Capcom has released its 8th weapon showcase trailer for Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance, and it covers all the changes coming to one of my all-time favorite weapon types of the entire Monster Hunter franchise: Gunlance.
The base game of Monster Hunter Wilds already did an amazing job giving this normally underpowered weapon type the explosive and defensive capabilities it deserved.
But in this DLC expansion, Gunlance has been made even better with some insane new techniques while incorporating a mechanic change fans have been requesting ever since the Gunlance was introduced in 2006's Monster Hunter 2 (a.k.a. Monster Hunter Dos) on the PlayStation 2.
First off, Gunlance can now let you perform Boost Driver attacks that make you dash forward while blocking incoming attacks with the shield thanks to this DLC expansion's new Boost Bracer mechanic.
At the end of this Boost Driver dash, you can either impale the enemy with a drill launched from the Gunlance or perform a rising uppercut Offset attack that can counter an enemy's attack. The uppercut can also be followed up by a forward aerial divebomb attack to close the gap with enemies.
Once you activate the Boost Bracer's Boost Gauge, the Gunlance gains the following enhancements while it is active:
- Regular and Shelling attacks become faster.
- New combo attack paths,
- Reduced knockback while blocking attacks with a shield, so you can recover faster to counterattack.
- The ability to side-step while reloading your gunlance's ammo and block attacks simultaneously.
- Being able to mount a monster, pierce its body, and fire a Wyrmstake Cannon inside it for massive damage.
We finally have Elemental Shelling for Gunlance, dreams come do true
All these gameplay improvements are pretty awesome by themselves, but the biggest change I'm most excited for in Gunlance is that we're finally getting Elemental Shelling attacks! This is confirmed near the end of the trailer, where the player fires a cloud of icy wind at a monster, which is a special effect normally associated with weapons that deal Ice elemental damage.
This is HUGE because Monster Hunter fans (myself included) have been wanting the Gunlance's Shelling attacks to include elemental properties for years.
This is because in previous games, a Gunlance's Shelling attacks normally deal fixed amounts of damage with some additional but pitiful Fire-elemental damage. This forced players to stick to non-elemental Gunlances to get the most damage possible out of their physical attacks to compensate for the lacking Shelling damage (especially for Master Rank quests where Shelling damage falls off hard).
With this change, combined with the balance adjustment the base game made that allowed Shelling damage to scale with a Gunlance's raw attack power, Elemental Gunlances can finally be useful.
We can use the elemental Shelling attacks to deal extra damage to monsters that normally resist physical attacks but are weak to elements like Fire, Water, Thunder, Ice, and Dragon. Not to mention, it will open up so much build-crafting variety so we're not stuck using the same one or two Gunlances by the time we reach the endgame content.
I'm so happy Elemental Shelling is finally in Monster Hunter that it makes me wonder if Gunlances that deal Status effects like Poison, Paralysis, Sleep, and Blast will be able to apply them with Shelling attacks too now.
Either way, I can't wait to blow things up with Gunlance again once Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance launches in 2027 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam.
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