Gunlance

Weapon Traits



 * The Gunlance has piercing damage(meaning it has a bonus damage in every piercing attack you do), and most of the monsters in the game are very weak to this kind of damage. It could be said that the damage goes almost directly through a monster, this meaning that while most weapons will have a damage reduction due to the monsters defense, a Gunlance user (as well as a Lance user) will have most of its base damage going unaffected.


 * The Gunlance provides the hunter with Shielding capability, as good as a Lance user due to the size of the shields, Lance and the Gunlance has the strongest Shielding capability, and can block some attacks that to other shielding weapons would otherwise be unblockable.


 * The Gunlance has the quick draw feat, allowing the hunter to quick draw the weapon to shielding position just by pressing "R" button and then triangle while standing still, which can be very useful.


 * The Gunlance has the shelling ability. As the name implies, the lance has a gun embedded in it, which will activate by just pressing circle. The best way to think about it is a really long shotgun with a bayonet. The shots are quite short ranged, but works well when linking it with the stabs of the lance. You can see the amount of shells you have remaining on the upper left side of the screen and you can reload by pressing circle while defending with the R button.


 * Each Gunlance has a different kind of shells to shot, usually they go from level 1 to level 3 shelling(though some go as high as lv5), and they come in 3 different kinds as well: normal, spreading and long. As the name implies, each kind acts in this way.


 * The shelling feat has a downside; it burns through the weapon's sharpness, so using it will quickly dull the weapon. Whetsones are strongly recommended when using this weapon.


 * Gunlances come with an incredible explosion damage attack, Wyvern Fire. This attack can be done by pressing the circle and triangle buttons while defending with the R button. The delay is usually 3 seconds, and you have to be close for the attack to land. The downside is that after using it you'll have to wait for your weapon to cool down before being able to use it again. Wyvern fire is four times the length and four times the damage of it's shell shot. It is one long blast that is divided into four sections, so if you hit a wyvern very close up you would do the full four times the damage, but if you hit it at half the length, you only do twice the damage of shell shot and so-on. It's cool-down period is 110 seconds.


 * The Gunlances, just like the lances, can chain attacks. An example would be an attack from 3 single forward stabs to a shelling shot and repeat, or mix up with an uppercut (circle plus triangle) to diagonal attacks. See the video below for a great tutorial on how to do these combos.


 * There are three types of Gunlance play style depending on the user; Turtle, Aggressive, Balance. Turtle is a play style wherein the user just wait for the monster to come, block it, and attack; not recommended though because it do not release the Gunlance's full potential, however, this is good against large wyverns wherein the area is small. Aggressive is a style wherein the user attack the monster with full set of combos, good in slow moving monsters but bad in fast moving monsters because it will only do only 3 - 4 attacks and can leave you vulnerable. The last, balance type, as the name implies, this playstyle is widely used by the gunlance users. It uses both it's blocking capabilities and Damage Over Time Ability to devastate a monster while leaving you unharmed.
 * Certain skills for A gunner can also be used by the Gunlance, like Gunnery King, where it's shell shots damage is increase. Also, with this skill, wyvern's fire cooldown is reduced to 90 seconds.

Videos
The Monster Hunter Wikia does not take credit for these videos POq6vPQbNEQ

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Movements on Detail
Well, the list of Combos possible with the gunlance is very big. Honestly, this is one of those weapons capable of performing an infinite combo, but then again, those won't be as useful, or as battle wise, to perform anyway. Quite fun though.

Weapon Sheathed
= Draw Weapon + R = Quick Draw & Defensive stance + Direction = Quick Draw + Rushing Upward attack

The Rushing upward attack can be used to move out of dangerous spots as it has a very fast reaction move to the direction compared to all other attacks (and to lance attacks as well).

Weapon Drawn
The Gunlance is a special weapon when it comes to its way of chaining the attacks, it is as follow, you can do up to 3 lance attacks, be it uppercut, frontal thrust, diagonal stab or regular one. Even though its this way you can Link more together by using either a shell shot or a sideways movement or back jump. This way a hunter can perform an "infinite" series of chained attacks as long as stamina allows to perform the jumps or there's ammunition for shellshots.

R(HOLD) = Defense R + = Guard Attack (Diagonal, can be chained) After Diagonal Attack = Diagonal Shell shot After Diagonal Shell shot = Diagonal Attack (Can be chained) = Back-step (Can be used to link chains) After any Attack + Left Or Right Direction = Side step (Can be used to link chains) = Forward Thrust (can be chained) + = Upward Swing After Upward Swing = Diagonal Attack After Upward Swing = Upward Shell shot Direction + = Rushing upward thrust After Backstep = Backstep-Reload or Backstep-Shell shot, if ammo is full. Another great infinite combo is Upward swing and a jump back allowing an instant upward swing again.