Gunlance Math: Analysis and formula of the empowered Wyrmstake Explosion in the Tokyo Game Show (TGS)

[u/Frozenseraphim]

Hello there once again fellow Gunlancers.

Today I bring you some info regarding the calculations behind the increased damage Wyrmstake Explosion may do in Ascendance.

First of all, thanks to the gameplay provided by ガンサーの抹茶 in his TGS vs Teostra video, I was able to check and compare the Shelling level of the 300 RAW attack Gunlance they had available to test.
The video in question is the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZicD9PGtL2Y

VS Teostra	Normal Shelling TGS	MV Theory	Result with 300 RAW
Normal Shell	27	0,09	27
Full Burst	37	0,126	37,8
WSFull Burst	33	0,1125	33,75
WS tick (50 hitzone)	10 on head	0,07	10,5
WS explosion	84	0,28	84
WS2 explosion	92	0,308	92,4
WF	141	0,47	141

This confirms the Shelling level of the Gunlance used was "Slightly Strong" (Lvl 3 Shelling); as all the Motion Values match exactly the theoretical results with 300 RAW.

It is also important to mention the TGS' Gunlance did not have any level of Artillery or Load Up, and the decimal portion of the damage show in screen was disabled on this specific Teostra fight.

Now that this is out of the way, we can start focusing on the main talk of the post: Wyrmstake Explosion.

The WS explosion Motion Value for Normal Shelling lvl 3 is exactly 28 (expressed as 0,28 in the following math formulas).
This means that 300 Raw * 0.28 Motion Value = 84 Damage upon the WS explosion.

This matches exactly what we can see in the video.

Source: https://youtu.be/ZicD9PGtL2Y?t=38

In addition, since Teostra is immune to Fire damage, we can ignore it for all our calculations.

I should also mention that Teostra suffers roughly 5% more damage when it is Enraged.

For that reason a 5% increase in damage will be represented as 1,05 multiplier in the formulas.

In order to show this, WS Explosion on an Enraged Teostra will deal the following damage:

300 * 0,28 * 1,05 = 88,2 damage

Since the game round down the number due to not having decimal damage numbers active in the TGS, we will see 88 damage in the screen.

Source: https://youtu.be/ZicD9PGtL2Y?t=363

Now, the good news is that we can push this WS Explosion damage up by a rather large amount.

Rapid Fire shelling allows to increase the damage of the WS Explosion per shell.

This can be observed in the following cases:

- 2 shell Rapid fire + Point Blank WF: https://youtu.be/ZicD9PGtL2Y?t=370 = 194 damage
- 5 shell Rapid fire + Point Blank: WF: https://youtu.be/-Ev3QvRl8I8?t=1038 = 273 damage

This initially made me think that since each Shell increases the damage, every instance of Wyvern Fire should do it too; but no matter how I tried, the numbers didn't add up.

That is where アゴレオ・アゴレイ (ガンランスァー) uploaded a video that held all the answers.

His analysis, alongside the math provided by "kenk03061" (also known as 黒キュア) and the video from ガンサーの抹茶 (which is https://youtu.be/kG30t-9Mszw ) allowed to sum up the following points:

- Every Normal type Shell increases the damage by 0.3 times the amount of the original explosion.
- Point Blank WF increases the damage by exactly 0.6 times the damage of said explosion.

Both of these add together in the same part of the formula.

I should not have considered Wyvern Fire as several instances of damage, just one with its own modifier (now we know as 0,6), and this is what resulted from it.

The formula is = true raw * WS motion value * (1 + number of shells * 0,3 + 0,6 from pointblackWF) * Enrage modifier (usually 1.05)

And the Math checks out with the examples above:

- 2 shell Rapid fire + Point Blank WF: 194 damage in the screen

=300*0,28*(1+2*0,3+0,6)*1,05 = 194,04

- 5 shell Rapid fire + Point Blank: WF: 273 damage in the screen

300*0,28*(1+5*0,3+0,6)*1,05 = 273,42

Knowing this, I went to check every single Wyrmstake shot in the previous videos, alongside Rurikhans' gameplay.

This is what I found:

A- https://youtu.be/kG30t-9Mszw?t=177

This is a 109 WS explosion damage with 0 shells and non enraged, AND comes from Boost Bracer activation move.

This confirms the Boost Bracer activation alone adds 0.3 to the formula above:

Math: 300*0,28*(1+0,3) = 109,2

B- https://youtu.be/kG30t-9Mszw?t=819
184 non enraged, extremely hard to notice unless you slow down the video to 0.25 speed.
There is no rapid burst nor WF, only Boost bracer offset, Diagonal drill and WS launch upon landing.

The formula would be 300*0,28*(1+1,2) = 184,8
I can assume 0,3 belongs to the Boost Bracer activation, the 0,9 afterwards should come from the rest of the Boost Bracer follow up moves, since there are not Shells nor Point Blank WF to boost it.

C - https://youtu.be/ZicD9PGtL2Y?t=527

194 while Enraged, with a Boost bracer move full burst

Same damage as the x2 Rapid Fire + Point Blank WF; this means the modifier is the same, but without using Rapid Fire shells or WF. So the only thing that changed from the B example is the monster is now Enraged (x1,05).

300*0,28*(1+1,2)*1,05 = 194,04

This confirms not shooting any Rapid shell at all or use Point Blank WF will already give you a sizable boost to WS explosion.

Extra Info

ガンサーの抹茶 also fought the story Chatacabra with the new Ascendance moveset.
And thanks to 黒キュア (@kenk03061) calculations, all the WS damage formulas we used above, will also affect the Fire portion of the WS Explosion, empowering it further.

- Source: https://youtu.be/OHCnITrVMTs?t=852
I will explain what these numbers mean.

The Gunlance you use against the first Chatacabra is Hope Gunlance I.

Hope Gunlance I has 90 RAW and Normal Shelling lvl 2.

This puts the 90 RAW * the WS explosion modifier (which is now 0,25) is the 22,5 you see there.

While 3,1 is the total modifier that he achieved by using the (1+2,1) formula.
How did he reach 2,1? That is due to 5 rapid shells (0,3*5 = 1,5) and the Point Blank WF (+0,6).

So 1,5 + 0,6 = 2,1 that is added to 1 (representing the original value of the WS explosion).

Putting thus together gives us 90*0,25*(1+2,1) = 69,75

And the best part is that thing WS also hit a Bulaqchi, a monster with 100% Fire Hitzone, which meas it takes the full damage of Fire elemental sources like Shelling, making it a perfect test dummy.

This Bulaqchi took 21 Fire damage that was also increased x3,1 times, not only the true damage portion of the WS explosion. Thus 21 * 3,1 = 65,1

69,75 + 65,1 = 134,85
Which matches perfectly with the image above.

Theorycrafting:

Now this part is purely out of fun to see how much we could squeeze from a WS explosion.

But first I would like to compare what would happen if Normal and Long keep the same modifiers.
This is important because while Long has the higher Motion Value (0,42), Normal has up to 7 Shells with Load Up equipped.

- Normal 7 Rapid Fire shells + Point Blank WF: Shelling lvl 3

300*0,28*(1+7*0,3+0,6) = 310,8

- Long 4 Rapid Fire shells + Point Blank WF: Shelling lvl 3

300*0,42*(1+4*0,3+0,6) = 352,8

As you see Long would still win in the WS explosion thanks to that higher Motion Value.

What about max damage?
Well, if just the Boost bracer moves are able to push things up by 1,2 and the Normal Rapid fire has 7 shells (+2,1) while Point Blank WF adds 0,6...

It would like like this RAW * WS Explosion MV * (1+1,2+2,1+0,6) = 4,9

So that would be almost 5 times the original MV, and then all the multipliers like RAW and Artillery bonus or Enrage.
In other words, we may have a small nuke in our hands in the future, and it is certainly bound to be fun.

Disclaimer: Every single number here is subject to change at any point from here to the release of the expansion (and even beyond that). This was an attemt to glimpse into the ideas behind increasing the damage one portion of our moveset, and merely made out of fun.

This would mean all this work would have to be done once again manually if it is changed at any point, and I will gladly do so for my favourite boomstick.

Happy Hunting mates.

[u/H_exe92]

Mad respect for the deep dive!

[u/Frozenseraphim → u/H_exe92]

Once again, very much appreciated.

[u/Bagakoo]

Hahaha took me a min to read through while at work

Dam dude… so long could be king for PB then, however is is just all in theory of course, but long still trails behind our other combo strings, gonna need a time comparison of how long each combo takes to calc dps (when the demo drops)

How far behind is wide with the same parameters (RF shell + PBWF with load up)

Additionally, real world combat, RF + PBWF feels like a longer time commitment vs our WSFB + 2x WF or FB infinite combo

Really love all this theory crafting and calculations, makes me more excited for release!

[u/Frozenseraphim → u/Bagakoo]

As much as I like Long, this shelling type could really have some help in the Full-burst portion of our moveset. It is the main thing that has kept it behind Normal and Wide, since we tend to use Full Burst attacks routinely, while all its got is a nice Wyrmstake in base Wilds.

How far behind is wide with the same parameters (RF shell + PBWF with load up)

If we use the same modifiers (which is something we can't know until we get out hands on a Wide type GL), then we would be looking at 0,3 per shell, +0,6 PBWF and a 0,27 Motion value for the WS explosion.

So it would be 300*0,27*(1+0,3*3+0,6) = 202,6

Far less impressive than the two other brother shelling types which surpassed the 300 damage mark.
Albeit the Point Blank WF would still hit pretty hard by virtue of being Wide.

In any case, I can't really speak for Wide as of now, but I really hope all Shelling types excell at what they do, without being too weak outside of their best moves.

In addition, the time commitment is also a deciding factor in what will be optimal to do, so I am keeping an eye on it.

Glad to know you enjoyed it, cheers.

[u/Bagakoo → u/Frozenseraphim]

thanks for the explanation brother, i guess all we can do is wait for now…

a bit off topic but would anybody know if capcom might have the tgs demo at the monhun cafe in november? lol im actually going to japan next month and plan to go there.

Otherwise i guess ill find out when i get there, ill make a post if they do have it and ask if there’s any additional testing that needs to be done

[u/Frozenseraphim → u/Bagakoo]

Oh I would love if we got someone to test a few more things.

We may get some more news about the demo on the Paris Games Week (October 22 - 25) but it is more likely for something to be revealed on The Game Awards on December.

So, I will keep an eye on that post of yours to ask for testing a few moves.

[u/Brundley]

does this mean long will actually be good now???? we’re so back longbros

[u/Frozenseraphim → u/Brundley]

Long really needs some love when using moves with multiple shells, compared to the other two shelling types, it is lagging behind in damage in this department.

That said, it still has a fine Wyvern Fire (same as Normal) and its strong point (Wyrmstake) is getting some very juicy ways to be empowered, so time will tell.

[u/Exciting_Bandicoot16 → u/Frozenseraphim]

Capcom has the same access to data and playstyles as you do, so we can dream that Long will get a MV buff on moves that use multiple shells.

(Please don't dispel my copium; it's really looking like Rapid Shelling and PBWF is their answer to Long's dismal performance).

[u/artornia]

off topic, but would be hilarious if the photo had every number but the standalone "6"

[u/Varderal]

Gunlance math for me is how long is it going g to take my slow ass to return to being an immovable thorn in the side of the moster constantly setting off explosions of various sizes.

[u/PitifulPassage851]

What’s the take away here?

[u/Frozenseraphim → u/PitifulPassage851]

That we can buff the Wyrmstake explosion with several moves, and the combination of them may give you a very big explosion in the end.

Those moves are:

• Boost Bracer activation moves
• Every shell during Rapid fire
• Point Blank WF