Hunting Horn feels weak

[12InchParadise]

As someone who spent over 200h maining Hunting Horn as a damage dealer & healer, I've noticed that it's generally weak and unpopular.

In my 800h+ of gameplay, I've only met approximately 15 HH users. It's not a very popular tool.

Damage-wise, is a solid weapon, and I've topped the damage charts on many occasions.

However, the issue I find is that it's animation is far too slow for the current boss meta.

Bosses react fast, move quick, and hit hard, while HH's animation is as slow as ever.

I believe many of it's issue's can be fixed by shortening animation time for attacks and it'll come closer to weapons like GS, Hammer, & LS.

I understand HH is not supposed to be a high damage dealer, but having 5K dmg HH while buffing & rebuffing, and then watching a subpar any other weapon user pull off 15k+.

I'm sure I'll have a few "git gud" comments, and I assure you I'm pretty good with this weapon, but it is weak currently and needs a tiny buff.

Thank you for your time.

[Phobio]

Tbh I don't think it's that weak.
Sure, it get's outclassed by other weapons in speedruns but that doesn't make the weapon weak.

I only joined with World but in all my hours of HH I'd say the long animations are part AND weakness of the HH and that's totally okay, since your most powerful move as HH is actually
postioning since you are the fastest weapon with the Self-Improvment buff active.

It's also part of the balance since Hammer might have shorter animations on some moves, it also lacks reach which means Hammerusers have to get closer to the monster which can result in getting hit more easily.

E.g : You can easily Overheadsmash Kirin when he charges the lightning on itself without getting hit. Hammer can't do that.

We also got the Impact Echo Waves which are extremly good at stunning, KO-ing monsters and breaking parts and due to the Flute Piruette (I think its called that) elemental horns,
which were pretty much useless in basegame, finally got a place aswell.

It's IMO also important to note that HH is one of the weapons hardest to balance since it also
effects multiplayer, the other weapons don't do that to the same degree the HH does.

But that's just my opinion

[Toxi]

I was just thinking about the whole Iceborne progression and to an extent, the HH felt quite weak in the progression.

Fighting a F. Rajang for the first time took me almost the entire time limit to beat, not just because the Rasping Ballad wasn't doing all that much damage (probably a mistake on the build from my part), but because any Rajang's true openings are just that small and because, head..
One thing I haven't tested is how much damage the ass cheeks will take after I tenderized them.

Likewise up to today, maybe it was me misunderstanding what skills are strongest in the expansion and didn't pick up 7x Agitator for so long, because right now I feel like I'm starting to deal some real damage in the 300-350 from a super pound.

So OP, I think the answer is both yes and no, if I'm not mistaking in what I said. The progression in Iceborne for a HH main felt fairly rough for me and the monsters are built if not for endgame build, it feels at least close to it.

[ciel]

quickturn backslam moar, one of hh's greatest strengths is that you don't need to face the monster, so much as just be kinda near it and abuse your swing arcs

[12InchParadise]

Tbh I don't think it's that weak.
Sure, it get's outclassed by other weapons in speedruns but that doesn't make the weapon weak.

I only joined with World but in all my hours of HH I'd say the long animations are part AND weakness of the HH and that's totally okay, since your most powerful move as HH is actually
postioning since you are the fastest weapon with the Self-Improvment buff active.

Late game, the bosses are punishing, quick, and rarely sit in one place for longer than 2 seconds.
The downside of HH late game, is standing still in one place trying to finish your 3+ second animation or cancel 400+ damage to avoid a hit. Then replay the notes, and try again.

It's also part of the balance since Hammer might have shorter animations on some moves, it also lacks reach which means Hammerusers have to get closer to the monster which can result in getting hit more easily.

E.g : You can easily Overheadsmash Kirin when he charges the lightning on itself without getting hit. Hammer can't do that.

I have around 400+ hours of hammer play, and I can tell you, hammer has no issues in melee. It is a powerful weapon, with extremely high damage, and you can cancel animation at any point without losing damage. I easily pull top damage by 5k-10k+ with hammer.

We also got the Impact Echo Waves which are extremly good at stunning, KO-ing monsters and breaking parts and due to the Flute Piruette (I think its called that) elemental horns,
which were pretty much useless in basegame, finally got a place aswell.

It's IMO also important to note that HH is one of the weapons hardest to balance since it also
effects multiplayer, the other weapons don't do that to the same degree the HH does.

But that's just my opinion

Maybe in low/high tier you can pull off a stun with HH, but once you start reaching tempered/late game bosses, you'd be lucky to pull off a 3+ sec animation and wait for the boss to politely wait for the cast to finish.

It takes skill and luck late game to pull off good damage and good stuns vs bosses who can't sit still.

Early game, any weapon does the job.

P.S. We are not speed runners, we are regular players who are trying to enjoy our fav weapon and see it at least stay relevant.

HH is the least popular weapon in the game.

[Koostec]

when a weapon can give 20% more damage to everyone in the hunts its need to be a very little weaker than other weapon imo

BUT you can still do quite a lot of damage with the right build and dish out a lot of numbers
and you need to know the monster parterns and master this weapon to achieve that
if you just wanna be the first dsp you can do it , ive done it quite a lot of times with great players

maybe you shouldnt be a healer cus its kinda trash on HH , you should do it on SnS its better suit for it

its normal to not see a lot of HH cus its a hard weapon to master and play imo
there's to much comment on HH beeing weak and giving the wrong impression on this weapon :<

[Holografix]

I've mained Hunting Horn for about 1000 hours. I love HH.

Your issues are: HH is too slow against the new Boss meta.

Your suggestion to "fix" this problem is: shorten the animation time for attacks.

I disagree with you. Here's why --
Iceborne gave HH users 2 new tactics:
1. Echo wave spin
2. Greater mobility during note-playing

The Echo wave spin deals great damage as well as speeds up status application. You can cue up 2 or 3 Echo wave spins pretty quickly by poking instead of swinging in-between Echo spins.

The greater mobility during note playing allows you to fine tune your positioning to avoid all sorts of dangerous situations. Or get into position for an Impact wave note.

The Hunting Horn is a difficult weapon for sure, and unpopular. Hunting Horn will never be super popular so changing or speeding up the animation speeds to please potential users is folly. If anything, you should instead focus on the small yet dedicated Hunting Horn players who main the weapon and please them.

Personally, I really like the heft and physics of an HH swing and I like the tempo of play while using HH. It's not a speed weapon and that's what I like about it. I've slayed every monster and AT monster solo with HH, except for Alatreon (still working on that one). But I'll tell you that with HH, you need 2 things to play well:

1. You need to know every HH swing and where each swing positions you afterwards. There are some evasion swings and some that hit harder than others. Knowing your swings is key.
2. You need to really know your monster move-set, and I say this because this is crucial for HH more than any other weapon since so many of your moves leave you open to counter-attack.

For me, Hunting Horn is very satisfying to play and I always wonder why so few people enjoy it.

[Saber]

It's a support weapon. Damage is not meant to be a priority for it, and its animations are long to encourage corner dooting.

It's a great weapon still.

[12InchParadise]

For me, Hunting Horn is very satisfying to play and I always wonder why so few people enjoy it.

Fair argument but as you can see, in order to do well with HH, there is very little room for mistakes.

Why it's not popular? It's obvious.

People love hard damage without the complexity.

HH is very complex for new players and is extremely hard to master, plus it offers the lowest damage in the game.

Yes, you could argue that "i've seen this ONE guy do it right", or "I've been highest DPS in MANY fights" and so have I. However, on average it the weakest weapon.

It requires tremendous amount of learning and patience. While the guy beside you with LBG or GS will punish the boss and pull 10K more damage than you.

I don't want it to be THE BEST weapon, it is after all, a support weapon, but I'd like to see it come close to other weapons.

As I mentioned, in over 800 hours, i've only seen 15 HH users. Damage-wise, they were horrible. I play for high damage output and genuinely LOVE HH. It's the most unique weapon i've played in any game. Sadly, I don't think it'll ever pick up in popularity at the current state.

[Tregrenos]

HH shines most when the rest of the group isn't crap. Solo, HH can be a beast, but if that Attack Up XL you blessed someone with is squandered by them being 1-2 shot or too timid with their attacks then the HH loses some flare. No sense trying to rebuff this person cause they're probably gonna waste the next buff or spend too much time not doing damage.

In this situation you'll just have to settle with being the coolest looking, ballsiest hunter in the party. Tis the burden of every Dootmaster. B)

[Toxi]

Originally posted by Koostec:

when a weapon can give 20% more damage to everyone in the hunts its need to be a very little weaker than other weapon imo

uh... the thing about that is, that is kind of yeeted the ♥♥♥♥ outta the window, the moment you realize I've been almost exclusively hunting solo, both the world and Iceborne monsters.

it's not even necessarily that the weapon feels that weak, but when you're not dishing out some serious damage with the swings, the moves you use throughout almost 100% of the time that a monster can attack, not only do you have to struggle a lot, but you also don't get the benefits of KO's and you have to constantly position / avoid the monsters' next moves, in a position in which you're just learning them. This is why I think the monsters were scaled just a bit too high up from the perspective of my weapon of choice, the normal monsters seem scaled to the kind of stats you have near the endgame of Iceborne and now, not only beating the snot out of them, but also out of their Tempered counterpart, is, Idk.. underhwelming?. and it brings validity to whenever I raged progressing through Iceborne, because I felt the game was throwing too much and making even AT monsters in world seem like a funny joke.

also, I know HHs have exhaust, but that exhaust too rarely shows itself to be useful, meaning it shows after 2 to 2 and a half phases for a monster, the initial neutral state, the enraged state, then halfway through the neutral state after the enrage dissipates and it doesn't last that long, plus it can be canceled if you happen to KO the monster then.

Anyway, I'm not complaining, I'm just recollecting my thoughts about those experiences and now. The time for complaining and getting angry happened.

[Phobio]

Late game, the bosses are punishing, quick, and rarely sit in one place for longer than 2 seconds.
The downside of HH late game, is standing still in one place trying to finish your 3+ second animation or cancel 400+ damage to avoid a hit. Then replay the notes, and try again.


Hm, then I think we play differently. Let's take Alatreon for example; he has quite a few attacks
that you can easily punish and not get hit while dealing damage.

I see you bringing the F. Rajang example and while I can't really say much against it since I
hate F Rajang aswell; I do can say that it's just not a good matchup. Bazelgeuse has/had the same problem in basegame where weapons like HH, Hammer, GS or Switchaxe really had problems with it while the ranged weapons laughed at how easy it was.

It's the same with Lance and Diablos. Sometimes matchups are just not as good for a weapon as other monsters. I'd just say its better to stay off meta for Rajang and slot in some tremor resistance since his smash attacks are easier to punish


On a sidenote, please don't forget your normal attacks aswell. They might not be as damaging as the others but the left/right swings are good for dealing damage with a fast animation to "check the monster"

It's also part of the balance since Hammer might have shorter animations on some moves, it also lacks reach which means Hammerusers have to get closer to the monster which can result in getting hit more easily.

E.g : You can easily Overheadsmash Kirin when he charges the lightning on itself without getting hit. Hammer can't do that.

I have around 400+ hours of hammer play, and I can tell you, hammer has no issues in melee. It is a powerful weapon, with extremely high damage, and you can cancel animation at any point without losing damage. I easily pull top damage by 5k-10k+ with hammer.

I know that the hammer is powerful, but I don't think you got my point.
My point was that the HH has way higher reach than the hammer, resulting in being able to do damage while the hammer has to stay back to not get hit.

It's the similiar for Lance, you don't do XXXX damage but since you can block alot of attacks your uptime against a monster is higher resulting in higher DPS.

We also got the Impact Echo Waves which are extremly good at stunning, KO-ing monsters and breaking parts and due to the Flute Piruette (I think its called that) elemental horns,
which were pretty much useless in basegame, finally got a place aswell.

It's IMO also important to note that HH is one of the weapons hardest to balance since it also
effects multiplayer, the other weapons don't do that to the same degree the HH does.

But that's just my opinion

Maybe in low/high tier you can pull off a stun with HH, but once you start reaching tempered/late game bosses, you'd be lucky to pull off a 3+ sec animation and wait for the boss to politely wait for the cast to finish.

It takes skill and luck late game to pull off good damage and good stuns vs bosses who can't sit still.

You can pull them off alot of times; you just have to know the opening when to use it, and since it's a 2-note attack it gets performed faster than other songs. I pulled quite some off against Ruiner Nergigante resulting in topples to perform buffs.

It's really not as bad as you make it seem.




Early game, any weapon does the job.

P.S. We are not speed runners, we are regular players who are trying to enjoy our fav weapon and see it at least stay relevant.

HH is the least popular weapon in the game.

And yeah, HH is the least popular weapon in the game, and thats okay. Some weapon is always the least played, and since HH doesn't have flashy moves and seems complicated at first due to the songlist and notes it scares off people.

edit: screw me I messed up with the quoting system, ehh... to lazy to correct it, sorry

[Tregrenos]

I'd really like to see them add an armor skill that boosts the Horn Meistro level to a point where the songs not only last longer, but persist through feints and has a larger song radius (cause some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ can't wait for that initial buff and expect the HH to get the songs off while under attack). It could be a 1 armor piece bonus like the FF armor, or even a new high-end charm that additionally comes with max Horn Meistro skill. It'd certainly make playing HH in groups more appealing IMO.

[Walrus-Sama]

I don't mind the slow animations, I just kind of wish the motion values were a bit higher so it hits harder so each strike feels more meaningful.

I also feel that the Recital's and Encores damage output feels a bit low for how long the animations are and how they're ment to be the 'big' move of the HH.

[Phobio]

Originally posted by Holografix:

I've mained Hunting Horn for about 1000 hours. I love HH.

Your issues are: HH is too slow against the new Boss meta.

Your suggestion to "fix" this problem is: shorten the animation time for attacks.

I disagree with you. Here's why --
Iceborne gave HH users 2 new tactics:
1. Echo wave spin
2. Greater mobility during note-playing

The Echo wave spin deals great damage as well as speeds up status application. You can cue up 2 or 3 Echo wave spins pretty quickly by poking instead of swinging in-between Echo spins.

The greater mobility during note playing allows you to fine tune your positioning to avoid all sorts of dangerous situations. Or get into position for an Impact wave note.

The Hunting Horn is a difficult weapon for sure, and unpopular. Hunting Horn will never be super popular so changing or speeding up the animation speeds to please potential users is folly. If anything, you should instead focus on the small yet dedicated Hunting Horn players who main the weapon and please them.

Personally, I really like the heft and physics of an HH swing and I like the tempo of play while using HH. It's not a speed weapon and that's what I like about it. I've slayed every monster and AT monster solo with HH, except for Alatreon (still working on that one). But I'll tell you that with HH, you need 2 things to play well:

1. You need to know every HH swing and where each swing positions you afterwards. There are some evasion swings and some that hit harder than others. Knowing your swings is key.
2. You need to really know your monster move-set, and I say this because this is crucial for HH more than any other weapon since so many of your moves leave you open to counter-attack.

For me, Hunting Horn is very satisfying to play and I always wonder why so few people enjoy it.

IMO Greatsword needs more knowledge of a monster than HH, but that might just be me.
Other than that I agree with you

[Toxi]

Originally posted by Walrus-Sama:

I don't mind the slow animations, I just kind of wish the motion values were a bit higher so it hits harder so each strike feels more meaningful.

I also feel that the Recital's and Encores damage output feels a bit low for how long the animations are and how they're ment to be the 'big' move of the HH.

same here.. the HH is very slow, only second to the GS and that's perfectly understandable why there's that disparity in damage, but I dunno..

They buffed the attack speed, but there's still something that feels like it's missing, either that or the iceborne quest monsters feel overtuned.