Resonate: A Primer for Beginner and Intermediate Hunting Horn Users

For the 3 hunters out there interested in the hunting horn, this mini-guide is intended to give a general rundown on the weapon. First, I will briefly give an overview on the hunting horn (philosophy, strengths/weaknesses, etc.), as well as a description of the most notable attacks in its moveset. After that, I will suggest specific weapons, mantles, and armor skills that I think are most useful to the hunting horn.

Out of all the weapons in the series, the hunting horn has the strangest identity. On the surface, it seems to be a support weapon focused primarily on supplementing teammates. In the introductory video for the weapon, Capcom pushes this by classifying it simply as a "support weapon". This isn't wrong, per se, but oversimplifies the hunting horn and gives a false impression of passivity.

#So Is it a Support Weapon, Or...?

Yes, but not in the same sense people automatically think. Good hunting horn players are, by no means whatsoever, passive players, they're as aggressive as most melee hunters besides the rabid chihuahuas known as dual blade users. The hunting horn is a precision-based weapon that is very similar to its sibling weapon, the hammer. Its an opportunistic and seeks to headsnipe monsters whenever the chance presents itself. While hammer users work toward getting KOs and landing Big Bang combos, the hunting horn has a more unorthodox playstyle that revolves around micromanaging buffs while also playing aggressively. Balancing these two natures of the hunting horn is the key toward using it to its full potential--spend too much time casting buffs and you'll lose out on damage, but failing to keep your buffs would be as intuitive as a bard playing his role by solely smashing his enchanted instrument on his victims' skulls. Point is: there is a happy balance to the weapon, and while you will want to spend 3/4ths of a fight attacking, you also don't want to use a somewhat gimped hammer.

##Okay, So How Do I Reach this "Balance"?

There are a few things to note about the hunting horn that will help you play buffs efficiently and without losing out on dealing damage:

• Prioritizing buffs is important here, and you only want to play songs that impact the fight or situation. You probably won't get much value from playing Fire Res when fighting Kirin, so your focus should be only on relevant songs.

• Self-performance is your most important buff (at least for movement speed) as it's key to finding opportunities to deal damage and play other buffs. The recital/encore animations are fast enough to easily get it out during the starting phase of hunts, and that's how you'll usually want to open up (unless you're speedrunning). However, if a teammate get an early mount, stun, or sleep, you might want to push out longer buffs first since the opportunity is there.

• Ideally, you want to recast buffs in a way that your recital/encore animations hit the monster. Besides keeping your damage output constant, recital/encore attacks also deal a good chunk of damage and can apply status well because of soundwaves. Some monsters will give you an opportunity to safely hit them with a good recital during attacks with long animations and, as you get better with the hunting horn and understanding monster patterns/hitboxes, you'll be able to make use of how your character repositions during the recital/encore stance. Until then, the best time to recast buffs are while the monster is tripped or otherwise incapacitated.

• When filling out your notesheet, the last note of the song you queue'd carries over to the next song, so long as you don't cast the buff. For example, using Nergigante's horn, I play Earplugs (Orange, Orange, Green, Purple), and can add Health Recovery (Purple, Green, Purple) by only playing 2 notes (Green and Purple). You'll notice that a lot of notesheets are designed in a way that allows players to have a flow that allows them to quickly queue up other songs. This allows you to ready your buffs fast enough so you can get back to focusing on dealing damage with more appropriate attacks.

As mentioned earlier, most of your time should be spent dealing damage, KO, and exhaust to monsters, and there are ways to do this without ignoring the hunting horn's core mechanic. This is important, especially if you duo with a friend and need to deal with the awkward scaling for monster HP during multiplayer hunts. You don't want to just be a support specialist, you also want to push out as much of your own damage as possible.

#How Does the Hunting Horn Compare to Other Weapons?

Because it's balanced around its capability to increase the performance of other players, the Hunting Horn isn't the most hard-hitting weapon in the roster. It'd be pretty awesome strange to be able to burst out more damage than GS bros, while also powering up teammates, afterall. The main benefits to using the horn, besides looking cool doing so, includes:

• Having access to useful buffs (such as earplugs) and allowing you more free armor/gem slots to play with. If I'm, say, using a horn that increases affinity, I don't need to rely as much on specc'ing into Critical Eye, rather, I can my armor slots for skills like Handicraft. Some buffs also open up some potentially fun and creative builds that other weapons wouldn't be able to do as easily.

• All-around strong moveset that moves your hunter around. Pretty much every attack in the horn's movelist has a good purpose (more on that later) and makes the weapon feel complete. Although you won't be zipping around monsters as if you were using the lance or dual blades, you're much more mobile compared to most weapons. Because some attacks reposition you, skilled timing/positioning will allow you to hit some stylish attacks on monsters that haven't been stunned.

• You can be popular among your teammates. Not only are you dishing out damage, you're channeling yourself into your team so they can also perform better. Greatsword and chargeblade users drool over large numbers, and being affected by your attack up XL song will probably make you a few friends.

With the good out of the way, the hunting horn does have plenty of flaws, mostly related to its consistency with dealing damage and lacking a burst. As it should be, the hammer is simply more consistent at KO'ing and has a safer hit/run option for aggressive monsters like Teo. It's a very unorthodox weapon that requires a lot of knowledge on monster patterns, timing, and positioning of your own attacks. It's not very hard to get into, but has a bit of a skill ceiling.

#How Should I Use Certain Parts of its Moveset?

Besides the normal left/right swings, the hunting horn's moveset is a bit strange, in that it moves your hunter around or has a curious function.

The forward smash is your primary means of closing space, but besides that, isn't too unique. It does flow smoothly into recitals, making it perfect to use to start combos on monsters that have been tripped a ways away from you.

Double swing (holding forward while using right swing) is one of the more important moves, as it allows you to tack on an additional note of your choosing depending on the respective button press. It also reaches high, allowing you to hit taller monsters easier.

Another important attack is the backswing, as it moves your hunter...back, making it perfect for safely dealing damage to monsters that are moving around or about to turn to attack you. Rathian, for example, is notorious for her double tail flip, but proper spacing/positioning with your backswing will allow you to keep up your damage while also moving away from the second flip. Like the double swing, it reaches high and is useful for hitting tall monsters.

The overhead smash is similar to the hammers superpound, and is one of your ways to deal good damage to immobile monsters. Similar to the forward smash, it also flows smoothly into the forward recital attack, making it extremely useful at starting combos on downed monsters. With a bit of practice, you'll also be able to tag monsters on the head as they turn to you.

The poke (after any basic attack, hold back + any attack button) is the black sheep of the hunting horn's moveset; not only is it short-reaching, it actually does cut damage instead of impact. Generally not very useful, but has a niche for quickly tacking on a note based on the respective button press. Aside from that, it combos into a fast recital.

##Recitals and Encores

For the most part each variation of your recitals/encores only changes the direction your hunter moves. Encores performed from your self-buff have shorter animations, but less hits. It should be noted that, while you can cancel your recitals with a roll, you'll lose the song you were attempting to play, so you should still be careful during recitals.

In World, you are able to stock up to three songs and play them all in one recital. While an interesting change, this only comes into play when you're chasing a retreating monster, buffing the party as a sleep combo is happening, or while waiting for monsters to respawn in arena. Something to note, if you have multple songs queued, the encore animation depends on the song you opened up with (self-buff or party buff). If, say, I queued a self buff and two party-wide buffs and let the recital activate all three buffs, the encore animation would be that of the shorter one you get when playing self buffs. Alternatively, starting with one of the party-wide buffs would use the longer animation.

#What are Some Good Weapons to Shoot For?

I'd like to first clarify that these recommendations are completely based on my opinion. The other 20 hunting horn users out there will probably have different opinions than mine, and honestly, it's best to go with whichever horn suits your needs or playstyle the most. I will be suggesting endgame horns, as early horns are, unfortunately, not too varied.

Desolation's Overture (Purple, Green, Orange): Going along the the Ore/Nergigante tree, this is one of my favorite horns, despite its simple list of songs. It's on the high-end of raw damage with a huge chunk of blue sharpness, one level 1 gem slot, and a high-grade elderseal, making it effective vs a certain hot-headed asshole. The main appeal is the song Affinity Up, which can boost yours and your party's affinity by up to 20%. It also comes with Earplugs (Large), which is a good skill for hunting horn, as it allows you to ignore more roars during recitals and even tack on some damage. It also has healing...but they're honestly pretty negligible.

Dancing Davul (Kulu Ya Ku) and Lumu Barone (Paolumu)(Purple, Blue, Light Blue): Statwise, these horns aren't particularly interesting, besides Lumu Barone's level 3 decoration slot. The song list is oriented more toward utility, providing Stamina Efficacy (Large), Wind Negation, Defense Up (Large), and Stun Negation. However, lategame, when ome more fun tools are unlocked, these can be good choices if you like to spam hunter tools with the Tool Use Drain Down (Large) song.

Bazelreid Rookslayer (Purple, Red, Green): Another personal favorite, this horn sports high attack, TWO level 2 decoration slots, blast damage, but low affinity and sharpness. The songlist is arguably even more vanilla than Nergigante's horn, with Attack Up (Large), Health Recovery (Small), and Recovery Speed (Large). However, all these songs are useful just about any time, making this horn pretty all-purpose despite its shortcomings.

Thunderbolt Horn (Purple Green, Yellow): How much do you hate Kirin? It'd be easier to suggest this horn to combat Kirin if, well...it didn't require you to farm Kirin to get in the first place. This particular horn sports pretty depressing stats, with low-end raw and 0 slots. However, if you prefer defensive buffs, it sports Divine Protection and Recovery Speed (Small), as well as Thunder Resistance. It also has Elemental Boost, which is good if you have friends that love weapons like LBG and Dual Blades.

Xeno Manasheena (Purple, Blue, Orange): Xeno's horn is kind of like a different take on Nergigante's horn, in that it focuses less on raw/dragonseal and more on affinity and sharpness level. It sports and extremely impressive two level 3 decoration slots, but is a little more annoying to make. The songlist is pretty rounded with a balance of offensive and defensive buffs.

This particular horn is...strange, in that it has two ATK/DEF Up (Small) songs. The two copies are still treated as one single buff, so you can't pull some shenanigans with multiple stat buffs. The purpose behind notes like these is that they allow you to easily queue up a song twice by playing Purple, Blue, Orange, [Orange], Blue, Purple, Blue (bracketed note indicates where the songs overlap). How useful doing this is...honestly questionable.

#What about Armor Skills?

Overall, the horn is pretty low maintenance, although you'll have different armorsets per horn based on stats/notes. Below, I'll list some builds that I found to be either strong or fun, but notable skills include:

Weakness Exploit: Since you'll be targeting a lot of heads, getting an extra 50% to your affinity is great to mitigate negative affinity or boost positive/neutral affinity. Pretty easy to spec into, only requiring the Dragonking Eyepatch and either a Weaknes Exploit decoration or talisman.

Horn Maestro: Not much to really say here, it increases the duration of your buffs so you can focus more on aggression. Also easy to spec, with it only requiring 1 Sonorous decoration or talisman.

Slugger: I find this handy when I'm the only impact damage type in a group hunt (due to scaling). Helps me reach the heightened KO thresholds, but isn't too impactful.

Bludgeoner: I've always loved this skill, and it seems perfect for the hunting horn. Gaijinhunter analyzed the skill back in Generations, but the built-in Mind's Eye horns have synergizes with the fact that Bludgeoner benefits from green sharpness. This turns, what would normally be a bad thing about a weapon, into a good thing. Sadly, this is a lot harder to spec into, and most players will have to turn to the Diablos set.

Non-Elemental Boost: Another hard-to-get skill that appears on the Blos set, Non-Elemental Boost is good for horns without an element on them. While strong, it limits your selection of hunting horns pretty heavily.

#Okay, So Which Mantles/Tools Should I go For?

Personally, I pick one tool that supports my build and one niche tool for a specific monster.

Impact Mantle is good for boosting your ability to KO, but doesn't really offer anything new to the horn for obvious reasons. Rocksteady, however, has great synergy, offering earplugs and both wind/tremor protection, which allows casting without interference. Much like armor skills, each mantle can be useful, and it really depends on personal preference.

#Skill Templates

These are just a few builds I use that range from strong to gimmicky. The idea behind these is to play around specific horns in a way that covers their flaws or boosts their strengths. These are left fairly open, meaning you can adjust or add o them as desired.

Undead Hunter (Peak Performance, Vaal-Hazak Utility, Recovery Speed any horn with Recovery Up): Using Super Recovery (set bonus for equipping 3 pieces of Vaal's armor), you gain the ability to regenerate lost health. Super Recovery speeds up your regeneration, and, if you feel confident, you can run Peak Performance to give extra benefits from constantly reaching max hp. This pairs well with the vitality mantle, as it protects you from heavy attacks as you are recovering health. Very gimmicky and gives up some damage, but a different style to run.

Specialist Hunter (Tool Specialist, any horn with Tool Use Drain Reduction): Endgame has some pretty neat hunter tools, and this template is designed around keeping them up and charging them quickly. Very open, only requiring 1 skill, meaning you have room to add in damage-increasing skills or skills that further boost your utility. Very team-oriented, as well, since your friends also receive longer tool duration.

Brutal Impact (Non-elemental Boost, Bludgeoner, any horn with no element and low blue/max green sharpness): For raw power. Unfortunately, the selection of horns that synergize well with this is very small, as most horns either have an element or a lot of blue sharpness. Nothing much to note here, it just allows you to bust skulls easier.

Critical Champ (Weakness Exploit, Super Crit, Maximum Might, either a horn with high base affinity or Nergigante's horn): Another damage-focused template, but centered around crits. Works wonders with affinity booster and fits with more horns than the former build.

#Conclusion

This ended up being more lengthy than intended, but I am pretty enthusiastic about the hunting horn and wanted to try making my first, kinda-sorta guide for new players who might have an interest in the weapon. Although it may seem intimidating, I strongly suggest players give this weapon a try, as improving with it is a continuously rewarding experience.

For the remaining 1% of horn users out there, any corrections or additions to this would be well-appreciated. With our combined efforts, maybe we can break into 2% usage.