Lance Elemental or just Blast?

[PooPooPanda]

Came back 2 weeks ago to catch up to all the updates. I play many weapons and I usually have a meta raw lance but the new meta lance is kind of confusing, there are so many different builds I see on youtube.. So far I just have a blast safi to replace my old raw lance, but all the speed runners run elemental on most monsters with some exception.

So my question is, what is a good general elemental lance build. I still have the slightly older meta sets and just use safi elemental lance, but I'm not sure if that does more damage than blast lance at all. I think Jin jinx and tuna said that lance is better to go with raw/elemental hybrid without crit element and all that.

And I think kjarr is out of the question besides Ice right because of the bad sharpness, so Safi elemental is still the way to go.

So how do you guys build your elemental lances or is Blast generally enough~? Could safi/velkhana be a good way to build elemental lance?


Also another side question, I saw speed runners hop backwards while guarding, I never knew we could do that? I tried it but it didn't work, how do you do it?

[< blank >]

https://imgur.com/a/TrvUiBK

Originally posted by PooPooPanda:

Also another side question, I saw speed runners hop backwards while guarding, I never knew we could do that? I tried it but it didn't work, how do you do it?

You know the guard dash where you press Block+W+Left click?

Now we separate guard dash into two
1. Forward guard dash
2. Left/Right/Backward guard dash

1. Forward guard dash doesn't require any input before you perform this action.

2. Left/Right/Backward uses the same input, Block+(Any direction)+Left click.
But, you can only use it after you do the poke attack.

+ Remi's advice too.

[Remi]

Originally posted by Pay:

https://imgur.com/a/TrvUiBK

Originally posted by PooPooPanda:

Also another side question, I saw speed runners hop backwards while guarding, I never knew we could do that? I tried it but it didn't work, how do you do it?

You know the guard dash where you press Block+W+Left click?

It's the same, but Block+(Any direction)+Left click after poking.
You can only use it after you do the poke attack.

You can shield dash in any direction from idle if you bring up the slinger aim before inputting a direction.

[< blank >]

Originally posted by Remi:

You can shield dash in any direction from idle if you bring up the slinger aim before inputting a direction.

Learnt another thing today. Nice~

Wait, just the slinger aim animation or do you have to shoot the slinger.

[Remi]

Originally posted by Pay:

Originally posted by Remi:

You can shield dash in any direction from idle if you bring up the slinger aim before inputting a direction.

Learnt another thing today. Nice~

Wait, just the slinger aim animation or do you have to shoot the slinger.

Just guard and hold/toggle slinger aim. Movement during this resembles turtling forward or sidewards, and inputting guard advance lets you dash in all 4 cardinals directions. It's a bit of a mess on keyboard depending on button mapping I guess, I have to press like 6 inputs at once.

[PooPooPanda]

lol 6 inputs at once, thats alot of buttosn to press for a move. But ya I have my guard as E. Feels uncomfy with it on my default side button.

BTW So any general elemental build ??

[Crusader]

Originally posted by PooPooPanda:

lol 6 inputs at once, thats alot of buttosn to press for a move. But ya I have my guard as E. Feels uncomfy with it on my default side button.

BTW So any general elemental build ??

Elemental might be better if you have a good enough hitzone but most cases i think raw will be more consistent. For elemental you want 5 piece safi + any elemental kjarr lance for crit element. The thunder one i think has blue sharpness and no white that might be the only case where elemental is weaker (i could be wrong i haven’t checked the stats for a while).

[Zhou Yu]

The thing with elemental lance is that you don’t build for the element. You get more out of the weapon focusing on raw and using the elements as a nice bonus. Status is the same way, though it’s easier to get that bonus use out of it due to safi weapons being able to have high raw/sharpness.

[Ghost of Olympus]

The only time an elemental lance is better than regular raw blast lance is when a monster is resistant to blast while having an elemental HZV of 25 or higher. However that doesn't mean you should a lance around that element, you simply build it for raw and make due with the element on the lance. There is two matchups that I can think of right now that can benefit from Kjarr lances, Teostra and AT namielle. Monsters you don't want to use blast against for lance also include metal raths, raging brachy and bazel from memory, there might be others Im not remembering right now.

[Warkrunner]

For lances, I only use 2 types: blast or dragon with high elderseal.
Poison maybe, but because of how often you hit with lance, blast is just better for the blast procs on anything 2 star and up.

For high elderseal, the obvious choice is the Ruiner lance. I use this specifically when using lance against Ruiner itself, Luna, or Kush in order to nullify those auras (or just do more damage to Nergi).
You could go full out kjarr/safi armor for an elemental setup, but I notice it's not really worth the hassle since high raw lances with a side element still do about the same damage.

[Otaconnor]

Blast works on everything so if you want a universal lance build just do a generic master's touch blast build with some levels of guard. Won't ever let you down.

On the other hand, don't let anyone tell you that elemental lance isn't viable. Testing Safi armor with Kjarr lances using a DPS tracker, I always deal very good damage. Don't worry about it unless you're speedrunning. You'll do more than fine as long as you know your matchups (don't use dragon on Vaal, etc). Safi armor is great on lance since you never have to sheathe. Just keep attacking.
As for sharpness management, just run protective polish and use whetfish fins. There is an easy event quest to get a ton of them. If you have a Hard Enduring jewel you can slot that in to get +50% duration on the infinite sharpness.
Use either the guard charm or an elemental attack charm depending on what decos you have. If you have really good decos you can even make a build that has 100% affinity on all attacks.
I don't know if it's optimal (probably depends on the monster) but it is most certainly powerful and is usually my preferred way to build for lance. I just think the Safi set is way too fun.

I wouldn't recommend 3 piece Safi 2 piece Velkhana, at least not until Velkhana Y armor releases. Her armor set is pretty mediocre at the moment.
Also, if you want to take advantage of Safi's innate Evade Window 3, you can add 2 more levels to that and make an evade lance build. I don't like it personally but you can give it a try.

[Warkrunner]

Yea, I actually use a Safi Shattersnout with Teostra's Essense and sharpness mods to just touch purple. I use that with 2 pieces of Kaiser and 3 pieces of Safi armor, then slot in expert with an affinity mod. I got 100% affinity without tenderizer on that, and still have enough space to slot in guard 5 with offensive guard 3 and guard up.
It's one of my favorite "never stop attacking" sets.

[Remi]

Element still goes Agi 7 because it's super broken and stacking element is worse than stacking raw on Lance since it's not an elemental weapon. And going MT over Safi 3pc doesn't cost you a lot, especially considering that sheathing on Lance is awkward.

[AfLIcTeD]

The raging Brachy lance is better than the fully awakened Safi lance, only just. I was so upset when I realised this. All that time farming Safi.
I just go with blast lance as it works on most monsters. For blast resistant monsters I go poison. I just make a generic build with Kulve head and legs with the rest Teostra. I tried doing 2 piece Raging Brachy but I couldn't fit all my skills in. The only reason to use 2 piece raging is for agitator 7, so if you can't get 7 there is no point.

[PooPooPanda]

Ya I noticed a lot of speed runners do Brachy mix with agi 7 and attack 7, but I can't fit a lot of comfy stuff on there and the damage seems just a bit higher not insanely high. My slightly older MT set can fit Health and Flinch free with gurad 5/ shield up and all that and with attack boost 4 too but no agi. Now I guess I will stick with old sets and use Blast as raw lance for general use and element lance with no change in armors for now.