We’ve had our explosive encounter with Raging Brachydios, went toe to toe and fist to fist with Furious Rajang and even stripped bare the giant lizard that is Kulve Taroth. And while we’ve struggled with our run in with Alatreon and even begged Fatalis to just leave us alone, Capcom just refused to give us a rest and now… we come face to face with Iceborne’s flagship monster itself—Arch Tempered Velkhana.
With a whopping 57600 HP (138240 for Multiplayer) and an 18.75x attack multiplier on a 30 minute hunt, needless to say, it’s going to take a lot of firepower to bring it down a notch. So let’s get this started.
The first thing you’d want to know about the arch-tempered version of Velkhana is its going to bring its old moves while also changing how some of them work and a few new ones you’d really want to pay attention to. Its multiple versions of tail attacks while still annoying is far outshined by its many large scale attacks that it loves to spam. From the frontal and spinning ice beams that are generally easy to roll into or out of and the frontal and circular icicle attacks, these are just some of the things that can be easily dodged normally or with high levels on the evade window skill.
It’s also going to sport its ice walls and a whole lot of it which brings me to its new move that sprouts a fan-shaped spread of ice walls and similar to Alatreon’s and Furious Rajang’s fan-shaped elemental attacks, this is something that can be easily dodged for its delayed hit and obvious markings on the ground. But speaking of ground markings, AT Velkhana also has some pretty huge AoE attacks with its icicle spikes whether it’s concentrated on one area or spreads in a line with each of those spikes hitting moments later than the first. So keeping an eye out on both the ground and its head position is the key to denying an early cart.
AT Velkhana also shares other traits with some previously added monsters. Frostfang Barioth’s trait for example which brings a chilling ground move that puts your hunter in an animation that denies you the ability to roll or dash away. In this case, you’re only course of action is to either get hit by another attack or move away slowly. Thankfully this is a front-facing move so positioning yourself to its sides or a few meters away from it removes the threat of being struck. However the more notorious of its newly added quirks is its movement and dash attacks that I’d blame on Alatreon’s head when it’s glowing with electricity. While normally this isn’t as huge of a threat, when you’re grappling with a Temporal mantle however is where it really becomes scary as a normal knockback becomes a series of hits when the said mantle is equipped and this is followed by flinging you out of the grapple as you lose your entire Temporal charges while also pinning you to the ground… better pray you don’t get hit by anything else on your way out.
My only advice there is to not use the Temporal Mantle as an offensive item especially when trying to flinch shot the dragon to a wall. In this case, wait for its more obvious and easily punishable ice-based attacks like the ice beams and save the mantle for say, near the five-minute mark where it usually uses its ultimate move which is a scary thing to see when you just got a front-row seat to the magic. Since the move itself is a series of attacks that starts from a spinning ice beam that does tons of damage that can easily kill and if not, will definitely put you into the chilling ground animation before carting you off with a circular icicle attack as you’re trying to get away. It’s also an unblockable move so while you can be a badass trying to block a Fatalis fire breath, AT Velkhana is a different breed of trouble. With the Temporal Mantle though, you’ll be able to tumble away with the beam while also negating the chilling ground so you’ll have the time to get away or i-frame dive it.
“But Paul, we’re 700 words in and I’m still not seeing the cheese strat?” is what you might be asking right now but first of all, who’s counting? Right?! Although now that most of AT Velkhana’s attacks are out of the way, it’s just about time to talk about the strat.
It’s a fairly simple strat but it does require you to play certain weapon types that you may or may not have and with skills or equipment you might not even have farmed yet. For starters, if you’re playing with friends on mic, it’s actually much simpler as you can separate the roles however it’s not impossible with random people and through SOS flares.
A heavy bowgun user specifically a Sticky 3 build (Demonlord Beastbuster HBG or others) has a pretty decent comfortability in this fight. Early on this is where they really need to capitalize on it, as soon as it gets the first wallbang, start shooting those sleep ammo 2s. AT Velkhana requires 7 shots to be put to sleep so count all those bullets and stop to six. At this phase you’d want to get the attention of Velkhana as you’re standing beneath the falling boulders so you can shoot it with another sleep bullet as it starts coming at you. A challenger mantle helps here but so does a Provoker decoration. Make sure you’re using the sleeping monster sticker if you’re playing with others. After waking it up from the boulders which should deal twice the damage as normal, you can stay with a sticky build which can block and survive most of its attacks especially with guard 5 and divine blessing 5 however the real cheese is the just about to come.
An insect glaive is the real cheese on a Velkhana fight, Arch-Tempered or not. Since you can vault and pretty much stay in the air for long periods of time, Velkhana has a limited number of ways to bring you down with its more ground-centric attacks despite having extremely huge AoE-based moves. But as an insect glaive user, your role in the fight is to make more openings for your team and this means mount attacks that potentially leads into breaking its ice armor for another set of downed phases. Flash pods also work more than twice… two times once it starts leaving the first area and another two flashes are possible after it starts flying away and all that within a five-minute interval from the first flash.
Having high elderseal also helps in the fight as AT Velkhana has three aura levels that increase or decrease its beam damage and damage resistances based on the current aura level. It starts from level one that will go up to level two when being attacked. However it will go down to level one after a nova or when elderseal is in effect. Although it can only go down to level zero using elderseal once its aura level is at level one. One of the best weapon tree choices here is from Fatalis as by default has high raw which is the better option damage-wise while also having high elderseal which you can save you a level three deco slot to put things like clutch claw boost to weaken its hide.
As for armor sets, a four-piece Fatalis with an Alatreon alpha arm piece can work wonders here for its True Razor Sharp set bonus as well as the ability to unlock every secret skill available in the game. An alternative would either be a two-piece Kulve and Fatalis that lets you have guts (one per faint) or three-piece Alatreon and two-piece Fatalis for its increased elemental resistance. For a more lower-end set, putting a two-piece Gold Rathian for the divine blessing secret is a start.
Now for skills this is something more of a personal preference and not something to be followed through and through. Divine Blessing 5 works wonders though and I highly suggest this for anything with the name AT Velkhana or Fatalis in its name. Stun Resist on the other hand makes sure you’re not going to be caught off guard for an immediate follow-up attack while Ice Resist is something that depends on what food skill you’d want to go with or the amount of default Ice Resistance you already have. As a general rule, 20 should be enough to make you resist the iceblight while also reducing a bit of ice damage. Having Evade Window is something I would also recommend for its comfortability to dodge attacks especially ice beams that can delete you if you’re not careful. Meanwhile Free Meal 3 is as straightforward as it gets… a 75% chance to not consume an item like max potions is something I would really want for my build here. Considering that a max potion is a quick and easy full heal, heck yeah I’m spamming that!
As for food skills it’s always great to have moxie which in this case is even better than a Fatalis fight as the areas AT Velkhana goes to doesn’t offer any environmental hazards like dying from heat or lava when moxie does proc. Rider is also an option here so this is really more of a situational scenario and/or personal preference.
So as I leave you with that, have fun helicoptering around Velkhana or watch your friends die from high up! While this is really the last update for Monster Hunter World, the year-long journey of Iceborne has been a real treat
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