Forget the usual intros and time-wasting opening speeches, this is a guide that while it might not be the most robust and informative, can still provide fellow hunters new and old to really give the hurt back to Alatreon’s harsher mechanics than what most MHW hunters have faced before.
The “T” in Alatreon is for TEAMWORK
Being the Black Dragon that commands the five elements, it goes without saying that his resistances change depending on his active states that goes from Fire Active, Ice Active and Dragon Active. Simply put, having a specific team play is the way to go in this hunt and joining random people in hopes to achieve a kill is simply not going to happen as often as one would like. Your best bet would be finding a group to learn and practice and really stick to it than giving up to find other people come the next day.
However there is no “one way” to go in on the fight and having some sort of freedom is still very much present. While you can do a team of elemental-based hunters of one element, covering the fire and ice element or having each of fire, ice and dragon element covered, the idea here is that you don’t need to be fixed on specifics and can run whichever as long as you’re running with elemental weapons as dealing elemental damage is the only way to weaken his Escaton Judgement where most people fail on. It’s also quite possible to have a dedicated healer that is also running an elemental weapon since Alatreon itself can do massive damage to the uninitiated with his other moves.
Escaton “what” Judgement?
Alatreon’s most devastating attack and easily one of the worst thing to happen if you fail to weaken his ultimate move. And unlike Lunastra’s ultimate move where it doesn’t deplete your HP as quickly or the fact that you can still use a farcaster to get away from it, the Escaton Judgement deals a quick and HP-depleting cart screen of death to the unprepared hunters. And the only way to stop its massive HP depletion is by doing enough elemental damage to topple it down (which is the trigger to know if you’ll be able to out-heal the damage later) before Alatreon runs to the center to cast the move.
~~ After the first Escaton Judgement is cleared, you still need to topple it down after every Escaton Judgement to weaken the HP depletion that’s going to come later on its next one. ~~
However note that since Alatreon shifts element from time to time, having a fire active Alatreon would be immune to elemental damage coming from fire while an ice active will have immunity to ice damage but a dragon active Alatreon would make the dragon elemental damage deal a bit more compared to its other two elemental states. There’s a deep debate going around which of the five elements are better in the long run but my opinion for a more casual run is having a fire and ice team or with a team comp that has a dragon, fire and ice with another hunter using the element that Alatreon is most weak against when the hunt starts.
“Didn’t you say you can run a team with only one element? Does it only apply to a team of dragon element weapons?”
No. However it is quite a risky play but still very effective for elemental-heavy damage dealers like the dual blades to deal enough damage to topple it down atleast once before it shifts its element active states. The special assignment Alatreon for example is where it starts with a fire active state meaning you’ll be able to deal ice damage and topple it down pretty early in the fight. Meanwhile if you break the horns while in its dragon active state which should be the next form it’ll take after fire, you’ll be able to revert its form back to the fire state rather than going to an ice state.
Where it makes it a bit more complex is the event quest that’s comes after clearing the special assignment. In the event, you get one of two named events that rotates daily such as “The Evening Star” and “The Dawn of the Death Star” with the first one starting with a Fire active Alatreon meaning you’d need to use fire-based weapons while the latter would be the opposite. It’s also unique to each hunter meaning two hunters can have completely different named quests in the same day which really gives you an option to which elements to use if you’re all running with just one of them.
“Other than dual blades, what other weapons are good matchups for Alatreon?”
While it is normally better to play with a team of dual blades for their quick attacks and easy part-tenderizing combos, having an Insect Glaive to mount during his dragon active state in order to bring him down for a quick lesson in monster hunter-style beatdown is pretty great and a Hammer can be a good weapon to break the horns which can only be broken when it’s on its dragon active state.
I just highly suggest to not use the Bowguns for their lack of ammo to last the entire fight unless you’ll be running the multi-element Alatreon Light Bowgun that can rapidfire all elements in exchange for the lack of crowd-controlling ammo like sleep and paralysis. On the other hand, the Alatreon Bow has some fairly decent dragon element and supports almost every status coating except for poison which is really bad against Alatreon anyway.
~~ It’s possible to craft the Alatreon weapons given enough failed hunts were done to be able to get every material necessary to craft them, so doing a duo hunt with another hunter that runs with a plunderblade palico gadget is great for this. ~~
“Can I solo Alatreon like we do on MR Kulve Taroth?”
Yes. Alatreon can be quite easier to solo rather than a team of four but duos is easily one of the better team compositions. Why? With palicos at your side and well-thought off palico gadgets brought for the fight, Alatreon can be easily controlled by shieldspire stooges that takes the aggro away from the hunters and into an immovable dummy while another hunter can have the vigorwasp palico for quick heals and a revive.
“What gear sets and skills should I be taking to the fight?”
Given the need to deal elemental damage over raw attack, it goes without saying that DPS builds will be focused on elemental attack values and critical over things like agitator and peak performance. With that in mind, a weapon that comes from the Kjarr weapon line that comes equipped with critical element is an obvious choice, paired with the Safi’jiiva 5-piece armor set and you’ll be doing quite a bit to reach the necessary damage to weaken the Escaton Judgement where the fight is basically centered on.
Other choices includes Safi’jiiva weapons focused on element up awakened abilities or weapons that has high element values that hits fast and quick like the dual blades and bow. As for other armor choices, the Namielle Gamma set for its element acceleration, Silver Rathalos for True Crit Element or 2-piece Velkhana for its Crit Element… that is if you don’t have access to a Kjarr weapon for your build.
Useful skills would then include the undying and always present Health Boost for obvious reasons and that’s to survive more hits that would otherwise kill you. Recovery Up is ideal for a team comp without a healer but not particularly a must if you don’t have slots for it. Maxed Blight Resistance to not waste time using nullberries especially when the dragon is down for some safe elemental DPS buildup. Meanwhile the obvious Elemental Attack Up and Affinity Boosting skills is a must have. Stun Resist is great but not particularly a must when you have a dedicated healer in the team to top you off should you get hit while stunned. Evade Window needs no introduction considering how much Alatreon loves to use AoE skills like sweeping fire breaths like Velkhana and Safi’jiiva, the evade window let you easily dodge into a the ray of fire without taking damage although you can also superman dive away from it with good enough timing. It also happens to have tons of Kirin-like Thunder attacks making the skill very worth the investment. Mind’s Eye to prevent your weapons from bouncing off. And if you’re not confident enough to survive the hits or still learning how to evade the attacks, Divine Blessing can help reduce your damage taken when it procs. Flinch Free is also a pretty decent skill to have due to how the fight forces you to compress to specific parts like the feet and the head.
A Temporal Mantle can also be fairly helpful in the fight to do safe flinch shots especially when it decides to fly since there’s only quite a handful of “viable” walls in the area to slam him into it. Just be careful not to use your temporal mantle when Alatreon’s horn is glowing with electricity as it quickly depletes your temporal charges before you can even use a claw attack. Rocksteady Mantle is a NO GO in this situation though but the Health Booster is a perfect choice to use during the Escaton Judgement to lessen the HP depletion and with enough boosters stacked together and with just the Wide Range healer doing the heals, the DPS hunters can focus on sharpening their weapons for the next phase rather than topping off their health bars.
Item loadouts should also have mega potions, dust of life, life powders, max potions and materials to craft more of them to heal themselves and others should they ever need it especially if you play with a healer that got stunned or has been knocked to the ground which is often a recipe for an incoming death on a follow up attack. And since you can’t use a farcaster to camp in order to restock, your only way to restock is by fainting which should never even be an option anyway.
“Where do I go, how do I play effectively?”
During the fight, always stay behind its hind legs, when it starts its electric attacks you can then try to go under him and continue hitting the hind legs. This is so far one of the safest spots to deal damage from what I can tell from most of our successful hunts. And considering its hitzone values for its legs isn’t as far off from the arms which is its weakest part for elemental, there’s really not much reason to go front-facing his attacks head on. As for dual blade hunters or Heavy weapon users, always weaken the parts in order to deal more damage and clear it quicker for a lower chance of carting mid-fight.
Simply deal enough damage by attacking from the safe spots and make sure everyone is fully healed up before going back to the offensive is the key to success. Everyone should also stay aware of your surroundings and other players’ status and health bars but good communication with the team is a great way to keep yourselves alive. With enough teamwork in place you’ll have better chances to successfully topple it down and this is the chance to go ham on the head to ultimately break the horns should the timing be right. Superman Dive or dodge away whenever you feel like an attack is going to come especially when Alatreon is charging up red and black lighting around its body when it shifts element. With enough knowledge around the fight, you’ll have a better chance of success hunter!
“Fashion Armor, okay?!”
But before we end this I would really just like to share and talk about how good the armor is, skills and deco slot-wise. Given how the Raging Brachydios and Furious Rajang made some pretty high spec armor sets, mostly on Raging Brachy though, Alatreon did not disappoint in giving the cool and menacing looks while still having some pretty juicy skills and slotting. There’s so much you can add to the set that the total levels of skills you can stack on the Alpha Leg piece from Alatreon is a fucking ten! The lowest being the Beta Arm piece which is still a pretty generous six but can really scale up to an eight total level since by default it has 3 levels of attack while also having 3 levels of Power Prolonger and two slots to add a level 3 and a level 1 skill.
The Set Bonus is also just limited to a two and three piece which really gives the set some pretty good combinations to a Namielle Gamma or Safi’jiiva. With two pieces making your elemental weapon have more elemental values as your elemental resistance increases while the three piece bonus increases all your resistance by 20% and thus increasing both your survivability with elemental attacks while buffing elemental damage. In a nutshell, Fashion Armor or not, this is a fairly great update that has the sort of challenge missing from most fights in Monster Hunter World so far. We need this sort of team-based compositions which makes hunters more aware of their fellow hunters than just their selves. Sorry!
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