GS= Great sword, slow but powerful, has 3 attacks, Triangle, over head chop. circle sweeping slash, triangle +circle, pulls back sword. Hold Triangle in your overhead chop to charge for a power attack.
Long swords A.K.A Katanas, moderate speed with power, 4 attacks. Triangle overhead slash, circle- thrust. Triangle +circle - sweeping atack + back step. when the meter is full, you get 2 effects.
effect 1
Attack power up, obvious with the swirling red aura
effect 2
no bounce. your attacks no longer bounce even if your weapon is not at the effective sharpness, beware though. your weapon sharpness will drop very quickly if you keep seeing sparks, even if you seem to slice right through the monster.
When you have some of the meter or a full meter, pressing R repeatly will make you execute a combo attack.
Experiment with the combinations of triangle x 2, circle, triangle x2, circle. cycles for a almost infinte combo.