Hello, and welcome to my Monster Hunter Handbook, a series of guides looking closely at the weapons of this combat-focused game to help you choose your next companion for the battlefield—whether you’re playing the most recent addition to the lineup, Monster Hunter Wilds, or you want to try an older game in the series. In this edition, we’re looking at the most support-oriented weapon of the 14 available in this pseudo-trilogy: the Hunting Horn.
Dooting Across Generations
I love the Hunting Horn. It’s my favorite weapon in Monster Hunter, and I’ve played it as my main option throughout the series. However, it’s far from the only thing I’ve played. I’m familiar with every weapon in Monster Hunter World and Rise, and am starting to get the hang of alternatives in Monster Hunter Wilds.
I’m a World baby, and as a World baby, I’ve only really had experiences with the Hunting Horn in the most recent three incarnations—outside of what can only be described as the shortest possible playtime of Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate on my old Wii U. However, if you’re thinking about picking up Monster Hunter World, Rise, or Wilds and giving this weapon a shot, I want to break down the intricacies so you think of it as more than just a little buff stick.
Monster Hunter World: May the Trumpet Play On
World unleashed the modern Hunting Horn, which, from what I can tell, is reminiscent of the early days. The light, medium, and heavy attacks of the horn play different “notes,” with specific strings of attacks—determined by your Hunting Horn—queueing a series of group buffs and monster hindrances. In order to fire those effects, the Hunter must perform them in a very, very slow attack that leaves you standing in place for around two seconds as you honk out a melody unique to each type of horn you bring to the battlefield.
Monster Hunter World offers the worst Hunting Horn experience of the trio of games I’ve been able to really dig my teeth into, largely because the play style is so… one-note (pardon the phrasing).
The Horn has two main modes you’ll use, at least until you reach the game’s expansion, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. You’ll spend time finding openings to get your songs “online”—typically using an Attack Up skill of some kind, but always Self Improvement. You have access to directional inputs that change how you swing your horn, but this is otherwise a highly committal weapon when you’re trying to gather notes, play songs, and dodge attacks—outside of a little hilt-butt that speeds up a note when needed. The Mantles help immensely during this build-up phase, but often means you’re wide open every other time you need to play.
Once your songs are up, you don’t really have a reason to play specific notes. Now, you can spam the heavy attack overhead swing (or the Echo Attack from Iceborne) to maximize damage and stun procs. Impact and Elemental Echo Waves help diversify the process, but all of this leaves you wide open to attacks and doesn’t really improve the commitment issues during build-up. Speedruns for the Hunting Horn typically involve throwing on a mantle and staggering the monster to oblivion, since your sole defensive option is the basic dodge roll.
Overall, Hunting Horn remains my favorite weapon for a reason: The core of the weapon involves learning when you’re allowed to punish a monster, not just inputting the defensive option that trumps nearly everything a la the Longsword or Greatsword. You get rewarded for knowing what produces solid damage and what utility each song has. On the other hand, it can feel like you don’t get the flashy finishers that other weapons have.
Monster Hunter Rise: A Virtuosic Climax
Now, if you want a flashy Hunting Horn, look no further than Monster Hunter Rise.
The base move set of the Hunting Horn in Rise was altered dramatically by allowing songs to be played the moment you get your notes locked in. No waiting for the Perform animation, no sitting there and praying the monster ignores you. Then, when you unlock Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak—the expansion for this game—you get a Switch Skill called “Echo,” which adds the Perform button back, but as an incredibly snappy attack that deals solid damage and plays songs that you’ve input a single note on. Alongside the three-note “Magnificent Trio,” which plays all songs while dealing massive damage, there’s a bar that builds up during combat that allows you to play an Infernal Melody. The Hunting Horn now has multiple ways to reward you for playing songs, with extremely fun-to-use payout structures and flashy attacks with the Wirebug, like Earthshaker and Bead of Resonance, that reward careful positioning with massive damage. The commitment has been siphoned out and replaced with a gameplay loop reminiscent of other weapons while remaining wholly distinct.
This is the pinnacle of what the Hunting Horn can be. Rather than a slow, support-heavy weapon here to spit out 20% damage to all allies, the Rise Hunting Horn limits the number of songs you get to three while implementing such a massive speed boost to the overall fights that it feels as reliable as any other weapon in the cast. Why would you ever want to sit in the corner, spewing out heals and Attack Boost, when your attacks are nearly as fast as the Hammer or the Longsword?
The downside to Rise is, of course, that song limit. Unlike World, where a Hunting Horn could have any number of songs jammed into its horns and guitars, Rise only offers three at max per horn. This somewhat limits the utility a given horn has, especially since it means fewer horns have access to Attack Up or Elemental Attack Boost.
However, the gameplay rotation is so much better—especially with Wirebug payouts like an armored backflip and the Echo Bubble—that I find myself yearning for the Rise Hunting Horn whenever my friend group decides to give World another whirl.
Monster Hunter Wilds: An Unexpected Treble
The bad news for me is that Monster Hunter Wilds returns the Hunting Horn to its World state. We’re back to performing songs manually with the Perform action and praying for the best.
The good news for me is that the changes to the Hunting Horn in Wilds adjust the weapon to be less about active engagement and more about entrapment and area control. The Echo Bubble mechanic is the newest tool that a Hunting Horn user has access to. During a short, one-second animation where you can play three notes, your Hunter does a little jig before spitting out a buff bubble the player can run through to gain a bonus. More important, though, is that the bubble deals a small burst of damage upon finishing an attack and a larger burst upon playing a song, with the biggest damage increase coming from Burst songs. You can have three of these up at a time.
This gives the Hunting Horn a… unique place during early fights. Monsters are fairly slow, so it’s not hard to put three bubbles around them and just slowly ping them to death. Whenever a monster transitions to a new zone, you sigh, put the horn on your back, and prepare to find three moments to set up your maximum damage yet again.
If it wasn’t obvious, I’m not a huge fan of this. The moment a monster starts to fly, you start seeing the cracks in the Hunting Horn’s facade. You’ll notice this quickly during multiplayer hunts, ironically enough for a support weapon. A monster who decides to melee your ranged friend has walked out of your Echo Bubbles, meaning you have to waddle over there and gently Perform them to death.
But… the damage is good. Great, even! Suboptimal builds like my current Rarity 8 gear can easily pump out 300 damage bursts every Performance Beat while providing the exceptional support capabilities of the World Horn.
However, unlike in Rise, your defensive options are back to being the most limited of any weapon in the entire game. Even the brand-new Offset mechanic is limited to a single Hunting Horn song, which is not guaranteed to be on every weapon. This turns the Hunting Horn into a damaging-centric weapon with next to no defensive option other than rolling out of the way when threatened. And it’s not even that efficient at outputting damage, remaining on the bottom of speedrunning lists.
There’s also the elephant in the room: Yes, putting a Hunting Horn as your second weapon lets you save your buffs on any weapon in the game. Put Horn Maestro on your Horn and let your Attack Up (L) ride for a few minutes. That’s probably powerful, but not our focus.
Overall, it’s a bit too early to say whether the Hunting Horn is a good or bad weapon in Wilds. From what I can tell, a talented hunter can very easily keep up with other weapons thanks to Echo Bubble and Echo Burst, pulsing plenty of damage during knockdowns.
But… I miss the Rise Hunting Horn. I miss the quick attacks, the armored options, the payout mechanics rewarding you for setting up notes with something other than the game’s most committal attack structure. Wilds‘ Hunting Horn can absolutely keep up in terms of damage, but its lack of flexibility and reliance on mastery of base game mechanics make it hard to use full-time.
Should You Play Hunting Horn in Monster Hunter Wilds?
Yes.
If you are newer to the series or have one-tricked a weapon, the Hunting Horn forces you to understand monsters fluently or feel the heat of some of the game’s most dangerous attacks. How easy is the monster to flinch? To stun? When can you set up Echo Bubble, and when do you just have to play a note? Can you set up your damaging terrain willy-nilly, or do you have to wait for calm periods? Should you dedicate to just one bubble and up your flinch rate, or go all-in and maximize damage, at the risk of the monster leaving?
Out of every weapon in the game, no weapon goes from being terrible to terrific with knowledge of monster fights like this musical mace. And your reward for mastering the mechanics is knockdown scenarios where you are the whole orchestra, watching wounds pop up from your Echo Bubble on the tail while you land consistent, heavy-hitting stuns with each Performance Beat.
You wouldn’t expect Monster Hunter Wild’s support weapon to be the one that rewards perfection so much. And yet, the Hunting Horn takes your ability to understand how a monster acts, recovers from attacks, and flinches, that you’ll find it one of the more satisfying weapons to improve at. I know I’m still loving it, even double-digits of hours into the game.
From the low-damage utility weapon in World, to faster than the Hammer in Rise, to the king of knockdowns in Wilds, I still love the Hunting Horn. And I hope you’ll give it a try.
