Review: Frostfang Barioth

[Revonlieke]

After about 3hours of hunting him and managing to kill Frostfang Barioth 23times (12kills, 11 captures) around that time both in solo and in duo hunts I think I have a fairly decent idea of Frostfang Barioth and how it fits the game design.

Now his event quest is MR6, with the MR requirement of MR24, which means that he is a post-story monster. But by no means is he like Alatreon or Kulve-taroth which both are MR24 as well.

Now normally I would say this makes sense, but considering the fight and mechanics of it, it doesn't really make sense.

Now this is just my own opinions, so take it with what it's worth. Your experiences may wary.

Frostfang movesets:

"He's basically normal Barioth with a few additions and gimmicks"

Meaning that the base moveset he uses is that of a Barioth, but it does have a decent amount of move-sets that differ it from the normal one.

1. He can now super-hop twice in a row and has a long wind-up (& sound) that shows he's about to do it.
   
   
2. He has a long frostbeam attack similar to Velkhana, which he does twice as Velkhana does as well, but F.Barioths causes slow status.
   
   
3. He has a stronger & larger single beam attack
   
   
4. He has a frost breath swipe attack that builds a "wall" in an arc in front of him.

There might be a few others that I just can't remember or are not so different from the original that they would be worth mentioning. Still has his hip-check, tail-swipe and general hopping around.

Worth mentioning is also that he is a Tempered monster. (Or is supposed to be)

Biggest change has been that they completely removed his ability to create Tornadoes. In favor of him doing some long ranged breath attacks if you're far away from him.

How do these change the fight?

Honestly, not by much. At first the frost breath gimmick, that he uses quite frequently is really bothersome. simply because there really isn't anything (that I know of) which prevents the status from happening. Now I didn't experiment if some weirdo skill like SPEED CRAWLER would help nor did I want to.

I honestly wanted to learn the fight and figure out if there was ways to avoid the frost slowdown.

And it turns out that most of the frost stuff is quite manageable, but if you have short hopping weapons like Lance or Switch-Axe, you might want to invest a point or two into evade distance skill so that in those edge cases your evasion is just enough to get away from the area of effect.

But ultimately this fight is designed to be fought with a lesser gear than those who have reached the end-game. Here's why;

To me, he is actually one of the weakest Tempered monsters I have faced. I really don't know why, if they underestimated how easy the monster would be, but generally speaking I have more trouble with a normal NON-TEMPERED Barioth than this guy.

Simply because normal Barioth can become very aggressive back and forth jumper that stays in the air a lot longer.

Where as Frostfang Barioth is not much of a flier and spends more time doing breath attacks than being aggressive with movement.

Now, to be fair I cannot judge the fight with end-game gear because it seems he really is designed to be fought right after the main story ends. So your mileage may wary on how tough he actually is.

But because he is less aggressive and has no ability to create tornadoes it is a monster that is a lot easier to control and cheese. Since he still has the same weakness with wings causing long downs.

Is the fight good?

Yes, absolutely yes. While it is easier than a normal non-tempered Barioth.. Frostfang Barioth makes the hunt an enjoyable 1v1 duel. And even in duo hunts it was relatively good fight once you get the hang of fighting with another person. So if you like hunts where execution is key and there's little to no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥t, then Barioth is a cool one. (pun intended)

Whats bad then?

Frostbreath slowdown. Sure learning to avoid the areas of effect is key to making the hunt really fun and it becomes more and more fun as you learn the placement of those areas.

However, get caught by the slowdown and it can mean death in an instant.

The frostbreath suffers from the same aspects as many other things in monster hunter, where you will not see an area of effect behind the camera, decide to back-hop for a better position and WHAM! You're stuck and at worst, dead.

In fact, there were multiple times where I intentionally chose to take the slowdown as soon as possible so that I could fight my way out of it sooner. Had I done an evasion and still got hit by it, the timing would be screwed and I'd get hit. (But these were some very edge cases and didn't happen often)

Worth mentioning also is that the double frost breath attack, which I mentioned is similar to that of a Velkhana's is relatively difficult to understand where to dodge. Simply because the second frost breath beam does now follow a straight line and instead is a very unstable bending beam and it will catch you if you try to avoid it similarly to the Velhkana's double beam.

In short: Get caught by frost slowdown; Be prepared to get hit.

How to avoid things?

Honestly Frostfang Barioth has one of the most forgiving hit-boxes in the game. Just with Evasion +2 you're basically invincible. In most cases it's important to dodge towards Frostfang Barioth than it is to dodge away.

If you get caught by the frost slowdown in front of him, just keep walking towards F.Barioth. Chances are that he will follow-up with the super jump and you might get lucky enough to get free from slowdown and roll underneath him & behind him so that he basically jumps over you and misses.

The double frostbreath move I found relatively difficult to avoid consistently. But started to use a baiting method where during the second breath attack I changed direction before it started.

During the frost breath attack where he creates an arcing wall of frost effect in front of him, there is enough space for a hunter to stay close to Barioths face. This can cause issues as mentioned before where the positioning is just a touch wrong and you get caught by the effect or you decide to back-hop. I would imaging this to be somewhat bothersome for Lance users who are more used to back-hopping.

Final thoughts?

Considering what skills the armorset gives, this monster shouldn't be placed at MR24. Similar to Alatreon the placement for this monster should be much higher in term of MR requirement. simply because you can fight him earlier than you can fight Brute Tigrex and Scarred Yian Garuga. Who are both ~ Master Rank 70 territory simply because of the limitations on Guiding Lands to MR.

However, considering the fight I find him to be one of the easiest Tempered monsters in the game and once you learn the gimmicks, it's just an easier Barioth. In fact I though it was easier after my very first hunt. So for me, as a fight this monster should be placed somewhere before the story ends.

The skills of the armor-set allow many at MR24 have a really good set for the rest of the MR grind to MR100.

It's a good and ultimately fun fight. In fact I personally think he is one of the best 1v1 fights in the game, but can cause some frustration with a mechanic that doesn't have any direct solution via a skill. Outside of maybe evade extender and just becoming skilled enough to not get hit.

[Molic One P.GR]

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