Rathalos EX

[RiyahArp]

It relies heavily on your healer if you've made any kind of mistake.

That video had very few mistakes at all, actually. In the runs I've had, one mistake was say the dps getting in front of garula and cleaved, causing no dps and a wipe. Or they hit a flying rush, get stunned, and can't heal because poison kills them faster than esuna reaches them. Or the casters get caught in a cast and don't react in time, one shot.

It's not a fun fight.

There's so many chances to cause an error with little backup. It's not people being bad..i mean they dodge a lot, understand mechanics, and do their best. It's just that all it takes is a single or couple of errors and bam, reset. And thats solely because dps and heals are weak; apparently tanks can do it without a healer, or 3 tanks one healer makes it far easier, since mistakes no longer oneshot and the stack mechanic no longer takes off so much health.

[Zale]

That video had very few mistakes at all, actually. In the runs I've had, one mistake was say the dps getting in front of garula and cleaved, causing no dps and a wipe. Or they hit a flying rush, get stunned, and can't heal because poison kills them faster than esuna reaches them. Or the casters get caught in a cast and don't react in time, one shot.

It's not a fun fight.

There's so many chances to cause an error with little backup. It's not people being bad..i mean they dodge a lot, understand mechanics, and do their best. It's just that all it takes is a single or couple of errors and bam, reset. And thats solely because dps and heals are weak; apparently tanks can do it without a healer, or 3 tanks one healer makes it far easier, since mistakes no longer oneshot and the stack mechanic no longer takes off so much health.

then all they have to do is move. there's multiple safe spots you can stand in... this isn't your typical fight with cast bars and mechanics. you pay attention to his animations and where he's facing, how hard is it for people to understand that? there are tips online to help you, even, if you don't understand where the safe places to stand are.

[JunseiKei]

~snip~

A mistake = getting hit by anything that is not avoidable. That would limit it to targeted fireballs and his roars. Tons of mistakes were made, there was just a generous amount of compensation done.

Like I said in a previous post, Rathalos is absolutely best dodged at melee range; esuna not reaching someone because they are out of range shouldn't ever be a thing. A caster finishing their cast is something you cannot do on this fight. If you see this more than once especially, I'd daresay communicating to your team things like, "Dodge, don't finish cast" is pretty essential. It's not that heals and DPS are weak, it's just tanks have that much more HP and defense to work with (reason why I farmed most of it with 2 tanks, 1 DPS, 1 healer was because the one DPS literally could not dodge and asked if double tank was OK. We just rolled with it). With a decent weapon (relic, diamond weapon and knowledge of tank DPS rotation for burst damage), tanks function just as well as DPS in this fight. This entire fight is dodging, resource management and bursting during key segments.

Mistakes as it is do not one shot if you have full HP. The video shows that. I literally took 2 people through normal version and immediately into EX; just told them to do exactly as I said (which I posted above in the tips). Took one lock out, but we killed it. I've never taken someone completely new to the fight in any EX primal before, taught them the fight and killed it. This fight is way easier than people act like it is because it's simply not what they've grown used to in FFXIV (and one of them had never played MonHan, so every animation was completely new to them). We definitely got the easier fight out of the two collaborations (I genuinely cry every time we fail Behemoth - that's SO much pots/buffs/zenny lost after a while. At least here you only lose time and gear durability).

[AxlStream]

Give us Nergigante!

[JunseiKei]

Well, here's some tips for people struggling:

As a general rule, Rathalos is easiest to avoid at melee range. It might be habit for ranged, casters or healers to be far away, but you actually make it much harder on yourself.

First Phase
- Rathalos's upper left side is safest to stand (near his face, near the wing tip). This avoids his tail sweep and you're far away enough from the bite that you won't be hit.
- The bite attack has a hitbox on the tail (seen a lot of ranged get clipped by this).
- First set of adds don't need to be picked up, grab the Coeurl and DPS it down. No one likes dealing with crackle hiss or whatever it's called in this fight.
- Put fireballs on adds and bait Rathalos toward adds; everything he does damages them. This lets you continue to focus on Rathalos.
- Large healing when adds pop up may cause them to make a run straight for your healer; if this happens, grab them and keep them near Rathalos so his attacks will still hit them.

Second Phase
- Never stand in front of Rathalos, even if you're at ranged. This makes Rathalos take an extra moment to turn before he will do his dive into poison claw.
- Rathalos always changes his target to the person he will attack (the name that pops up next this his, AKA the target's target). This is especially useful to see who exactly he is targeting for poison claw.
- Melee range is still the best to avoid his attacks; keep in mind the poison claw definitely feels "fatter" on his right.
- We had tank take their fireballs alone; they came and stacked with everyone else's.
- Healer should be pro-active with Esunas; a DPS can survive poison claw if it gets removed ASAP. Would recommend removing Healer DoT and one DPS's DoT before the second fireball. On second, recommend removing Healer DoT and the DPS with 2 stacks of DoT. If SCH with Selene, wait and group remove after 3rd fireball while still removing DoTs mentioned here.
- LB only when Rathalos is down; it's the difference of 8% damage done or 3% (something along those lines).
- Save LB for Rathalos, not the tail. Saving all of your CDs for the tail will take it off fine enough.
- GCD hits fill Rathalos's down meter. (Thanks to Rowde for sharing this information~)

Bonus tip:
- Can mash while stunned to reduce your stun timer, much like in Monster Hunter.

[PerrinTaveren]

Ok, my problem isn't that "the fight is too hard". Actually mechanic-wise it is pretty simple. I can see what he is gonna do and how to react to it. I have basically 3 problems i will name:

1. It is random. It is TOO random that he can kill me again after me spawning back instantly. It is too random that he can just attack same person 5 times. How the hell will we survive that if the person is hit in the first place? It does stun + poison. Basically you get hit, you die.

2. Its dive attack is too fast, at least for me. He turns me and comes at me. When i start running sideways, if i am not far away he always hits me.

3. This is the most bothersome for me. Camera angles. Idk if this is an issue on pc, but on ps4, i can't see boss's face when he is flying if i do not set my camera always. And like i said, he is fast. I really can't see sometimes who he is targeting, that's why i look at the agro bar. But some angles really obstruct my view as well so idk maybe don't put invisible walls in arena edges in a fight like this?

And it is easy to talk when you are tank tbh. There was a tank in our group, who got hit like 3-4 times but don't die ofc, but we (i, healer and dps) die, so he kept "wtf dudes, are you stupid" etc. Try doing this fight as a esuna bot or melee, and then say "oh i cleared this 65 times". Then i will know there is something wrong with me after 3 years of healing.

[supaiku]

1. It is random. It is TOO random that he can kill me again after me spawning back instantly. It is too random that he can just attack same person 5 times. How the hell will we survive that if the person is hit in the first place? It does stun + poison. Basically you get hit, you die.

2. Its dive attack is too fast, at least for me. He turns me and comes at me. When i start running sideways, if i am not far away he always hits me.

3. This is the most bothersome for me. Camera angles. Idk if this is an issue on pc, but on ps4, i can't see boss's face when he is flying if i do not set my camera always. And like i said, he is fast. I really can't see sometimes who he is targeting, that's why i look at the agro bar. But some angles really obstruct my view as well so idk maybe don't put invisible walls in arena edges in a fight like this?

As a Ps4 player, I have the same problems. Sometimes it takes a while to adjust the camera so that I am actually able to see the boss, that´ s really annoying, especially if he targets me in that moment, because then I'm usually not able to react fast enough because I simply wasn't able to see him. And if the camera is fine and I see the boss, I start running as soon as I see he is facing me. But even then sometimes his dive kills me and I don't know why. I can't do more than run away and sprint isn't always available. I seriously think something is wrong with his hitbox, because sometimes I stand really close to him but don't get hit and other times I am far away but get hit.
I like this fight, but this is frustrating.

[Zale]

Ok, my problem isn't that "the fight is too hard". Actually mechanic-wise it is pretty simple. I can see what he is gonna do and how to react to it. I have basically 3 problems i will name:

1. It is random. It is TOO random that he can kill me again after me spawning back instantly. It is too random that he can just attack same person 5 times. How the hell will we survive that if the person is hit in the first place? It does stun + poison. Basically you get hit, you die.

2. Its dive attack is too fast, at least for me. He turns me and comes at me. When i start running sideways, if i am not far away he always hits me.

3. This is the most bothersome for me. Camera angles. Idk if this is an issue on pc, but on ps4, i can't see boss's face when he is flying if i do not set my camera always. And like i said, he is fast. I really can't see sometimes who he is targeting, that's why i look at the agro bar. But some angles really obstruct my view as well so idk maybe don't put invisible walls in arena edges in a fight like this?

And it is easy to talk when you are tank tbh. There was a tank in our group, who got hit like 3-4 times but don't die ofc, but we (i, healer and dps) die, so he kept "wtf dudes, are you stupid" etc. Try doing this fight as a esuna bot or melee, and then say "oh i cleared this 65 times". Then i will know there is something wrong with me after 3 years of healing.

i can heal/ranged dps it and get hit a few times or none at all. the fight is very braindead for ranged in my experience. im not sure about blm/smn but idk? just don't get hit lol? it's not that hard. pay attention to where he's facing and move accordingly, not a mechanic, not being random. maybe just pay attention lol? when i ran on healer all i had to do was just take esuna and watch myself.

[Voidedge_Ragna]

Personally love this fight, as a mh fan it did kinda deliver ... well cept that we have no "dodge iframes".

Its like every other ex primal ... once you get it ... You get it. Mobility is key and being quick to run.

A few things make the fight lengths easier. 3 tanks and a heal forgive a lot of mistakes and potential deaths, there are 2 dps checks and neither of them is tight.

Also tanks with cds can eat the stacks solo and healat the end with a potion. This has the benefit of only 1 burn target also ppl dont tunnel vision and only focus on stack while dropping dps and you are not stack which means avoiding poison dive after is easier.

Once you can read the tells a normal party can easily kill it as well. Sorry dps buddies, hope it doesn't become meta lol. Then again I remember light farming for anima and all the tanks that were locked out due to "we only want 1 tank".

[Duskane]

the fights barly random when you can abuse his ai
in the second phase you just stand near his tail and when he turns around go back to his tail he legit can not get you until stack mechanic
if your running 4 tanks they can take the stacks solo easily

no wind pressure = easy rathalos