Rathalos S Noir Corne

Noir Corne has donned the Rathalos S armor set as part of the Monster Hunter collaboration event, an event which required taking off his mask—the mask he is always seen wearing—in order to replace it with the Rathalos S mask. Much to the surprise of his fellow Operators, Noir Corne had no problem taking off his mask and showing the ordinary face underneath. A particularly enterprising Operator dared to ask, if Noir Corne doesn’t want to keep his face a secret, why does he always wear the mask? Noir Corne replied only, “This… is a secret.”

We can’t explain Noir Corne’s mask-wearing habits, but we can explain his fighting style in the Rathalos S armor, which has transformed him from a 2* Defender to a limited 5* Musha Guard who can negate attacks and build stacks of an ATK buff that he can convert into more hits. His Tenacious Talent is par for the course as far as Musha Guards—a Talent that grants bonus ASPD and Tenacity as his HP falls—and it fits in nicely with the Musha Guard Trait of recovering HP every time they attack rather than being healed by other units. The ASPD helps him to attack faster, while the Tenacity helps him resume attacking rather than dying if he gets Stunned by an enemy and can’t attack to heal himself.

There are other interesting interactions with his second Talent, Spirit Gauge. On its own, this Talent is simple: Noir Corne gains a stacking ATK buff (up to a cap) by attacking while his Skills are not active. The interesting part is how this Talent interacts with his Skills. His S1, Iai Spirit Slash, is a defensive Skill that causes Noir Corne to stop attacking and assume a counterattack stance. When attacked, he negates the hit, gains an immediate stack of Spirit Gauge, and counters by inflicting multiple hits on a nearby enemy. Notably, if Noir Corne defeats an enemy with this Skill, it is automatically reactivated, potentially allowing him to deflect several attacks in a row. His S2, Spirit Helm Breaker, is simpler and much more aggressive: it consumes one charge of Spirit Gauge to inflict several strong hits on a nearby enemy. Since both Skills inflict multiple hits, they repeatedly trigger the Musha Trait, resulting in some bursty self-sustain that can help to keep Noir Corne alive in bad situations.

It is unfortunate that Noir Corne must pick between his two Skills, as he feels somewhat incomplete with only one. The Musha Guard archetype is held back by Block-1, high DP cost, and the inability to be directly healed by allies, so its Operators need a lot of damage and survivability to stand out. Noir Corne has the potential for both, but because he has to pick between one or the other, he never gets to take full advantage of his kit. (The interaction with Spirit Gauge feels especially odd; he can get extra stacks or use his stacks as a resource, but not both.) His Skills are strong enough individually that he can pull his weight, but not strong enough to compensate for the Musha Guard drawbacks, which must be compensated for if he’s going to stand out on the battlefield.