Monster Hunter Wilds – Hunting Horn: Beginner-Friendly DPS / Healer Build

High-Sustain DPS / Healer Hunting Horn Build

Ву Sinclair.

This is a beginner-friendly, high-sustain DPS/healer Hunting Horn build with a heavy emphasis on breaking wounds with Focus Strikes. It provides earplugs, large team heals, and a ~33% HP self-heal when breaking wounds.

Additionally, Focus Strikes deal 30% bonus damage and crit 85% of the time when used to break wounds. The Grudgesounder Urga’s high Raw Attack and Affinity values make it strong against any monster, regardless of their resistances. The drawbacks to this build are poor Dragon resistance (-19) and marginally less DPS than optimized builds with 4pc Gore + Antivirus.

I’ve included G. Resounding Galahad as the offhand weapon, which can be alternatively be used for +5% Affinity, attack and defense buffs, Resounding Melody, and Echo Wave (Slash) which crits, but this comes at the cost of lower raw damage, no group heals, and no Echo Wave (Blunt) which stuns. Ideally apply the Attack Up (L), Defense Up (L) Melodies from Galahad before switching to Urga for maximum unga bunga, though this every 2 minutes can be a hassle. Still, I’ve included G. Galahad as the offhand weapon for these benefits.

Technically speaking, if you prefer a different weapon, you can swap Urga to pretty much anything else with negative Affinity… but you’re a hunting horn main right? Right?

Playstyle

Spam Echo Waves, heal as needed, and Focus Strike every Wound you can, as fast as you can. You deal bonus damage, self-heal, and the HH animation is long enough your allies can strike the wound too.

Savage Beat

Gear

Grudgesounder Urga

• Sharp Jewel III [3]
• Handicraft Jewel II [2]
• Attack Jewel [1]

G. Resounding Galahad

• Sharp Jewel III [3]
• Handicraft Jewel III [3]
• Attack Jewel [1]

G. Arkveld Helm α

• Protection Jewel [1]
• Protection Jewel [1]

G Arkveld Mail β

• Chain Jewel [3]

G. Arkveld Vambraces α

• Protection Jewel [1]

Arkvulcan Coil β (The non-Guardian variant)

• Brace Jewel [1]
• Brace Jewel [1]

G. Arkveld Greaves β

• Destroyer Jewel [2]
• Brace Jewel [1]

Mighty Charm II

Corrupted Mantle

Set Skills

• Decimator II

Weapon Skills

• Protective Polish 3 (Both weapons; 1m30s of perma-white sharpness after sharpening, works with Whetfish Scales)
• Attack Boost 1 (Both weapons)
• Horn Maestro 1 (Urga)

Armor Skills

• Weakness Exploit 5
• Maximum Might 2
• Partbreaker 3
• Flayer 2
• Burst 1
• Flinch Free 3 (Prevents knockbacks and tripping)
• Blight Resistance 3 (Nullifies all elemental blights)
• Divine Blessing 3 (20% chance to take 50% less damage; an average of ~10% of all incoming damage)
• Recovery Speed 1 (Recoverable Health regains twice as fast)

Tips

• Always sharpen directly before combat. Protective Polish gives you 1m30s of white sharpness, instead of just 10 hits. It’s incredible.
• The 85% Affinity this build can reach is very situational and depends heavily on the Corruption Mantle and hitting weak points and wounds. Bear this in mind. Alternatively, having a War Conga in your party means you can ignore the Corruption Mantle entirely.
• Echo Bubbles don’t typically benefit from damage boost skills. I.E. while they do generate wounds, they don’t benefit from Flayer, and while they can activate Burst, they do not benefit from its stat bonus.

Synergy with Other HH

• Grudgesounder Urga: No changes.
• Gramklang: No changes (but you’ll reach 100% Affinity).
• War Conga: Switch Mighty Charm II to Chain Charm II.