bigger, more dangerous monsters.
One of the most iconic monsters in the series is the King of the Skies, the fiery-red flying wyvern Rathalos. His companion is the Rathian, known as the Queen of the Land. The Rathian has a greenish hue to her scaly hide, and in some ways is even meaner than the Rathalos. Her moves can catch players unaware, causing them to faint and get sent back to camp. If this happens too often, they will fail their quest, so here are some tips for battling the Rathian.
Battling the Rathian in Monster Hunter Rise
The Rathian can be found in the Flooded Forest, Lava Caverns, Sandy Plains, and Shrine Ruins, and she is the target of several quests. When going to fight a Rathian, the most important items are Flash Bombs, Antidotes, and Potions and Mega Potions.
The reason for this is that the Rathian has a few powerful and dangerous moves. Ideally, players want to dodge the attacks, but sometimes that isn't easy.
While the Rathian doesn’t spend as much time in the air as the Rathalos, she does fly, which makes hitting her with melee weapons difficult. However, throw a Flash Bomb, and it will knock her to the ground and stun her, allowing hunters a few seconds to do as much damage as possible.
One of the Rathian’s more dangerous attacks is that she flies up in the air and does a backflip, whipping her tail at the player. If it connects, it causes poison damage. This is where the Antidote comes in. Use it as quickly as possible after getting poisoned to avoid health loss.
Another deadly attack the Rathian sometimes does is to spit fiery balls of death at the player. Not only do they do a good amount of damage, but the player also starts burning. Players can extinguish the fire by rolling a few times, or more quickly by rolling into water. The attacks are easy to dodge, though. Before the attack, players can see sparks in her mouth, and then she shoots one fireball to the center, one to the right, then one to the left of her facing. Just dodge out of the way, and they will all miss.
The Rathian is weak to weapons with the Dragon element, as well as Thunder. In addition, players can cut off her tail with bladed weapons, making her tail attacks less effective. Plus, carving the severed tail yields a Rathian material. Blunt weapons like the hammer or hunting horn can temporarily stun the Rathian by repeatedly hitting her head.
If a player has never faced a Rathian before, it is worth playing defensively for a few minutes to observe attacks and get a feel for how it moves, rather than charging in. In fact, this is a good tactic for most of the monsters in the game. Happy hunting!
Monster Hunter Rise is available now on Nintendo Switch.
