Monster Hunter Wilds – Ultimate Gunlance Guide

Gunlance Guide and Tips

Ву Manyu & REDD.

Progression

Welcoming Changes

So Gunlance received some changes while moving to Wilds. And we mean really good changes:

• Gunlance shelling now has a new stat called “Power” which boosts the shelling attack by a small percent based on the raw damage stat: Slight Weak (6%), Normal (8%), and Slightly Strong (10%). 
• New attacks have been added that allow us to move after shooting shellings, the newly improved advancing wide sweep, an extra Wyvern’s Fire (WF) shell, and new ways to fullburst and spam Wyrmstake Cannon (WSC) on our opponents.
• The addition of focus mode grants better attack directioning which is basically an autocorrector so we never whiff attacks. However, Drake Auger (Focus Strike) is considered rather weak for a majority of our playthrough so better be reasonable when using it (like on tempered monsters).

Skill Priority

The takeaway is: Raw scales better, shellings don’t consume as much sharpness as before, and crit skills are out of the game for now because half of our damage can’t crit.

LR Builds (…or Build)

Welcome to the story mode. Here, builds do not really matter. Our best friend through the whole game up to High rank endgame will be Quematrice tree. 

That being said, one good LR build will serve before tackling High Rank.

Do know it does not have to be the same build as the picture. It is in case people feel a little underpowered before the final boss. We only invest in higher rarity to prevent getting one-shotted due to the lack of the higher priority skills for gunlance.

Early HR (Up to HR20)

Here’s when the fights get tougher but so do our builds. Since we fight some monsters to raise our rank, we make the best out of their gear.

Mid HR (Up to HR40)

Endgame HR (HR40+)

We are making a separate guide for this section since everything after this point are meta builds.

Endgame Meta

Disclaimer: Effective Raw in the builder can not be used as an accurate damage comparison due to affinity and about half of our damage not critting!

What About the Guardian Arkveld Set?

It was a fairly popular set early on, however ended up not lasting very long since we found out flayer doesn’t actually do much, it falls behind in raw quite a lot only really having burst going for it. On top of that, the healing is very unreliable in multiplayer so it’s been omitted from this album. 

4 Piece Gore + g. Odo Helm

Personally I think this is our strongest set currently for most purposes, it has just slightly lower raw than the 4p g. Odo set while suffering less from conditional skills (at most losing 8 raw from agi and 5 from gore set, while the other sets lose full peak/agi respectively)  and getting a bunch of free affinity from antivirus.

Level 2 slots are fairly flexible and you don’t have to run them as I do, in terms of damage I do think max might is our best option though after peak which isn’t realistic to keep up in most scenarios with no built in healing. 

4 Piece Arkveld + Uth Duna Coil

While this set ends up a bit lower damage than the others (similar raw, much less affinity), it has its merits due to being very comfy to play with Arkveld’s healing which also helps keep up peak performance at the same time. 

Level 2 slots are once again interchangeable.

4 Piece g. Odo + Dahad Legs

While having a bit higher raw damage than the 4 piece gore set (287 vs 284 before outside buffs), I think it falls behind slightly based on agitator uptime and losing out on some affinity. 

Still perfectly good to run and a very strong set, especially since you have easy access to it just breaking into the endgame.

Level 2 slots are once again interchangeable.

FAQ

How does gunlance play in Wilds?

The main star of the show is (multi) Wyrmstake Full Blast (wsfb) sometimes also referred to as multi(full)burst.

This move allows us to unleash 2 fullbursts as well as 2 wyrmstake cannons (WSC) in quick succession, as such the main/strongest playstyle revolves around comboing into it through shell -> advancing wide slash -> wsfb -> wyvern’s fire (WF) if there isn’t enough time for another wsfb.

We also get perfect guards as well as a guardpoint on our reload, leaving regular fullbursts as a very good option for smaller openings.

There is an alternate playstyle that involves spamming wyvern’s fire and charging it back up as quickly as possible through the use of charged shelling with wide shells, it’s not stronger than the former but it may be fun for you.

What about Shelling types & power?

There’s no longer major playstyle differences between shelling types as wsfb is simply way too strong and overshadows everything else.

Shelling power makes our shelling scale with raw rather than being fixed damage like in older games, this means currently we’re looking for the highest raw possibly while maintaining level 3 (slightly strong) shelling power.

Which skills are good?

As already mentioned on shelling power, we want as much raw as possible.

In order of priority.

Weapon skills:

• Artillery & Load shells are so good you always want them.
• Guard and offensive guard are what you’d fill the rest of your slots with.

Armour skills:

• Burst is the single best offensive skill, providing +18 raw (more with set) at 90+% uptime.
• Agitator and peak performance come in second, peak being much more situational.
• Max might can be used as a filler for level 2 slots since there isn’t much else for those and we have good uptime.
• Some useful “filler” skills are evade extender, ambush and counterstrike.
• As for level 1 slots, shockproof for coop, divine blessing or speed eating are the best options.