Entry Level Bow Guide (AT Velk Update)

A simple primer guide for using the bow aimed to get you started. Not a speedrun guide. Updated for Iceborne.

Preface

WIth Iceborne out, I hope to share some of my experiences playing the game using the Bow. Since the previous version of this guide, I clocked in another 1k hunts and reached MR200 with plenty of carts along the way.

I am by no means a speed runner nor do I claim myself to be an expert bow user. What I do offer by writing this guide is giving you a simple build that offers some damage and survivability in a 1 size fits all approach. What this guide is not, however, a how to for max deeps and certainly not for speed runs.

My approach for the builds are so that it is both easy to use and slot around to suit your needs.

Bow Keybinds for K/M

Below are the screenshots for my keybinds in Iceborne.

To use the keybinds, make sure your mouse has side buttons and a clickable mouse wheel as I bind my aim to the side button and my clutch claw to the middle scroll button.

Simple bow combo

Dash > Normal Shot > Spread/Power Shot > Repeat (a.k.a. dash dancing)

- This is your bread and butter combo. Good for getting around monster and evading nasty attacks.
- You may want to cut short the combo to just Dash > Normal Shot > Repeat to dodge faster and reposition yourself as the Spread Shot has a lengthy recovery animation.


Dash > Normal Shot > Spread/Power Shot > Arc Shot > Spread/Power Shot > Arc Shot… (if monster is Paralyzed or K.O.ed)

- Try to position yourself at the head of the monster and spam the combo. The combo keeps the bow charge at maximum ensuring your Spread Shots and Arc Shots are at full power.
- This combo may also K.O. the monster again as the fully charged Arc Shots keep hammering away at the monster’s head.
- May make you unpopular with randoms as the Arc Shot does flinch other players so use it at your own discretion.


Dash (until max bow charge) > Spread/Power Shot > Dash > Spread/Power Shot > repeat (for applying status ailments)

- Try using this combo on monster’s weakspots to rapidly apply status to monsters.

Skills to look out for

Constitution (Physique 2) - reduce fixed stamina depletion when dashing or shooting

Normal shots (Forceshot 3) - increase dmg on normal shots

Spread shots (Spread 3) - increase dmg on spread shots

Bow charge plus (Mighty Bow 2) - increase bow charge

Agitator (Challenger 2) - increase dmg and affinity when monster is enraged

Critical Eye (Expert 1) - increases affinity

Weakness Exploit (Tenderizer 2) - increase your crit chances when targeting weak spots

Any elemental damage jewels (Jewel 1) - improves your elemental damage

Stamina Surge (Refresh 2) - increases stamina recovery

Evade Extender (Jumping 2) - extends evade/dash distance. Get Lvl 2 as this seems the most optimum and still keeps you within critical distance of the monster

Evade Window (Evasion 2) - increases your i-frame during dodge

Health Boost (Vitality 1) - increase Max HP

Paralysis Functionality (Paracoat 3) - allows you to use the paralysis coating

Sleep Functionality (Sleepcoat 3) - allows you to use the sleep coating


This might seem like a long list but with the addition of level 4 Decorations in Iceborne, it allows for a lot more flexibility when making your build. Some of the level 4 Decos also combines skills such as Challenger/ Protection into one single Deco.

Starting out in High Rank

Rathalos set armor – critical element
Legiana set armor – bow charge plus
Diablos nero greaves beta – normal shots
Lavasioth greaves beta – spread shots
Dragonking eyepatch – weakness exploit
Kushala crus beta – evade extender
Kaiser vambraces beta – weakness exploit
Fitness charm III – gives Constitution Lvl 3

- These armor pieces and set bonuses should give you a head start in grinding the gear you need for high rank and should last you a long while until you can craft elder dragon armors.

- What I would recommend is to always equip the fitness charm as the Constitution is a blessing for bow users as bows are a very stamina intensive weapon and to get the Rathalos set bonus for the critical element to increase your DPS.

High Rank Bows

Anja Arch III – fire element
Flying Kadachi Strikebow – thunder element / paralysis ailment
Water Shot III – water element
Legia Snowfletcher – ice element
Hazak Velos II / Dragonbone Bow III – dragon element
Great Hunter’s Bow – blast ailment
Gigacles – sleep ailment
Datura String III – poison ailment

- These bows were chosen either because they offer the highest respective elemental damage out of the box without needing to be unlocked by using the rare Free Element skill or dependence on RNG from Kulve Taroth.

- The other bows are the best at applying their respective ailments when coating is applied.

- Try to aim for a slot augment and affinity increase for the bows as I feel that those 2 augments gives you the most bang for your zeny.

High Rank Armor Template

DPS Variant

Empress Crown Beta – Evade Extender Lvl 2
Rathalos Mail Beta – Weakness Exploit Lvl 2
Kaiser Vambraces Beta – Weakness Exploit Lvl 1
Rathalos Coil Beta – Fire Attack Lvl 2
Empress Greaves Beta – Health Boost Lvl 2
Fitness Charm III – Constitution Lvl 3
Temporal Mantle
Rocksteady Mantle

- This loadout gives you the Rathalos set bonus as well as the Lunastra set bonus (increase stamina cap). Slot in a vitality jewel and you will be going into missions with 150 HP without food.
- Eating an ancient potion will max your HP and Stamina for the fight.


Ailment Variant

Empress Crown Beta - Evade Extender Lvl 2
Zorah Hide Beta – Blast Attack Lvl 2
Zorah Claws Gamma – Earplugs Lvl 2
Zorah Spine Gamma – Bombadier Lvl 2, Critical Eye Lvl 1
Empress Greaves Beta – Health Boost Lvl 2
Charm – Immobilize Charm III (Paralyze), Tranq Charm III (Sleep), Venom Charm III (Poison Attack)
Temporal Mantle
Rocksteady Mantle

- As previously, this loadout gives you max HP and Stamina while also allowing you to crit using aliments from the Zorah armor set. For example, using this template with the Kadachi bow should paralyze a 3 star weakness to paralyze monster like Diablos in 1 fully charged spread shot making the fight absolutely trivial.


Example using the DPS build focusing on fire element and Ailment build focusing on paralysis is shown below.

Starting out in Master Rank

Legiana set armor+ (3 pieces) – bow charge plus
Kadachi Hat Alpha+ and Beta+ – constitution / evade extender
Barioth Mail Alpha+ – power prolonger / constitution
Kadachi Vambraces Beta+ – evade extender Lvl 1 / thunder attack Lvl 2
Beo Coil Beta+ – health boost Lvl 2, earplug Lvl 1
Lavasioth Greaves Beta+ – spread shots

Fitness charm V – gives Constitution Lvl 5

- These armor pieces and set bonuses should give you a head start in grinding the gear you need for master rank and should last you a long while until you can craft elder dragon armors.

- As before, it is recommend to always equip the fitness charm for the Constitution skill and slot in the Decos you got from HR into the armors to round up your build.

Master Rank Bows

Glavenus Arrow II – fire element
Thundering Strikebow – thunder element / paralysis ailment
Laguna Shot II – water element
Mist Glacia – ice element
Edelescha – ice element
Dragonseal Aldbow II – dragon element
Alatreon Commandment – dragon element
Tsali Flier – blast ailment
Dawning Insight – sleep ailment
Fellbow Crimson Storm – poison ailment / paralysis ailment

- These bows were chosen because they are some of the easier bow to craft, offer neutral or positive affinity and some are good at applying their respective ailments when coating is applied.
- Try to aim for an affinity augment and an elemental increase augment.
- Do note that the Rarity 11 and 12 equipment does require Great Spiritvein Gem for augmenting and you can only get those as RARE drops from a Tempered Threat 3 monsters (i.e. Elder Dragons) in the Guiding Lands.

All the bows mentioned above should be replaced with their respective Safi equivalent if you are able to. Awaken the Safi bows with the maximum Element Up and also augment the bows with the Element Up. An example of an upgraded Safi bow is shown below.

An alternative to the Safi bows are the MR Kjarr bows from Kulve Taroth. To get them you simply need to win the RNG lottery and upgrade it at the smithy.

As mentioned above, KT weapons are simply too RNG for me to even get but they provide the Critical Element skill which is valuable for us.

If you are able to beat Alatreon a few times, you should definitely craft his bow to get Alatreon Commandment which offer high dragon element and neutral affinity. His bow now replaces Safi Drakbow which I have used since it was released.

Master Rank Armor Template

You should aim for the following MR armor sets as they are very useful for elemental bows. They are the current end-game armor so obtaining them is a challenge itself especially when hunting Silver Rathalos.

Safijiva set armor+ (3/5 pieces) - dragonvein / true dragonvein awakening
SIlver Rathalos set armor+ (4 pieces) – true critical element
Velkhana set armor+ (2 pieces) – critical element
Namielle set armor+ (2/4 pieces) – elemental / true elemental acceleration

DPS / Survival Variant (Pre Safi)

Rimeguard Helm Beta+ – Divine Blessing Lvl 2
Rimeguard Mail Beta+ – Quick Sheath Lvl 2
(Your Choice of Gloves)
Tentacle Coil Beta+ – Constitution Lvl 1 / Stamina Surge Lvl 1
Tentacle Greaves Beta+ – Stamina Surge Lvl 2
Fitness Charm IV – Constitution Lvl 4
Temporal Mantle+
Rocksteady Mantle+

- This loadout gives you the Velkhana set bonus (Critical Element) as well as the Namielle set bonus (Elemental Acceleration).
- The Velkhana helmet gives you a Lvl 2 Protection while the Namielle waist and boots takes care of your stamina management.
- You are free to choose whichever gloves that you need however I personally wear the Kadachi Vambraces Beta+ as it provides Evade Extender Lvl 1 and some generous decoration slot.

I did not include an Ailment variant of the build as MR monster have too much HP and any Ailment specific build would be too much DPS wasted.


Examples using the DPS build focusing on ice element is shown below.

DPS / Survival Variant (Post Safi)

Safi Crested Crown Beta+ – Evade Window Lvl 1 / Critical Boost Lvl 1
Safi Crested Chest Beta+ – Blight Resistance Lvl 1 / Critical Boost Lvl 1
Safi Crested Vambraces Beta+ – Blight Resistance Lvl 1
Tentacle Coil Beta+ – Constitution Lvl 1 / Stamina Surge Lvl 1
Tentacle Greaves Beta+ – Stamina Surge Lvl 2
Element Charm V – Element Lvl V (your choice of element)
Temporal Mantle+
Rocksteady Mantle+

- This loadout gives you the Safi set bonus (Dragonvein Awakening) as well as the Namielle set bonus (Elemental Acceleration).
- The various Safi armor have very generous decoration slots so its easy for you to play around with.
- Do be careful when attacking as the Safi set bonus will reduce your HP every shot before recovering your HP once enough arrows damage the monster.

DPS / Survival Variant (Post MR KT)

Safi Crested Crown Beta+ – Evade Window Lvl 1 / Critical Boost Lvl 1
Safi Crested Chest Beta+ – Blight Resistance Lvl 1 / Critical Boost Lvl 1
Safi Crested Vambraces Beta+ – Blight Resistance Lvl 1
Safi Crested Belt Beta+ – Evade Window Lvl 2
Safi Crested Boots Beta+ – Critical Boost Lvl 1
Element Charm V – Element Lvl V (your choice of element)
Temporal Mantle+
Rocksteady Mantle+

- This loadout gives you the Safi set bonus ( True Dragonvein Awakening) which gives you a huge 40% bonus to your critical chance.
- Slot in a Weakness Exploit and you will have almost 100% affinity in most circumstances and the native Evade Window that comes with the armor helps a lot in your survivability.
- Credits to u/OrganizedBonfire over in reddit for posting his build as I do not have any Kjarr bows or 3 Wex/Vit decos to give as an example T_T .

Food buff and others

- If you are lazy, get the chef’s choice to max out your HP and stamina.

- Some specific food buff that is of interest is:

Felyne Sharpshooter: increase damage of normal arrows
Felyne Black Belt: reduce stamina consumption just like the skill Constitution
Felyne Specialist: increase ailment damage when using coatings
Felyne Moxie: prevents carting leaving you with 1 HP
Felyne Safeguard: have the same effect as the random Felyne Insurance


- For harder fights, use your Gourmet food vouchers and get the above buffs. Once you load into the mission, drink your demondrug (mega if you have it) and armorskin (mega again). Drink Dash juice right before you start to engage the monster.

- For Palicos, all of the Palico equipment are very useful now. I personally choose the Coral Orchestra for the free buffs and flinch from the gong and Flashfly Cage for the extra traps and CC.

HR AT Elder Dragons (& Tempered Deviljho) counter builds and tips (Pt. 1)

This section onwards was written with HR gear in mind before Iceborne was launched. Some of the recommendations mentioned are still applicable when hunting the same monsters in MR such as bringing wind resist for Lunastra.

For these fights, it is advisable to replace your mega potions with max potions and also bring along the ingredients to craft more max potions during the hunt. Bring along a farcaster should you need to restock items or to make a hasty retreat. I will be covering only soloable ED's for this section of the guide.

Deviljho


Difficulty : Moderate

Tempered Jho has significantly increased HP when compared to his normal variant. However his moveset is largely the same so your usual playstyle will not change significantly. Do note that his saliva will inflict a nasty defence down on you if you get hit by his various bite attacks. should this happen, eat an adamant seed to get rid of it or it will naturally go away after a few long minutes. A Bazelguese will spawn during this hunt so take advantage of this to trigger their turf war. Slot in earplugs and tremor resist into your armor to get free attacks on Jho. Eat for Def. Up (L) with moxie and bring your temporal and rocksteady mantle. Once Jho is near death, capture him and avoid the risk of being carted trying to finish the hunt by slaying him.

Kirin


Difficulty : Easy

Not much has changed between AT Kirin and his tempered variant so your usual tactics againts Kirin should serve you well. As a reminder, he is invincible to arrows when his lightning aura is up so targetting his head is a good practice when fighting him. Slotting in thunder resist in your armor is recommended. As a precaution, eat for Elem. Resist (L) with moxie at the canteen and bring a thunderproof mantle along with your temporal mantle.


Vaal Hazak


Difficulty : Easy - Moderate

AT Vaal has received few upgrades when compared to his tempered variant. He is now invincible to your arrows when his effluvia aura is up and the only way to damage him is to his weakspots (i.e. his head). He is also much more aggressive and his effluvia ticks for a lot of damage. There is also a tempered Odogaron just to complicate matters a bit.

Consider luring him away from his effluvia field but be careful as he likes to lunge after you or use his breath attack to hit you. Also make sure to trigger his turf war with Odogaron for the extra damage. When he is near death, he will sleep at the acidic pool inside his nest but it should not be a problem as we can shoot a dragon piercer to wake him up. Slot in effluvia resist in your armor and eat for Atk. Up (L) with felyne black belt and bring you vitality and temporal mantle with you. Moxie is useless against Vaal as the damage from the effluvia will cart you at 1HP.

Teostra


Difficulty : Moderate

AT Teostra received an increase in aggressiveness but otherwise is basically similar to his tempered variant. To recap, he is invincible to arrows when his fire aura is up so target his head and tail when there is an opening. AT Kushala will spawn once enough time has passed so make sure to trigger their turf war for the added damage. He will try to fly away when he is almost dead, so fire a flash pod to prevent him from flying and send him crashing to the ground. Slot in fire resist and eat for Elem. Resist (L) with moxie and bring the temporal and fireproof mantle.

Kushala


Difficulty : Easy

This is a very tedious fight as AT Kushala likes to fly around a lot more compared to his tempered variant. Otherwise he uses the same moves as before so you should be able to predict his attacks without much surprises. Similar to other fights above, his wind aura makes him invincible to arrows so target his head to knock him out. AT Teostra will spawn after some time has passed.

For this fight I prefer to slot in the K.O. jewels and earplugs in your armor. The earplugs prevents you from being flinched by his roars and the roar animation creates an opening for you to spam the arc shot/spread shot combo at his head. Doing this will prevent him from flying around too much as he is busy writhing helplessly on the ground as you keep on spamming the attack. Divine blessing is also good for the stray attacks that you might receive randomly while fighting. After waking him up at his nest when he is near death, Kushala will usually be enraged and summon tornadoes
that makes fighting him difficult. Lure him away down to the first area of the fight and he will eventually follow you down there.Eat for Def. Up (L) with moxie and bring your temporal and rocksteady mantle.

HR AT Elder Dragons (& Tempered Deviljho) counter builds and tips (Pt. 2)

Lunastra


Difficulty : Moderate - Hard

As always, Lunastra is one huge pain of a fight to put it politely and her AT variant is no different. Some of her moves now does increased wind pressure which is very hard to ignore along with her very short roar animation means that she can keep up the pressure on you. The blue flames on the ground also blocks your arrows from reaching her so try to lure her away from the burning areas. To make things worse, AT Teostra will come to help his mate out. They will also use a bond attack against you so be on a lookout for that. Also be extra careful of her tail and its expletively deceptively large hitbox.

When fighting her do consume your cool drink as it will prevent the tick damage from her blue dust. Another strategy to consider is to lure her into an another zone away from Teostra when she in enraged as this will prevent them ganging up on you. Preferably slot in windproof jewels into your armor as it helps you to farcaster away during her nova safely. As with AT Teostra, eat for Elem. Resist (L) with moxie and bring the temporal and fireproof mantle.

Xeno'jiiva


Difficulty : Moderate - Hard

AT Xeno is the most improved elder in the whole AT roster. His moveset has been enhanced and will catch you offguard with its various explosions. Some of his new moves includes:

• A new takeoff animation where he spins around firing a laser beam while leaping off the ground.
  
• Various new aerial attack including a scooping fly-by causing ground explosions, shooting targeted short bursts or a beam of laser towards you, and a diving attack directed on top of you when he lands.
  
• Stabbing his wings to the ground causing ground explosions directed away from him.
  
• Slamming his front leg into the ground while enraged causing 3 waves of circular ground explosions moving away from him.
  
• A sweeping laser beam which covers a very wide area.
  
• An animation where Xeno seems to spasm and random ground explosions trigger around him.
  
• Heating the ground making it too hot to stand on.

The fight with Xeno will start immediately at the second area and his initial roar will destroy all crystal spires in the area. For the attacks where he stabs the ground with his wings, and when he spasms, the safest place is to be under his body and for the attack where the 3 waves of circular explosions occur, you can either run away from it or try dodging in between the waves. For his sweeping beam attack, you can either get to his sides, superman dodge the beam or farcaster back to camp if you are too far to do the either 2.

As usual, the easiest weakspot to go for is his front legs. Following that, the next best place to target is his chest when he is glowing red. Attacking this part aggressively will cause him to crumble to the ground allowing you to get extra attacks in. Other than that, Equip Kulve Taroth Wrath Y for the all important heatguard to negate the burning ground effect. Slot in earplugs and tremor resists for the free attacks. Eat for Def. Up (L) with moxie and bring your temporal and rocksteady mantle.

Nergigante


Difficulty : Hard

In my opinion, AT Nerg has been tuned a bit too far into almost being unfair in terms of difficulty. His increased aggressiveness, increased HP, faster spike regeneration and that Pepega Slam spam will test your focus and patience throughout this fight. Other attacks to watch out for is his tail spin attack which is similar Behemoth's. AT Teostra or AT Kushala will spawn at the second area so make sure to trigger their turf war to make your life easier.

There is a very discrete hint which he gives before doing a Pepega Slam. Nerg will try and flinch you by jumping towards you to get behind you. Following this move, he will almost always follow up with a Pepega Slam so be ready to dodge to his left immediately after you recovered from the flinch. Other tips that I can give is to attack him during his turf war animation as it gives you free reign to attack without counter-attacks from Nerg.

Consider slotting in Divine protection and earplugs into your armor. Earplugs will negate Nerg's roar allowing you to sheathe your bow and superman dodge his frequent divebombs while divine protection halves the damage you receive from his heavy attacks. eat for Def. Up (L) with moxie and bring your temporal and rocksteady mantle. Swap in a vitality mantle when both of the other mantles are on cooldown when you return to camp in between zone changes.

When Nerg is near death, the safest way to continue on is to sleepbomb him when he is sleeping in his nest. After you explode the bombs, farcaster to camp and restock your bombs. Nerg should be sleeping again when you farcasted away and you should proceed to sleep bomb him again. Repeat this until your mantles are fully recharged and continue fighting him until he is dead or your mantle depletes in which case you can farcaster again and repeat the process.

Congrats hunter, you have just killed AT nergigante. Enjoy the special victory music!

MR AT Elder Dragons (& T3 Threats) counter builds and tips (Pt. 1)

I will not be discussing Savage Deviljho and Stygian Zinogre as I feel they both do not need any special attention with regards to your build. They both however inflict Dragonblight but with the Safijiva armor giving the Bight Resist skill, it has a very short duration so you can catiously ignore it.

Small note, use Crystalpod or Pierce Pod to flinch Stygian Zinogre out of his Ulti.


Brachydios / Raging Brachydios


Difficulty : Moderate

Brachydios and his big brother Raging Brachydios loves to put their blast slimes everywhere so some situational awareness is needed when fighting them. Additionally, Raging Brachydios does have more AOE so it is suggested to bring your palico with the trap tool to CC the monster. During the last phase of Raging Brachy, it is advised that you head back to camp for a pit stop and change your palico for a coralhorn as you cannot trap him in the last phase.

Slot for Blast Resist jewel to be immune to its debuff. Eat for Attack Up (L) with moxie and bring the temporal and rocksteady mantle.

Rajang / Furious Rajang


Difficulty : Moderate / Hard

Rajang and his angrier version Furious Rajang hits hard and very fast so you would have to be very agile when fighting the monkey. Only shoot him using your quick shots and try to flank him when possible. If there is an opening, shoot him in his face but be very careful not to overcommit as he can punish you very easily. For Furious Rajang, his jumping lightning bolt will shoot 3 times diagonally so evade backwards if you see the attack coming. Furious Rajang also has a new move where he will latch onto a wall if he is staggered and will do a fast laser sweep that will potentially one-shot you. Another move that he likes to do is to slam the ground which makes 3 lightning cracks on the ground in front of him. Also never fight him in Area 15 in Hoarfrost Reach.

To make your life a lot easier, slot Evade Window into your skills to better evade his fast attacks. Only go for the quick shot > spread shot combo when he goes for the belly flop or the huge laser beam and only do just 1 combo before you go back to evading his attacks just to be safe. Eat for Attack Up (L) with moxie and bring the temporal and rocksteady mantle.

Silver Rathalos / Gold Rathian

For Goldian
For Silverlos

Difficulty : Moderate

Both this husband and wife team uses potent poison and has a special mode called Hellfire state where they will glow red at their throats. They are also unable to switch to other areas in the map so you will have to fight them inside Nergigante's lair or their respective areas in the Guiding Lands. Before you load into the map, choose Camp 8 to spawn into and pick the brightmoss there as your slinger ammo. Focus on breaking their heads quickly to increase their hitzone value. Also equip your palico with the trap tool to make your life easier

Slot for Poison Resist jewel to be immune to their poison. I feel that Fire Resist is not that useful in this fight as you will most probably evade all the fireballs thrown at you. Eat for Attack Up (L) or Elem. Resist (L) with moxie and bring the temporal and rocksteady mantle.

Interestingly, these builds can also be used to fight against Viper Tobi-Kadachi and Yian Garuga as they both share Silverlos and Goldian weakness.

Namielle


Difficulty : Moderate

AT Namielle has increased aggression and seems to use more of his sliding movement to reposition during the fight. He also seems to be enraged more easily after only a single clutch claw followed by wall bang. During each phase of the fight, he also seems to go for his nova after he is out of his enraged status so be extra wary when he is not enraged and superman dive away when he novas. Another thing to note is that his wings will block your arrows when he is fully hydrated (glowing) so try to aim for the underside of the wings to hit his body. More often than not you might hit 2 out of the 5 arrows during your spread shot but its better than nothing. Also interestingly, shooting brightmoss at Nami's water puddles will absorb the water in the area and might save your life if he ever decides to electrify the ground.

During phase 3 of the fight when he moves to the narrow areas in Area 10, try to get him enraged and lure him out of there to Area 8 where it is much easier to fight him. Another note is that he will also sleep in Area 8 so you would not need to chase him up all the way to Area 15. Preferably slot in Water Resist and Thunder Resist jewels to make your life easier. Eat for Elem. Resist (L) with moxie and bring the temporal and waterproof mantle.

Alatreon

For Ice Active

For Fire Active


Difficulty : Hard (Recommended Duo)

Alatreon has a lot of moves that require careful positioning on your part. You will have to constantly evade his various AOE in order to survive this fight. Going into the mission with a friend is heavily recommended. A full party of coordinated friends is better but going in Duo means that you can customize your palico to assist you. For this fight, Bow players (Us) are expected to pump enough elemental damage to make the hunt safer.

Alatreon will begin the fight in either Fire Active or Ice Active depending on the quest started therefore switch your element loadout accordingly. As the fight progresses, he will switch modes, i.e. Fire Active > Dragon Active > Ice Active > Dragon Active > Fire Active > repeat. During Fire/Ice Active, focus on getting enough elemental damage in order to get a knockdown. A prompt from the handler should tell you that the knockdown has sealed some of Alatreon's power. This means the damage during Escaton's Judgement (nova) will now be survivable. During Dragon Active, focus on getting a horn break in order to prevent Alatreon changing into Ice Active if he started in Fire Active. You must do this after each nova and you can only do this for a maximum of 2 times, 1 for each horn.

During his nova, you should plant your Health Booster+ on the ground to mitigate some of the nova's tick damage and time your Astera Jerky before your HP is fully depleted. After his nova is finished, he will revert back into the original Active mode if his horn was broken previously, or switch into the opposing Active mode if not.

Equip your palico with either a Paralysis or Sleep weapon to get the extra CC on Alatreon and either equip the Shieldspire (for aggro) or Choral Orchestra (for buffs). Slot in Blight Resistance to ignore a blight statuses during the hunt. Evade window also helps a lot in this fight. Eat for Elem. Resist (L) with moxie or safeguard and bring the temporal and Health Booster+.

MR AT Elder Dragons (& T3 Threats) counter builds and tips (Pt. 2)

Fatalis



Difficulty : Hard (Recommended Duo/Full Party)

Fatalis has a lot of AOE's which comes out very fast and some moves require you to stop attacking and just focus on evading. Another problem with Fatalis that bow users will face is that all of his moves will one-shot or almost one-shot you and you probably wont have much time to heal up. Also remember that once you are knocked down it is sometimes better to stay down until some of Fatalis's attack have gone over you. I will also highly suggest that bow users to be on artillery duty and use the cannons and ballistas available.

If you are fortunate enough, craft his armor and get the divine blessing secret to full. It will greatly mitigate his damage making your life fighting him a lot easier. Tool Specialist also helps in reducing the cooldown of your mantles.

Before you can even get to fire your S.O.S., you must first prove to CAPCOM that you are able to solo it first for the entirety of Phase 1. You will have the Excitable A-Lister to help you out and heal you when your life is low. Use this opportunity to learn some of his attacks and get used to his hitboxes. Once his life reaches the threshold, he will fly off and there will be a cutscene where you will be introduced to the first shelter from Fatalis's ulti. Once this is done, you will enter Phase 2, either return to camp or proceed to continue the fight. The rest of this section will assume that you returned to camp and restarted the fight with Fatalis.

For Phase 1, equip the ghillie mantle before you jump in and while your party members are busy entertaining Fatalis, head on over to the cannons over on the opposite side of the safe room, load and fire the cannons. Two salvos from the cannons should knock him down and create a big opening for your teammates to damage him. It is generally safe to clutch claw to his face during his fire breaths but not during his fireballs. This distinction is important! Try to focus your attacks on his head and break it before you reach Phase 3. He also drops dragonpods when clutch clawed. Shooting 2 of the dragonpods will flich Fatalis and interrupt some of his animation.

For Phase 2, the roaming ballista is now available to be used. As recommended earlier, you will be on artillery duty for this fight. Re-equip your Ghillie Mantle once its cooldown is done and load the cannon next to the Dragonator and fire it at Fatalis. Then equip your Temporal Mantle and hop in the Roaming Ballista and dakka away at Fatalis. Do not try to use the Roaming Ballista if you do not have Temporal or Rocksteady Mantle equipped as it is hard to evade Fatalis on the ballista. After you have damaged him enough, he will start his ulti again. Head to the second safe area just behind the Dragonator and wait for everyone to come in before you pull the doors up.

For Phase 3, if you did not manage to break his head, he will go into Hellfire mode similar to Silver Rathalos/Gold Rathian and all his fire attack will deal more damage and AOE. Use the One-shot binders in this phase to keep Fatalis down and break his head. If you are using Alatreon Commandment (which you should), try to sleep him in front of the Dragonator and then pull it to deal massive damage. Use the cannons again and the Roaming Ballista again if you have the chance. In this phase, there is also no safe areas for you to hide during his ulti, you need to run directly under him to avoid getting roasted. If everything goes well, Fatalis should be getting close to dead at this point. By this point, it is a dps race to either kill him or time out.

Equip your palico with either a Paralysis or Sleep weapon to get the extra CC on Fatalis and either equip the Vigorwasp Spray (for healing), Shieldspire (for aggro) or Choral Orchestra (for buffs). Slot in Fire Resist which helps to ignore fireblight. Also slot in Heavy Artillery for to deal extra damage when using cannons and ballistas. Evade window also helps a lot in this fight. Eat for Elem. Resist (L) with moxie or safeguard and bring the Temporal, Rocksteady and keep the Ghillie on rotation with Rocksteady. Farcaster back to base when necessary. I feel that Fireproof Mantle is a trap for this fight as it does'nt help to tank Fatalis damage at all.

Good luck in fighting Fatalis hunter!


AT Velkhana

NOPE!

Dont use bow against AT Velkhana. But if you must, try as follows.


Difficulty : Hard (Recommended Duo (Get a friend to carry you))

Capcom dropped the ball on this one for bow users. This Velkhana will decrease her shot and element HZV as her frost aura progresses. All her attacks comes out fast, have huge AOE and some will surely oneshot you if you are caught in a bad spot. On top of that, her HP is just smaller than that of fatalis and you are given a 30 minutes timer to finish this fight. Do yourself a favour and use a melee weapon to hunt her. It's that bad for us.

If you must use the bow, go for a weapon that has high dragonseal and high raw. The dragonseal will somewhat help in reducing her frost aura but it has diminishing returns and will be harder to activate further in the fight. Slot in for Divine Blessing to help you survive her oneshots and Tool Specialist for the mantles. Help your team out by tenderizing parts and/or buff them via the powders. Anything more than that, it's just a Velkhana albeit a hyper caffeinated, jittery Velkhana.

Equip your palico with either a Paralysis or Sleep weapon to get the extra CC and the Vigorwasp Spray. Slot in Ice Resist is mandatory to mitigate some damage from her. Evade window also helps a lot in this fight. Eat for Elem. Resist (L) with moxie or safeguard and bring the Temporal, Rocksteady or Iceproof Mantles.

I'm sorry but this fight left a sour taste in my mouth and not a good way to end MHW for me. Did I forgot to mention not to use a bow for this fight?

Final thoughts

This is by no means an exhaustive guide on using the bow. What i have presented were just my thoughts and experiences grinding in this game.

Above all else, play how you are comfortable with and dont let this guide tell you otherwise.

Happy Hunting Fiver!

[zozo]

omg thank you!!

[Asuwi]

hi, glad you found the guide useful. the hair is actually the dante layered armor so no need for mods there.

details for the layered armor here: https://monsterhunterworld.wiki.fextralife.com/Dante+Layered+Armor

[zozo]

just found this guide and it's awesome, i know this is a EXTREMELY late comment but does anyone know the hair used in the first image? i really like it but didn't see it anywhere in character customization so i'm assuming it's a mod

[LittleDog]

did they changed the Setboni with Iceborn?

[Kapakc]

@Asuwi i tri shoot and no work. i am play with usb steering wheel and keybind is weird

[Asuwi]

@Caraxes, can you elaborate which monster are you having problems with?

[Kapakc]

doesnt work i tri ereting in the guider and no work wat is going on!!!!

[HannibaL]

Really nice guide bro, thanks for tips

[Dahrigaz]

been using this guide throughout vanilla MHW, just realised it was updated for iceborne. Great guide, the builds are easy to understand and well justified. The completion time using these builds are great. Good mix of survivability and dmg. Great guide.

[MheeSIEE]

@Asuwi thanks a lots broo