An Introduction to Wilds Hunting Horn

A Comprehensive Guide to Wilds Hunting Horn

Those looking for Omega Planetes matchup information should look

here.

Updated for AT Nu Udra

Version 1.5.0

By Upgreid Backup Link to Published Version

Mobile users should use the Docs app to view this document. Not doing so may

cause images to appear blurry.

Author and Principal Researcher: Upgreid Major Contributors: Zook (Early progression sets), Kat & Sasch (Early Calculator Development), Zarosguth (Critical Draw). Other Direct Contributors: Zezzame, LobsterHime, Lordaris, Trasiva, Tself, TorpedoSoup, Glass, Taxman (Research, Playtesting, and Calculator QC). Collaborators: dtlnor (Raw Data), T3h Phish (Banner Image), the Horn Pub, and the Wiggler Project.

Calculator: MH Wilds Horn Calculator

Please contact me with any questions, corrections, or general feedback: @upgreid in the Horn Pub Discord and Monster Hunter Gathering Hall I have a full-time job and a busy life outside of TC, but I will still do my best to respect your time and respond within a day when I am able. If I don’t respond in a few days and other members can’t answer your question, please send me a DM with your question and I will reply to your query as best I can. Please remember to be kind, respectful, and patient with your fellow community members! It goes a long way in getting questions answered.

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Table of Contents

Home: An Introduction to Wilds Hunting Horn

Part 1: Weapon Guide

1. About the Author

2. Introduction to the Weapon

3. Inputs and Basics 3.1 Basic Moveset: 3.2 Performance Moveset:

4. Mechanics 4.1 The Note Queue 4.2 The Song List 4.3 Echo Bubbles

5. Playstyles, Assumed Movesets, and Utility Moves

6. Optimal Damage Combos and Damage Loops

7. Advanced Player Tips

8. Player Skill Benchmarks

9. Closing Thoughts

Part 2: Build Progression

1. When to Use Progression Builds

2. Story Progression Guide 2.1 Chapter 1 Progression 2.2 Chapter 2 Progression 2.3 Chapter 3 Progression Set

3. Early Post-Game Progression Guide 3.1 Chapter 4 Progression Set 3.2 Chapter 5 Progression Set

4. Late Post-Game Progression Guide 4.1 Early Post-Game: 4-Gore Template

Part 3: Endgame Build Guide

1. A Preface by the Author

2. Build Guide Assumptions 2.1 Skill Priority

2.1.1 Armor Skill Priority Raw Stacking 2.1.4 Weapon Skills 2.2 On RNG Talismans 2.3 Other Considerations

3. Meta Build Guide 3.1 Armor Set - OdoGuts/OmeGuts Raw Stacking 3.2 Weapon Recommendations 3.3 Element - Omiltika / Resounding Galahad 3.4 Raw - G. Resounding Galahad [Resounding] / Blazing Gariel [Offset] (Healing Bubble) 3.5 Status - Omiltika (Status) 3.6 Possible Improvements

4. Meta Matchup Chart 4.1 A Note on Omega Planetes

5. Alternative Builds 5.1 Water with Natural Copium Flavors - Summoning Bell + 2-Piece Mizu

6. Meme Builds 6.1 Charged Doot

7. I’ve Been Away. What’s Changed? 7.1 TU1 - Mizutsune Update 7.2 AT Rey Dau 7.3 TU1.5/TU2 - Lagiacrus/Seregios 7.4 2.5- AT Uth Duna 7.5 3.0- Omega Planetes

8. FAQs

9. Resources

10. Acknowledgements

Changelog

1.0.0

● Preview, Released to Horn Pub 1.0.1 ● General release ● Removed the “Weapon Requirements” and “Gear Requirements” from Chapter 3, Sections 2.2.1 & 2.2.2

● Added “Weapon Recommendations” to Chapter 3, Section 3.1 1.0.2 ● Edited for clarity on the effectiveness of Glass Royale. ● Laid Grongigas to rest in favor of Charged Doots (Chapter 3, Section 6.1). Good night, sweet prince.

1.1.0 Title Update 1 Edition ● Updated the Raw sets to include Blazing Gariel and removed Artian Raw. ● Added Mizutsune Water set. ● Updated matchup chart. ● Updated Critical Draw meme set. Thank you, Zaro! ● Added Blazing Gariel (RathGore) set.

1.2.0 AT Rey Dau Edition ● Updated sets to the new GoRey template. ● Removed Mizutsune Water set. ● Replaced Fulgore set in Part 3, Section 5.1 with a 4-Gore set. ● Removed Part 3, Section 5.3 War Conga as it is no longer relevant, being strictly worse than existing horn options even in multiplayer.

1.3.0 Title Update 2 Edition ● Moved the Gore set to Part 2, Section 4.1 Early Post-Game: 4-Gore Template. ● Updated Part 1 to reflect new move priority from the motion value and mechanics changes in the Street Fighter collab and Title Update 2. ● Updated Part 3, Section 3.1 Weapon Recommendations to reflect new weapon priority following the motion value and mechanics changes in the Street Fighter collab and Title Update 2. ● Updated Part 3, Section 4 Meta Matchup Chart based on the above changes.

1.4.0 Title Update 2.5 Edition

● Updated Weapon Guide to reflect changes to Hilt Stab, Echo Bubble, and Focus Strike made in recent updates. ● Updated Weapon Guide combos, removing references to old neutral combos that are no longer relevant. ● Updated Build Progression to reflect changes in ease of acquisition for Arch-Tempered monster gear. ● Removed Part 3, Section 5 sets that are no longer relevant. ● Updated Part 3, Section 5 with the new Mizutsune set. ● Updated Part 3, Section 3 to reflect new armor and weapon balance changes. ● Rearranged the contents of Part 3, Section 3 to present armor sets followed by weapon priorities and details. ● Updated Part 3, Section 4 to reflect new armor and weapon balance changes. ● Updated Part 3, Section 6 with a new intro by Zarosguth.

1.4.1 Omega Planetes Edition ● Added Part 3, Section 4.1 with notes on weapon selection considerations for Omega Planetes. ● Updated the contents of Part 3, Section 1. ● Moved the former contents of Part 3, Section 1 to Part 3, Section 7.4. ● A chicken tender ● Come ready to fry

1.5.0 AT Nu Udra Edition ● Updated core sets in Part 3, Section 3.1 ● Updated the contents of Part 3, Section 2.1, Subsections 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 to reflect changes in skill priority from above changes. ● Updated the contents of Part 3, Section 1. ● Moved the former contents of Part 3,Section 1 to Part 3, Section 7.5.

Weapon Guide

A Comprehensive Guide to Wilds Hunting Horn

Updated for AT Nu Udra

Version 1.5.0

By Upgreid Backup Link to Published Version

Mobile users should use the Docs app to view this document. Not doing so may

cause images to appear blurry.

Part 1: Weapon Guide

Author and Principal Researcher: Upgreid Major Contributors: Zook (Early progression sets), Kat & Sasch (Early Calculator Development), Zarosguth (Critical Draw). Other Direct Contributors: Zezzame, LobsterHime, Lordaris, Trasiva, Tself, TorpedoSoup, Glass, Taxman (Research, Playtesting, and Calculator QC). Collaborators: dtlnor (Raw Data), T3h Phish (Banner Image), the Horn Pub, and the Wiggler Project.

Calculator: MH Wilds Horn Calculator

Please contact me with any questions, corrections, or general feedback:

@upgreid in the Horn Pub Discord and Monster Hunter Gathering Hall I have a full-time job and a busy life outside of TC, but I will still do my best to respect your time and respond within a day when I am able. If I don’t respond in a few days and other members can’t answer your question, please send me a DM and I will reply to your query as best I can. Please remember to be kind, respectful, and patient with your fellow community members! It goes a long way in getting questions answered.

Headings are closed by default for easier navigation use the latest version of Docs for the

best experience!

Look for a button like this to the left of the heading.

Table of Contents

Home: An Introduction to Wilds Hunting Horn

Part 1: Weapon Guide

1. About the Author

2. Introduction to the Weapon

3. Inputs and Basics 3.1 Basic Moveset: 3.2 Performance Moveset:

4. Mechanics 4.1 The Note Queue 4.2 The Song List 4.3 Echo Bubbles

5. Playstyles, Assumed Movesets, and Utility Moves

6. Optimal Damage Combos and Damage Loops

7. Advanced Player Tips

8. Player Skill Benchmarks

9. Closing Thoughts

1. About the Author

I’m Upgreid, author of the Sunbreak Hunting Horn guides and Hunting Horn aficionado, and I’m happily making a return for Wilds! IN PAIN. I’m by no means a speedrunner but happily sit on the upper end of casual play and dip my toes into a script every once in a while.

While the weapon guide and build progression are intended for all levels of experience from beginners to the most seasoned experts, the endgame sets are meant for players of intermediate to advanced experience, although they can be used by experts and even speedrunners with a few tweaks.

It should go without saying, but I’ll make it clear here Don’t compare yourself to others on your journey, and don’t let anyone tell you how you can and can’t enjoy the game you paid for. This guide does not exist to push a meta onto you this is how I express my enjoyment of the hobby just as others enjoy using support builds to express theirs. This guide is merely here to assist you on the path to faster hunt times should you wish to walk it.

2. Introduction to the Weapon

Hunting Horn is a weapon that buffs itself to deal damage. Contrary to Capcom’s marketing and popular opinion, the Horn is not a support weapon, though it is somewhat capable of support if used optimally. We don’t sit in a corner and play songs we beat the monster into submission with a bagpipe and buff everyone else to assert dominance. Those who master the Wilds Hunting Horn are strategic and calculating, using quick combos to prepare songs that severely punish monsters the instant they can leave an opening. Their echo bubbles and songs change the hunt, often providing extremely powerful or useful buffs to other hunters who choose to capitalize on the Horner’s presence. Then there’s me. I just go bonk.

How do we reach this level of playing the horn? Taxman has an excellent Iceborne video series that is still relevant to Wilds in its discussion of Hunting Horn combat philosophy. His Artful

Maestro and Artful Dodger series made me a much better Horn player and a much better hunter overall when I picked the weapon up for the first time in Iceborne, and I know many other players can say the same. With Wilds being so similar to the Iceborne iteration of the horn, his Battle Dance theory holds up strongly, even half a decade later.

Hunting Horn Guide Attacking & Positioning Part 1 (Battle Dance) The Artful Maestro

So, after watching that video (or more, if you got caught in Taxman’s excellent

rabbithole): Read on!

3. Inputs and Basics

Taxman’s newer video on Hunting Horn is an excellent starter guide to the weapon. Here, he covers all the basics in an excellent video format I could never hope to emulate.

The Artful Maestro Monster Hunter Wilds Hunting Horn Complete Comprehensive …

Here’s a short guide in text form: Hunting Horn’s moveset is centered around queuing basic attacks, also known as “Notes”, to play songs using performance attacks, commonly known as “Recitals”. For the sake of everyone’s sanity, we’ll refer to the inputs as follows: ● Note 1 (Triangle/Y/Left Click) ● Note 2 (Circle/B/Right Click) ● Note 3 (Both buttons pressed) ● Perform (R2/RT/[R])

“Neutral” means no direction is being pressed. [Flourish note available] means that you can do an extra input during part of the move’s animation to queue an extra note without doing a move.

[Note Storage #] means that you can queue notes multiple times in quick succession during the attack animation. The # represents the number of notes you can store during this move.

3.1 Basic Moveset

● Left Swing (Note 1, Neutral) ○ A move that swings your horn to the left. ● Right Swing (Note 2, Neutral) ○ A move that swings your horn to the right. ● Backwards Strike, aka “Backslam” (Note 3, Neutral) ○ A move that swings your horn from in front of you to behind you. ● Forward Smash (Note 1, Forward) ○ A move that swings your horn from behind you to in front of you. ● Flourish (Note 2, Forward) [Flourish note available] ○ A move that swings your horn from right to left overhead in two circles. Can be rolled out of after the first swing, OR can have an extra note pressed during the second swing to queue for free. ● Overhead Smash, aka “Superpound” (Note 3, Forward) [Flourish note available] ○ A move that moves your horn from right to left, then slams the horn in front of you. Can have an extra note pressed during the downwards swing to queue for free. ● Overhead Smash Follow-Up Attack, aka “Crush” (Note 3 immediately following Superpound) ○ A move that circles the horn back above for a second slam. Can only be performed after Overhead Smash. ● Hilt Stab (Any note, Backward after any attack/roll) [Counter] ○ A move that slams the butt end of the horn in the direction your hunter is facing. Deals Slicing damage. ○ Also available after a roll by tapping Focus Mode in addition to the normal hilt stab input.

○ Grants hyper armor (strong damage reduction and knockback immunity) and has a counter window. ○ Hilt Stab hits twice if the counter is successful. ○ Can be used to interrupt the recovery frames of Encores and Special Performances.

3.2 Performance Moveset

● Echo Bubble (Perform + Roll) [Note Storage 3 ] ○ Places an Echo bubble with a large radius. Echo bubbles do additional Area of Effect damage with each attack and give buffs while standing in them. ○ Grants Flinch Free 3 to any Hunting Horn user standing within the radius. ○ Can be used to interrupt the recovery frames of Encores and Special Performances. ● Forward Recital (Perform, Forward) ○ A recital that kicks your horn forward in front of you before playing songs. ● Neutral Recital (Perform, Neutral) ○ A recital that puts your horn to the back and right of your hunter before playing songs. ○ Pressing forward kicks the horn into the Forward Recital position, but doing this deals no additional damage. ● Backward Recital (Perform, Backward while another attack’s animation is ending, or any time while in Focus Mode) ○ A recital that slams the horn in front of your hunter, then moves your hunter back and plays behind you. ○ Slow and not a highly recommended positioning tool. ● Left Recital (Perform, Left while another attack’s animation is ending, or any time while in Focus Mode) ○ A recital that swings the horn to the left of your hunter and onto the ground, then moves your hunter to the left and plays in front of you. ○ Slow, but a useful positioning tool.

● Right Recital (Perform, Right while another attack’s animation is ending, or any time while in Focus Mode) ○ A recital that swings the horn to the right of your hunter and onto the ground, then moves your hunter to the right and plays in front of you. ○ By far the slowest recital. It is faster to roll to reposition and do a Forward Recital. Not recommended. ● Quick Recital (Perform, Neutral, immediately following a Hilt Stab) ○ A recital that swings the horn directly above your hunter’s head. Can be kicked forward like Neutral Recital. ○ The Quick Recital is the fastest recital to roll out of in the game and is useful if you just want to extend a song quickly before dodging. ● Performance Beat / Power Performance Beat (Perform while a song is playing to do an attack between songs) ○ A move that swings your horn to the right and stops in front of you. ○ Timing this while your weapon is flashing white will result in your horn flashing red and doing additional damage and stun, known as a Power Performance Beat. ● Encore / Power Encore (Note 3 input while a song is playing to repeat a recital and end the performance) ○ A move that ends your performance immediately with two circular swings. ○ Timing this while your weapon is flashing white will result in your horn flashing red and doing additional damage, also known as a Power Encore.

3.3 Special Moves

● Focus Strike (Focus Mode + Sprint) [Note Storage 5 + 1 ] ○ One of Hunting Horn’s most potent damage options. This can be used to queue up an Echo Wave and a Special Performance in one fell swoop. ○ Places an Echo Bubble without consuming a charge or affecting your charge cooldown. Pressing Perform will prevent this bubble from being placed.

○ Successfully timing your inputs with the horn’s white flashes results in a high damage finishing move. You may input a 6 th note during this move. ○ In multiplayer, Hunting Horn focus strike locks the monster in place for an extremely long time, grants everyone Echo Bubble benefits, and can chain directly into buff songs or high damage combos. It is a good idea to go for Focus Strikes whenever possible. ● Offset Melody (Perform + Note 3) [Counter] ○ A powerful counter that grants invincibility frames as your hunter reels back, then grants hyper armor (prevents you from getting knocked back) as it connects. ○ If a monster’s attack connects with Offset, there is a good chance you’ll topple the monster. ○ Due to the long windup, only good for highly predictable matchups like Seregios or Rey Dau. ○ Extremely long recovery frames that can be reduced by using Hilt Stab. ● Resounding Melody (Perform + Note 3) ○ A series of three hits that create a piercing projectile if any hit connects. The third swing animation must complete for the projectile to spawn. ○ Behaves like a pierce projectile. On status weapons, can deal extreme amounts of status. ○ Extremely effective on chunky or long monsters, especially Leviathans like Uth Duna, Lagiacrus, and Hirabami. ○ Extremely long recovery frames that can be reduced by using Hilt Stab. ● Melody of Life (Perform + Note 3) ○ A long animation that does less healing than a Dust of Life. ○ Not worth it. Sheathing and Dust is faster.

4. Mechanics

The objective of the Hunting horn is to queue songs in order to perform them to deal damage to the monster and buff the hunter and party members as needed. It is a good practice to think of songs as a resource to be built up and expended.

The first thing players will notice in the Hunting Horn’s UI is alot of visual clutter in the top part of the screen. Let’s break that down.

4.1 The Note Queue

Fig. 4A The Note Queue (Top Left) and Song Queue (Bottom Right)

The musical staff contains your Note Queue (Fig. 4A, top left). The Note Queue contains your last four button presses from basic moves and flourishes. Each button press adds a note to the right and kicks out the leftmost note in a first in, first out system. After performing a series of button presses, a song is added to the Song Queue (Fig. 4A, bottom right). You can hold up to three songs at a time. A link to the full list of songs in Wilds can be found below:

Horn song effects, durations and bubble info (Thanks to TorpedoSoup and Zezzame): Wilds HH Song Durations Please take note that I didn’t saymoves here you have the freedom of using directional inputs in the basic moveset, note storage, and flourishes to queue songs with more flexibility than you’d think. Note Storage occurs when you perform an Echo Bubble or Focus Strike. You can queue

notes multiple times in quick succession during the attack animation. Echo Bubble placement allows for 3-note storage, while Focus Strikes allow for 6 notes at a time.

4.2 The Song List

Fig. 4B An Example of a Song List

The specific button presses needed to add a song to the Song Queue come from your Song List at the top right of your screen (Fig. 4B). Each Hunting Horn Melody comes with specific songs and button presses that appear in the top right corner, so your playstyle may change drastically from horn to horn along with your combos. Some horn specialists may never consult this at all, but for many players this is a useful tool to remember which button presses they can use to add to their song list quickly. A song list is also known as a “melody”. A list of possible melodies can be found in the Hunting Horn calculator below under the ‘Melody’ tab:

MH Wilds Horn Calculator

Playing a song grants buffs to your hunter and party. This song will appear as YELLOW TEXT in your note guide. Ending a performance via an Encore or playing the song twice Encores the song, increasing the potency of a song’s effect and extending its duration by playing it a second time, or simply repeats the song’s one-time effect. Encored songs appear as PURPLE TEXT in your note guide.

4.3 Echo Bubbles

Fig. 4C An Echo Bubble charge being consumed.

Fig. 4D An Echo Bubble charge indicating that it is recharging.

The final mechanic to take note of is Echo Bubbles. Placing a bubble results in a large pool on the ground being dropped for 60 seconds. Standing inside an echo bubble will grant your hunter and party buffs (the buff varies depending on your horn selection), with buffs expiring 5 seconds after leaving the bubble. Any Hunting Horn user (including other players) inside the bubble gains Flinch Free 3, expiring the instant they leave the bubble. These echo bubbles do an instance of Area of Effect damage as you swing your weapon, about once per button press. This means that multi-hit moves like Superpound don’t benefit as much from echo bubbles as Left Swing. You have 3 echo bubble charges, indicated to the left of the staff (Fig. 4A, 4C, and 4D) and can therefore place up to 3 bubbles at a time. Charges refresh sequentially, taking 30 seconds each, after which you can place a new bubble to replace your oldest bubble. Placing a bubble via Focus Strike will not consume a charge, but will count towards your Echo Bubble limit. Repositioning bubbles is useful for queueing songs quickly and for moving bubbles closer to the monster.

5. Playstyles, Assumed Movesets, and Utility Moves

● It is assumed that you are not using the Fulgur Anjanath or Yian Kut-Ku horns as Capcom forgot to give Elemental Melody 2 an echo wave, so horns with it are therefore complete and utter dogshit (Capcom pls fix). ● Hit the monster on the head, queue echo waves, play your songs as you need, and put down bubbles! ● Weapon Swapping is uniquely beneficial to Hunting Horns as we donot incur a swap penalty on song duration if we switch between two Hunting Horns. This means that you should always equip a horn with a relevant buff song that your horn does not have (Attack Up L, Affinity Up S, Elem Atk Boost, etc) unless you are fighting Nerscylla and need elemental swaps.

6. Optimal Damage Combos and Damage Loops

Optimal play involves capitalizing on queued songs and echo waves with Resounding Encore Combo. For shorter openings, opt for Single Encore Combo. For weapons where Resounding Encore Combo is not available, opt for Single Encore Combo, weaving swings into your moves as necessary to recover charges.

Combo Moves Combo Name(s)^ Description

Focus Strike -> Perform -> Any Perform Combo Focus Strike

Focus Strike is by far the best damage option available to Horn and makes existing combos more potent. Echo Bubbles regain charges during the entire combo, so it can keep your combo loops going for longer before you run out. Focus Strike allows you to queue much faster than normal and put out a significant amount of damage with relatively little risk. It also places an Echo Bubble, priming you to take

advantage of the resulting topple. It’s best to queue the notes for the combos below (listed in order of priority).

(Echo Wave) Perform -> Power Encore -> Resounding Melody -> Hilt Stab -> Echo Bubble -> Hilt Stab/Any Swing -> Repeat

Resounding Encore Combo

Some horns can queue a Resounding Melody and Echo Wave back to back. Following up an Encore Combo with Resounding Melody if the above conditions are met will result in the highest sustained DPS available to Hunting Horn. Due to the length of time it takes to execute this combo, it can be completed up to 5 times before needing to wait for an echo bubble charge. Unless you’re a speedrunner, this is effectively infinite.

(Echo Wave) Perform -> Power Encore -> Echo Bubble -> Repeat

Single Encore Combo

Hunting Horn’s highest burst DPS. This will burn your echo bubble charges extremely quickly and cannot be looped more than 3 times without the use of a Focus Strike. Can be performed on any Horn, regardless of song list. Requires a song queued beforehand and cannot be performed from a completely neutral state.

Offset Melody Offset Melody

A powerful counter that grants invincibility frames as your hunter reels back, then grants hyper armor (prevents you from getting knocked back) as it connects. Mutually exclusive with Melody of Life and Resounding Melody. Use this to interrupt particularly predictable monsters and create openings.

Resounding Melody Resounding Melody

A series of three swings. If any hit lands and the animation is completed, a piercing projectile spawns and penetrates through the monster in a straight line. Mutually exclusive with Melody of Life and Offset Melody. Best if the monster is long, has tentacles, or is very weak to element.

Backwards Strike->Left Swing->(Repeats) Backslam Left Loop

Backwards Strike’s endlag and Left Swing’s startup frames cancel each other out, leaving this as our highest damage combo not involving a performance. Can repeat up to four times without repositioning to keep the monster in range. Vastly inferior to anything using a performance (about 30% less damage per second). Avoid at all costs.

Whatever you need to queue your songs Queue Combos^

These are dependent on songset and won’t be listed here, but take the time to analyze the songset and find the most efficient way to queue each song you use regularly. Fig. 6A Core Hunting Horn Combos

7. Advanced Player Tips

● Focus Mode can be used to access the Back, Left, and Right recitals from a neutral position. ● Back, Left, and Right recitals can also be accessed by pressing the perform button and directional input (Forward, Back, Left, Right) while in another move’s recovery frames. ● Quick Recital can be played immediately after a hilt stab, and is the fastest recital to play if you need to get one song out. ● Offset Melody has massive invulnerability frames and can be used to proc Adrenaline Rush (or Adrenaline Rush and Counterstrike simultaneously, should you get hit). ● Hilt Stab can trigger Counterstrike. ● Echo Bubble placement and Perform/Encore can be used to bait monster attacks for a Hilt Stab counter. ● Holding Focus Mode while rolling results in a faster, shorter distance roll that can place you in an advantageous position to follow up with a Hilt Stab counter.

8. Player Skill Benchmarks

● Inexperienced Players who: ○ Will strongly benefit from following the weapon guide and learning monster movesets rather than following the build guide (we all start somewhere).

○ Barely know the weapons moveset, having very little understanding of its mechanics and intricacies. ○ Have very little or no experience playing the weapon. ○ Opt to sit in the corner, exclusively using Mushroomancer/wide range or healing songs to “keep the party alive” instead of dealing damage to the monster. ○ Spend more time chugging potions than hitting the monster. ○ Clear quests in times of 15 minutes or greater. ● Intermediate Players who: ○ Have an understanding of the weapons moveset. ○ Can queue core songs regularly but occasionally stumble on optimal queuing. Occasionally let songs run out. ○ Can queue and perform Single Encore Combo with ease. ○ Occasionally hit counters. ○ Clear quests reliably within 10 15 minutes. ● Advanced Players who: ○ Target and hit parts at will, and formulate and change their gameplan. ○ Weave songs into their combos on the fly, refreshing songs and ensuring they do not run out. ○ Are capable of hitting their counters regularly. ○ Are usually queued with Echo Waves to capitalize on openings. ○ Have good spatial awareness. ○ Usually clear without carting within 6 10 minutes. ● Expert Players who: ○ Have an intimate understanding of where each move will place them next relative to the monster. ○ Optimally queue their songs as necessary, refreshing buffs only if the timer is about to run out. ○ Have strong prediction capabilities, using Encore or Echo Bubble placements to bait Hilt Stab counters. ○ Nail nearly all of their counters.

○ Have great positioning and constantly have Echo Waves ready to capitalize on any opportunity. ○ Usually clear any quest within 6 minutes. ○ Additionally, they have a good general grasp of most monster’s movesets.

9. Closing Thoughts

The Hunting Horn is a weapon that has had a lot of depth and complexity added to it in its Wilds incarnation, especially across Title Updates. It has morphed from a weak and mechanically disjointed weapon to a strong, competitive weapon that rewards predictive thinking, good positioning, resource management, and strong weapon knowledge with the ability to rapidly put out large chunks of elemental, status or raw damage in the form of Echo Waves. It is significantly more rewarding to play and queues songs much faster than previous editions of the Horn (even compared to Rise). Hunting Horn in the current game presents an extremely fun blend of some of the strongest Status spam in the game in lower level content, a variety of elemental and raw matchups in endgame content, and song lists that keep the sandbox interesting for any dedicated Horn player. It may potentially see scaling issues in Master Rank unless its damage mechanics are changed, but that is a year away and tweaks will hopefully be made to mitigate that problem when it comes.

Build Progression

A Comprehensive Guide to Wilds Hunting Horn

Updated for Title Update 2.5

Version 1.4.0

By Upgreid Backup Link to Published Version

Mobile users should use the Docs app to view this document. Not doing so may

cause images to appear blurry.

Part 2: Build Progression

Author and Principal Researcher: Upgreid Major Contributors: Zook (Early progression sets), Kat & Sasch (Early Calculator Development), Zarosguth (Critical Draw). Other Direct Contributors: Zezzame, LobsterHime, Lordaris, Trasiva, Tself, TorpedoSoup, Glass, Taxman (Research, Playtesting, and Calculator QC). Collaborators: dtlnor (Raw Data), T3h Phish (Banner Image), the Horn Pub, and the Wiggler Project.

Calculator: MH Wilds Horn Calculator

Please contact me with any questions, corrections, or general feedback:

@upgreid in the Horn Pub Discord and Monster Hunter Gathering Hall I have a full-time job and a busy life outside of TC, but I will still do my best to respect your time and respond within a day when I am able. If I don’t respond in a few days and other members can’t answer your question, please send me a DM and I will reply to your query as best I can. Please remember to be kind, respectful, and patient with your fellow community members! It goes a long way in getting questions answered.

Headings are closed by default for easier navigation use the latest version of Docs for the

best experience!

Look for a button like this to the left of the heading.

Table of Contents

Home: A Comprehensive Guide to Wilds Hunting Horn

Part 2: Build Progression

1. When to Use Progression Builds

2. Story Progression Guide 2.1 Chapter 1 Progression 2.2 Chapter 2 Progression 2.3 Chapter 3 Progression Set

3. Early Post-Game Progression Guide 3.1 Chapter 4 Progression Set 3.2 Chapter 5 Progression Set

4. Late Post-Game Progression Guide 4.1 Early Post-Game: 4-Gore Template

1. When to Use Progression Builds

Progression builds are best used by players who:

1. Are new to the franchise and need to find something effective and comfortable to learn in.

2. Are overwhelmed by the large number of choices the game gives you starting out.

3. Find themselves struggling in a new encounter

4. Feel like their hunt times have reached the point of being intolerably long.

5. People who just want pointers!

You shouldnot go out of your way to farm every set in this document unless you feel that you fall into these categories. Learning to stretch out a set of armor until you are able to go no further with your level of skill can be a healthy practice. It both helps you gauge your own limits and can give you insight to where you are struggling by magnifying some of your mistakes. However, not everyone is up for that sort of thing, and that’s okay! These sets will still leave you in a great spot as you learn the game and transition from early game to endgame.

2. Story Progression Guide

The sets in the story progression guide do not use any decos. Feel free to slot whatever you wish. Special thanks to Zook for working with me on these builds! You can find his video progression guide below. Note that the last set is out of date.

MH Wilds | Hunting Horn Progression Guide

2.1 Chapter 1 Progression

Starting out is going to be quite simple stick with the Hope set and get yourself a Metal Bagpipe (Ore Tree) to use and War Bongo (Congalala Tree) to upgrade later.

2.2 Chapter 2 Progression

The next set is one that Horns are uniquely poised to take advantage of. The Hirabami are a free kill as a group thanks to echo waves, easily giving you a full set of Hirabami gear if you so wish. Instead, however, we’ll opt to take one piece of Rey Dau armor and two pieces of Uth Duna armor for Inspiration, which gives 10 raw for 20 seconds when playing any buff song. This can be used in single-player with a Palico active.

2.3 Chapter 3 Progression Set

Chapter 3 brings Guardians, and with it some decent armor at last. Weakness Exploit gives us ample amounts of critical chance while Burst gives us more consistent damage than the old Uth Duna/Rey Dau combo. This will last us until the end of the story and into High Rank.

3. Early Post-Game Progression Guide

Since the goal is to get you, the player, to endgame as smoothly as possible, these sets will not require any decorations. Assume that you should slot in anything that gives you affinity on your armor, like Maximum Might, and Horn Maestro + Critical/Attack Boost on your weapons. Use whatever you have on hand.

3.1 Chapter 4 Progression Set

This set is basically just the HR version of the Chapter 3 set. More WEX and ample decoration slots. At this point, go out of your way to upgrade that Congalala Horn to HR as well.

3.2 Chapter 5 Progression Set

This set makes the assumption that you have one antivirus jewel, but this set is worth it even without it. One point of Burst is more than enough to fulfill our needs, and Gore 2pc + Antivirus 2 provides a whopping 21% affinity all on its own. If you’re lucky enough to get Max Might, Weakness Exploit, Burst, or Adrenaline rush decorations, be sure to slot them!

4. Late Post-Game Progression Guide

4.1 Early Post-Game: 4-Gore Template

For a WEX variant, swap out the chest for Arkvulcan Mail β. Don’t use the Agitator variant against Guardian monsters as their Agitator uptime is terrible.

Focus on getting to HR 50 to unlock AT Rey Dau and Uth Duna armor, then follow the Endgame Build Guide.

Endgame Build Guide

A Comprehensive Guide to Wilds Hunting Horn

Those looking for Omega Planetes matchup information should look

here.

Updated for AT Nu Udra

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Part 3: Endgame Build Guide

Author and Principal Researcher: Upgreid Major Contributors: Zook (Early progression sets), Kat & Sasch (Early Calculator Development), Zarosguth (Critical Draw). Other Direct Contributors: Zezzame, LobsterHime, Lordaris, Trasiva, Tself, TorpedoSoup, Glass, Taxman (Research, Playtesting, and Calculator QC). Collaborators: dtlnor (Raw Data), T3h Phish (Banner Image), the Horn Pub, and the Wiggler Project.

Calculator:

MH Wilds Horn Calculator

Please contact me with any questions, corrections, or general feedback: @upgreid in the Horn Pub Discord and Monster Hunter Gathering Hall I have a full-time job and a busy life outside of TC, but I will still do my best to respect your time and respond within a day when I am able. If I don’t respond in a few days and other members can’t answer your question, please send me a DM with your question and I will reply to your query as best I can. Please remember to be kind, respectful, and patient with your fellow community members! It goes a long way in getting questions answered.

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Table of Contents

Home: A Comprehensive Guide to Wilds Hunting Horn

Part 3: Endgame Build Guide

1. A Preface by the Author

2. Build Guide Assumptions 2.1 Skill Priority 2.1.1 Armor Skill Priority - Raw Stacking 2.1.4 Weapon Skills 2.2 On RNG Talismans 2.3 Other Considerations

3. Meta Build Guide 3.1 Armor Set - OdoGuts/OmeGuts Raw Stacking 3.2 Weapon Recommendations 3.3 Element - Omiltika / Resounding Galahad 3.4 Raw - G. Resounding Galahad [Resounding] / Blazing Gariel [Offset] (Healing Bubble)

3.5 Status Omiltika (Status) 3.6 Possible Improvements

4. Meta Matchup Chart 4.1 A Note on Omega Planetes

5. Alternative Builds 5.1 Water with Natural Copium Flavors - Summoning Bell + 2-Piece Mizu

6. Meme Builds 6.1 Charged Doot

7. I’ve Been Away. What’s Changed? 7.1 TU1 - Mizutsune Update 7.2 AT Rey Dau 7.3 TU1.5/TU2 - Lagiacrus/Seregios 7.4 2.5- AT Uth Duna 7.5 3.0- Omega Planetes

8. FAQs

9. Resources

10. Acknowledgements

1. A Preface by the Author

Wilds Hunting Horn has brought a huge number of mechanical changes to the hunting horn (as usual). It’s probably the most satisfying iteration of the horn to play that we’ve had in a very, very long time, combining the mathematical complexity of Sunbreak’s iteration with even more depth than the World version of the weapon. Wilds Hunting Horn repurposed previous bubble-type songs from World/Iceborne and turned them into a fully fledged mechanic by way of making Echo Bubbles an idea borrowed from Sunbreak’s Bead of Resonance, though it was implemented quite differently mathematically. We’re also the only weapon to truly make use of the weapon swap mechanic by way of buff swapping or “backup horning” using a horn that has a different set of buffs to augment your main horn without incurring the weapon swap penalty. While there is some doom and gloom for the future to be had as is the usual case with Hunting Horns (in this case, our sharpness/elemental scaling is much like Gunlance in older games and won’t scale well into Master Rank), at this point in time Horn is experiencing something of a renaissance. It benefits from an interesting elemental meta, an interesting raw selection with two compelling choices, many equally strong armor sets revolving around one core, and some of the highest status application in the entire game. Compared to any previous iteration, it’s safe to say that Horn is finally in a place where its damage output is in line with its complexity. We’ve experienced an astonishing improvement over the

past two Title Updates. We even have a comprehensible core combo loop now! While the neutral kit and Performance Beat need a lot of love to be viable, there’s no doubt in my mind that this will be considered one of the most fun weapons in the Wilds roster and the strongest version of the Hunting Horn to exist to date.

What’s New in TU 3. 5?

In this half of the TU we finally take the long-theorized leap and jump into raw stacking. Since a good portion of our moves don’t crit, there’s a lot of incentive to just go all-in on raw. Raw-centric sets tend to have far fewer activation conditions or have a lot of activation conditions that go hand in hand with one another. They’re up more reliably than Latent Power and just about as strong as Weakness Exploit for us. Since consistency is key to hunt speed, it goes to reason that raw stacking would make our hunts reliably faster even if they were even on paper sometimes you get stuck with LP activating just before a monster leaves the area. However, we never had any truly efficient pieces for raw that allowed us to give it a go without sacrificing some core skills, and any set bonus that wasn’t Guts and provided raw was had bad efficiency, terrible raw bonuses or restrictive conditions, and low defense to boot. Thanks to our tentacled friend, we no longer need to make compromises. With two points of Counterstrike and 2 flexible 3-slots, the AT Nu Udra chest has a firm, suckered grip on the Wilds meta at the moment. The economy on it is a sight to behold and it manages to find its way onto our meta set as well as optimal setups for LP/CS and Wex/Agi (which have all been cut because they’re less reliable, less comfortable, and are weaker). It’s even powerful enough to bring some weird pieces up. Odogaron set and Omega set both have pretty significant drawbacks (bad defense and bad economy on Odo and a multiplayer-only set bonus on Omega) and yet both find themselves here on the meta set due to how absurd the chest piece is. AT Nu Udra’s chest is so ridiculously efficient that I’m frankly scared of what AT Jin may bring to the table in TU4. Agitator and Weakness Exploit are the primary skills on Jin armor, so our odds look good. Fingers crossed we get something truly icy spicy.

2. Build Guide Assumptions

Ireally hope you like Artian horns.

2.1 Skill Priority

2.1.1 Armor Skill Priority Raw Stacking

Tier Skill Name^ Reasoning

S

Guts This set bonus comes from AT gamma armor pieces. It’s worth about 12 raw on Hunting Horn, which is on par with 4pc Gore’s bonus, except it’s passive and also saves you from carting. Burst Boost Extends the duration of Burst, which we already get reliably, and adds an additional 8 raw on top for good measure. Easily worth

the drop in piece efficiency. Agitator 1-5 Burst 1-5

Counterstrike 1-3

A

Adrenaline Rush 1-5 Additional raw stacking for (un)successfully dodging monsters or using your Offset i-frames. Useful for Crit Draw. Gets worse the better you are at keeping monsters on the floor.

Flayer 1

Makes wounds more consistent, allowing us to spam Focus Strike to recharge bubbles. Deals a solid chunk of damage when it procs. Only useful on 9* monsters. The harder the monster is to wound, the better this skill gets. Maximum Might 1-3 Used on G. Galahad to avoid negative affinity when the monster is not enraged. Very efficient with strong uptime.

B

Latent Power 1-5 Crit skills with strong efficiency. They won’t increase the damage of the majority of a Horn stab loop and are therefore more effective the less efficiently you play. Weakness Exploit 1-5

Considerably weaker and less efficient than Latent Power in the current meta, but it’s what you should opt for if you prefer the reliability of this skill’s trigger condition. Fig. 2A Armor Skill Priority for Raw Stacking Sets

2.1.2 Weapon Skills

Skill Name Reasoning

Tax Horn Maestro 2

Increases the duration of Hunting Horn melodies and increases the radius and duration of echo bubbles, forcing the monster to move a little more before getting out of the bubble’s reach. Fundamentally required.

S Attack Boost 4-5^ Attack Boost 4’s percentage scaling makes it a core skill at this level.

A+ Element Attack 3

Element Attack is valued due to its efficiency and increased scaling compared to previous games. It is so powerful that it outperforms an equivalent number of Crit Boost points for strongly elemental matchups, and is the de facto choice for raw stacking when you run out of raw to… well, stack. A Critical Boost 1-5^ Critical Boost further increases the damage dealt by crits on affinity-centric sets. C tier for raw stacking.

B

Critical Eye 1-5 Free affinity, just not very good amounts of it. Use only if you have a strong talisman.

Handicraft 1-5 (^) Sharpness management skills. Direct weapon hits are responsible for less than 1/2 of hunting horn’s damage, so sharpness upkeep is only used for comfort or on songsets that can’t queue efficiently. More valuable on horns without Sharpness Restoration songs. Razor Sharp 3 Master’s Touch 1

C

Attack Boost 1-3 Only take points of these if they come for free with a deco and you don’t need the Handicraft. The above skills are a better use of your slots.

Critical Element 1-3

Element Attack 1-2 Fig. 2B Weapon Skill Priority

2.2 On RNG Talismans

This version of the guide will not require RNG Talismans. Recommendations are the following: ● A Rarity 5 Talisman with 1 level of Agitator, Burst, or Flayer with a 3-slot. Many of these can be substituted with already-craftable Agitator II or Weakness Exploit II charms. ● A Rarity 5 Talisman with Maximum Might 2 and a 3-slot. The best weapon skills to get on these talismans are Attack Boost, followed by Handicraft, followed by Critical Eye/Element Attack.

2.3 Other Considerations

● Horn Swapping has legitimate value. Pair non-AUXL horns with AUXL and AUXL horns with Affinity Up or Element/Status Attack boost when applicable. The more horns you have at your disposal, the better. It is only worth swapping when running to a new area or when getting to the monster. ● Eat for Moxie (Hi) whenever possible. The game will consume Moxie before Guts, which means you’ll both avoid the cart and won’t lose damage. ● Choose your mantles based on your setup. Evasion Mantle is the preferred mantle here, but keep in mind that the mantle is an accessory to the set due to low uptimes. It makes all the sense in the world to take Evasion Mantle to a setup that has Adrenaline Rush on it. There’s no sense in taking Evasion Mantle with an LP/CS set where you might prefer Rocksteady for consistency or Corrupted for the additional raw, affinity, and LP uptime. Use common sense and make sure your setups are coherent.

3. Meta Build Guide

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3.1 Armor Set OdoGuts/OmeGuts Raw Stacking

When TU 2.5 launched, Burst Boost was updated to grant significantly more raw, from +3 to +8 just for having a point of Burst and two Odogaron pieces. At the time the skill economy was slightly below what I was comfortable recommending, although you might have noticed that Japanese runners like QuA adopted these types of sets almost immediately after the update dropped. With Nu Udra’s new chestpiece being available, I’m comfortable swapping to this recommendation for the general player.

A second set exists, courtesy of fellow theorycrafter LobsterHime, that gives similar results using Omega pieces, not for their Resonance set bonus but for their skill economy. If you have defeated Savage Omega and have enough resources to go for this setup, I highly recommend doing so as the additional 1 slots add a lot of comfort. There’s a free 2-slot as well, which can be used for Evade Window/Extender or Maximum Might. It’s also better for use with Lagia Thunderpeal, having higher Thunder resistance than OdoGuts. This set is only strictly better in multiplayer consider their damage identical in solo.

This is still a competitive option on G. Resounding Galahad, especially on monsters with hard-to-hit or unreliable WEX zones. It also means that Blunt echo wave weapons like Blazing Gariel which can’t crit on waves will benefit more heavily than usual.

This set doesn’t heavily emphasize crit, and Critical Boost is therefore quite weak. While using this set on elemental horns, Critical Boost should be replaced with Attack Boost, Handicraft, or Elemental Attack as appropriate. Slot Thunder Resist in any remaining slots if you’re running Lagia Thunderpeal.

For raw horns, there are plenty of options. Use Razor Sharp/Handicraft if you don’t want to worry too much about dropping to green, or use Bludgeoner if you can reliably chew through your natural blue sharpness. If you use one point of Maximum Might, it's enough to justify using Critical Boost. Pick your flavor, they're all close enough.

The talisman is a flex slot, but Adrenaline Rush or Max Might are the most recommended skills to slot.

OdoGuts:

OmeGuts:

3.2 Weapon Recommendations

Artians assume 3 Attack components, 3 4 Attack rolls, and 1 2 Sharpness rolls. Base element rolls have NO EFFECT on echo waves, so they’re functionally useless. Avoid them. Prioritize getting good Artian rolls for Fire and Water. Ice, Thunder and Dragon craftables are highly competitive and Artians for those elements should be lower priority.

For Status Artians, if you even use them, prioritize Paralysis and Blast. The other two statuses have no meta value.

Element Weapons Fire Omiltika (Fire)

Water

Omiltika (Water) OR Summoning Bell [MoL Cope]

Thunder

Omiltika (Thunder) [Resounding] OR Lagia Thunderpeal [Offset]

Ice

Omiltika (Ice) [Resounding] OR Precipice Kovira [Offset] Dragon Resounding Galahad [Resounding]

Raw Best Overall: G. Resounding Galahad [Resounding] Alternative: Blazing Gariel [Offset] (Healing Bubble)

Paralysis (^) Meme with Swap: Glass Royale [Resounding]Best: Omiltika (Paralysis) [Offset] Blast (^) Craftable: Ajara-Jivaka [Offset]Best: Omiltika (Blast) [Offset] Sleep (Low Priority) Omiltika (Sleep) Poison (Low Priority) Omiltika (Poison) Swap Horn (Affinity) Summoning Bell / Gramklang Swap Horn (Attack) Great Bagpipe / Ajara-Jivaka Fig. 3A Weapon Requirements

3.3 Element Omiltika / Resounding Galahad

The primary build being used for Wilds horn takes advantage of extremely high base element values on Element Echo Waves. These weapons focus on spamming Single Encores and Resounding Melody. On Omiltika, slot Horn Maestro 2, Attack Boost 4, and Element Attack/Handicraft. On Resounding Galahad, use a Dragon/Handicraft deco and fill out the rest with Attack Boost decos.

If horn swapping, use: ● Any Attack Up L horn when using Artian ● Artian Dragon of any quality when using Resounding Galahad.

Craftable alternatives include: ● Fire: Just use G. Resounding Galahad if you don’t have an Artian Fire horn. ● Water: Just use G. Resounding Galahad if you don’t have an Artian Water horn. If youmust use a blue-flavored Horn for one reason or another, use Summoning Bell. ● Thunder: Lagia Thunderpeal, which is roughly on par with a perfect Omiltika, but relies on Offset Melody rather than Resounding. Great for matchups like Seregios. ● Ice: Precipice Kovira, which is equal to a 6 Raw / 2 Element Omiltika. It can be a preferred option on matchups like Rey Dau that are weak to Offset. ● Dragon: Resounding Galahad, which is stronger than a 7 Raw / 1 Sharpness Omiltika unless you use a swap horn. Even then, it’s quite close.

3.4 Raw G. Resounding Galahad [Resounding] / Blazing Gariel [Offset]

(Healing Bubble)

Thanks to the motion value buffs in 1.011.0, raw has become significantly more competitive. Even if it’s outclassed by element by a few percentage points on a few matchups, it can close the gap quickly if Echo Waves are queued via Echo Bubble placements. Gore Magala has high slash vulnerability and you should therefore use G. Resounding Galahad.

This set focuses on spamming Single Encores and Resounding Melody.

G. Resounding Galahad slots in Attack Boost 4 and Critical Boost 3 if you slot at least one point of Maximum Might. You may use Handi3/Razor Sharp if you find the low sharpness to be uncomfortable. Blazing Gariel slots in Horn Maestro 2 and Attack Boost 4. For healing bubble users, this is your best horn Rathian can’t hope to compete with this. For any given matchup, expect Blazing Gariel to be 4-8% worse than G. Resounding Galahad.

If horn swapping: ● Summoning Bell/Gramklang for the additional affinity.

3.5 Status Omiltika (Status)

These all fall off somewhat in multiplayer, and fall offhard against 9-star monsters. Using these in the late endgame is not recommended.

Status horns are powerful for the same reason that elemental horns are powerful Echo wave scaling. They don’t deal as much damage as their raw and elemental counterparts, and areeven weaker than usual on 9 star monsters which have higher resistances than normal, but they earn their place here by being some of the best status dealers in the entire game. Paralysis is your best bet and is capable of permanently locking weaker monsters down in solo, followed by Blast for damage, then a giant chasm between the aforementioned two versus Sleep and Poison (which are objectively the weakest of the Artian horns). For decorations, it's the usual. If using one point of max might, use Crit Boost 3, AB4, Horn Maestro 2. For memes and low-difficulty monsters, use Status Attack Jewel 3.

This set focuses on spamming Single Encores and Resounding Melody.

If horn swapping, use:

● Great Bagpipe for the additional raw on Artian. ● Omiltika (Paralysis) when using Glass Royale. Glass Royale is uniquely poised to take advantage of Status Attack Up from another horn since it is a Status horn with Resounding Melody. This is only better for CC locking the monster. I’d put it in meme builds, but it’s the same template.

Status Attack Up is what makes these horns so powerful and the other craftable alternatives are strictly inferior. Craftable alternatives include: ● Paralysis: Glass Royale ● Blast: Ajara-Jivaka ● Poison: No viable alternative. ● Sleep: No alternative.

3.6 Possible Improvements

● Swapping 1 Sharpness boost for an eighth and final Attack boost will push the damage up further at the severe cost of sharpness comfort. Recommended only if you have a large stock of Whetfish Fin+ to get around the sharpness problem. ● Conversely, swapping 1 Attack boost for 1 Sharpness boost can make Artian weapons extremely comfy without the need for any sharpness skills. Opt for this if you find 4 Attack 1 Sharp to run out of sharpness too often.

4. Meta Matchup Chart

Fig. 4A Meta Matchup Chart for TU3 Wilds Hunting Horn

4.1 A Note on Omega Planetes

Omega Planetes isn’t up there because it’s special. Unlike other matchups, we have the very real secondary threat of the Nerscylla clone to consider alongside Omega itself, and its mechanics complicate things beyond the simple idea of “bring optimal element”. With that in mind, here are my recommendations for dealing with Omegaverse: ● Continue to use the meta damage sets the skills that you equip on armor have no effect on your songs, and songs are what you’re after as a buff support. ○ Some of you may see runners using 4pc or 5pc Bale. Keep in mind that this only works on Omega and is a more specific playstyle. If you want to emulate it, feel free to do so. It is a viable option but requires you to be consistently farming Omega already.

This guide won’t assume that specifically because Horn is often used to keep struggling teams alive, and struggling teams aren’t sporting full Bale sets. ● Omega Planetes hits extremely hard. Unlike the rest of the game, damage reduction is extremely valuable in this fight. Damage reduction is a matchup consideration normal horn selections don’t apply unless you are in an extremely coordinated and experienced squad. ● Know your starboard from your larboard hilt stabs are extremely useful throughout this fight and those who master hilt stabbing can force a lot of openings in an otherwise extremely aggressive fight. Mind your positioning. If you didn’t practice your hilt stabs before, start now.

Ideal options for this matchup include: ● G. Resounding Galahad as the on-field horn for Sonic Barrier, which provides strong damage reduction, strong damage output, and status cleansing bubbles. ○ Unlike normal Horn gameplay, you will use this frequently instead of opting for Echo Waves. This is one-shot and combo protection use it when you think it’s necessary and keep it on hand. Keep an eye on whoever has enmity you will prioritize playing Sonic Barrier to keep them alive. ● Lagia Thunderpeal or Paralysis Artian for the secondary horn for Divine Protection and Thunder damage. Use the former if you’re good at landing the Nerscylla rockburst dunk. Use the latter if you’re not comfortable with it. ● Healing horns are still non-viable and should not be used. The animations take far too long and will expose you to more danger than the horn can hope to heal, and it is too slow to respond as emergency healing. The meta set has Quick Sheathe Use your items! ● This is a bad idea, but if youmust bring healing, Rathian does so little damage that it is a non-starter. Blazing Gariel is your ONLY healing option. It is still far riskier than just tanking attacks and using items to heal after the fact. It locks you within the healing bubble and lacks a stronger attack boost. If you are looking to maximize your chances of success in a public hunt, this is a bad idea. You have been warned.

5. Alternative Builds

5.1 Water with Natural Copium Flavors Summoning Bell + 2-Piece Mizu

The buff to Bubbly Dance means that Mizutsune’s Summoning Bell no longer suffers from the loss of the Guts group skill. With its high affinity, the injection of raw was just what this weapon needed. Still not a top contender by any stretch of the imagination, but it is unique in that it’s the only Melody of Life horn that’s even remotely viable. Since this set relies heavily on aggressive dodging, I opted for Adrenaline Rush on the charm, but there’s room for flexibility here.

6. Meme Builds

6.1 Charged Doot

This one’s courtesy of my good friend Zarosguth, who has personally adopted and pioneered the playstyle:

“Upgreid is letting me (Zarosguth) write something for this guide. The absolute madman.

Critical Draw is a weapon skill in Monster Hunter Wilds that grants an affinity boost for 3 seconds after performing a draw attack. In previous iterations of the skill it would only grant this affinity bonus to the draw attack itself. However, in Monster Hunter Rise the skill was changed to the version we know today, though with a lower overall affinity increase. In Wilds it was brought back to its old affinity numbers and with the 3 second window.

In regular gameplay the highest DPS option Hunting Horn has involves the Performance and the Encore. As it turns out, drawing the weapon with a Performance can be followed up by an Encore within the window of opportunity of Critical Draw. Once this was understood, the concept for this playstyle took shape.”

For more information, see Zaro’s dedicated guide here:

Forbidden Tome of Crit Draw Horn

7. I’ve Been Away. What’s Changed?

7.1 TU1 Mizutsune Update

Mizutsune brings with it a new meta water horn by the skin of its teeth.

Zoh Shia horn replaces Artian Raw and relegates War Conga to a teamplay gimmick. It also provides our first truly strong health regen bubble horn. Zoh Shia chest piece replaces Arveld’s chest in FulGore sets, shifting it to an Agitator-focused set. AT Rey Dau arrives later in the month, poised to update every single set with its superior efficiency.

Original Text: Title Update 1 has freed us from the grasp of the Artian horn somewhat and brought a little variety and additional mathematical spice to Water and Raw sets. Both are healing horns, which should also help healing bubble enthusiasts as they should have a much, MUCH stronger alternative available in Zoh Shia. Thankfully, both look and sound great! The TU brings with it a little bit of armor variety as well. While the Zoh Shia set bonus is slightly disappointing, the horn has been anything but. Despite using the objectively inferior Echo Wave Blunt, its unique skill Whiteflame Torrent allows it to stand alongside the best in raw matchups. Mizutsune brings a strong and craftable contender with a unique interaction between its armor and weapons, and is our first ever set to reach 100% affinity with no issue. The base game Gore Magala set meta is as strong and healthy as ever, and is projected to get some very minor improvements once AT Rey Dau drops.

7.2 AT Rey Dau

Lord’s Soul arrives on the scene, knocking Mizutsune horn downseveral pegs. After a short era of variety, everything goes back to cookie cutter.

Original Text: ….AAAAND AT Rey Dau absolutely killed it. A marginal damage improvement with additional comfort in the form of Guts paired with a re-assessment of Agitator’s uptime on several monsters prompted a shift in the meta. Water returns to the Artian hellscape (I’m so sorry) and everything transitions fully to the GoRey template. The new Lord’s Soul group skill from AT monsters gives 5% raw that is largely responsible for this change. If Guts is procced, you will lose the 5% bonus, but the time saved by not carting is already well worth it. Pair with Moxie for an additional “get out of jail”

card you won’t lose Guts the first time you almost cart! Every set is now hitting 75% affinity regularly and hits 100% affinity for about half the hunt. Not bad.

This set unfortunately comes with Evade Extender, which will mess up our positioning. Don’t expect to get used to it as we’ll be dropping the arms as soon as a reasonable alternative is available from another AT Apex monster. Here’s to hoping we get good AT armor to replace it soon or we’ll be getting used to janky long rolls.

7.3 TU1.5/TU2 Lagiacrus/Seregios

Lagiacrus finally brings a truly competitive Offset horn to the table. Armor variety finally arrives, although it revolves around Lord’s Soul.

Original Text: Mechanically, TU2 didn’t bring much to the Hunting Horn other than consistency changes, an increased focus on the Focus Strike mechanic (it’svery strong now), and a LOT of armor flexibility, which I’ll elaborate on in the guide. However, the impact of the Street Fighter collab update (I’ll just call it TU 1.5) is still being felt raw has an increased emphasis now, and there is zero reason to ever play more than one Echo Wave in a row now because Encore and Performance got enormous buffs. Echo Bubble placement got buffed by a whopping 50%, and Focus Strike’s individual hits during the minigame, the final strike, and the number of inputs you can make all got massive buffs as well. In TU2, you can even put down an Echo Bubble if you get the timing right, and it won’t consume your charges (a free 45 motion value)! It’s now a serious contender for the highest damage output available to Horn. If you see a wound, take it!

Seregios brings a novelty playstyle armor set (they can’t all be winners), and this is easily one of the best Crit Draw sets I’ve ever seen. Take a look at the Forbidden Tome of Crit Draw if you want more details on that! Sadly it doesn’t leave enough room for Affinity skills and so it can’t keep up with regular Horn playstyle sets. The horn itself is covered in some smelly garbage for some reason. Sure,

it gets access to purple sharpness, but it’s on a weapon that doesn’t care much for sharpness to begin with, and to add insult to injury that purple sharpness requires a dodge and only grants 6 hits. I’d rather take Attack Up (L) and sharpness restoration, but alas, it doesn’t have those either. It’s a cool layered horn, though. To the bin it goes.

Lagiacrus, the star of this TU, has a much better showing overall. In terms of armor, it’s great until you get to the set bonus which has an arbitrary cap of 50% uptime for some reason. Without an enormous 30 second cooldown, this would have far and away been the best set to mix with Rey Dau, so I’m left a little miffed by the Lord of the Sea’s armor offerings, but they’re still very passable and can be used in some variants of the “Double AT” core that’s coming with Uth Duna. Thankfully the Hunting Horn does not disappoint. It easily smacks into the elemental cap with its unique skill and is, by and large, a very respectable horn with more emphasis on element and raw than affinity. It’s also an Offset Melody horn, which means that it’s very good at dealing with Seregios and other fast Thunder-weak monsters. It’s strong enough to present an alternative to Resounding rather than a downgrade on the basis of its absolutely enormous stats. It sounds great, too! Well done by Capcom on balancing this horn!

What’s next? AT Uth Duna, of course! Some of the pieces are pretty terrible, but others are going to shake things up in a fun way for us. While there will be one meta core for a while, it’ll come in many flavors to keep us interested over the long wait for Title Update 3 with the announced buffs. This is a good thing, since it means you can tune the set to suit your own needs and preferences. The downside is that I won’t be able to list them all (though I’ll try and point out the most interesting variants). See you with updated sets in a couple weeks!

7.4 2.5AT Uth Duna

Uth Duna doesn’t do much, but the buffs sure do!

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The long-awaited buffs have arrived, and while I personally found them to be slightly off the mark (I would have liked to see buffs to swings, Performance Beat, and Echo Wave scaling for better move variety), the implications of the changes they did make for the weapon as a whole are nothing short of staggering. Horn has finally been given a counter with hyper armor in the form of a buff to Wild’s lackluster hilt stab, immediately taking the move from zero to hero. Hilt stab can now be triggered out of a roll, Encore, or Special Performance. For the latter two options, it allows us to stay in place rather than forcing us to roll to cancel the long animations. That means more Max Might uptime, the ability to use Counterstrike, and the ability to queue certain songs faster than ever before. Both Hilt Stab and Echo Bubble placing can chop up to 70 frames off of the recovery of Resounding Melody, and 45 frames off of Encore’s recovery. That’s 1.17 seconds and .75 seconds respectively, which is a pretty huge chunk of time in a combo to sit there doing no damage. Hilt Stab takes about 65 frames, so it is always faster to interrupt Resounding Melody with a Hilt Stab rather than letting the animation finish. Our Echo Wave spam capabilities have become so fast that we actually have to worry about running out of bubble charges. Hunting Horn actually having a burst damage combo… what a time to be alive. Focus Strike got consistency changes so it no longer misses that final attack all the time (finally)! It’s still our best option and lets our bubble charges refresh so we can keep the damage loop going, so use it when you can.

AT Uth Duna has sadly not saved us from the clutches of Evade Extender (although the Hilt Stab changes have done a lot to reduce the amount of rolling Horns are required to do). It does, however, give us a lot more flexibility, which means buildcrafting has finally become exciting! Thanks to the AT Uth Duna legs and coil, there are many different ways to achieve the same end result, just with slightly different seasonings of auxiliary skills. That means that while the Guts cookie cutter set is optimized for both general use and damage this time around, you can lean in any direction and squeeze a little more comfort (more 1-slots) or a little more damage out (points of Burst / Counterstrike / Latent Power). You have plenty of options, so consider these sets a solid all-rounder. You’ll see MANY different sets here all formed from AT Rey Dau, AT Uth Duna Legs/Waist, Zoh Shia, and Lagiacrus pieces. For the more hardcore players, I strongly recommend taking note of the strong pieces and investing in getting those leveled up so you can stay flexible.

Random talismans are here, and for the most part from the scale of “Was that a fart or did someone shit their pants?” to “Who needs armor?”, it’s somewhere around “only 7 raw”. That’s right, the average improvement is literally getting to Attack Boost 5 via an AB1 Wex/Burst/Agi1 3-0-0 talisman. That’s what I’ll recommend in all these sets because I don’t want to subject people to Qurio levels of suffering again those scars are still too fresh. If you’re lucky, though, you’ll get to take advantage of one of the wackier meta changes we’ve seen so far. Threat Level 9 5* monsters (or “9-5s” as some people have taken to calling them) have actually had some major implications for set building. Because they’re so resistant to wounds,Flayer is actually useful on them. It’s so good, in fact, that I recommend dropping a point of Agitator for more consistent Focus Strike spam if you please the hunting gods and get an AB3 Wex/Burst/Agi/Flayer1 1W-0-0 talisman.

The advent of a counter also means that Counterstrike and Latent Power sets are no longer restricted to the realm of Offset horning. Those who are skilled enough to bait Hilt Stab counters from monsters by placing bubbles or performing (or, if you’re like me, thoseunskilled enough to reliably eat shit without carting) will enjoy a second armor set to explore. LP/CS sets will require RNG talismans to set up for now, unlike Agi/Wex sets.

Thanks to Bubbly Dance buffs, Mizu is now markedly less bad with the requirement to use four armor pieces removed. While it isn’t a meta option, it’s not as far behind as it once was. The same can be said for Ebony Odogaron’s Burst Boost still not the best option on the table because the pieces suck, but no longer terrible (the set bonus in isolation is actually pretty competitive with Guts). There might be some meat on those bones in TU3 when AT Nu Udra brings the possibility of a Guts set with Burst and Counterstrike pieces built in.

7.5 3.0Omega Planetes

Individually good armor pieces but nothing that shifts the meta (for now). A damage reduction support horn matchup makes a rare appearance. A wave of hazard / Come ride heroes ride

Full Text: Not much. Omega Planetes didn’t make much of a dent in the Horn meta, but AT Nu Udra’s armor will shift our primary build paradigm to pure raw stacking. We’re shifting to raw stacking because so much of our current core damage loop can’t crit at all, so if Capcom ever decides to buff the part of the moveset thatis allowed to crit, we’ll shift back to crit sets. The Omega pieces are very efficient, so there are some sets that are roughly on par with the current meta sets and do ever so slightly better in multiplayer if they can reliably activate Omega Resonance. These sets will only be an improvement after AT Nu Udra drops anyway. QuA, a well-known Japanese runner I highly recommend watching, has already adopted an Odo/AT setup similar to the one we’ll be shifting to, but I am holding off on that until AT Nu Udra to minimize the amount of times I’ll have to update the meta document in the coming days. You may find small updates taking place to this guide to alter progression for a smoother transition to Odo/AT raw stacking in the meantime and as the calculator is updated to better account for certain skills. Please look forward to that over the next few weeks!

8. FAQs

Q: Do I have to use meta sets? A: No, you don’t have to. Your playstyle is your own If your playstyle centers around dodging frequently without a stamina bubble, Maximum Might is a useless skill. Room for creativity exists in this game, and there are optimal ways to build around suboptimal playstyles as much as there are ways to suboptimally build around optimal playstyles. You do you. I’m not here to dictate how you should play. I just crunch numbers and bonk. That said, creativity (sadly) isn’t optimal, and for the sake of my sanity I am only focusing this guide on the most optimal, easy to use setups for the currently optimal playstyle.

Q: What’s a perfect performance beat? A: Watch the video below.

The Artful Maestro Monster Hunter Wilds Guide to Perfect Beats, Encores, & Double Notes

Q: Why is there no sharpness/crit scaling on shockwaves? A: Horns having no fun is working as intended.

Q: So do I only play one song at a time? A: Yes, Capcom has yet to buff Performance Beat and Echo Waves x2 and x3. Not encoring immediately after playing one wave is a doubled damage loss for more commitment.

Q: Does element matter that much? A: If you’re doing casual hunts, raw can be a damage loss on some monsters but it’s often “close enough (anywhere up to 5% damage loss)”. If you understandably hate the Artian gacha, you can opt for this alongside the aforementioned strong craftable elemental horns.

9. Resources

1. MH Wilds Horn Calculator

2. MHWs 1.0.1.0 Summary sheets

3. Monster Hunter Wilds Armor Set Search

4. Builder | MH Wilds Hub

5. Monster Hunter Gathering Hall Discord

6. Horn Pub Discord

7. MHWilds | Kiranico

10. Acknowledgements

● Zook for making excellent videos and helping me to refine the progression sets. ● Kat & Sasch for their incredible work developing the scalable backend of the calculator upon which many of the Wilds calculators are based. ● Zarosguth for adopting the Critical Draw horn and labbing out much better sets for a unique playstyle. ● Trasiva, Tself, Glass, Taxman, and Zezzame for research, playtesting, sanity checking, and calculator QC. ● T3h Phish for the wonderful banner image, as always! ● Additional thanks to Zook, Taxman, and KPlaysHere for doing their best to get good information out to the public via YouTube. Please give their channels a visit! ● dtlnor for providing critical data. ● Joseph125, Tera, and Megapon for their memes ● Members of the Horn Pub for their feedback and many contributions, however large or small. ● Members of the Wiggler Project for their tireless work maintaining the quality of each other’s guides, including this one. ● The MH theorycrafting and speedrunning community at large for their support and company across many long nights while this guide was made! ●