So I was doing some lance testing...

[Jiala]

And I got the following data from my runs. Now its important to note these where done on different days whenever I had a half hour to hour to burn after work or whenever. And for the most part, I was doing these runs to help me learn the ins and outs of status vs element damage and the way the lance works. Also note, I'm not a speed runner. I'm sure someone else could beat these times blindfolded with a lance if they had half a mind to.

Run 1
Weapon used: Datura Pike III
Damage Dealt 12729
Damage believed to be poison: 3,771 (22.854%)
Time: 22'56”46

Run 2
Weapon Used: Xeno Zauta
Damage Dealt: 16516
Time: 27'29”93

Run 3
Gama Pilebunker II
Damage Dealt: 15912
Damage believed to be explosive: 588 (3.6%)
Time: 33'12”31

Run 4
Love's Sorrow
Damage Dealt: 16507
Time: 24'51”46

Run 5
Fiendish Tower
Damage Dealt: 16504
Time: 19'54”88

Build used:

Guild Cross Circlet Beta
+Ironwall Jewel
+Medicine Jewel
+Medicine Jewel
Vaal Hazak Mail Beta
+Medicine Jewel
+Recovery Jewel
Vaal Hazak Braces Beta
+Resistor Jewel
+Resistor Jewel
+Resistor Jewel
Vaal Hazak Coil Beta
+Ironwall Jewel
+Vitality Jewel
Death Stench Heel Beta
+Vitality Jewel
+Vitality Jewel
Ironside Charm III
Shield Jewel 2 in Lance
Power Talon + Power Charm + Armor Talon + Armor Charm in pouch.
Buffs used: 1 Mega Demondrug, 1 Armorskin

question and answer for those I know that are gonna come...

Question: Why such a defensive build? Why not optimize for more damage?
Answer: A few reasons really. First and foremost, I hate carting. I mostly play solo, but I have this... I guess neurological disorder that I cuss myself out and utterly loathe myself every time I cart. And when I do play multiplayer, I tend to play with friends who rely on me, I never want it to be me who causes the carts that fail us in the mission. And ten that leads me to my next reason, I tend to be kinda the suck at dodging. No sense in denying it, I sometimes goof up dodges I should have seen coming a mile a way. Or throw an extra attack in when I should be dodging out.

Question: Why Xeno'jiva for the test?
Answer: Simple answer is he is a hit point sponge with a fairly easy to read move set. So I can get some decent numbers from him.

Question: What did your palico use for the runs?
Answer: The palico was left at home so as not to skew the data. Each of these runs was done solo without even the palico at my side.

Question: What DPS meter did you use to get these numbers?
Answer: The "Overlay (Damage-Dps-Monster HP-Buff Timer)" by HelloWorld, specifically the 2.7 version if I'm not mistaken. (that version was put out on Sept 30th 2018)

Question: Dirty modding sonova...
answer: Not really a question now is it? And I'm only using a dps meter to help me see and understand what *I* am specifically doing in a fight with each weapon, how I can expect it to behave in my hands.

Question: Food Buffs?
Answer: I used the autumn festival food tray at the gathering hub to get a food buff and avoid the inconsistencies of grabbing the chefs choice. The autumn festival gives elemental resistences only.

Feel free to post your own data of similar means. Please note, I'm not drawing any conclusions yet from the data, this is just raw data. And I plan to do more tests. But I thought I'd share the data with others and see if it helped others or if others had data that might help me better understand how the elements and status weapons behave.

Oh and one minor note about the build: Its strong enough defensively to block Xeno'jiva's strongest attacks head on with the shield. Even the thrusting the hands through the ground for big explosion damage is only a little chip of health on a normal lance shield guard with this build. And you can basically stand in the fire whenever he turns the ground molten and your passive regen from the armor will take care of it. I also don't claim its original, someone else probably did the exact same build months ago and I just am not aware of it.

[Anatolius]

I'm interested in time - how would Fiendish Tower perform?
How many times did you proc poison?

[Peelsepuuppi]

I'm not exactly sure why completion time is relevant to this testing. It depends on monster behavior and how you are playing at the time. I doubt you played identically every run or that Xeno's attack pattern was the same.

[Varagonax]

Originally posted by ToveriJuri:

I'm not exactly sure why completion time is relevant to this testing. It depends on monster behavior and how you are playing at the time. I doubt you played identically every run or that Xeno's attack pattern was the same.

Monster behaviour and play quality are only factors in completion times though. Knowing how someone else performed in a similar or identical set can help you gauge its overall effectiveness.
Speedrunners tend to follow similar strategies for a reason, after all... its because they work.

[ggAkatsukiP]

To tell you the truth the lances I only use from AT elder onward are : Odogaron lance, Nergigante lance, Deviljho lance, Kushala lance, Kulu-yaku lance.

Nergigante lance is the only one I use for multiple quests while other lance is specific countering certain monster or for strategy mean.

[Jiala]

Originally posted by Purple Flame:

I'm interested in time - how would Fiendish Tower perform?
How many times did you proc poison?

Originally posted by ggAkatsukiP・暁／赤月:

To tell you the truth the lances I only use from AT elder onward are : Odogaron lance, Nergigante lance, Deviljho lance, Kushala lance, Kulu-yaku lance.

Nergigante lance is the only one I use for multiple quests while other lance is specific countering certain monster or for strategy mean.

The problem with using many of the other lances is the lack of a jewel 2 slot. Without which you loose your shield jewel 2, gimping you on the defense due to the fact you cannot block everything anymore. In Xeno'jiva's case most of his mouth energy blasts become unblockable, the big hand thrust explosion and his beams cannot be blocked without it. With the lances limited ability to dodge this can be somewhat problematic.

Also as far as how many times the poison proc'd is difficult to say. I just know that the poison was doing 20 damage a tick and I basically had Xeno'jiva posioned for 80% of the fight with that lance.

However I happened to have a Fiendish tower, the Deviljho lance, laying around so did a run with that. One thing I want to say about it, is its physically longer then the other lances, which made it a lot easier to hit Xeno'jiva's face with it. The results of that run actually surprised me, I honestly thought it was going to suck. But it did some serious damage.

Run 5
Fiendish Tower
Damage Dealt: 16504
Time: 19'54”88

[Stationary Traveller]

Originally posted by Jiala:

The problem with using many of the other lances is the lack of a jewel 2 slot. Without which you loose your shield jewel 2, gimping you on the defense due to the fact you cannot block everything anymore. In Xeno'jiva's case most of his mouth energy blasts become unblockable, the big hand thrust explosion and his beams cannot be blocked without it. With the lances limited ability to dodge this can be somewhat problematic.

Just swap out Guild Cross Circlet for any head piece with a lv2 slot and get rid of those Blight Resistance decos which are pretty anecdotical anyway (you can simply block all of the attacks that inflict dragonblight).
I get it that you want to be ultra safe, but you're literally running the weapon with the best and easiest defense in the entire game already and even if you take a hit with all that extra health and health recovery you will have enough time to sheathe and eat a nulberry.

[SynicHEX]

I kind of have a simular build when i play lance, well i have a bunch of lance builds since it was my main along with hammer for a long time. If you want faster times that are still safe swap the helm with dragon king eye patch and put the shield jewel in there. Personally i never found medicine jewels usefull so you can dump those too. That should save you a few more minutes. There are a few changes too you can make but I would do that first to see how you like it.

[Jiala]

Originally posted by Moonmadness:

Just swap out Guild Cross Circlet for any head piece with a lv2 slot and get rid of those Blight Resistance decos which are pretty anecdotical anyway (you can simply block all of the attacks that inflict dragonblight).
I get it that you want to be ultra safe, but you're literally running the weapon with the best and easiest defense in the entire game already and even if you take a hit with all that extra health and health recovery you will have enough time to sheathe and eat a nulberry.

Actually... without those blight resistance, I can no longer stand in the fire or charge across the molten areas anymore. It'll set me on fire, which cancels the regen and drains health. With them I can ignore them completely. And the lance actually has a long sheathe animation which would slow down the overall pace if I'm busting out a nullberry every time I make a mistake. Which see my answer above, I do make a lot of mistakes.

Originally posted by SynicHEX:

I kind of have a simular build when i play lance, well i have a bunch of lance builds since it was my main along with hammer for a long time. If you want faster times that are still safe swap the helm with dragon king eye patch and put the shield jewel in there. Personally i never found medicine jewels usefull so you can dump those too. That should save you a few more minutes. There are a few changes too you can make but I would do that first to see how you like it.

Cept I found the medicine jewels stack with the health regen augment on a weapon. I do have an health regen augment on one of my lances, just 1, but I made a second copy of it without the augment for the purposes of this test. With the augment I usually shave a couple minutes off cause I basically don't need a health potion like ever.

[SynicHEX]

Originally posted by Jiala:

Originally posted by Moonmadness:

Just swap out Guild Cross Circlet for any head piece with a lv2 slot and get rid of those Blight Resistance decos which are pretty anecdotical anyway (you can simply block all of the attacks that inflict dragonblight).
I get it that you want to be ultra safe, but you're literally running the weapon with the best and easiest defense in the entire game already and even if you take a hit with all that extra health and health recovery you will have enough time to sheathe and eat a nulberry.

Actually... without those blight resistance, I can no longer stand in the fire or charge across the molten areas anymore. It'll set me on fire, which cancels the regen and drains health. With them I can ignore them completely. And the lance actually has a long sheathe animation which would slow down the overall pace if I'm busting out a nullberry every time I make a mistake. Which see my answer above, I do make a lot of mistakes.

Originally posted by SynicHEX:

I kind of have a simular build when i play lance, well i have a bunch of lance builds since it was my main along with hammer for a long time. If you want faster times that are still safe swap the helm with dragon king eye patch and put the shield jewel in there. Personally i never found medicine jewels usefull so you can dump those too. That should save you a few more minutes. There are a few changes too you can make but I would do that first to see how you like it.

Cept I found the medicine jewels stack with the health regen augment on a weapon. I do have an health regen augment on one of my lances, just 1, but I made a second copy of it without the augment for the purposes of this test. With the augment I usually shave a couple minutes off cause I basically don't need a health potion like ever.

I don't pot either the damage done is enough to keep me topped off pretty quickly. I use the jho lance with an affinity and a health augment on that build. I farm tempered devil jho with it. It takes 14 to 16 minutes.

[Stationary Traveller]

Originally posted by Jiala:

Actually... without those blight resistance, I can no longer stand in the fire or charge across the molten areas anymore. It'll set me on fire, which cancels the regen and drains health. With them I can ignore them completely. And the lance actually has a long sheathe animation which would slow down the overall pace if I'm busting out a nullberry every time I make a mistake. Which see my answer above, I do make a lot of mistakes.

Use fireproof mantle?

[Smug Kot]

People tend to forget how powerful are Deviljho weapons even i can say they are stronger than Diablos with elementless jewel.

I could say this apply with low multiplier weapons like SnS, Lance, maybe LS and SA. But mostly becouse their elemental weapons sucks like no having whitesharpness or very low raw/elemental damage.

[!?!]

How big were the poison ticks on xeno?
Wasn't he weak to poison and got like 30 damage ticks or something?

[McMurphy]

Originally posted by chris:

How big were the poison ticks on xeno?
Wasn't he weak to poison and got like 30 damage ticks or something?

i think its 20

[Melusca]

Run 4
Love's Sorrow
Damage Dealt: 16507
Time: 24'51”46

Run 5
Fiendish Tower
Damage Dealt: 16504
Time: 19'54”88

Unless there's something I'm missing, you dealt 3 less damage with Jho but finished within 5 less minutes? Did something in your build change or were you just so accustomed to Xeno's pattern you just got better?

[Stationary Traveller]

Jho's lance has way higher damage (about 20% more raw and 15% more elemental) and higher elderseal than Vaal's, and with the build he's using only Jho's lance will reach white sharpness which is another 12% increase in damage. Even with nothing to offset the negative affinity the former should outperform the latter.