Monster Hunter Rise Tips Guide: How to slay Rathian

Rathians are considered to be the first true test of a monster hunter's career. These Flying Wyverns are tough, aggressive, and capable of dispatching prey in various ways. This guide will detail what this poisonous predator is capable of and what you can do to slay it efficiently in Monster Hunter Rise for the Nintendo Switch.

Be sure to check our other guides for Monster Hunter Rise if you want to learn more. These include guides on weapon types, armor sets, a list of confirmed monsters, and how to use the Wirebug.

Don't forget to pick up the best microSD cards for your Nintendo Switch — you're going to need a lot of space to download this game.

Monster Hunter Rise Tips Guide: How to slay Rathian Preparation

Before you begin tracking the Rathian down, stock up on Potions, Nulberries, Antidotes, and traps in your base camp tent.

Nulberries and Antidotes will cure you of the status effect the Rathian can cause. Traps will help immobilize Rathian for a few seconds, giving your team an opening to do damage.

When you venture forth into the field, be on the lookout for endemic life. These critters can offer passive and offensive assistance. For example, Spiribirds can permanently boost your stats for the duration of the hunt, and the Antidobra can cure and prevent poison for a few minutes.

If you want to know more, check out our list of endemic life for Monster Hunter Rise (so far).

It's also recommended that you find Flashbugs in the field. They can be used to craft Flash Bombs, which will help keep Rathian out of the air.

Monster Hunter Rise Tips Guide: How to slay Rathian The Hunt

Rathians are aggressive and territorial, so they will attack anything that approaches it. When Rathian lets out a mighty roar, the hunt has begun.

The Rathian has plenty of attacks to be wary of:

• It can shoot fireballs from its mouth. Rathian will fire one fireball or three fireballs in a set pattern (forward, left, and right). A fireball will induce Fireblight if it connects. Fireblight slowly drains your health away by setting you on fire. You can cure it by eating a Nulberry or dodge rolling a few times. If you dodge roll in a puddle of water, the Fireblight immediately goes away.
• Rathian will glance at you briefly before charging towards you. It will try to bite you while simultaneously skewering you with the spike underneath its chin. Rathan can also make a quick bite attack while stationary.
• Rathian will take a look behind it and then proceed to make two 180-degree tail swipe attacks.
• The Rathian will rear back and then do a backflip that will send hunters flying and poison them if they get hit by the tail. The poison status effect drains health over time and is cured by drinking an Antidote or using an Antidobra. Poison can also stack with Fireblight to double the damage, so you must remove this condition before that happens. The Rathian will take flight during this attack and will land back on the ground afterward. Don't stand too near a monster when they're about to fly; otherwise, you will be stunned by the wind pressure.
• Rathian will occasionally roar throughout the battle. If you get caught within the roar's range, you will be stunned for a few seconds. You can dodge roll through roars if you time it correctly, use shields to block them, or use Silkbind attacks that allow you to evade or shrug off attacks. The Earplugs armor skill can prevent monster roars from stunning you.

After taking enough damage, Rathian will roar and uncontrollably froth at the mouth with flames. The Rathian has now become enraged.

While enraged, Rathian's attacks will do more damage and can combo into each other:

• Rathian will briefly stay in the air after making the flying backflip attack. It will either do a second backflip before landing or a flying charge attack to bulldoze through hunters using its body weight.
• Rathian's bite attacks can now inflict Fireblight.
• It will constantly run back and forth, stomping on anything caught in the Rathian's path before making a bite attack.
• It will also be able to break free from traps much faster.
• The Rathian will stand back to gather all the fire in its body to unleash its ultimate attack. A massive flame breath attack that explodes upon impact.

The enraged state will last until the Rathian is put to sleep, calms down, or becomes exhausted.

When Rathian runs out of steam or gets hit enough by weapons that deal stun damage, it will become exhausted. You will see signs of exhaustion when the Rathian starts to drool.

Rathian's attacks are much weaker in this state. Rathian can't shoot fireballs, it takes brief breaks to catch its breath, and it will trip over itself when charging. The Rathian will also be stuck in Pitfall Traps for much longer than normal.

Monster Hunter Rise Tips Guide: How to slay Rathian Weaknesses and breakable parts

Rathian has a few vital weak spots:

• The Rathian's head, tail, and wings are its major weak spots to deal the most damage.
• You can break Rathian's head, wings, and back to soften them up for extra damage and get more chances for material drops.
• Rathian's tail can be cut off to reduce the range of its tail attack. The dismembered tail can be carved for materials.

Weapons that are attuned with the Thunder element can cause serious damage to Rathian. Dragon elemental weapons can also do some decent damage bonuses too.

Rathian is susceptible to poison, blastblight, paralysis, sleep, elemental blights, traps, and Flash Bombs. In particular, flash bombs are pretty useful as they can knock Rathian out of the sky by blinding it.

The Rathian can be mounted after doing enough aerial attacks, Wirebug attacks, or using a Puppet Spider. Here's a useful tip when mounting a Rathian: when the mount ends, your Wirebugs will entangle the monster in silk as strong as iron. Normally it doesn't do much with ground-based monsters. But for aerial-based monsters, the silk will forcefully slam them back to the ground if they try to fly away.

Monster Hunter Rise Tips Guide: How to slay Rathian Materials

Here is a list of materials you can acquire from Mizutsune.

Ready to slay the Rathian?

Rathian can be tough for newcomers, but once you understand its attack patterns, you will slay the Rathian in no time. Hopefully, this guide will you figure the hunt out faster. Good luck and happy hunting.