How to get good?

[Masquerade]

All I've seen is people complaining that this is really easy. yet I get my ass handed to me every hunt lately. any essential tips I might be missing? I'm using gunlance and trying to focus on guard counters before wyrmstaking

[Mrrshan68]

Wyrmstake takes ages to get out and is a pita to aim. Maybe try slam into fullburst instead?

Or if you are not nailing the perfect guards consistently its pretty effective to strafe around the monster using shell step and lateral sweep.

Evade extender is a huge quality of life improvement for gunlance, so id def run it at 3.

Also you can use the forward lunge move then cancel it at the end by shelling then go into a lateral sweep to cover alot of ground quickly.
This also lets you combo directly into either wyrmstake or the fullburst wyrmstake combo too.

[Mave]

Rule no.1 in Monster Hunter: Hit it till it dies
Rule no.2 in Monster Hunter: Don't get hit

On a more serious note: As with everything in life, just keep doing what you doing and you get better at it. It sounds rtarded and cheezy but that's how it is. You can apply universal tips like don't be too greedy etc etc, but since every hunt will (in most cases) never be 100% exactly like the previous one, you can't follow a strict plan here.

[Jirodyne]

Not all weapons are created equal, some are more simple to use, and others more complex. I would consider the gun lance more complex, as it's a Lance + Extra you have to worry about.

My suggestion is to look up videos on the weapon, and find and learn a basic "Combo" to focus on repeating. And mostly learning monster's movement and attacks, their patterns, and learning when an attack is coming and to try and dodge around and get into better positions for your combos.

Another tip, depending on where you are in the story, is to always equip the highest armor you have access to. Especially if you are in low rank. Armor Sets aren't equal and the upgrades aren't equal in low rank. If you have access to the option, the smith has the "Recommendations" Option, to show what Armor and Weapon would be good to have on. That will quickly help you with not being carted or feel like every hit takes 1/3rd if your HP.

---

PS, another tip if you are heavily losing constantly. Talk to Alma and go to quest settings, the top option when you click the defaulted first option when talking to her, and set on Auto SOS Flare, and allow both AI and Players to join. That will let you get immediate help as soon as you hit a monster and help at least give the monster other targets to beat up and not just yourself.

[Farsha]

Don't use only most damaging heavy commitment, high recovery moves.
Those are only when monster is stunned toppled or you are in really save spot.
Gun lance has quite a few heavy commitment moves that require lot of monster knowledge to pull off safely.
And on harder/faster monsters like Tempered Gore Magala you will hard time to pull em off consistently.

Also use some quality of life decos/skills. As suggested evade extender is great on gunlance and the weapon feels lot better whe you have it.

[GaijinGuy]

Monster follow attack patterns. Spend time learning your weapon's attacks so that you can focus on what the monster is doing. Need to heal, call your bird. Big attack coming. Sheath your weapon and dive. Don't worry about those crazy people who clear monsters in mere minutes, they are not human.

[Masquerade]

Alright thanks everyone ill take all of it on board

[Scipo0419]

In general:

1) this isn't dark souls, you have to commit to your attacks. Watch the monster, learn it's attacks. If you're struggling against one in particular, start the hunt with it but don't attack. Just get it into combat and focus on reading and reacting to its moves. You'll learn when you can attack and how many you can get into those openings. Edit: to elaborate, when I was learning the game back in 4U my friend described the hunts like Chess if it's your turn, you can move but it you move on it's turn you're going to get hit. Problem is, the monster may get two or three turns in a row. So you have to learn when it's your turn and get as much damage out in your turn as possible, but stopping soon enough to prepare to handle it's turn.

2) from there you'll learn to create your own openings with topples, stuns, traps, environmental traps, trips, focus strikes, etc.

3) don't worry about trying to be quick with your hunts. You have 50 minutes to clear a quest and you should never have to use all of that time if you're attacking even somewhat frequently. There are absolutely "high damage combos" but they take a while to use for most weapons, so getting in "poke combos" to create openings for "high damage combos" will see you succeed.

[PhantomΩ]

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

In general:

1) this isn't dark souls, you have to commit to your attacks. Watch the monster, learn it's attacks. If you're struggling against one in particular, start the hunt with it but don't attack. Just get it into combat and focus on reading and reacting to its moves. You'll learn when you can attack and how many you can get into those openings. Edit: to elaborate, when I was learning the game back in 4U my friend described the hunts like Chess if it's your turn, you can move but it you move on it's turn you're going to get hit. Problem is, the monster may get two or three turns in a row. So you have to learn when it's your turn and get as much damage out in your turn as possible, but stopping soon enough to prepare to handle it's turn.

2) from there you'll learn to create your own openings with topples, stuns, traps, environmental traps, trips, focus strikes, etc.

3) don't worry about trying to be quick with your hunts. You have 50 minutes to clear a quest and you should never have to use all of that time if you're attacking even somewhat frequently. There are absolutely "high damage combos" but they take a while to use for most weapons, so getting in "poke combos" to create openings for "high damage combos" will see you succeed.

And If you're using weapons with counters/offset you can interrupt their turn. Nice way of putting it

[Ragnell Avalon VTuber]

Slam-Fullburst is really a thing for Normal type gunlances so it's gonna depend on what style of gunlance you're using. If you're using a Wide gunlance then instead of going for the guard counter into a slam-sweep-stake combo, you might prefer to guard, continue hiolding guard to do a guard thrust, then release guard and chain that into a normal shell (which you can move during) and then a moving sweep. You can use the Wyrmstake Full Blast attack (triangle+circle/Y+B when you can Wyrmstake) to reorient yourself. (This attack technically works better with Normal as well, but because you can orient in any direction when using it, it's useful everywhere.)

You shouldn't really jump straight to Wyrmstake since it is quite slow and the hitbox is very narrow, so try and save it for openings where the monster is busy - limping, downed, crowd controlled, and so on. Your best opportunity for Wyvern Fire is when the monster is down (it also hits pretty hard so you can use it as a wakeup option).
After any action, you can do a bigger backstep by holding back and pressing the dodge button, this moves about twice as far as a normal sidestep. You can also do this from neutral (which is new in this game) by using focus mode and doing the back+dodge input. If a monster comes at you at an angle, this can easily get you well out of the way and leave them completely exposed on the flank. Evade Extender is extremely strong on Lance and Gunlance (and to a lesser extent Switch Axe); with Evade Extender 3 you can run down monsters by facing away and back-hopping towards them.

Quick Reload has guard point now which means you can Quick Reload in the monster's face and be relatively safe. After some moves (moving sweep is a notable one), you can completely reorient yourself with Quick Reload, which can keep you facing where you need to be in a relatively safe way.

To cap off gunlances let me go back to mentioning the style. Normal gunlances have the most shells loaded, meaning they do particularly well using Full Burst. Wide gunlances have few shells, but they do more damage. (In World, Wyrmstake also had a stun effect on Wide, but I don't know if that's still true.) Long gunlances have medium amount of shells and has especially strong charged shells (I believe its Wyvern Fire is also stronger). This has a meaningful impact on your playstyle: Wide is much more mobile because it prefers using normal shells, for example.

Some armor skills also work much better with certain kinds of gunlance - Burst works really well with Normal, for example, but less well with other styles. Partbreaker and Flayer are key choices too. Shelling no longer obliterates your sharpness so Speed Sharpening is much less necessary than it used to be, so you can afford to top up on defensive skills if you're having a problem: Constitution, Guard, and Guard Up will all help you stay on your feet by improving your ability to absorb attacks with your shield. On offense, putting aside things like Burst and Artillery, Offensive Guard and Resentment provide very easy power boosts - blocking will cause you to have recoverable health, Offensive Guard has an extremely lenient window for activation.

Hope that helps.

[NoRa]

Slaplance instead

[Kan3da.]

Originally posted by Masquerade:

All I've seen is people complaining that this is really easy. yet I get my ass handed to me every hunt lately. any essential tips I might be missing? I'm using gunlance and trying to focus on guard counters before wyrmstaking

Best thing i did after bouncing off MH4 on the DS 3 times:

Try more weapons! Abandon Gunlance (for now), pick the the next one that sounds appealing or the least appealing. I tried to stick to a weapon, and only after i tried several, the damn Insect Glaive stuck with me as my first main.

Futz with it in training and then and get the lowest level up to where you are now again to see how it feels.

Optional - Do every monster until you get it 3 or 5 times in a row. You learn the weapon and the monster.

DO NOT look ANYTHING up.

You can figure everything out till HR20 minimum only upgrading the weapon as far as you can and armor for more protection, build isnt important and doesnt make a big difference there.

If the game is for you and clicks with you, this path should naturally increase your enjoyment as youll develop a feel for the game.

Ill repeat. DO NOT LOOK ANYTHING UP. Except maybe watching this one vid, guy got me over the hump back then:

Dont play with others until you are HR 40+ and only on Monsters you are comfortable with. Used to be the standard community culture in all MH games before World came along.

These are personal tips that i feel are the right way to get into the game and get the most out if it.

If that doesnt float your boat, there isnt a right or wrong way to play a video game.

Hope it works out for you.

Its one of the best games around imho.

[ComposedJam]

Originally posted by Masquerade:

All I've seen is people complaining that this is really easy. yet I get my ass handed to me every hunt lately. any essential tips I might be missing? I'm using gunlance and trying to focus on guard counters before wyrmstaking

Don't get discouraged by people claiming it is too easy. Many MH fans have hundreds or thousands of hours across all the games, myself included, and therefore are much better equipped to play the game quickly. In reality every Monster Hunter game is hard for those who haven't gotten into them before.

What these people complaining about difficulty don't realize is that if the game was balanced only for people with thousands of hours of experience already, then no new players would have a good time and the game wouldn't succeed.

Basically do what others are saying.
1. Hit monster
2. Don't get hit

It really is that simple, but it takes practice! Every new hunter hits a "wall" where they need to improve

[Cr1spy_w0lf]

Players that scream game is easy has been playing for thousands of hours on previous tittles. Compare to new player, which can get overwhelmed easily on the combat.

The only advice I can give, is to keep playing. Nailed the defending yourself part first then slowly working on effectively punish monster.

[Катюша]

Combat in this series has gotten easier over time, so those of us that have played since the original have built up thousands upon thousands of hours of experience and muscle memory through playing the game.

The only real way to get better is to keep playing and practicing.

[PhantomΩ]

Originally posted by Cr1spy_w0lf:

Players that scream game is easy has been playing for thousands of hours on previous tittles. Compare to new player, which can get overwhelmed easily on the combat.

The only advice I can give, is to keep playing. Nailed the defending yourself part first then slowly working on effectively punish monster.

Yeah i kept annoying someone by constantly repeating ''but on master rank people will be carting left and right''. Can't wait to see the newbies there, i'll be answering SOS whenever possible lol