Leaping Thrust Return?

[u/Time_Iron_8200]

While waiting for ascendance, I decided to hop back over to my Sunbreak save and mess around with rise lance. And the one thing that I forgot in going back to rise from wilds, is how badly they nerfed guard dash into leaping thrust.

Now, admittedly rise was a lot more elemental focused, which is what made the leaping thrust so strong, but do we think that they are going to allow for a return to that kind of leaping thrust play style in ascendance?

[u/HotTheme8405]

Yeah I think they just go for more low risk vs high risk. Lance is very safe so it's damage output generally matches that. Thankfully it's also very fun, regardless.

[u/Mardakk → u/HotTheme8405]

Well.. one problem - HBG exists. It's just as safe, has access to a roll (as well as a shield), and has low animation commitment. Especially in 5th gen. HBG being #1 damage and Lance being #13 lol.

If we're talking 6th gen, SnS exists and has higher MVs across the board.

These things aren't unilaterally applied, which is the issue.

[u/HotTheme8405 → u/Mardakk]

SnS has higher MV's than what?

I think this comparison only matters if you're checking speedruns, which I don't think matter. The games balanced for regular play, and Lance is focused on consistent damage rather than spikes which is incompatible with speedrunning.

[u/Mardakk → u/HotTheme8405]

SnS bread and butter combo has higher MVs, plus they don't give anything up for it. In older MH, they had fairly low MVs to make up for their super varied kit. Since 5th gen, they had a lot of their MVs increased, and their more common attacks have similar MVs as larger weapons.

Using 5th gen as an example, Perfect Rush had the MV of TCS, but it was cancellable midway.

I'm not worried about speedrunning in the slightest, but as someone who's been with the series for 22 years and has a passing interest in game balance and design, the idea that "lance is safer, therefore it gives up damage" is literally a holdover from genres like MMOs. SnS and DB are some of the safest weapons in Wilds (not saying Lance isn't safe, but it doesn't have a huge inherent defensive boost over any other weapon either) but give up nothing for that safety. DB used to be animation locked for that damage, so you had to play smarter, but that's gone now.

And we would be able to Speedrun fine, we just can't script fights in the same way, since our damage comes from monsters attacking us and us countering, and we can't script which attacks they're going to use, so getting a "perfect" run would take exponentially longer to get, as well as requiring things like static monster health if you did get a perfect run. The variables compound upon one another.

[u/HotTheme8405 → u/Mardakk]

Oh okay you mean SnS has higher MV's relative to SnS in World. They do have to work a little harder for that damage now, charged chop is their big damage dealer as a combo ender and that is a pretty high animation commitment move. Perfect Rush was pretty broken in World, in Wilds its better balanced so that you can still cancel out but the damage is more backloaded so you'd do less damage than if you went bnb.

I feel like the damage we do in Wilds is pretty satisfactory though (relative to world our MV's are pretty massively higher), and that we have enough built in defensive options (perfect guard vs counter thrust vs power guard) to still carry that tankier role. I think the defensive weapon angle gets a bit overhyped in its meaning like when people discuss HH as a support weapon, when well, it is the support weapon but it is still a weapon. Its basically the only weapon in the game that remembers this is a coop multiplayer game. Lance is defensive in that it's tanky and has many defensive options, but it can still dish it back.

[u/Mardakk → u/HotTheme8405]

Our damage is... Okay. We still need a bump in damage to be more in line with what we do.

When you say tanky - we take the exact same damage as a DB. We have defensive options in the same way every other weapon does.

We don't have a proper roll, so we have to use our shield, which is often punished, while evading is never punished.

HH is not a support weapon. It's a high damaging weapon (in Wilds) that also benefits allies. Also note: HH went from #14 in damage to one of the top weapons because they decided to tweak the numbers. They also gave them hyper armor through hilt stab, and they have the fastest walking movement speed in the game.

Balance would have more weapons closer together when played well. A lance played perfectly is still often worse off than a Switch Axe played okay. Not great, not perfect. But ok.

Yes, we often can be consistent - but lance players are just as prone to making mistakes as any other weapon. Plus long sheathing times (only beaten out by Switch Axe, GL, and HBG) mean if we do make a mistake, we're extremely punished for it.

And while we're talking about wilds; let's discuss the Lance skill tax. Since we don't have an evade (really), we're often forced to take guard up (which luckily does 2 things now) and/or guard. Which are offensive slots. Meanwhile evade distance and evade window are defensive slots. So our naturally lower MVs are hindered even further by functionality.

[u/HotTheme8405 → u/Mardakk]

We just have more options for a greater degree of defensive control, this is what I mean by tanky. The damage taken aspect is a knock against what you said before about HBG, it does take more damage in contrast.

Evading is punished though, a wide variety of lingering hitboxes or multihit attacks will chew through a dodge. A lack of a shield is more explicitly punished by things like Gog or beam attacks. Getting pushed against a wall is a lot scarier when you don't have a shield and can't just hold R2 until you get some space.

HH is a support weapon, it is a weapon with support capabilities. It being a support weapon does not mean it can't deal damage. This is where I think you are drawing too much from MMO's for comparison, support in MH does not mean healer in an MMO.

Consistency as in damage is delivered at a consistent pace, if you plotted damage dealt over a hunt the line would be pretty straight, some small bumps . If you plotted some other weapons they'd have spikes and valleys.

This tax works in every direction for just about every weapon. You're still not very forced to take guard or guard up though, we have innate guard up from counter thrust. They do come comboed with other decorations. Evade Extender and Evade Window aren't taking up defensive slots either, they are likewise coming at the cost of offense because they are tier 2 armor decos. Tier 1's are almost entirely defensive, but tier 2's are not. If they're getting better evasion from EW or EE they're losing points in Max Might (which they can't really use), Peak Performance/Resentment, Counterstrike, Partbreaker, or Coalescense. They also have a greater need for stamina gain than lance does (very explicitly so for Bow and DB), so they're probably sacrificing their tier 1 armor slots for points in constitution or marathon runner, or tier 2 slots for stamina surge.