Lance needs a buff for Iceborne

[iamarawr]

Please just hear me out, it's not your typical "i'm not the best, but i think..." I understand that Lance is supposed to be a defensive weapon. I GET IT.

My problem with lance in ICEBORNE (it's caps for a reason) is that it's completely unfair vs. other weapons. A GS can hit an easy 500 on a monster with it's final combo. My Lance to Power guard to power thrust approximates 60 damage (a bit more on tenderized). Seems a little off, no?

"But OP, you're MEANT to be a defensive weapon, you shouldn't worry about dealing damage!!!! Noobface"

Well that's all well and great, if my main weapon is a "super defensive shield-wall weapon" why is it that Rajang can still hit me for half my health when he's enraged with red arms? I get that it only happens when he REALLY wants to hurt you, but as a "PURE DEFENSIVE BASED WEAPON" i shouldn't be taking that much damage. What's the point of running a really bad offensive weapon, if only for it's defensive advantages to be completely negated?

"But OP, you just need to learn how to evade the moves instead of blocking!!! Noob"

Then why even give me a huge ass shield to lug around? If I wanted to play the evade game, I'd choose one of the other 13 weapons. (12 if you include gunlance, which I do, since it has *relatively* the same defensive capabilities as a lance).

My point is that you can't tell me I'm a tank, in a game that has no dedicated healer class, then hit me for half my health in one move through a block. I ran 5/5 guard, guard up, 7/7 defense boost, health regen, and the rest. No, I don't have health augment on my lance, as I'm not MR100+. But I don't think there should be a need to reach a certain rank for a weapon to fulfill it's purpose.

I go lance to tank, not to get whupped on through my guard. I go LS to deal damage, not to tank.

I'm sorry, but in my mediocre 250+ hours of straight lance play, I'm confident in saying that Lance either needs a SMALL damage boost (even 10% would be game changing) or it needs a MASSIVE defense buff, that allows it to truly TANK ANY monsters moves. I'm not saying they shouldn't take any chip damage, or no damage, but I definitely shouldn't get slaughtered through my guards.

[Greb]

Guard V charm was a nice addition. Glad it wasn't stuck at Guard IV or something like Earplugs was.

Although for me I use the Offensive Guard III charm instead and wear the Bazelgeuse mail which is pretty much Guard 4 in a single slot with decos, or something like that anyway.

Don't know how valid this is because even in High Rank I always rolled Guard 5, but someone mentioned to me pre-Iceborne that Guard 3 was the maximum you needed in High Rank, but in Master Rank it is the minimum, etc.

I know what you mean though, even with Guard 5 + Guard Up, you still get chip damage on some attacks, like Vaal Hazaaks beam breath. You can hop through it though if you want. Becoming a complete tank isn't something you can achieve but you are still pretty tanky, and if you decide to go full crazy you can do that and wear like Vaal Hazak stuff for Super Vitality, have massive natural health regen, and stack Health Regen on your weapon too etc.

Don't always have to chase the damage meta - especially with a Lance, when even going all-in with damage feels kind of bad when you see other weapons DPS potential, lol.

[Jordnski]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von iamarawr:

@The Badassitude Yeah, that's why even in guard, you keep moving, because you won't regen stamina otherwise if you just stand there. Even little left to rights on the left stick works.

Well, don't stay still, you seem rather compentent enough with lance you shouldn't be having issues, almost sounds like you don't have the proper build for fighting velkana instead of being a poor lance user.

[iamarawr]

@The Badassitude That's my point. I had to build Guard Up JUST to beat a SINGLE monster. Why call me a tank and then say "oh by the way, grind to fulfill your purpose". A LS can deal damage, a HBG can deal damage, ANY weapon can deal damage, without having to specifically build for it. However, don't call me a tank then force hours of grinding to fulfill that purpose.

@lexilogo Yes, I had the Monster Hunter Math Guys build for shara ishvalda pre-completion, and yes, it still takes a HUGE chunk of health.

[Jordnski]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Greb:

Guard V charm was a nice addition. Glad it wasn't stuck at Guard IV or something like Earplugs was.

Although for me I use the Offensive Guard III charm instead and wear the Bazelgeuse mail which is pretty much Guard 4 in a single slot with decos, or something like that anyway.

Don't know how valid this is because even in High Rank I always rolled Guard 5, but someone mentioned to me pre-Iceborne that Guard 3 was the maximum you needed in High Rank, but in Master Rank it is the minimum, etc.

I know what you mean though, even with Guard 5 + Guard Up, you still get chip damage on some attacks, like Vaal Hazaaks beam breath. You can hop through it though if you want. Becoming a complete tank isn't something you can achieve but you are still pretty tanky, and if you decide to go full crazy you can do that and wear like Vaal Hazak stuff for Super Vitality, have massive natural health regen, and stack Health Regen on your weapon too etc.

Don't always have to chase the damage meta - especially with a Lance, when even going all-in with damage feels kind of bad when you see other weapons DPS potential, lol.

You need effluival resistance to tank vaal's breath beam it does massive tick damage instead of just straight pure damage.

[mewlynx]

I think you need to understand that the concept of tanking isn't really a thing. Lance isn't meant to just sit there and absorb every single hit that comes at it, and it's more than capable of putting out solid damage. If that doesn't make it worth playing to you, consider playing another weapon.

[lexilogo]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von iamarawr:

@lexilogo again, why say "you're a tank" then say "you have to dodge". I'd just run a different weapon, one that can avoid all damage through a roll.

Yeah you can "dodge and block" at the same time, but if you're hit, you still take massive damage. How does that correlate to what should be the "strongest" tank weapon in the game?

If you know you're going to take the hit even if you evade you should probably Power Guard instead.

Other weapons can avoid all damage through rolling but iframing attacks takes far more skill investment than a Lance block, Guard Dash, counter or Power Guard, and depending on the attack it may also be iframable by a Lance hop anyway.

Iframing attacks is also, in the case of many monster attacks, outright impossible without levels of Evade Window, or even impossible with said levels. Blocking works on just about everything.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von iamarawr:

@The Badassitude Try fighting Velkhana as lance without guard up. It's not impossible, true, but it's definitely not in reach of at least 90% of the population of lances.

I'd actually argue Velkhana would be fairly manageable without Guard Up.

Her attacks that require Guard Up are pretty predictable and slow (and therefore easy to Power Guard which grants Guard Up as part of the moveset), and the exceptions like her standard breath attack are slim enough to hop away from.

Pretty much the only attack from Velkhana I'd consider really dangerous is the quick ice explosion breath- That attack's pretty quick and hurts like hell but could probably be caught with a power guard- and maybe the ground chiller because of Lance's tendency to be close at all times.

[Popcorn]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von The Badassitude:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Vaisnac:

Its less of a stereotypical tank and more of a counter tank, as in the shield is just there to deflect a little to no dmg.
Tanking moves would usually go along with the skill called guard up, making moves a little easier to tank.
Rather than going for def boost, go crit eye or elemental up (as in watever wpm element ur going) as it will definitely help the dmg

In the arena, i was hitting yian garuga 100s, but that set also had offesive moves whilst having guard up ie offensive guard, water attk up

Errr guard up makes moves otherwise where impossible to guard, actually possible to guard...it doesn't do more than that, your ability to take hits relies on Guard level and shield level as Lance being the highest level of shield and guard, and even higher with Guard +5 you can literally block anything without chip damage, if you take any damage with a lance with guard up + guard 5 you obviously screwed up your positioning, or you slid into aoe damage or evironmental damage or took blight damage.

Oh i know bout guard up, i just mean if OP wants to tank super moves, thats the only skill able to tank them. I mean, the only chip dmg most lancers would get is from environmental ones like teos ground burning or vaals miasma, in which OP should do what the game was intended to do: rarity 10>11>12 augments. It doesnt take long nor does it hurt the hunt times as much

Ursprünglich geschrieben von iamarawr:

@Greb Mobility with lance is NOT fine. I don't know what world you're living in, but one guard hop + 2 hops is NOT enough for the higher end MR monsters. There's a reason it's one of (if not THE) lowest played weapon in the game. I haven't checked the stats recently, but I doubt they've changed.

I may have only played 250 hours, but I've PRACTICED hopping and guard hopping. I can guard hop through a Shara laser wall, yet it STILL takes half my health. Again I say; why say I'm a tank, then take away my ability to survive? It has the longest sheathe time, but I pretty much HAVE to sheathe after a move like that, unless I have my Palico running Vigorwasp, or I want to die.

This is why lance is the type arrekz gaming calls a "stick close to the monste" type of wpn, if ur too far from the monster, ur doing something wrong, or ur teammates are doing something wrong/are far rangers

Also, there is still literally nothing that says lance is for tanking. I might as well say "why does sns have a shield when it literally does nothing but bash the monster's head in?" Or "CB GP has no point other than to spam SAED/savage axe"
The shields are less for tanking and more, like i said b4, a counter

[Jordnski]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von iamarawr:

@The Badassitude That's my point. I had to build Guard Up JUST to beat a SINGLE monster. Why call me a tank and then say "oh by the way, grind to fulfill your purpose". A LS can deal damage, a HBG can deal damage, ANY weapon can deal damage, without having to specifically build for it. However, don't call me a tank then force hours of grinding to fulfill that purpose.

@lexilogo Yes, I had the Monster Hunter Math Guys build for shara ishvalda pre-completion, and yes, it still takes a HUGE chunk of health.

Lance has always been this way, ever since the ye olden days of MH1/2 on ps2/psp, you have to a build for every scenerio, whether it be countering monsters / High DPS / High regen/ such and so forth, it will never change, this is how the game is.

[iamarawr]

@maelynx I did. I went to LS, because Lance is NOT fulfilling it's purpose. "The concept of tanking isn't a thing." then why even bother putting a shield with the weapon? Why not allow them to roll? It's because lance IS meant to be a tank. Capcom just hasn't balanced it right.

In the base game, Lance was extremely viable and fun, because it fulfilled it's purpose. It could tank hits, deal "some" damage, and that was that. With the current monster health pools and damage, it's no longer viable, except in a niche market.

[Greb]

Lance is more fun in solo too, for what it's worth. You don't need to counter clutch every attack of course, but in multiplayer the monster thrashes everywhere and is often running away from you so your damage bursts become even more infrequent. Although when everyone uses a Lance in the team it can also be pretty funny, poor monster. Otherwise though, you usually end up feeling like dead weight, unless you're fighting something like Diablos anyway.

Plus, your smaller but successive hits pay more when the monsters health pool is smaller too, and it also becomes fun and worthwhile to try poking the tail off instead of just "I'm helping!" in multiplayer when the guy with the Greatsword or Dual Blades is hacking away at it next to you, lol.

Who knows, maybe they'll add underwater combat again one day, and then the Lance can come back and shine once more

[Jordnski]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Greb:

Lance is more fun in solo too, for what it's worth. You don't need to counter clutch every attack of course, but in multiplayer the monster thrashes everywhere and is often running away from you so your damage bursts become even more infrequent. Although when everyone uses a Lance in the team it can also be pretty funny, poor monster. Otherwise though, you usually end up feeling like dead weight, unless you're fighting something like Diablos anyway.

Plus, your smaller but successive hits pay more when the monsters health pool is smaller too, and it also becomes fun and worthwhile to try poking the tail off instead of just "I'm helping!" in multiplayer when the guy with the Greatsword or Dual Blades is hacking away at it next to you, lol.

Who knows, maybe they'll add underwater combat again one day, and then the Lance can come back and shine once more :evilhero:

you're a mascosit, i will always hate MHT's underwater combat, nothing was more infuriating then it ever.... ugh it just pissed me off thinking about it lol

[lexilogo]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von iamarawr:

In the base game, Lance was extremely viable and fun, because it fulfilled it's purpose. It could tank hits, deal "some" damage, and that was that. With the current monster health pools and damage, it's no longer viable, except in a niche market.

Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more and I don't think we'll see eye-to-eye on this.

Basegame world Lance was extremely viable and fun but it was everything Lance detractors said it was- A, to be frank, boring weapon where you held block to win hunts.

Guard V was considered vast overkill by many Lance players and it plus guard up made you essentially immortal long before you got Health Augmentation.

In Iceborne Master Rank monsters have made Lance players work for their blocks in much the same way everyone else has to work for their i-frames. Blocking is still an option but inferior to a series of other, harder to execute moves, and you cannot get away with purely using the basic blocks.

IMO Lance has hit a great spot in IB with still being a powerful weapon while shedding some of its old baggage of being a "block to win" weapon.

This video from MH youtuber Herny IMO does a good job of explaining Lance's current state in Iceborne, why it's a pretty good one, and shows off some endgame Lance gameplay and how strong the weapon can be in the right hands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWCrPzvVOXw

[Popcorn]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Greb:

Lance is more fun in solo too, for what it's worth. You don't need to counter clutch every attack of course, but in multiplayer the monster thrashes everywhere and is often running away from you so your damage bursts become even more infrequent. Although when everyone uses a Lance in the team it can also be pretty funny, poor monster. Otherwise though, you usually end up feeling like dead weight, unless you're fighting something like Diablos anyway.

Plus, your smaller but successive hits pay more when the monsters health pool is smaller too, and it also becomes fun and worthwhile to try poking the tail off instead of just "I'm helping!" in multiplayer when the guy with the Greatsword or Dual Blades is hacking away at it next to you, lol.

Who knows, maybe they'll add underwater combat again one day, and then the Lance can come back and shine once more :evilhero:

Was 2nd place in dmg for a behemoth hunt in basegame, only defensive skill was guard up, cuz of body slam and eruptions, ofc i had health regen 2

[Crowley42]

I won't read through the thread but OP, you are supposed to use multiple weapons for different monsters. It's just that MHW is so easy that you aren't forced into giving up your favourite weapon in order to succeed.

[Greb]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Crowley42:

I won't read through the thread but OP, you are supposed to use multiple weapons for different monsters.

While you don't have to, this.

Some weapons just get hard countered by other monsters, such as Rajang being rather annoying to fight with both a Hammer or a Lance due to parts of their improved moveset being dependant on the Clutch Claw, which Rajang loves to counter.

It's particularly egregious with Rajang when you land a Lance counter because you can see him begin the grab animation before you've even landed on his body lol. Guy has a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sixth sense or something.