How to use the gunlance effectively?

[Guizin]

I'm trying the gunlance, and I like it so far. But I'm a little p*ssy and I keep the shield up all the time, barely doing any damage. How do you maximise your efficiency?

[OmegaV-Rex]

EXPLOSION EXPLOSION EXPLOSION DODGE RELOAD rinse and repeat. but depends on the GL type tho

[Elsenrail]

For me, always attack the monster on the sides and take note of your position, utilize your hops and try to always encircle the monster. Make use of your charging upward strike to close the distance, if the monster is too far, always unsheath for faster movement. And as much as possbile attack then from under if they are big enough, you usually get away with a few strikes before they move again.

This is just the general gist of it, but if you need detailed tactics, move rotations and whatnot, youtube is your friend

[Misfit]

use artillery 3, capacity gem and shells lvl 4 lance this is your best damage source, use the full burst combo with the royal burst lance.
its a pretty slow combo, so you need to know the monsters and when you can pull it off.
nice thing is that you only need artillery charm and a capacity gem and the full burst ignores monster armor and resistance.

the other lvl 4 lance with long shells is for charged shots, which is super simple but strange to aim in my opinion.

[Guizin]

Originally posted by Omegaphize- in game PS4:

EXPLOSION EXPLOSION EXPLOSION DODGE RELOAD rinse and repeat. but depends on the GL type tho

i love explosions

[Guizin]

Originally posted by Misfit:

use artillery 3, capacity gem and shells lvl 4 lance this is your best damage source, use the full burst combo with the royal burst lance.
its a pretty slow combo, so you need to know the monsters and when you can pull it off.
nice thing is that you only need artillery charm and a capacity gem and the full burst ignores monster armor and resistance.

the other lvl 4 lance with long shells is for charged shots, which is super simple but strange to aim in my opinion.

burst is hard to do

[Serrassi Effect]

heavy uppercunt, heavy slam, full burst, heavy poke, reload, heavy slam, full burst, heavy poke, reload, full burst,heavy poke, reload, full burst,heavy poke, reload, full burst,heavy poke, reload, full burst,heavy poke, reload, full burst,heavy poke, reload, full burst,heavy poke, reload, full burst,heavy poke, reload, full burst

[Zamus]

Depends on gunlance type if using the normal type then the full busrt loop is what you should do and do not forget your wyvernstake after playing a bit you know when a monster will run away, also keep an eye for ledges to jump or slide, if you do the running poke on a slop you will slide down allowing you to do an aerial burst bypassing the overhead smash and if you drop from a ledge and press the RT button you will do a quick reload as you drop as well as doing a downward smash from which you can instantly full burst.

[OmegaV-Rex]

Originally posted by Guizin:

Originally posted by Omegaphize- in game PS4:

EXPLOSION EXPLOSION EXPLOSION DODGE RELOAD rinse and repeat. but depends on the GL type tho

i love explosions

then do it XD

[Superlative Smegma Savant]

Yeah if youre using Royal Burst and using an xbone controller then - Y+B, Y, B,Y, RB+B(think thats reload),Y+B,Y,B,Y,reload, rinse repeat. Ofcourse artillery and magazine boost are mandatory for this, at least if youre going for max gunlance boombooms, having the protective polish jewel will save you alot of downtime sharpening aswell

[Smug Kot]

artillery, capacity boost and evade extender are you bread and butter skills.

[HunterXCooL]

1. Monster doing animation
2. Snuck up from anywhere
3. Stab boom boom boom
4. Back away reload
5. Repeat from step 1

[ImHelping]

I'm new to the series and Gun Lance has been great to me.

More important than learning how absurdly broken quickload in the middle of combos is though?

It was throwing all the 'common knowledge' about "Try to spam X attack with Y shell!" into the garbage. That was the real game changer moment for me.

Using wide type? Use burts if you have a proper opening for them. It's still tied to your biggest melee combos after all. Or are you going to just spam single shells if the monster falls down and your Wyvernfire is still on cooldown?

Using normal type? Use pokes and single shells as often as you want. Full bursts are only a quick load away after all. Man, the ability to go "oops it's empty", quickload, and then immediatly slam burst is some serious ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

This also loops around back to you getting to use bursts more often, as the AI tries and fails to punish your safe attacks instead of roaring or otherwise interrupting your attempts to spam burst/stakes. (poke-poke-shell-shell-block... Wow that would have sucked, too bad for bagelsI blocked instead. burst time!)

Damage is damage. Single shells now are better than trying and failing to spam bursts because that's what the chart says has the biggest numbers per attack animation.

It did wonders for breaking Teo's horns in my first fight with him while slumming it using Chrome I. Teasing them with slams I did not burst off of between ventilating their face with stabs and single shells until "Oh cool, it's 100% safe to burst". Because again, being empty is a formality for GL once you get comortable with quickloads.

The exception seemed to be if you use focus skill for better charged shot speeds. Thanks to quickload, by default you are often safer just firing a pair of quick shells (which also opens the option of 3rd shell press in a row = stake. Good for 90 degree angle stakes) compared to trying for charged shells.

The difference Focus skill gives, even if the gifs make it seem like nothing. Makes it a lot more convenient to use charged shells as your new "single shell". Which in turn makes it safer to spam charged shells. And thus, makes the gimmick of Long type feel worth it.

Artillery is probably the most important skill. But don't be afraid to go without it if you need other stuff to survive. Can't use that DPS if you're dead. Shells will ignore hardness by default so you can still break stuff like Diablos horns, it will just take longer.

Capacity is pure convenience for Normal, nice for long, and "Oh god do you miss not having it" for Wide. But then to me it's not about the extra tick of burst damage, so much as the extra leeway for single shell based options (see again: the Shell-Shell-Stake mash circle/B button move).

As for "BIG COMBOS". My personal favorite when a monster falls down is-

Burst-SWEEP-Quickload-Burst-Sweep-repeat. Until you want to use a stake (which can be done after the slam, or after the sweep) or wyvernfire.

The big horizontal sweep is your hardest hitting physical attack. It can also be followed up with a stake as part of the melee combo. Plus if you have to abort you have still hit them with a much stronger overall combo, than having to abort from an upswing preffered burst spam.

EDIT: Man. Honestly the fact the GL has "You have access to your entire moveset at a moment's notice" going for it was the biggest pleasant surprise. For all the ♥♥♥♥ talk about it being 'simple' or 'spammy'. It's more like a free flowing circle of 'best move for the moment' options.

[Franz]

Royal Burst - Normal 4: start with uppercut, then cycle slam, full burst, slash, quick reload, slam.

Magda Lahat - Long 4: shelling only, get Focus 3 and blast away.

Barroth/Bazel - Wide 3 (no W4 until Kulve): poke shell poke shell poke shell quick reload.


Shield is there to keep you alive but mostly to create openings by keeping you on your feet through an attack. Guard 3 is a nice skill for that.
Evade extender is a game changer, it lets you hop much farther to either close the distance or get the eff out of, say, an exploding Teostra.
Protective polish is also nice since GL shells eat sharpness and deal less damage as it goes down.

To squeeze more damage out of shelling builds (Wide and especially Long GLs) eat for feline bombardier (4 ingredients from the bottom line). Since you won't melee as much, or at all with Magda Lahat, you can skip attack/crit related skills and instead buff your Palico with Palico Rally. Give it (him? Her?) Mewlotov or Shieldspire and the (bugged, always crits) Jho weapon.

Edit @ the above poster: you're right, throwing away the 'optimal' stuff and adapting to the actual situation you're facing is a great tip (for any weapon really, not just GL).

[DarkFenix]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

*snip*

- Wide GL full burst isn't doing enough to be worth it. Why even bother when your looping melee combo will achieve more in an opening? Possibly different when L4 wides are out, but certainly not at the moment.

- Capacity is mere convenience for normal? What are you smoking? Artillery gives a 30% damage boost to full burst from three skill points, capacity gives a multiplicatively stacking 20% for one skill point.

But in general you're right. Gunlance isn't a weapon that needs to hover around sacrificing everything for the sake of a big set piece wombo combo. Play it like a lance between openings, poke poke poking away. Small openings call for a full combo into stake, or possibly just wyvernfire. Big openings call for the full looping combo. It's a versatile weapon.

[Birdy.J]

The odogaron beta set will effectively power up GL.