Question for Gunlance Users, do you think some of the recovery animations are too long?

[Chojoukif]

I decided I was gonna main gunlance at least until endgame, I'm about 30 hours in now and while I really like what they did with the weapon overall, this is my one complaint. I feel like the recovery takes too long. In particular, it feels like often I am in a situation where I see an attack coming and even though I want to react, I can't because I'm stuck in recovery.

Obviously it depends on the monster and the combo you are using, but in any case, the two moves that come to mind in particular are wyvern fire and burst fire? (I mean the move you do after the sweep that fires all your shells in an arc).

Wyvern fire has an obscene recovery time, I get that its like your ultimate move and so it should have a long recovery, but you could cut this recovery in half and it would still feel long. Considering the weapon has clearly been reworked to actually let you use wyvern fire in combat as opposed to world where it was a bit like asking for trouble, I am a little frustrated by the "recovery gambling" aspect of the move. As funny as it sounds, a lot of the time I am hoping the monster will roar as I enter recovery to cancel the recovery lol.

Burst fire (if it is called that) is a bit more nuanced. Perhaps I am being greedy and using it more than I should, it is a long move to execute after all. One thing I don't like about it is that it automatically goes into wyrmstake if you don't do anything, which also has a long recovery, and the only way to cancel out of using wyrmstake is to hop. I would much prefer it was possible to reload and cancel out of it to get access to the guardpoint, you still have to time it well but it just would make the weapon feel more responsive cause I don't have to dodge cancel before I can block. Now of course you could iframe the incoming attack with the hop I guess, if the timing is just right cause if you wait too long you are gonna do the wyrmstake, all this presuming you are a god gamer cause there aren't that many iframes to work with (not to mention, I am not sure what happens if at the end of the iframes you are still in an active hitbox, do you just get hit anyway?). Either way, my experience has been that its just a little jank.

I guess one other move worth mentioning is the charged shell. Not only does it take 0.1% of my natural lifespan to charge, it takes another 0.1% on the recovery. For dps its probably not optimal anyway so I don't get why its this slow (I am not 100% sure what the options are for canceling out of it cause I have not used it very much).

So in any case, I was just curious to hear what people thing on this. I am more than happy to chalk all of this up to a skill issue, in fact I would be happy if it was cause that would mean I could fix the problem by getting better, but I know from world that the MH team are not immune to making dumb decisions like for example how in world after you hop with the gunlance pressing circle doesn't shell but for some reason goes into the long reload animation which makes no sense. Also, I know how this goes, with every update there will come harder monsters that are going to attack progressively faster, if I can't keep up with tempered monsters on release its only gonna get worse.

[TimeBeard]

Ya, Gunlance has always been considered a heavy weapon so its recovery on its heavier attacks are absurdly long at times. Like you mentioned though, the the wyrmstake being a forced action after the burst in the combo is by far the worst part of the weapon and one I also despise.

If you're looking for faster reaction attack chains though, if you do the burst combo, and after the first burst, you can just side hop, quick reload, burst again; over and over and over. The damage potential is a bit lower than doing the full burst combo, and eats more sharpness, but its a lot safer in terms of being able to react to attacks.

Overall though, the gunlance is a clunky weapon that looks cool cause of all the explosions. If you're looking for a shield weapon with fast reactions though, both SnS and Lance are both very good and have comparable damage (honestly all weapons other than hunting horn are very similar in damage output).

[Chojoukif]

Originally posted by TimeBeard:

Ya, Gunlance has always been considered a heavy weapon so its recovery on its heavier attacks are absurdly long at times. Like you mentioned though, the the wyrmstake being a forced action after the burst in the combo is by far the worst part of the weapon and one I also despise.

If you're looking for faster reaction attack chains though, if you do the burst combo, and after the first burst, you can just side hop, quick reload, burst again; over and over and over. The damage potential is a bit lower than doing the full burst combo, and eats more sharpness, but its a lot safer in terms of being able to react to attacks.

Overall though, the gunlance is a clunky weapon that looks cool cause of all the explosions. If you're looking for a shield weapon with fast reactions though, both SnS and Lance are both very good and have comparable damage (honestly all weapons other than hunting horn are very similar in damage output).

Thanks for the input, so I guess it's not just me haha. Yeah, I actually have done a full playthrough with Lance in world, the only thing I didn't like about it was the low damage but it seems like that has been addressed in wilds at least somewhat. I definitely wanna try some other weapons too but for now I just wanted to dig into gunlance cause it looked really cool compared to to world. I will praise capcom at least for adding guardpoints to the reload animations, that is truly massive and without that I think the weapon would be almost unplayable.

[Mrrshan68]

Well wyvern fire knocks you back quite abit, that often means that if the monster is winding up an attack it might miss you while you are in the recovery animation.
Also after a wyvern fire the next one comes out faster and charges faster so if you fire em off back to back it yeets you quite a distance from the monster for your long ass recovery animation.
The WS/FB combo is very very long but its silly powerful so thats ok.
Im just glad that we can hop w/o attack, forward hop and hop after shelling now.

I assume the fear from capcom was that if they make gunlance too mobile and responsive where does that leave normal lance?
lane and gunlance are mostly the same weapon, one is just based on speed and counters while one is based on sloth and explosions.

the faster gunlance gets the faster normal lance goes extinct lol.

[defnotj4]

if you want perspective, pick up switchaxe for a day or two. you'll never think twice about wyvern fire, it's basically free damage when it's available.

most issues we'll run into on gunlance stem from overcommitment. being able to shell around a monster and reload/perfect guard essentially on demand while fishing out appropriate punishes and the ability for those reloads and perfect guards to seamlessly transition into either the medium or long commitment combos put gunlance pretty close to the top of what might be considered busted right now

[Chojoukif]

Originally posted by defnotj4:

if you want perspective, pick up switchaxe for a day or two. you'll never think twice about wyvern fire, it's basically free damage when it's available.

most issues we'll run into on gunlance stem from overcommitment. being able to shell around a monster and reload/perfect guard essentially on demand while fishing out appropriate punishes and the ability for those reloads and perfect guards to seamlessly transition into either the medium or long commitment combos put gunlance pretty close to the top of what might be considered busted right now

Tbh, if Switch axe in wilds is anything like in world I am not good enough to play it XD I don't understand how anyone plays this weapon, I guess now it at least has offset attacks but yeah I take your point, no matter what downsides gunlance has, it could be worse.

I can understand the overcommitment angle, I think in many cases the shellstep + widesweep combo seduces me to follow up with burst fire cause that is my go to gap closer but maybe if I was more discerning I wouldn't be caught with my pants down as often. I guess for my particular sensibilities, I think that if I am able to safely execute an attack, then there should be a way for me to not get punished afterwards, and playing gunlance is often not like this, as the punishment from the monster comes in the recovery. I guess I might also add, somehow the standard poke shell poke combo does not feel as good in wilds for some reason, it almost feels like there is some lag to it somehow? Idk, but compared to world it doesn't feel as fluid which in turn makes me not want to use it. And as mentioned before with the charged shell playstyle, it really feels awful (even though there is a temptation to use it due to the rate by which it charges wyvern fire).

So yeah, I admit that the damage is good and gunlance is a solid weapon, I am more so just trying to understand what I need to do to get better at playing it. And purely from a gameplay experience I gotta say, it feels so bad to lose the entire topple damage window whenever I get a topple from wyvernfire. That's how long the recovery is. Even if they had to cut the damage in half for balancing, I would vastly prefer that to seeing the monster flail and not being able to do anything.

[Chojoukif]

Originally posted by Mrrshan68:

Well wyvern fire knocks you back quite abit, that often means that if the monster is winding up an attack it might miss you while you are in the recovery animation.
Also after a wyvern fire the next one comes out faster and charges faster so if you fire em off back to back it yeets you quite a distance from the monster for your long ass recovery animation.
The WS/FB combo is very very long but its silly powerful so thats ok.
Im just glad that we can hop w/o attack, forward hop and hop after shelling now.

I assume the fear from capcom was that if they make gunlance too mobile and responsive where does that leave normal lance?
lane and gunlance are mostly the same weapon, one is just based on speed and counters while one is based on sloth and explosions.

the faster gunlance gets the faster normal lance goes extinct lol.

I have noticed that the recoil from wyvernfire can often cause the monster to miss. I really like this aspect but unfortunately you don't really have enough freedom to freeaim the wyvern fire to "dodge" with the recoil, cause at the end of the day you also need to hit the monster otherwise there is no point. But now that you mention it, one creative solution here might be to at a homing effect to wyvernfire after you use a wyrmstake, which would allow you to aim wyvernfire in a direction suitable for dodging, that could be interesting.

I am also aware of the double wyvernfire tech, I use it all the time and yes, generally if you get both of them off there is a good chance you are coming out unscathed for one reason or another, but I still often find it frustrating if I get a topple from all the damage I'm doing and I literally don't have time to perform a single attack while the monster is down cause the recovery is so damn long, it just feels extremely bad.

I guess I take your point about gunlance cannibalizing lance. Tbh, I had a different reasoning but I also went through this thought process where I just thought, Gunlance just seems like a more exciting, more complex version of lance, so why would I not play that instead? I guess lance has always been like this, you can't help but compare it to some more complex weapons and when you do, it doesn't feel as exciting (even though from what I heard, wilds lance has a lot of complexity under the hood due to the different tiers of counter charge and the variety of follow ups). But idk, to me it doesn't feel like a good reason to gimp gunlance, if that was the reason. Imo, all lance needs is a more interesting main combo than poke poke poke, other than that I think the weapon is in a good place.

[Ginebra]

Well so charge shelling I think is for wide gunlance get their Wyvern fire back and since wide does more wyvern fire damage.

[Mrrshan68]

If you are having trouble running upto a downed monster after a wyvern fire are you using the tech of forward lunge, then after you jump forward but before you swing the gunlance up you fire off a shell, then you can combo into the new moving sweep thing.
This covers a lot of ground and combos directly into the FB/WS combo.

I find i dont miss wyvern fire topples if i do this.

[defnotj4]

Originally posted by Chojoukif:

Originally posted by defnotj4:

if you want perspective, pick up switchaxe for a day or two. you'll never think twice about wyvern fire, it's basically free damage when it's available.

most issues we'll run into on gunlance stem from overcommitment. being able to shell around a monster and reload/perfect guard essentially on demand while fishing out appropriate punishes and the ability for those reloads and perfect guards to seamlessly transition into either the medium or long commitment combos put gunlance pretty close to the top of what might be considered busted right now

Tbh, if Switch axe in wilds is anything like in world I am not good enough to play it XD I don't understand how anyone plays this weapon, I guess now it at least has offset attacks but yeah I take your point, no matter what downsides gunlance has, it could be worse.

I can understand the overcommitment angle, I think in many cases the shellstep + widesweep combo seduces me to follow up with burst fire cause that is my go to gap closer but maybe if I was more discerning I wouldn't be caught with my pants down as often. I guess for my particular sensibilities, I think that if I am able to safely execute an attack, then there should be a way for me to not get punished afterwards, and playing gunlance is often not like this, as the punishment from the monster comes in the recovery. I guess I might also add, somehow the standard poke shell poke combo does not feel as good in wilds for some reason, it almost feels like there is some lag to it somehow? Idk, but compared to world it doesn't feel as fluid which in turn makes me not want to use it. And as mentioned before with the charged shell playstyle, it really feels awful (even though there is a temptation to use it due to the rate by which it charges wyvern fire).

So yeah, I admit that the damage is good and gunlance is a solid weapon, I am more so just trying to understand what I need to do to get better at playing it. And purely from a gameplay experience I gotta say, it feels so bad to lose the entire topple damage window whenever I get a topple from wyvernfire. That's how long the recovery is. Even if they had to cut the damage in half for balancing, I would vastly prefer that to seeing the monster flail and not being able to do anything.

knowing when to stop at just the overhead smash or just the wide sweep etc is where the real expression in gunlance sits. personally i don't think you'll find you have much issues once you get more one on one time with the monsters and you know how much you can actually afford to commit or if you have time to recover.

my personal pain point was waiting til i actually had a good chance to full reload when i needed it. now that's a rough animation to be stuck in and probably most of the hits i ended up taking

[Chojoukif]

Originally posted by Mrrshan68:

If you are having trouble running upto a downed monster after a wyvern fire are you using the tech of forward lunge, then after you jump forward but before you swing the gunlance up you fire off a shell, then you can combo into the new moving sweep thing.
This covers a lot of ground and combos directly into the FB/WS combo.

I find i dont miss wyvern fire topples if i do this.

Hmm, I guess you mean lunging upwards thrust into shell step into lunging sweep? (I am guessing the names cause I don't have them memorized lol) I actually had not tried doing that, usually I just do shellstep into lunging sweep which already covers a lot of distance, I'll do some testing to see if there is something I was missing. But the problem more often than not is not the distance, but the fact that if the monster topples as I wyvernfire, by the time I get control of my character, mandatory reload cause usually if I have wyvernfired it means I went through the burst fire combo which expends all the shells, and then as I am lunging at the monster the monster gets up. Even if I could teleport onto the monster after the reload, I probably could only do 1-2 pokes before it gets up, which I guess its not the end of the world but still not ideal. I'm used to getting 1-2 TCS per topple from maining Greatsword in world and so naturally watching the monster being unable to do anything feels really bad for me

[The Vagrant Knight]

I main gunlance in wilds, like I did in worlds. Some animations are high commitment, but I don't think they're too long. Gunlance, like greatsword and to some extend switchaxe, is just one of those weapons where you need to learn a monster's pattern to know what you can get away with and what is too much of a risk.

I know it is tempting to go for that double wyvernstake combo all the time, but don't forget we also have some more mobile attack options. Even just a poke > shell combo deals decent amounts of damage for how fast it is to pull off. It even has some mobility in wilds with the shell sidestep.

also note that we have some insane damage output when we're given the opportunity, so I'd say it all balances out.

Lastly, I got into the habit of just hard reloading at the end of every combo if I get the chance. It doesn't take that long and flows kinda natural imo. If you didn't pop wyvernstake, you can also just quick reload (which you can do while parrying as well).

[PhantomΩ]

Originally posted by Chojoukif:

Originally posted by defnotj4:

if you want perspective, pick up switchaxe for a day or two. you'll never think twice about wyvern fire, it's basically free damage when it's available.

most issues we'll run into on gunlance stem from overcommitment. being able to shell around a monster and reload/perfect guard essentially on demand while fishing out appropriate punishes and the ability for those reloads and perfect guards to seamlessly transition into either the medium or long commitment combos put gunlance pretty close to the top of what might be considered busted right now

A lot of cool info.

As a switch axe main, the way it performed on world boiled down to: sword mode -> triple Slash -> heavensward whatever -> Zero Sum Discharge (ZSD). Rince and repeat. It was rather boring but i still loved it. Now on Wilds you have more flexibility as you can yes still perform the same combo and end with Full Release Slash (FRS), BUT you can much better make use of the morph attacks, which i personally love.

[Isaac]

Gunlace really benefits from being in a group. Most of the strong attacks have a very long recovery, in solo play you get punched out of them really often.
This basicaly means you can't use halve of the kit for many fights.
In MP it is completly different, the switched aggro allows you way more often to do full combos and do insane damage.

[DragynDance]

Gunlance is in a weird spot atm, cuz some of it feels clunky, but it's one of the stronger (potentially strongest?) weapons in the game. A lot of speedrunners are using it as their wepaon of choice and getting top times with it, it's like in the top three. So buffing it probably won't happen without some sort of compromising nerf in another department.

Ah here we are. I think Gunlance actually currently has the world record for tempered arkveld solo time? Video here:
https://youtu.be/XsQJvlwMLks