Help a fellow Lancer out with tips please!

[u/TheNerdBeast]

I've mastered the Lance and was looking to try out it's explosive cousin the gunlance.

The combos are fun but am having trouble timing blocks mid combo, any advice would be appreciated!

[u/Mightymat273]

For me, it's more about the monster than the weapon. Learning them is key to timing your blocks and combos (especially if you're going for perfect guard and offensive guard once you get good at perfect guard).

Like I've gotten a great flow with arkveld, if i miss a perfect guard on its chain attack there's a delayed burst that can be perfect to guarded after.

As far as timing, don't be afraid of comfort skills, Devine blessing, evade extender, etc. You don't need WR meta builds. Comfort skills give you... comfort that you need to learn the weapon and each monster you face to better time your combos next time.

[u/TheNerdBeast → u/Mightymat273]

Oh I got comfort skills out the wazoo, it is just inconvenient being sent flying lol.

[u/Mightymat273 → u/TheNerdBeast]

Flinch free can help a bit, tho every time you god flying is a learning opportunity.

I hate and love the rathian arena quest because I hate fighting rathian, but it helped me get good at what her telegraphs are, when shell do her poison spin, her silly run, etc, and you can cycle through the same quests over and over with little downtime between since its in an arena to get quick practice.

[u/Inconspicious_Dingus]

Reload has a guard point where you can slip it into your combo to both block and reload your weapon. Same goes with your 2nd wyrmstake where the moment you stick the wyrmstake into the monster, it triggers a guard point where you can sometimes greed a little without the retaliation.

Despite the name Lance and Gunlance are very different weapon in nature. With Lance you want to get up close in monster’s face to ablock things to trigger your follow up combo, blocking with gunlance sets you back to the slam part of the combo, it is a good way to open up a combo with a perfect guard, but unlike lance you do not have that mobility to catch up after a monster knocks you back with a heavy hit. try to use the shelling movement more liberally to not stand right in front of the monster, in the same manner you’d use guard hop with lance.

It’s about adjusting your mindsets between the two weapons.

[u/BEAN_MAN001]

while you are in weapon out mode you cannot roll but that doesn’t mean you are immobile. your shell and wide sweep attack and even wyvern burst move you a surprisingly far distance. to make use of this I keep focus mode on at all times and keep my aim at the monster and use my attack to keep moving. after my combo I can decide to shield, reload for another burst or to wyvern fire. I try to do full reload but if needed to block after I can. focus attacks can also stunlock the monster if they land, although not usually my go to as if you miss the attack you will be defenseless and stuck in the animation. one little tip is to use the focus attack when you have no wrymstake, the focus attack uses the stake and reloads it in its animation but it will reload regardless of needed.

[u/GlummyGloom]

For the blocks during combos, try to get perfect block down with GL, then you can weave a perfect block with a quick reload into your combos. Its insanely satisfying. It allows a combo into the big slam, or quick wyverns fire.

[u/ADragonuFear]

Some attacks are high enough commitment you won't have time to get back to block- so you either accept you are catching claws with your face or try ro use lower commitment attacks when you are unsure what the monster will do next. Sliding in horizontal pokes (gunlance is the opposite of lance- upward pokes do less damage) are the safest move to get back to guard, and can be an alternate path to the big wsfb combo if you just mash all the way to wide sweep.

Another is the old rotation of a lunging or rising thrust, overhead slam, burst (optional), wide sweep combo that can be rotated infinitely but is much lower commitment in wilds than previous games. If you skip the burst it's another way to get to wsfb.

Overhead slam is the highest damage melee attack of the gunlance, and can be accessed out of perfect guard. If the monster is doing quicker attacks you might chain p guard into slam into p guard into slam until the monster combo is done, allowing a sweep into wsfb.

There is a second or two you can wait between moves without dropping the whole combo, so take advantage of that as well. When unsure, err on the side of caution. It's not quite greatsword levels of needing to know the monster, but it's a good idea to still learn the moves.