Hunting Horn Mains

[K1ll3rc0mb0]

Let me know when the game comes out if having two hunting horns with different buffs is as wild as I imagine it to be.

we know they are changing things for hunting horns since it getting used as a secondary to just get buffs off then swapping to a different weapon type was not the intention of a weapon. to combat this they lowered buff times when or if someone does change weapons. however, i never heard any clarification if swapping to another hunting horn still caused this effect or not since its still technically the same weapon type. i would be interested in seeing if this would be a super support build or if the buff fall off still might apply just from swapping weapons in and of itself.

if not, the implications are astronomical. still sad the party buff is getting nerfed but as least the users buff is higher now.

[Some Kitty Cat]

Its also sad that some people just see the HH as a "Buff tool". The HH can absolutely destroy and ♥♥♥♥ on a Monster. And all that while also buffing at the same time.
Aggressive HH is scary as hell.

But yes I'm also interested if it can stack. I certainly will try it out.

[Bum]

I wonder if brain cells stack aswell. So maybe i can pick 2 hammers and have 2 brain cells!!!

[zmanbuilder]

HH is getting a buff and nerf at launch, as a sub weapon it will be worse but they are making the buffs stronger with the horn out.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

With 2 horns? Hmmm I wonder if they tested that lol

However they did say the buffs will be shortened if you swap weapons to not make it a required 2nd weapon. So I imagine swapping from 1 HH to another will cause buffs from that horn to shorten as expected.

[HunterXCooL]

only time will tell... as 2 HH buff for the whole party is ridiculous... not to mention HH is not really a hard weapon to use... and also a fun weapon to use

[K1ll3rc0mb0]

they honestly should allow double hunting horn because it would almost grantee someone in the party would run this build which would boost hunting horn popularity. it honestly isn't that much crazier than running free meal with wide range. i almost broke my friends when world first released because as long time fans, i decided to use this combo and basically became the healer of the party. when my friend mounted the monster, i would eat rations or steak to keep their stamina max for as long as they wanted. throw in a hunting horn for various buffs and you got someone who can take a mediocre random group through fatalis with ease.

[generalpickleful]

Originally posted by K1ll3rc0mb0:

Let me know when the game comes out if having two hunting horns with different buffs is as wild as I imagine it to be.

we know they are changing things for hunting horns since it getting used as a secondary to just get buffs off then swapping to a different weapon type was not the intention of a weapon. to combat this they lowered buff times when or if someone does change weapons. however, i never heard any clarification if swapping to another hunting horn still caused this effect or not since its still technically the same weapon type. i would be interested in seeing if this would be a super support build or if the buff fall off still might apply just from swapping weapons in and of itself.

if not, the implications are astronomical. still sad the party buff is getting nerfed but as least the users buff is higher now.

from playing the beta i noticed the weapon feels slower the buffs feel like they run out faster and the damige numbers feel like they are useless unless your hitting a soften point

[Spirare]

I'm a little pessimistic about Wilds Hunting Horn.

So far, we know that the weapon is changed like this:

Nerfs
- Our movement speed was nerfed (previews say they have fixed this though, so there's hope!)

- Bubbles were probably made because of the two-weapon mechanic; they didn't want people to play an Evade Window song and then just switch to another weapon. So now a good portion of songs are proximity based, and discourage Hunting Horn from moving around—or fighting a moving monster.

Speed Up + Evade Window buff seems counter-intuitive when you want to stay in one small area, and the buff runs out as soon as you leave that small area...

- Hunting Horn can no longer cancel recitals, which can become problematic if we fight monsters that attack quickly after they flinch (kind of like Nergigante or Zingore). But if the devs actually balance the flinches with us in mind, hopefully we won't be punished for doing recitals just cause a monster flinched—in World, we can just roll out to not commit to the recital.

- They took away the icon that shows when a person is in range of your melody buffs.

- We lost our hidden note / spin attack.

- Attack Up's percentage for the party got nerfed (Attack up Small [Encored] went from 15% to 4%)

Buffs
- Hunting Horn queues songs MUCH faster through the use of Superpound having an extra queue-able note now, and being able to queue songs during Echo Bubbles.

- Encores are faster, (I think regular recital speed is about the same, with the exception of forward recital which is faster—albeit the game awkwardly defaults to it and slows your recital down unless you hold a direction other than forward)

- We got Performance Beat as a move; kinda meh, but damage is damage. Primarily seems like a knockdown punish while playing songs.

- Offset Melody. Super satisfying counter that we can also hold to time, and it actually seems to be getting more damage in the final release.

- A focus attack that we can queue notes during, and a fun timing minigame to do more damage [though it's still not the most damaging focus attack despite needing to get the timing correct on every input to get your finisher. I don't think another weapon's focus attack has a mechanic like this? Would appreciate more damage, or maybe being able to play a song during the Finisher.)

- Superpound having a follow-up attack that does decent damage.

- Echo Bubbles do damage as we attack and play songs; decent damage as well, but probably gets harder to manage as we fight more active monsters, especially flying ones and elder dragons immune to traps. There's also news about the echo bubble damage getting nerfed for the final release...

- The Devs are putting some damage buffs into Hunting Horn's Self Improvement, I've heard like a 20-30% increase being thrown around. (This might end up being an overall nerf though given it is directly coming at the cost of Atk Up being decreased). This at least makes it more viable to runs Horns with other songs than Atk Up... but horns with Atk Up will probably still be the most popular.

- We most likely have new songs that we can play, and some of our Echo Songs even do different types of damage like Slashing as shown by some gameplay footage in the preview build.

---

I think that's everything. Overall, I felt like the Wilds Hunting Horn was fun to play, but its gameplay style of beating up monsters in the echo bubbles felt like it'd quickly become inconsistent with harder monsters, especially master-rank flyers that become immune to flashes after like 3 shots.

However, I think the effectiveness of Wilds Hunting Horn seems pretty low. Even then, I often hear people say that with a hunting horn user playing Atk Up XL and playing against a monster well, it was still less damage overall for a group of 4 hunters to have that hunting horn user in their party versus... a Longsword, Switchaxe, Chargeblade, Greatsword, Dualblades, Lightbowgun, Heavy Bowgun, or Bow user.

So, with that in mind, if 4 hunters having 20% more attack including the Hunting Horn user attacking doesn't add up to more damage than another DPS weapon—and the devs are further nerfing Atk Up XL...

It leaves me feeling pessimistic about even going into multiplayer hunts with it. Maybe I'll just play solo with the weapon, or only with friends. It seems like if the devs don't fine-tune the weapon's damage output to compensate for how much they're nerfing the weapon (which seems like a lot), then it'll end up becoming even worse overall...and I'm not sure they will, because they seem very wary of buffing the weapon itself to keep it from becoming 'the best' secondary weapon.

I put in about 3,000 hunts with the Hunting Horn in World, but I feel like I might want to just pick up Longsword or Chargeblade now lol. I would've preferred if, to solve the 'pocket horn' dilemma, they just made Hunting Horn songs default to their non-encored version whenever you switch weapons... so people only running horn for using Attack Up on their other weapon would get the reduced effect and shorter duration than if they actually played the hunting horn.

Well, we'll see how it goes.