Monster Hunter: World – Gunlance Skills You Should Consider

Monster Hunter: World – Gunlance Skills You Should Consider 1 - steamlists.com
Monster Hunter: World – Gunlance Skills You Should Consider 1 - steamlists.com
You’ve seen the meta Long Sword builds. You’ve grinded for Attack Jewels, Expert Jewels, and Challenger Jewels alike. But now you’re getting bored of your current weapon and want something new and Gunlance just happened to be your pick. “How do I make a consistent build for this weapon?” Well fear not for this guide is here to help you with that!

(Shameless Self Promotion: Chances are that you are here from my previous guide, “Gunlance Shelling in a Nutshell”. If you aren’t, then consider checking that guide out after this one. It will give you an overall idea on how to use the three different types of Gunlances based on their shelling! Or you can just go on Youtube or the wiki. Whatever is easier for you.)

 

What to expect in this Guide

Here’s a quick Disclaimer: This guide by no means is a full in-depth guide to Gunlance. Learning how to use a weapon comes with trial and error and experience. Online videos do a much better job of explaining how to use Gunlance as a weapon in general. I should also say that this information can be found anywhere else on the internet and this guide is here for “ease of access” to the information.

Now that we have that out of the way, here’s a quick description of what each section will go over:

-General Gunlance Skills
These are the skills you should almost always be running as a Gunlance user. These benefit all three types of Gunlances so make sure to work them into your build.

(Please note that the next three sections will have very little content)

-Normal Skills
These skills benefit the Normal type Gunlance more often than not.

-Long Skills
These skills benefit the Long type Gunlance more often than not.

-Wide Skills
These skills benefit the Wide type Gunlance more often than not.

FAQ
These are questions newer and even experienced Gunlancers ask often with answers to them (from my knowledge). I will also include questions I might expect to see asked in the comments of this guide, and answer them ahead of time, but still feel free to ask anything that may seem unclear to you.

General Gunlance Skills

In this section, we will be covering skills that benefit Gunlance as a whole.

Artillery
This skill is a 100% must have. This is pretty much Attack Boost but for Gunlance. The higher the level, the better!

Felyne Bombardier
This is a Food Skill that will increase your shelling damage by 10% (according to wiki). You need at least 4 artillery food items to have a chance at activating this. Custom Platters and Gunner’s Platters are what you should be going for and using a Gourmet Voucher can assist quite a bit.

Capacity Boost
This gives your Gunlance an extra shell. More shells mean more damage. I highly recommend using this. It also gives you more room to enhance your shelling combos.

Guard
Gunlance has a big shield. Take advantage of it! Gunlance can block quite a bit of damage from on coming attacks and you will find yourself guarding more often than not.

Guard Up
Since you will be using your shield a lot, being able to block attacks most others wouldn’t be able to will help dramatically. Being able to stay in the monster’s face even after one of their strongest attacks will help with your damage per second.

Evade Extender
Gunlance doesn’t roll like other weapons. Instead, you have hops. Those hops can cover a lot of distance with this skill leveled up. Hops chain into most combos one way or another, so being able to get out of harm’s way in a single hop can be very beneficial, especially with how slow Gunlance’s heavy combo is.

Normal Skills

Evade Window
Because Normal Gunlance relies more on its heavy burst fire combo, having extra invincibility frames for your hops (in case you need to evade mid combo) will help quite a bit.

Stamina Thief
I didn’t bold this one because it’s VERY sketchy. If you know indefinitely how Monster Stamina, exhausting, and drooling works, then please confirm or bust this myth and I’ll update this accordingly. Regardless of all that, if there is some sort of benefit from having Stamina Thief on Gunlance, Normal arguably would take advantage of it the most. Heavy burst damage hits with burst fire makes for a nice chunk of exhaustion.

Long Skills

Focus
Since you shall be charging your shells more often than not, this will shorten the time they need to charge. This will help in getting more damage out in less time, and possibly save your bacon in case you shell and need to evade right after.

Earplugs
Monster Roars can interrupt you charging a shell in the Monster’s face, so earplugs will let you continue your shots regardless of loud and scary noises.

Wide Skills

Also Earplugs
This arguably will take better advantage of Earplugs than Long can due to how much you’re constantly poking and shooting the Monster.

Mind’s Eye
You will be poking the monster a lot with a Wide Gunlance so you’ll want to make sure your attack lands so you can shell right after. This is pretty much to keep a consistent DPS flow.

The following information is for players that have access to the Raging Brachydios/Furious Rajang hunts:

Raging Brachydios and Furious Rajang will present your first “glance” (pun intended) at Wide Level 7. Lightbreak is usually the prefered choice of the two, but both options have the same shelling damage.

Because there is no Long level 7 Gunlance (…I’m not crying, you’re crying), Wide 7 makes any sort of Long Gunlance “obsolete” assuming you’re going for as much damage as possible. This is because Wide 7 shelling can do more damage per second with a Charged Shelling combo than Long 6 can. This has been tested and confirmed by CaoSlayer. That means the Focus skill will now benefit Wide Gunlances more than Long Gunlances.

However, Long 6 still has the benefit of having longer range with its shells. If you are used to Long shelling’s range, it’s probably best to stick with it. You can play the game however you’d like and if you’re more comfortable with Long then by all means, use Long!

FAQ

1. “Does Bombadier affect Gunlance’s shells?

The straight answer is no. This also goes for Wyrmstake Blast. Bombadier does not assist Gunlance directly. However, if you find yourself using Barrel Bombs for sleeping monsters, this can be a nice addition to your build as Wyvern’s Fire is useful for blowing up Barrel Bombs.

2. “Should I use Protective Polish?”

If you can fit it into your build, then yes! Shelling chews through sharpness VERY quickly. Being able to temporarily stop that will allow you to stay above Green sharpness longer and thus, having consistent DPS longer.

3. “Does the heavy combo for Gunlance do impact damage?”

Sadly, no. As hard hitting as it may look, slapping monsters with your massive cannon stick does not contribute to stunning the monster. You should NOT run the Slugger skill.

4. “What’s the best Gunlance?”

I know a lot of people want a straight answer to this question, but sadly (or thankfully) there is none. There are multiple factors when it comes to using a weapon in Monster Hunter World and Gunlance is no different. Element/Status Effects still exist on Gunlance and can benefit your playstyle or be more effective against certain monsters. Sure, there will be end game Gunlances that will out perform others in terms of raw damage, but again, there are a lot of end game Gunlances that you can switch between depending on the situation, or what benefits you more as a Hunter.

5. “Who should I watch to get better at Gunlance?”

As a Gunlance Main, I too was at a point where I was a newbie with the weapon. I can’t recommend this guy enough! If you’re looking to really get into Gunlance, please look up CaoSlayer on Youtube. He goes in-depth into Gunlance, and I mean in-depth. It requires more reading, but hey, knowledge is power.

6. “What about Offensive Guard?”

Ah yes. Offensive Guard. If you really want to go for it, by all means, I won’t stop you, but it doesn’t affect shelling damage which is what you usually want to focus on as a Gunlance user. Physical damage comes second.

7. “Should I be using things like Attack Boost, Critical Eye, etc?”

Like Offensive Guard, if you really want to, go for it. But again, these skills will not benefit your shelling attacks. Shelling attacks Do Not Deal Critical Hits like normal attacks. They’re meant to be fixed and consistent.

8. “Should I run Handicraft?”

If you have the room for it, yes! Shelling chews through sharpness so the more of it you have, the longer your shelling attacks can stay consistent.

9. “What Armor should I use with Gunlance?”

There are a lot of scenarios in which different armors are useful for Gunlance depending on what skills you’re lacking. If you are missing a Shield Jewel and like using your shield a lot, Uragaan is your best bet. In general, Zorah’s armor is amazing for Gunlance if you’re using the Alpha set. Of course, you lose out in juicy decoration slots. Raging Brachydios Alpha can also be very good for Gunlance and gives you free Agitator 7 as a bonus!

10. “Why do you main Gunlance?”

(Okay I’ll be real, this is just so I can rant haha, but hey, it’s a story if you wanna read it)
This was around when I start fighting Deviljho for the first time. I was having troubles and I was using Long Sword like a total noob. I was getting frustrated from carting so many times and gave up for a bit. My older brother (who got me into the game) told me about Uragaan’s Guard Up set bonus and how combining it with a big shield would help me not cart all the time. Sure enough, I got 3 pieces of Uragaan’s armor for the set bonus, made me a Gunlance, and fought Deviljho again. It took forever but I didn’t cart once! That alone sold me on the weapon. It wouldn’t be until I return from a long break to experience the new DLC when I would start getting more in-depth with Gunlance. The ability to just stay in the Monster’s Face with an amazing defense and have really good consistent damage felt really awesome to me. If I had to summarize Gunlance in a single phrase, it would be “Oh no! … Anyway.”

Written by ZadeKirian

Hope you enjoy the Guide about Monster Hunter: World – Gunlance Skills You Should Consider, if you think we should add extra information or forget something, please let us know via comment below, and we will do our best to fix or update as soon as possible!


1 Comment

  1. Wasn’t expecting my guide to end up on another website, but hey, ease of access for everyone. Thanks for linking my profile as credit!

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