User blog comment:Kogath/Monster Hunter Generations Discussion/@comment-5172919-20160412011501/@comment-4969421-20160412194149

Welp, here we go.

To answer your first question bluntly, yes, it is. And the reason is, Lance recieved a shitload of nerfs in X it's not even funny. The glory days of MHF1, Tri and hell even 3U are long gone. In 4U it wasn't the best weapon, but it wasn't bad either. I cannot understand the reason lance got nerfed so badly in X, when it wasn't even an overly powerful weapon to begin with. There's literally so much shit wrong with X Lance I am just going to list everything I can come up:

First off regular moveset nerfs/changes, AKA something you'll see in all or most styles

The new triple hit 3rd thrust finisher: Something you mentioned, but I feel like I have the need to explain why it's so bad. In X, Guild, Aerial and Adept Lance got a new multihitting finisher for the standard poke-poke-poke combo. This attack hits thrice (15+15+15) for a total of 27, which is actually a little bit more powerful than it was in 4U (25) and Striker (also 25), it's a bit slower but has super armor meaning Lances can finally attack the head in multiplayer without being tripped constantly. So if it hits 3 times (good for Status), is actually a tad bit stronger than it was, and has super armor, what makes it so bad? The fact that it was implemented very poorly. You see, on paper, the finisher is supposed to hit three times, but in fact it has actually a long lasting hitbox that deals the hit over time. So, that means, if the monster decides to move one bit when you're in the middle of the finisher, you'll only hit once or twice for 1/3 damage, while also being stuck in the stupid ending lag the attack has (when I said it was a bit slower, I meant it's really fucking slow. You'll be stuck on the animation for quite a long time before you can backhop. So you may just land one hit, get stuck on the ending lag of the move and get hit yourself. It's very sad, because I don't think the devs were trying to nerf Lance with this new move, but it backfired so hard it turned into one of the worst new attacks they could give it.

Tighter frame windows: Yeah I am 99,9% the frame window for certain attacks was changed for the worst in X. It's now harder to counter after a double poke, or cancelling a charged counter by releasing the button. Missing a counter can fuck you up, given how bad the third poke finisher is. Shield Rush Nerf: The little dash you can do when blocking, most often chained into a Shield Bash. This was actually one of Lance's best moves since it was super handy and fitted on both defensive and aggresive playstyles. This got analed pretty badly as it no longer drains a fixed amount of stamina, and you'll now lose stamina depending on the number of attacks you block during the duration of it. Meaning that if you block 5 attacks, you'll lose stamina 5 times. Most of the time you'll completely run out of stamina and get rekt. So now the attack is pretty useless other than closing distance and blocking some projectiles. They managed to turn one of the best Lance moves into one of the worst. Multihitting Counter Bullshit: Okay this is not really a nerf but it's just so What The Fuck it makes you wonder why did they even bother adding something like this. Yes, there's multihitting counters in X, but it's pretty much the randomest thing ever made. Now you might have noticed certain attacks had a sightly different counter animation, sightly slower, as if the hunter was just barely able to counter it. This so unusual I don't blame anyone if they haven't seen it in their life. An example would be blocking Teostra's explosions with Guard+2 in 4U. Now those random, almost unexistant counters trigger a multihitting (x3) attack for some reason. It's now noticeabily slower then. I am completely unable to understand why they decided to add something like this, when perfect counters (counters performed at the second stage of a charged thrust for double damage) still have no visual key other than a barely noticeable blue effect. Why don't make those multihits instead? Absolutely nonsense.

Unchainable Lance Charges: Okay this was needed but a nerf is a nerf anyways. You can no longer chain a lance charge into another lance charge like you could do in 4U. Oh and hitbox on Jumping Lance Charge finisher still not fixed.

New Stuff (Styles and HAs)

Useless, all of it. Lance gets barely any benefits from the new mechanics X, unlike any other weapon.

Lance has bad styles. There's no style that makes it better than Vanilla lance. Let's look at them.

Striker: Admittedly, this could be the best style for all around lancing, given the higher MVs. But you lose the roundthrust (something I personally use a lot) and the jumping lance charge. So at the end you have less options. You get 3 HAs slots, but Lance has such shitty HAs it's just not worth the loss of attacks. (Gonna get on this later). You mentioned Evade Lance with Striker. Now I suppose you are mentioning a certain's Youtuber's video using both Absolute Evasions for Evade Lancing against a Multihunt Nargacuga (which now apparently serves as real proof). This is HARDLY viable, not to mention it's extremely cancerigenous. It consists of using a Deviant Lance and spamming lance charge so you can actually fill the HA bar faster than you get hit. You won't be able to use this against pretty much any monster and it's absolutely unviable when playing online. Better use regular Evade Lance with Evasion+ skills.

Aerial: Good for Status and Supporting. With Aerial, Lance has 4 (!) multihitting moves in its arsenal, ("bounce off" jump attack, regular jump attacks, jumping lance charge finisher and "random" lance counter) making it great for status + added mounting for support. Other than that, Aerial Lance is awkward and just doesn't work against certain monsters.

Adept: With its MVs, and seeing some speedrun videos it might seem like a kick ass style for Lance. No. In a nutshell, frame-negative, over-defensive style. With Adept Lance, it's the MONSTER WHO DECIDES IF YOU PLAY AGGRESIVE, NOT YOU. You cannot play aggresive unless the monster feels like it. The frame window for a perfect block is also much tighter than a perfect dodge. Lance cannot block during combos, so an Adept Lance hunt usually goes like *attempt perfect block* *poke, poke* *block again* *stand there like a retard looking at the monster not attacking you* *repeat*. Most of the time you're sitting there doing nothing.

Hunter Arts: Lance's exclusive HAs are the worst in the game. There's an exception, which is Guard Rage, which is actually one of the best HAs in the game. Depending on how strong the attack you block is, you Lance will "charge up" and glow red, orange or gold for a x1,1, 1,2 and 1,3 buff respectively. Getting a "gold guard rage" greatly spikes your damage output and turns you into quite the powerhouse. The other two, Screw Thrust and Shield Assault are garbage, with Screw Thrust being dowright useless and Shield Assault being situational at best.

Misc. Stuff

Not applied exclusively to Lance but still makes it worse than it could be.

Lack of good Armor Sets: I mentioned this before, but Sets are much worse in X and it's extremely hard to make a good, viable set for lance. Guard Lancing sets got hit the hardest with this. There's only one armor set in the whole game with both Guard+2 and Guard Boost (Rathian EX) and it has *gasp* two slots in total. So forget about using it for mixed sets. Hitboxes from Monsters: It's almost like they were trying to nerf Lance with the monsters as well, lol. There's now more multi-hitting attacks from monsters and attacks that are uncounterable with Guard+2 (most Ferocious monsters get this), and it only makes Lancing harder.

So... yeah, is it as bad? I say it is, although there's weapons that got nerfed even harder (CB comes to mind), the rest of weapons got benefits from the new stuff (Styles and HAs, even armor skills [Blunt Benefit]) while Lance didn't. Lance wasn't the best and it just got analed in Generations, making it objetively the worst weapon in the game (and also the least used online, with 1,7%). It makes me really sad to see my favorite weapon like this, but facts are facts. Is there even a reason to main Lance in Generations? Well, fortunately, I can say there is, if you're like me at least. Lance is still the "Tank" of MH, offering a mix of attack and defense and allowing you to switch playstyles on the go, even if it's 8 times harder to do so now. I just hope Lance is fixed in the future, and it gets to be as good as it used to be.