Best starter Hunting Horn build in Monster Hunter Wilds

The Hunting Horn is one of the more unique weapons in Monster Hunter Wilds, offering a hybrid support playstyle rather than going all-in on big damage. It's a fantastic weapon, boasting a range of notes that damage the monster while crafting songs you can eventually belt out to buff your allies.

When it comes to the best Hunting Horn build, you want to take into account far more than just a weapon's attack, affinity, and element. There's one additional, crucial element that can make or break each weapon: its setlist. Each horn comes with its own bundle of songs; a mixture of broader buffs like Defense Up, Attack Up, and Stamina Reduction, along with more niche picks such as Aquatic/Oilsilt Mobility and Wind Pressure Negated.

In Wilds, each horn also comes with an echo bubble. Placing up to three of these down offers various buffs when standing in it depending on the weapon—one weapon might let you place down a health regeneration bubble, while another will up your evasion and movement speed. Standing in it also gives a boost to damage, so you want to make sure you're placing them where your teammates will stand. You'll also be able to play notes while casting the bubble, letting you quickly queue up a song to let rip later.

Finding horns that balance useful songs and bubbles with decent damage can be a challenge. While I'd say that most of it is largely down to vibes and what fits your playstyle, whether solo or with friends, there are still a few helpful horns that can easily get you through low rank.

How to play Hunting Horn in Monster Hunter Wilds

Monster Hunter Wilds' Hunting Horn is a tiny bit different to the iterations seen in World and Rise, acting as a sort of hybrid between the previous two games while introducing some great new mechanics. You want to aim for the head as a Hunting Horn main, since its blunt damage is excellent for monster skull smashing and stuns.

Otherwise, here's how to play horn:

1. Play notes to form songs: You can check your songlist in the top right corner, and try to link songs together that share a note. For example, on the controller, Self Improvement is always Triangle, Triangle, and you can then use that last Triangle note on a song where it's the first note, like Attack Up.
2. Don't forget to pop down an echo bubble with R2 + X, queue an extra few notes and stand in it for increased damage.
3. Once you've queued up one to three songs, press R2 to play them and gain their buffs. Press R2 again between each song to swing your horn and deal extra damage—perfect timing will see your horn glow red and reward you with an even bigger damage boost.
4. Press Triangle and Circle together at the end of the songs to play an encore and increase the potency of the buffs—you'll know you've done it correctly when the songs are purple instead of yellow.
5. Use Focus Strikes on wounds to play up to five notes and quickly queue up songs.
6. Do a few rounds of Echo Wave—basically a damage-specific song rather than anything that offers a buff—for extra DPS before cycling through your buff songs once more.

Best Hunting Horn builds for low rank

With Hunting Horn being a slow weapon with no guarding capability, these builds focus on things like survivability and preventing interruptions from things like tremors and small attacks.

Ultimately, don’t go out of your way too much for the armour if you’re low on materials. The skills attached to each piece will help, but low rank gives a lot of leeway and mostly lets you get away with crafting whatever you think looks cool or what you have the materials for at that moment.

• First weapon: Metal Bagpipe I

Early Hunting Horns are pretty lacking in any elemental damage, so it's more worthwhile paying attention to a weapon's songs and echo bubble instead. Metal Bagpipe I is a great place to start—it has Horn Maestro Lv 1 as an equipment skill, which extends the duration of your songs before you need to refresh them. It also has Critical Draw Lv 1 which gives a boost to affinity on your non-mounted draw attacks.

Song-wise, Metal Bagpipe I has a great all rounder of a list to start off. Attack Up has seen a pretty hefty nerf in Wilds, but that doesn't mean it's not worth bringing a horn that features the song. It also has Earplugs, which'll help negate monster roars and let you play uninterrupted, as well as Environmental Damage Negated. Its echo bubble gives you an evasion and movement buff too, which is great when you're in the early stages of getting to grips with attack patterns.

• Second weapon: Bone Horn II, War Bongo I

Pretty quickly we can start getting to some cooler stuff like the Bone Horn II and War Bongo I from the Congalala Tree. The Bone Horn is more of an all-rounder, offering Attack Up, Defense Up, and Wind Pressure Negated along with the fantastic Sonic Barrier song, which offers a one-time block against things like roars, knockbacks, and tremors. It does mean you'll have to keep reapplying it, but it's ridiculously useful. The Bone Horn's Echo Bubble offers increased defense and elemental resistance when standing in it, acting as an extra stoneskin for you and your crew.

On the other hand, the War Bongo I trades off a small amount of damage for a 5% affinity increase and a super support-driven setlist. It has Defense Up as well as two Health Recovery songs, one with and without an additional Antidote effect. It also swaps out the Offset Attack song for Melody of Life, a fantastic offset song that you can queue separately to your usual three and play for a huge team-wide heal. To make up for its more heal-centric melodies, the echo bubble is an attack and affinity boost.

If you're fine with running Hunting Horn as your primary and secondary weapon, it may well be worth taking both of these on your hunts to cover all your bases.

• Third weapon: Ajara Reverberator I

The Ajara Reverberator I was by far my favourite weapon to use in low rank, and I'd highly recommend making it the first thing you craft after taking on the fiery ape Ajarakan. You'll be trading off slightly less raw damage compared to a similar weapon like Metal Bagpipe II, but the Ajara Reverberator boasts blast damage which is a great all-rounder status you can build up before it procs and unleashes tiny explosions for extra damage.

Not only that, but it's got a great setlist—the same as Metal Bagpipe, if you used it at the start—in the form of buffs like Attack Up, Earplugs, and Aquatic/Oilsilt Mobility. That last one comes in particularly handy as you traverse through the Oilwell Basin and have to trudge through some huge slicks to fight monsters. Its equipment skill is nothing to sniff at either, giving you Slugger Lv 2 which'll help get those stuns out even faster.

If you want a secondary support horn, maybe consider grabbing the Dosha Grudgesounder I after you face the Guardian Doshaguma. It does take a pretty hefty chunk of affinity off you making it less great for crits, but it's great for healing. It gives two levels of Health Recovery, Earplugs, and that lovely Melody of Life offset I mentioned earlier along with a health regeneration Echo Bubble.

• First armor set: Hope Mask, Alloy Mail, Bone Vambraces, Hope Coil, Quematrice Greaves

I always find it handy to have a defense-driven gearset when first finding my feet in a Monster Hunter game, and the one I've suggested does just that. The Hope Mask, Bone Vambraces and Hope Coil will stack you up on Stun Resistance, making you completely impervious to it.

I've also thrown in a bit of Tremor Resistance and Flinch Free, both of which further help you get out your songs with minimal interruption from minor attacks. Pair this with Metal Bagpipe I's Earplugs and you should be able to doot away to your heart's content, barring getting out of the way of major attacks.

• Second armor set: Ingot Helm, Kranodath Mail, Balahra Vambraces, Balahara Coil, Balahara Greaves

All hail the Balahara set: Not only does it look cool, but the vambraces, coil, and greaves give stacks of Evade Extender, which lets you roll further when evading. With Hunting Horn being so slow, it's sometimes hard to get back into the action, so being able to roll far out and back in again is vital to keeping your uptime going.

For even further defensive capabilities, the Ingot Helm has a predetermined chance of reducing damage taken, while the Kranodath Mail's Flinch Free Lv 2 prevents small knockbacks that interrupt your actions. It can also reduce trips—which sounds less severe than knockbacks but are actually worse, causing you to get knocked over—to a small stagger instead.

• Third armor set: Hirabami Headdress, Ajarakan Mail, Hirabami Vambraces, Hirabami Coil, Ajarakan Greaves

Sticking with this defensive theme, the Hirabami Headdress, Vambraces, and Coil offer Evade Window, which is slightly different from Evade Extender. Instead of increasing the distance of rolls, it instead buffs your invulnerability window when evading, which is just as useful. The headdress also comes with an increase to the recovery speed of red health, and the vambraces and coil add some ice resistance.

The Ajarakan Mail gives Partbreaker, which is great for breaking bits off monsters as well as offering extra damage when attacking wounds with a Focus Strike. You'll also find it on the Ajarakan Greaves I've listed, along with a bonus Blast Resistance just in case.

• Fourth armor set: Rey Sandhelm, Duna Mail, Rey Sandbraces, Hirabami Coil, Duna Greaves

Okay, one more bonus set here, as this takes advantage of the new group skills feature that Monster Hunter Wilds boasts. It's sort of like the set bonuses, except you can crib from different monster pieces to gain the effects.

Stacking pieces from sets like Rey Dau, Uth Duna, and Nu Udra grants the Lord's Favor group skill, which temporarily increases attack while playing your songs. It can turn your performances absolutely deadly, and if you're at full health you can take further advantage with Peak Performance's increased attack from the Rey Dau pieces.

The Uth Duna pieces also come with Latent Power, which gives a nice affinity boost either every five minutes or after taking 180 damage which'll help those blast attacks from the Ajarakan horn.