MHW Iceborne is finally bringing to PC its third and in my opinion, most intense boss raid monster, Safi’Jiva. Your mastery over the current meta will be tested and the rewards are simply too good to pass up on, if you’re the type who’s looking for the a great challenge to take on or an equipment set that will quite frankly turn the meta on its head, then you better get to raiding this matured form of dragon prowess. And well, here’s a bunch of tips to help you make the encounter with the red monster be more fun, efficient and less about riding carts.

Come Prepared

If you’re first learning to fight Safi’Jiva, your first priority should be learning how not to die from its absolutely devastating attacks. And based on my experience I’d recommend having the following defensive stats:

Base Defense 850 – Safi’Jiva can basically hit like a tempered monster in Master Rank, at around this amount of defense you won’t have to automatically heal every time you get hit.

Fire Res 20 – This is generally to avoid catching fire when hit by fire attacks

Dragon Res 10 – Most of his breath attacks are dragon element, this will help you tank that.

Also don’t forget  to bring dusts of life, as that may be the only way for your allies to survive his grab attack that will leave you dead or with just 1 HP left.

Four for One

Safi’Jiva is designed as a boss raid, meant to be taken on with multiple teams of four in one lobby. Even if you can do it, it’s just not time efficient. You don’t want to just win over Safi’Jiva, you want to be able to farm it, and that means doing it efficiently. Find a party to do play it with you, or better yet, a dedicated lobby for grinding him down.

 Skip Leg Day

The most obvious target is actually the worst one to take on, while the legs are easiest to target among all of his parts, they take the longest to destroy and worse yet, net worst rewards. If your team is capable of coordinating a formation, they should consider their targets in this manner:

High Priority – Tail, Back, Head, Chest*

Medium Priority – Wings

Lowest Priority – Legs

*Best to target the chest when it hits super-critical state during the third stage

 Also note that if you already broke a certain part during a previous run, breaking that part again will not give you reward points on the succeeding runs until you slay the dragon.

Clutch Play

Pretty much all of Safi’Jiva’s parts are tough and need to be softened up, upon picking your target, do a clutch attack when you find an opening. Learning how to use the clutch claw against Safi’Jiva can serve you well in doing two other pretty useful tricks as well.

Gliding to Rodeo Champ

The fastest way to break the dragon’s back is actually mounting it. Which can be difficult if nobody on your team is handling an insect glaive. Using ledges can also fix the problem but getting it close enough to one can be rather difficult. However, you can get an aerial attack by wearing a glider mantle, and jumping off after attaching with the clutch claw.

Doing this puts you in a floating state that allows you to make an aerial attack and deal mounting damage to Safi’Jiva, increasing your chances on getting on his back and ultimately lead to a free knock down!

Notice me, Safi-Senpai!

Much like Behemoth from FF14, this monster has an enmity mechanic where he’ll focus all of his attacks on the biggest damage dealer. The big difference here is that you can now shift the target of your opponents raging onslaught. Once one of your unfortunate team mates have caught the monster’s attention, you can change the target to you by doing a flinch shot on it’s head. You’ll know you did it correctly if you see a red line of doom from you to Safi’Jiva like a red string of fate.

Alright, the rest is practice, good luck out there and have fun farming that meta-changing weapons and armor!