The 3 Best Early Hunting Horns | Monster Hunter Rise (2024)

Determining which early Hunting Horns are the best requires more than just statistical considerations. The weapon is perfectly capable of dealing significant damage to a target, and as such you might expect recommendations similar to the Hammer, but it’s also home to a variety of melodies that can be used to buff both the hunter and their teammates, which invariably must be considered prior to use. Similarly, it’s absolutely possible to defeat opponents whilst going it alone, yet it’s capabilities lend itself to group play, which leaves us with the difficult proposition of balancing out our choices. Some of you are likely to use the Horn in a purely supportive manner, being absolutely fine with taking a weaker option that has excellent songs, whereas others will more so favour their own performance and want to wield something with enough meat on it to do some real damage. All in all, we reckon that we’ve just about managed to accommodate both forms – see what you think of our choices below. Doot doot!

Frog Flute

The first of our Hunting Horn options comes from a monster you’ll no doubt become very familiar with during the early portion of Rise: Tetranadon. This big green lad feels like a cross between a Zamtrios, Tetsucabra and a Royal Ludroth in battle, and whilst its not what we’d call a difficult hunt, we do tend to come up against it quite a lot whilst helping out Low Rank hunters, so it’s clearly giving people some trouble. Either way you’ll have to take him down a few times to get your hands on this Horn, though it is worth noting that you’ll have to take him down to progress either way, so you may gather everything required without even knowing it.

Now we’re not about to call the Frog Flute an amazing model, certainly not it’s looks anyway, but we’ve chosen it as our first here for one thing: It’s melodies. This thing comes with Health Recovery (S), Attack Up and Tremors Negated, all of which will come in very handy for group and indeed solo play during the early game. On the actual statistics front, the raw damage is reasonable and it does come with green sharpness, albeit a smaller amount. Overall then we’d consider this model to firmly belong in the ‘support’ pile; you’ll be of tremendous use to a team regardless of your skill level, and this makes it ideal for the fresh hunters out there that need time to learn. Buff your group, take your time, get a few hits in and your fellow hunters will thank you for it.

Early Features

• Excellent melody options; Health Recovery (S) is self explanatory, Attack Up is a buff everybody wants and Tremors Negated is an excellent buff that should get more attention.
• Raw damage is reasonable.
• Reaches green sharpness, though only a small amount.
• Has a small bonus to defence, which is always nice!
• Final, late game upgrade had very good raw damage.

Crafting Requirements

• Tetra Carapace x 3
• Tetranadon Hide x 2
• Aqua Sac x 2
• Malachite Ore x 3

Nothing too bothersome here, which is nice. The Malachite Ore is rather simple, since you’re likely to have picked up plenty of these through mining nodes as you go, and you’ll likely get plenty of the Tetra Carapace through simply hunting a Tetranadon a few times. In fact, even the Hides and Aqua Sac are regularly found by hunting the big green, so there should be little difficulty in crafting the Frog Flute!

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Valkyrie Chordmaker

When it comes to certain weapon types, there’s just something about the Rathian models that make a great deal of sense in the mid portion of the early game in Monster Hunter games. Sometimes it’s due to the Poison status, others they’re just good all round models, but either way it does seem to be a trend. Perhaps this is because Rathian itself acts as a bit of a ‘wall’ for new players, and when they finally do take it down the rewards are commensurate with their efforts. Models acquired from the beast tend to follow the same trajectory; good early statistics, useful additions to the model and some good upgrade choices. The same is true here, and whilst we don’t tend to find that they last all the way to the end game, they’re certainly viable on the way.

Alas, the Valkyrie Chordmaker does not come with Poison, which is a shame because we do like an attrition based hunt. Rather it comes with a small amount of Fire damage attached, which must have been adopted from the other end of the Rathian. Happily this is still quite useful in Rise, given that quite a few opponents are weak to it in the early game, and whilst you’re not likely to be hitting often with the Horn, it’s still nice to have. Outside of this it has the same level of raw damage as our first recommendation, but comes with more green sharpness, which is always useful. Thankfully, if you dig a little deeper then things are significantly different; the melodies focus on more defensive support though Defense Up, Stamina Use Reduced and Divine Protection, and unlike the Frog Flute you can boost it’s attack through the Attack Boost I Rampage Skill. All of this combines to make it an ideal model for the midpoint of Low Rank!

Early Features

• Defensively tailored melodies – Defense Up, Stamina Use Reduced and Divine protection can all be used to keep yourself or a team going for longer.
• Similar raw damage to our prior choice, however a Rampage Skill can buff this a little higher.
• More green sharpness.
• Limited upgrade path in terms of raw damage, but Fire element is useful.
• Upgrades will reach blue sharpness, which the Frog Flute will not.

Crafting Requirements

• Rathian Scale x 4
• Rathian Shell x 3
• Slagtoth Hide x 4
• Flame Sac x 2

This might look like quite the shopping list, but it’s actually not too bad. You’ll surely get plenty of the Scales and Shells simply by taking down Rathian a few times. The Flame Sac might sound like the awkward part, but this can be dropped by any Fire damage dealer in the early game, including the likes of Aknosom, so you’ll likely end up with plenty of these. You can get the Slagtoth hides by well… Carving Slagtoth.

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Sinister Strum

Yes we’re once again recommending that you take down the purple chap – Magnamalo – and use it’s parts for crafting. Seriously, learn to love or at the very least live with it, because you’re going to be seeing plenty of it as you progress. Such things would be rather annoying were it not for the sheer quality of it’s models in the mid game. This trend continues with the Hunting Horn, which for our money is the absolute best that you can get your hands on, even for solo play. Yes, crafting it will require more than just a few hunts versus the beast and yes, a lot of your equipment is purple if you keep following our choices, but more so than usual we’d recommend that you craft this Horn – it’s right up there with the Dual Blades in terms of power for the transition into High Rank.

Most of this power comes from it’s melodies, or rather one of them: Attack and Defense Up. Yes, this Horn will allow you to buff both in one, and to build upon this it also comes with Sonic Barrier and Health Regeneration. The former may have limited uses in the grand scheme of things, but the latter is something everybody can appreciate. Further to this, it comes with a good deal of raw damage, the customary massive chunk of green sharpness and the eventual upgrade – Sinister Shadestrum – is fantastic. Even the base model comes with the Attack Boost II Rampage Skill. Sure, such a slow moving weapon isn’t ideal for building up Blast explosions, but when the rest of it is this good, does that really matter?

Early Features

• Amazing melodies, comprising Attack and Defense Up all in one, plus Sonic Barrier and Health Regeneration.
• Good raw damage.
• Huge chunk of green sharpness, that eventually scales up to blue with the final stage upgrade.
• Access to the Attack Boost II Rampage Skill.
• Eventually upgrades into the Sinister Shadestrum, one of our favourite late game horns for multiplayer.

Crafting Requirements

• Magnamalo Shell x 3
• Magnamalo Scute x 2
• Magnamalo Scale x 3
• Magna Ghostprism x 2

As you might imagine, the developers haven’t exactly made life easy for those wanting to craft these purple monsters. Shells and Scales should not be too much of a pain, though the scales are slightly less likely to appear in regular carves or rewards, rather it’s the Scute that is a pain. You’ll need to break the back of a Magnamalo if you want a high chance to receive one, which is a difficult prospect at the best of times, never mind when wielding a Hunting Horn. As per usual, if you want Ghostprisms just indulge in a little Wyvern Riding and they’ll come raining out of the beast. We actually started to sell them after a while, but we’re not sure if that’s the game’s fault or ours for obsessively needing to craft every single weapon model possible…