Hunting Horn Guide
Hunting Horn plays support in the heart of the fight. Swings build songs, but the notes you have prepared, the space where the next recital can land, and the monster attack that may interrupt it determine whether the opening is long enough for Performance and Encore. An Echo Bubble belongs where the fight is happening, while a well-timed Offset Melody turns the monster's pressure into another opening.
Use attacks to enter a song's note sequence. A completed sequence enters the song queue; Performance plays it, and Encore repeats and upgrades the song that just played. Until you perform, the queued song provides no effect. The horn has no shield, so every recital is also a decision about how long the monster will let you stand still.
The horn's ordinary attacks deal blunt damage. They build stun when they hit a part that accepts stun buildup, which is commonly the head. Hilt Stab deals severing damage, so it can contribute to a tail cut. Crush is a 65-motion-value blunt strike for openings that are too short for a recital.
Title Update 4. Complete weapon controls are in the in-game Hunter's Notes; the official manual covers general controls. Combat Mechanics explains why the same swing hits for different numbers. Every move is listed in Motion Values.
If this weapon is new to you, try it in the Training Area first. Use the in-game Hunter's Notes to practice its basic attacks; this guide explains how to connect them into a hunt.
Notes, songs, bubbles
Every horn has its own note set, song list, Echo Bubble effect, and Echo Wave type. Read that list before the hunt, then choose the song whose effect answers the current problem. A short sequence is easier to prepare and perform during a brief opening; a longer sequence needs more attacks before its effect is available.
Keep the horn's personal song active, then fit party songs into safe openings. extends melody duration while the horn is equipped. Its benefit ends when you swap to the Seikret's second weapon, so a longer listed duration does not continue while the other weapon is in hand.
To use Offset Melody, prepare its four-note sequence, hold the performance input while waiting for an eligible monster attack, and release so the horn meets that attack. Holding the input while the attack hits you is not enough; the horn's attack must make the collision. A successful Offset Melody remains separate from the three normal queued songs, so using it does not spend those songs.
Plant an Echo Bubble where both you and the monster can remain. While planting it, you can enter three notes and prepare a song without adding another attack sequence. Notes and songs create separate resonance hits when the field covers their target.
Focus Strike: Reverb is available on a wound. If it connects, use its five note inputs to prepare one or more sequences before the sound waves and finisher end the move.
Encore
Encore repeats and upgrades the song that just played without requiring you to enter its notes again. The white flash marks the input window. After that flash, the song is active, so you may evade instead of remaining for the forward recovery step.
During a multi-song Performance, using Encore does not discard the normal songs that have not played yet. That lets you upgrade the current song and return to the rest later. The red flash during a Performance Beat is a timing cue that increases that beat's damage; it is not another Encore.
Echo Bubble
An Echo Bubble rewards accurate placement twice: allies inside receive that horn's field effect, and notes or songs can produce resonance hits on a monster covered by the field. Each field can resonate separately, so three overlapping bubbles concentrate three resonances on a monster that stays inside them. Spread the fields instead when the monster is likely to move across a larger area.
The fields remain where you placed them. If the monster leaves, the fields have not expired, but their resonance cannot hit that monster until it returns. Because the planting animation accepts three note inputs, use those inputs to prepare the next song rather than treating placement as a pause in the song queue.
Fight loop
Build a song with attacks, use Performance when the monster cannot immediately interrupt it, then choose between Encore and an evade at the white flash. Resume attacking while the effect is active. Place an Echo Bubble only where the next notes and songs can reach the monster; an empty field contributes no resonance damage.
Prepare Offset Melody before you need it. When a readable, eligible attack arrives, hold the performance input and release so the horn collides with it. Because this special melody has its own queue position, the normal songs remain ready for the next Performance.
At the start of a hunt, activate the personal song and learn how long the monster leaves its head in reach. On Chatacabra, both the head and tongue accept blunt damage and stun buildup, and the tongue takes more blunt damage when it is exposed. This makes the tongue a valuable target, but only while you can reach it without abandoning a safe recital window.
When a wound is available, decide whether to spend it with Focus Strike. Focus Strike: Reverb both destroys the wound and accepts five note inputs, so it is useful when the resulting song preparation matters as much as the Focus Strike itself.
During a knockdown, use the state you prepared rather than forcing one fixed sequence. If the monster is already inside one or more bubbles and an Echo Wave is queued, perform it and use Encore only if the remaining knockdown is long enough. If no useful song or field is ready, keep striking the head and prepare the next song. Planting three new bubbles spends much of the opening before any resonance can occur.
Skills
Weapon skills and armor skills use separate budgets in Wilds. Start with effects that serve the actions you actually use, then add defense when a committed recital is causing faints. Getting Started covers meals and pouch preparation; Combat Mechanics explains wounds and the two skill budgets.
Core choices
| Skill or choice | What it changes |
|---|---|
| Extends melody duration while this horn is equipped; the effect ends after a weapon swap. | |
| Adds affinity to attacks that can critically hit. | |
| Raises the damage of critical hits, so it becomes more useful as affinity rises. | |
| Adds Attack without requiring a hit-zone or monster-state condition. | |
| Adds affinity on weak points and adds more when that weak point is wounded. | |
| Adds Attack and affinity while a large monster is enraged. |
These defensive choices address different failures rather than forming one mandatory order:
| Skill or preparation | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Eat before the hunt | Increase the health and stamina available at the start of combat. |
| Armor upgrades | Reduce incoming physical damage before spending slots on defensive skills. |
| Matching elemental resistance | Reduce the relevant elemental damage and prevent its blight once the displayed resistance reaches 20. |
| Gain a chance to reduce damage when an attack catches a committed recital. | |
| Lv 3 | Prevent stun instead of merely shortening it. |
prevents hit reactions between hunters, so it has a purpose in a group but none when playing alone. shares the effects of certain items; it does not share or replace melodies.
The following skills are conditional additions:
| Skill | Use it when | Budget |
|---|---|---|
| You repeatedly land stun-producing hits on the head and want more stun buildup. | Weapon | |
| Your attack pattern can reach its larger bonus after five successive hits. | Armor | |
| You can keep health full often enough to retain its Attack bonus. | Armor | |
| You can keep stamina full long enough to activate its affinity. | Armor | |
| You use element or status and can recover from a blight or abnormal status to trigger the temporary bonus. | Armor | |
| You want its conditional affinity and reduced stamina depletion after it activates. | Armor | |
| You want more part damage and more damage when a Focus Strike destroys a wound. | Armor | |
| You want Attack and Defense after a faint; it can activate twice. | Armor |
Keep a color
Inspect the horn's sharpness gauge before choosing a sharpness skill. The right choice depends on whether the gauge needs more length, loses its useful color too soon, or simply takes too long to restore.
| Skill | What it does |
|---|---|
| Adds sharpness without extending the gauge past that weapon's maximum. | |
| Gives critical hits an 80% chance to consume no sharpness. | |
| Prevents sharpness loss for 30, 60, or 90 seconds after sharpening, depending on level. | |
| Gives each sharpness-consuming hit a 10%, 25%, or 50% chance to consume no sharpness, depending on level. | |
| Removes one or two cycles from whetstone use, depending on level. |
Comfort
| Skill | What it changes |
|---|---|
| Increases the health restored by recovery effects. | |
| Shortens meat-eating and item-consumption animations. | |
| Restores the red portion of the health gauge faster. | |
| Adds Defense and, at higher levels, elemental resistance. | |
| Shortens elemental blights at lower levels and prevents them at Lv 3. | |
| Raises Attack and lowers Defense before surviving one qualifying lethal hit; its effect changes afterward to Defense and resistance. | |
| Shortens the recharge time of specialized tools. | |
| Reduces or prevents roar reactions that would interrupt a recital. | |
| Extends evade invulnerability; it helps only when you choose to evade. | |
| Extends evade distance, which can also carry you away from the head or a bubble. | |
| Gives food and drink items a chance not to be consumed. |
Styles
The horn itself determines the available songs, bubble effect, and Echo Wave. Choose those tools before filling skill slots: armor skills cannot give a horn a song or field effect that its weapon data does not contain.
| Style | What defines it |
|---|---|
| Element | Match the horn's element to a vulnerable monster part, then use skills that increase the elemental damage you can keep landing. |
| Echo | Choose the required Echo Wave type and create recital openings inside overlapping bubbles. |
This hunt
These skills answer particular monsters or plans. Use them only when their condition will occur:
| Skill | When it applies |
|---|---|
| You want to create wounds more easily and trigger its extra non-elemental damage during buildup. | |
| Wind pressure would otherwise interrupt your actions. | |
| Ground tremors would otherwise stop your movement or recital. | |
| You expect to fight while afflicted and want its conditional Attack increase. | |
| Flash attacks or flash items are part of the hunt plan. | |
| You plan to use explosive items, including barrel bombs. | |
| You want your attacks to draw more monster attention and accept the extra pressure during recitals. | |
| Water, oilsilt, streams, waves, or drakesbone oil would impair movement. |
A hunt may instead call for , , , , , or . Choose the resistance for an ailment the target can actually inflict.
Skills that look better than they are
- affects certain items, not melodies.
- changes critical-hit damage; it does nothing for a hit that cannot critically hit.
- is an armor skill that grows over thirty minutes, not the horn's personal song with the same name.
- activates after sliding on terrain, not after a recital step.
- supports mounting and wounds created while mounted; it does not improve ordinary grounded recitals.
- reduces stamina depletion at low health; it does not reduce the damage taken during a recital.
Settings
Use Focus Mode to aim Reverb at the wound you intend to destroy. Set automatic sheathe to Manual if automatic sheathing is taking the horn out before you can continue the song queue.
Before a long Echo Bubble or performance commit, keep the camera high enough that the wound marker stays visible through the song. A low camera that clips into the body mid-melody makes it easy to walk the finale off the part you meant to break.