye then spam explosions then do a big explosion. That's a lot of damage, but generally it's a pain to land cause the animation is ass and you can't really hit where you want with it easily since it's fairly low range, plus the knockback at the end puts you far from the monster and SA mobility is kinda garbage. But now? You can just claw grab the monster back, and Zero Sum their ass again and again, until you run out, then you charge the weapon again, which only takes a few hits anyway. Shit's just fast and really high damage. It's a bit sad though because it seems it'll be like aerial GS, the best way to play the weapon which feels a bit cheesy. Good for speedrunning/farming, but not that great to play(imo).
There was an under 6 run with hammer too already though, so it's not like SA is super overpowered just yet, at least not sure. The new claw shit looks kinda very strong when soloing due to the free knockdowns whenever you have ammo and the monster is close to a wall and not enraged(and everyone can do that it's a generic move).
