Gunlances: Types of Shellings (difference between Normal, Long and Wide)

Описание: Monster Hunter World and Rise has quite inverted some values ​​of Gunlance's shots. I was really weird about the mechanics of the weapon initially (since I'm from the portable generation, more precisely from the Freedom Unite days) so I ended up getting used to the Heat Gauge system from Generations for example.

When I played World and after Rise, I ended up taking a while to learn about it because it changed the concept a little compared to the previous ones, in World/Rise they left out the Heat Gauge, and introduced Wyrmstake Cannon, but otherwise it's basically the same (Shelling, Wyvern Fire, Charged Shelling, etc...)

Therefore, it's good to place the focus of each shot heart of hers that has very different values ​​from the roots games like Generations or 4 Ultimate.

Being them:

Wyvern Fire / Wyrmstake Cannon:
Normal - Medium
Long- Weak
Wide - Strong

Charged Shelling:
Normal - Weak
Long - Strong
Wide - Medium

Full Burst:
Normal - Strong
Long - Medium
Wide - Weak

Normal Shots:
Normal - Weak
Long - Medium
Wide - Strong

Playstyles Types:

Normal Gunlances has generally weak shelling, but lots of them (5-6). There are a few moves like Burst Fire that blow all of your shells at once, and that’s what you want to use with this type. Generally extremely high DPS when you can pull it off in a single burst, but it’s riskier and more likely to get you interrupted somewhere down the line while do the Overhead Smash. Mostly melee hits with Full Burst at the end of combo. Needs standard Crit+wex skills, Artillery, Capacity Boost, to maximize damage. The Full Burst eats sharpness like water, so be aware when using this style.

Long Gunlances is used for Charged Shelling. After an action, you can hold the shelling button, and it’ll power up the shell to do more damage. You can cancel this into a dodge or aim it up or down while charging your shot. Long GL features a moderate number of shells (3-4, and 5 with Capacity Boost Skill) The modifiers on Long shelling in general make it middle of the road if you would like to experiment with either Wide or Normal without investing in, but Charged Shelling will be ideal. Use Focus level 3. Long Shelling also has more range, which is further extended by charging the shell.

Wide Gunlances favors a simple Fire Poke Loop and engage into Wyrmstake Cannon and Wyvern's Fire. It has a very small count of shells (2-3), but each shell hits hard with little to no conditions. Just fire the shell, poke to maintain your position, fire again, and unload Wyrmstake and WF when you have conditions.

Note: Here it is important to remember that, the Wyrmstake Cannon has its damage increased according to the Raw of the Weapon, making the explosive pierces do more damage, and the final explosion, that scales with your Artillery level.

There are damage modifiers on all shelling types and all of the different shelling moves act differently based on these modifiers. In general, you lose damage using a shell outside of its intended style, but there may be reasons to do so. For Wide types apparently Charged Shells get a larger Partbreak modifier. Bursts are kinda bad though. For Normal types, a single shell doesn’t bounce, and will let you do a combo to get to a burst without bouncing, even if you have to hit a hard part of a monster (Shell, Quick Reload, Slam, Burst, Sweep, Quick Reload)

Long types kinda does it all, it actually isn’t super weak for the other shelling types, but it is still weaker than Wide at single shells, and weaker than Normal at Bursts. Using a single shell can be a good idea leading into a Charged shell.

Final Considerations:
The Gunlance is a difficult weapon to learn and initially understand how its mechanics work (for me it was as complicated as learning all the mechanics of Lance and HBG for those who one day wish to have a weapon, I hope that through this post, I make sure that some doubts will be clarified.

Aware of this information, you will know the right one to use and the shots you can still avoid, further optimizing your Thrust and Shelling combos.

For all monster hunters like me, I hope I helped you with this tip!