What should I look for in a Hunting Horn Build?

[Hawk King]

Hunting Horn is my third main weapon in this game and to be perfectly honestly I'm not sure what's the optimal path for making a build around it. I use it because it's the closest thing to playing support in this game but I know I can deal just as much damage as hammer with this thing.

[TVMAN]

I mean if all you want is to pump out big numbers, then the crit eye/weakness exploit/crit boost trio is pretty much mandatory.

Personally whenever i play horns, i prefer to take things that keep me dooting. Earplugs, tremor resist, flinch free, etc. Anything that keeps my songs from being interrupted.

[puzzlefox]

If you’re solo and only care about big numbers, acid glav HH with really high handicraft and Teo masters touch.

The Shara HH is also great for raw.
I use the bazelgoose one a lot cause idk I just like it. I also use the zinogre one a lot cause it’s so metal (but it’s songs kinda suck)

Songs to be on the lookout for are attack up L, negate stun, negate wind pressure, negate elemental blight, all the negates are useful depending on the fight.

But my favorite song is a new L2 song and that is recovery+movement speed. Your team will want to marry you for movement speed bonus.

[Holografix]

Build around the monster you're hunting and try and compliment your HH + armor stats. So for example: you're hunting Black Diablos...
- Ice or Paralysis HH
- Your armor should either max Paralyzer or Frost (or at least get close to max)
- Since Queen Vespoid has defense L, no need to build for defense.
- Like tvman mentioned, try for general tactical protection: Earplugs works well for Black Diablos...etc
- I always bring Sonorous Gem, Vitality +3
- Evade +3 works well with Black Diablos, so you can roll through her charges, head swings

Different stats and HH for Bazelguese, Rathalos..etc

[Hawk King]

Thanks for the advice. Not being interrupted wasn't something I thought about it. Thinking about it, I definitely want that.

[JPM岩]

From my understanding, youll want Maestro lvl 2 as well

[spazwazza]

As a HH main with 500+ hours, I have a few thoughts. First and foremost, Horn Maestro 2 is a godsend. The longer your buffs stay up, the more time you can spend attacking vs. worrying about refreshing them. And there are some that don't last super long even WITH Horn Maestro 2, to a point where they're absurdly short without it, like Extended Health Regen.

Secondly, when looking at weapons to build, I look at whether they have good melodies as the prime consideration, before damage/sharpness/affinity/element. If it's got great attack stats but the buffs on it suck, why bother? You might as well play Hammer at that point.

Other useful skills are Slugger and/or Stamina Thief, anything that increases your elemental/status potency, things that keep you from getting interrupted like Earplugs, Tremor Resist, Flinch Free, and if you've got some spare deco slots you can always go Wide Range for Plus Ultra levels of support.

Some of my absolute favorite horn lines are:

Vespoid Queen - probably my favorite and the overall most versatile. White sharpness, decent Paralysis, and oh MAMA the melodies. It has Stamina cap up and Stamina use reduction, giving everyone a stamina bar that's 1.5 times bigger and drains half as fast. Archers and Dual Blades users will love you forever, and it means your stamina cap never goes down on long hunts, great for the guiding lands. It also has Negate All Wind Pressure, which makes Kushala Daora a hell of a lot less annoying for everyone to deal with; Ice Resist Up, which...considering ICEborne and how many new monsters, including Velkhana spam ice at you now, can come in super clutch; Sonic Waves which you can spam to make a laughingstock of Diablos long after everyone else has run out of Screamer Pods; Defense Up XL(who can't use 20% more defense?) and Element Effectiveness Up. And it just looks and sounds really cool. 10/10 dooter, right here.

Bazelreid Rookslayer - I kind of hate how it looks, but it's pretty strong with Blast and it's one of the only horns that has both Extended Health Recovery(recover health beyond the red portion, so basically the Vaal Hazak set bonus for the entire team) AND Health Recovery Speed Up which are pretty potent together. Also has Attack Up XL, Impact echo wave for even more KO, and Health Recovery S which...eh, if all your other buffs are up and the monster is knocked down or mounted or whatever and you have a safe performance + encore window, you can spam to keep everyone's health topped off.

Teostra Musica - Looks and sounds cool, white sharpness, great Blast damage and while it doesn't have a ton of melodies, two of the ones it does have are Divine Protection and Negate ALL Statuses, which is pretty versatile. Keep your team from getting stunned, paralyzed, poisoned, burned, whatever. It's a good horn to bring along against Kirin, especially since at the moment the only horn with Thunder Resist Up is itself a Thunder-elemental horn...so as handy as that extra Thunder resist for everyone is, it seriously gimps your damage on him. Divine Protection all around is a nice compromise.

There are a bunch of other good ones, but those are just a few of my personal favorites. Also, you hear people complain about "corner horning," but don't feel like you can't EVER disengage to refresh buffs. So long as you're spending MOST of your time in the fight and not just hiding and trying to play full support, it's fine if you dip off once in a while. Those buffs can be especially useful, so if you cart and come back or just have a long-ass window where you're wailing on the monster because of chained-together knockdowns/traps or something that's long enough for all your buffs to have expired, attack to build notes until you've got 3 songs stacked up, gain some distance to safely perform + encore, then get back in there. When you're pumping out a 20% attack boost(and possibly also affinity depending on the horn), 20% of everyone else's damage = your damage. :P

[puzzlefox]

Originally posted by JPM岩:

From my understanding, youll want Maestro lvl 2 as well

Hay JPM! Fun hunts last night! We both got carted 2-3 times on tempered Luna lul

[Shift]

Other than horn maestro, build it like your standard hammer build.
Also the notes are more important than damage/element. You take the horn better suited for the monster, like, thunder res/divine bless for kirin, wind resist max against kushala and so on. I also take wide 5 when I fell like going full support, but you sacrifice a lot of damage this way.

[Juno Brier]

Originally posted by Shift:

I also take wide 5 when I fell like going full support, but you sacrifice a lot of damage this way.

The tradeoff is you help the other guys keep up their numbers. It evens out.

[spazwazza]

Oh, and I forgot to mention. There's a mod that hasn't gotten a compatibility update for Iceborne yet but the author has said they'll work on it when they have time: Concise Hunting Horn Effect Names.

It makes them shorter and also gives actual numerical data. Def Up S becomes Def +10%, Attack Up + Deflected Attack Prevention = Atk +15% & Mind's Eye, etc. It was one of my favorite mods pre-Iceborne and I'm hoping the update comes soon.

[Hawk King]

Originally posted by spazwazza:

As a HH main with 500+ hours, I have a few thoughts. First and foremost, Horn Maestro 2 is a godsend. The longer your buffs stay up, the more time you can spend attacking vs. worrying about refreshing them. And there are some that don't last super long even WITH Horn Maestro 2, to a point where they're absurdly short without it, like Extended Health Regen.

Secondly, when looking at weapons to build, I look at whether they have good melodies as the prime consideration, before damage/sharpness/affinity/element. If it's got great attack stats but the buffs on it suck, why bother? You might as well play Hammer at that point.

Other useful skills are Slugger and/or Stamina Thief, anything that increases your elemental/status potency, things that keep you from getting interrupted like Earplugs, Tremor Resist, Flinch Free, and if you've got some spare deco slots you can always go Wide Range for Plus Ultra levels of support.

Some of my absolute favorite horn lines are:

Vespoid Queen - probably my favorite and the overall most versatile. White sharpness, decent Paralysis, and oh MAMA the melodies. It has Stamina cap up and Stamina use reduction, giving everyone a stamina bar that's 1.5 times bigger and drains half as fast. Archers and Dual Blades users will love you forever, and it means your stamina cap never goes down on long hunts, great for the guiding lands. It also has Negate All Wind Pressure, which makes Kushala Daora a hell of a lot less annoying for everyone to deal with; Ice Resist Up, which...considering ICEborne and how many new monsters, including Velkhana spam ice at you now, can come in super clutch; Sonic Waves which you can spam to make a laughingstock of Diablos long after everyone else has run out of Screamer Pods; Defense Up XL(who can't use 20% more defense?) and Element Effectiveness Up. And it just looks and sounds really cool. 10/10 dooter, right here.

Bazelreid Rookslayer - I kind of hate how it looks, but it's pretty strong with Blast and it's one of the only horns that has both Extended Health Recovery(recover health beyond the red portion, so basically the Vaal Hazak set bonus for the entire team) AND Health Recovery Speed Up which are pretty potent together. Also has Attack Up XL, Impact echo wave for even more KO, and Health Recovery S which...eh, if all your other buffs are up and the monster is knocked down or mounted or whatever and you have a safe performance + encore window, you can spam to keep everyone's health topped off.

Teostra Musica - Looks and sounds cool, white sharpness, great Blast damage and while it doesn't have a ton of melodies, two of the ones it does have are Divine Protection and Negate ALL Statuses, which is pretty versatile. Keep your team from getting stunned, paralyzed, poisoned, burned, whatever. It's a good horn to bring along against Kirin, especially since at the moment the only horn with Thunder Resist Up is itself a Thunder-elemental horn...so as handy as that extra Thunder resist for everyone is, it seriously gimps your damage on him. Divine Protection all around is a nice compromise.

There are a bunch of other good ones, but those are just a few of my personal favorites. Also, you hear people complain about "corner horning," but don't feel like you can't EVER disengage to refresh buffs. So long as you're spending MOST of your time in the fight and not just hiding and trying to play full support, it's fine if you dip off once in a while. Those buffs can be especially useful, so if you cart and come back or just have a long-ass window where you're wailing on the monster because of chained-together knockdowns/traps or something that's long enough for all your buffs to have expired, attack to build notes until you've got 3 songs stacked up, gain some distance to safely perform + encore, then get back in there. When you're pumping out a 20% attack boost(and possibly also affinity depending on the horn), 20% of everyone else's damage = your damage. :P

Would horn maestro be better to use as a charm or deco slots?

I figured I would need to extend my HH range. The ones I have tend to just be attack, defense and stamina extenders.Though I actually do have the Teostra one because of divine protection because I had a hard time with tempered Kirin. I'll look into the others.

[Holografix]

Originally posted by Hawkingbird:

Would horn maestro be better to use as a charm or deco slots?

Sonorous (horn maestro) is best used as a deco. The charm slot is best used for elemental resistances, boosts or plain Defense.

Originally posted by Hawkingbird:

I figured I would need to extend my HH range. The ones I have tend to just be attack, defense and stamina extenders.Though I actually do have the Teostra one because of divine protection because I had a hard time with tempered Kirin. I'll look into the others.

Do you have Iceborne?

[Hawk King]

Originally posted by Holografix:

Originally posted by Hawkingbird:

Would horn maestro be better to use as a charm or deco slots?

Sonorous (horn maestro) is best used as a deco. The charm slot is best used for elemental resistances, boosts or plain Defense.

Originally posted by Hawkingbird:

I figured I would need to extend my HH range. The ones I have tend to just be attack, defense and stamina extenders.Though I actually do have the Teostra one because of divine protection because I had a hard time with tempered Kirin. I'll look into the others.

Do you have Iceborne?

I have Icebourne.

[JPM岩]

Originally posted by puzzlefox:

Originally posted by JPM岩:

From my understanding, youll want Maestro lvl 2 as well

Hay JPM! Fun hunts last night! We both got carted 2-3 times on tempered Luna lul

OH that was you lmfao. I was wondering why the name looked so familiar.

[Holografix]

Originally posted by Hawkingbird:

Originally posted by Holografix:

Sonorous (horn maestro) is best used as a deco. The charm slot is best used for elemental resistances, boosts or plain Defense.

Do you have Iceborne?

I have Icebourne.

How far in Iceborne are you?

As for Hunting Horns, the Nyx Barone II is one of my favorite horns.
Divine Blessing, All Ailments Negated, Abnormal Status Atk. Increased (means more ZZZ power) plus White sharpness. Get your sleep to 4, socket your elemental resist decos (fire, lightning, etc...) and you have a very strong ZZZ horn.