I tried Gunlance for the first time in my MH career. Holy hell it's my new favorite. Any others in here? And tips?
I expect to play a lot of GL this time as well, been playing it off and on since 3U and I too am really feeling it. Hold A until you flash red and then release to do a charged shot--normally pretty pointless with a normal shot type gunlance, but after one if you press back and A you do a fast version of the wyrmstake cannon that's much, much easier to safely get away with than doing it most other ways. While you're charging a shell, you can change your aim up and down with the stick or keep holding A and press B to cancel it with an evade. You can cancel the swing of the run-in upswing (forward+X) with a shell or charged shell.
In this demo, since we have a normal type gunlance which gets a bonus to full burst damage, I've been doing a lot of forward X (run-in upswing) -> X+A (slam) -> A (full burst). Or X+A (standing upswing) -> X (slam) -> A (full burst). After the full burst you can press X to wide swing, ZR+A to quick reload all shells, then X+A again to do another slam and so on. Wyrmstake cannoning after a wide swing is also a decent option. Use ZL+A to counter an attack and press X afterward to slam or I believe A to do the fast wyrmstake cannon. Generally I prefer the wyrmstake followup since it's the fast version. By canceling other moves' end lag, getting you into a blocking state immediately, restoring sharpness, and giving you access to very strong followup moves, the wirebug counter is a very important move to get used to using. Like Adept lance and gunlance counters in Gen, you can also aim your counterattack in any direction regardless of which way you were facing when you blocked.
After a wirebug jump you can press ZR to midair shell and A to continue shelling. You can also do charged shells in midair, and if you land with one you can follow up with the fast wyrmstake cannon. You can also full burst in midair, which is ZR+A after a midair shell IIRC. Closing distance with GL will be an annoyance without access to blast dash yet, the best thing I think there is to do is just sheathe, close distance with a wirebug jump, then quickly midair shell -> full burst. If you have time you can follow up with wide swing and then wyrmstake or just reload. The last thing I can think to mention is you can cancel the ZL+X wirebug move midair with shells which can be nice if you suddenly find yourself needing to get out of the way of an attack you misread.
So basically, the plan is to spam wyrmstake cannon and full burst as much as is safely possible. lol
