Seriously, how to defeat Velkhana?

[Tourette's Guy]

I find it near impossible to beat this monster, alone or in a party. Its ice breath attack is ridiculously strong, it's basically a one-shot in a wide and extremely long arc.

I have tried every weapon. I can't kill the monster. Maybe I'm missing something but this is, by far, the hardest monster I have ever fight in this game. It just plays in another league.

Any tip is welcomed, I'm getting a bit frustrated and I'm thinking about stopping playing the game.

[mewlynx]

AnemoneMeer a écrit :

iNol iGunggung a écrit :

Since no one mentioned it yet, you can use IG to ez mode him with air attacks.

Please don't do this. Aerial insect glaive does like zero damage. You have the clutch claw. He loves to use his tail. His tail doesn't hit his head.

You can pretty much speedrun this as greatsword by clawing his face every time he uses his tail. Using aerial insect glaive to do what every weapon can do with the claw is just bad habits. Use Aerial IG to get mounts, not as a DPS tool.

Aerial is tolerable if you manage to soften the wings for a quick break, but otherwise yeah, only go aerial if you want the fight to take 40+ minutes.

[legojoe]

Fight it a few more times to learn her move sets. Velkhana is a pretty easy fight once you learn how to evade her more dangerous move sets. As people mentioned, general rule of thumb is avoid her general frontal area as most of her attacks go that way. Do not over commit because she's a fast-type Elder Dragon.

Depending on your choice of weapon, I do understand you have to keep DPS-ing. If you're using short weapons like SnS, Dual Swords, Insect Glaive, and the like, you'll want to get Evasion jewels slotted in.

When it's hovering in the air, which she does a lot, it's a good chance to Clutch Claw and stun shot her. Another thing about the clutch claw is that you can clip onto her wings and aside from her Dash-Charge attack, none of her attacks would hit you. So if you can't attack through regular means, feel free to keep clawing onto her wings and attack.

[Mr. Jackpots]

I solo hunt this nerd and bully him all day with Hunting Horn. Anyone can do it with any weapon. Seriously, just wear the best armor you have defense wise, make sure it has ice resist, slot some ice resist gems and some evasion gems.
People always forcus on DUDE BUT ATTACK UP AND CRITICAL EYE gems, but you actually end up doing MORE damage if you actually build around your defenses, since you have more up time, less time spent healing, less time spent running away, less time spent dying, and more time actually hitting the damn thing.

[Remi]

Samir Al-Haeed a écrit :

I solo hunt this nerd and bully him all day with Hunting Horn. Anyone can do it with any weapon. Seriously, just wear the best armor you have defense wise, make sure it has ice resist, slot some ice resist gems and some evasion gems.
People always forcus on DUDE BUT ATTACK UP AND CRITICAL EYE gems, but you actually end up doing MORE damage if you actually build around your defenses, since you have more up time, less time spent healing, less time spent running away, less time spent dying, and more time actually hitting the damn thing.

Well not if you're even halfway decent.

[AnemoneMeer]

Samir Al-Haeed a écrit :

I solo hunt this nerd and bully him all day with Hunting Horn. Anyone can do it with any weapon. Seriously, just wear the best armor you have defense wise, make sure it has ice resist, slot some ice resist gems and some evasion gems.
People always forcus on DUDE BUT ATTACK UP AND CRITICAL EYE gems, but you actually end up doing MORE damage if you actually build around your defenses, since you have more up time, less time spent healing, less time spent running away, less time spent dying, and more time actually hitting the damn thing.

The best defense is a good mix of offense and defense. Doing more damage makes you flinch and knock the monster down more and faster, and the less time the hunt takes, the less time you risk making a critical mistake. At the same time, it's super important to have a solid buffer between you and death to cover for your mistakes or bad luck or anything inbetween.

Personally, I consider Health Boost 3 mandatory, and love running Tool Spec 5 because temporal = insane uptime, and Rocksteady = yet more uptime, but evade skills and such work too. Don't go all in on defense, and only go all in on offense if you're comfortable enough in that specific fight that you won't make mistakes at all.

[Stein]

i have to say it....

GIT GUD!!!!!

ah i feel better now

[TVMAN]

Remi a écrit :

Well not if you're even halfway decent.

Yeah but if that was the case they wouldn't have posted a thread like this in the first place. Since they're having trouble staying alive, advice recommending that they focus on survival skills is valid.

You can't pump out big impressive orange numbers if you keep getting hauled back to camp on the back of a cart.

[Lafettie]

Just defeated it in a 3 Player Party with Friends .... use the Tigrex armor and you get free heals basicly xD Cant be easier.If you fail at the Velkhana you probably sucked at all the other dragon elders too.

[AnemoneMeer]

TVMAN a écrit :

Remi a écrit :

Well not if you're even halfway decent.

Yeah but if that was the case they wouldn't have posted a thread like this in the first place. Since they're having trouble staying alive, advice recommending that they focus on survival skills is valid.

You can't pump out big impressive orange numbers if you keep getting hauled back to camp on the back of a cart.

And even then, landing more hits and having better uptime is better than having more damage. the player who's landing constant 60 damage hits is gonna be doing a lot more damage than the one who's having to potion every few seconds but smacks the monster for 90.

Don't run full offense unless you can get the same or similar uptime without any defensive skills. All the damage in the world doesn't mean anything unless you're actually applying it, and there's no shame in doing less damage more often.

[Wafflez]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4sNVjpAxLI

[Spike]

It always stabs from the same side except for its frontal stab which it doesn't do very often. Roll into its ice wall waves because it's just that, a wave, and you can clutch its head when it's using longer ice beams. Ez. Oh and iceproof mantle is your friend.

[iNol]

AnemoneMeer a écrit :

Please don't do this. Aerial insect glaive does like zero damage. You have the clutch claw. He loves to use his tail. His tail doesn't hit his head.

maelynx a écrit :

Aerial is tolerable if you manage to soften the wings for a quick break, but otherwise yeah, only go aerial if you want the fight to take 40+ minutes.

I just now killed Velkhana in 20 mins by pretty much fooling around in the air, with palico lv 30 + tailrider lvl 2 boa. Using the 2nd best ebony odo ig (Nether Vajra). Still using my Narga set of +5 evade window, +2 evade distance, plus ice resist deco 4, ice resist deco 1, coldproof deco. Offense skill only airborne, weakness exploit 1, crit eye 3 maybe, cant fit much else there. Palico use HR nergi weapon + molotov. 2 mega bombs when it sleeps.

When I say it is ez mode for this fight, I actually speak by experience. If you have no clue that aerial IG can do this in iceborne, please dont challenge it with empty doubts/guesses coz what i say is not empty but from real exp of using it, doing it here in iceborne.

[Skyfox]

The trick to beating that dragon is to dodge its attacks and don't die.
I hope this helps.

[awanderingswordsman]

It says here killing him is his weakness.

[lexilogo]

Maybe I'm just out of touch but I found it pretty easy to roll through Velkhana's ice breath without any evasion skills whatsoever.


Anyway, the simplest medicine is just use more defensive skills. You've got Master Rank armor now, so start taking stuff like Stun Resistance, Speed Eating, Divine Blessing, Ice Resistance, and more if you're struggling. Plenty of armor like Tigrex pieces can help with that.

Learning how to take advantage of the Clutch Claw with Velkhana's moveset is also quite useful, the hitboxes on this fight are quite narrow which leaves a lot more clawing opportunities than with most other monsters.