When game review deadlines aren’t looming, one of the games I still keep coming back to is Monster Hunter World, and recently they’ve come up with one heck of a fearsome challenge, Alatreon.

If you’ve been having a difficult time dealing with basically Avatar Aang of the monsters, thanks to his ability to shoot 4 elements, then allow me to share some of my knowledge with you.

Alatreon is clearly an end-game monster, so taking it on without at least some completed armor sets is just not going to cut it. You’ll want to take him on more as a challenge than anything as the gear you get out him isn’t exactly compelling to obtain. Also, he has his own particular set of rules, so fighting him like how you fight other monsters probably won’t work.

Another issue it has is it doesn’t appear to have a cheese strategy him (unless maybe you have a team of HBGs with pierce heavy setups), in fact for the most part I don’t think any setup can effectively cover all the bases against what Alatreon can dish out against you, so at one point or the other you’ll have to play by his rules.

THE BIG BAD ITSELF

Weak points are nothing new, you’ll want to to hit the head and the front legs for the best damage. You can also break the wings, tail and horns. What it doesn’t note is how guns can deal the most elemental damage when hitting the root of the wings, much like Safi’Jiva.

If you’re melee, the most feasible part to attack would be the front legs, any weapon will benefit greatly from hitting the head, that is, if you can manage to hit it.

Is it possible to solo? Yes. Do I recommend that you do that? No, not really. While Alatreon has HP scaling for single, paired and 3 or 4 man groups, the openings he has for attacks feels ridiculously small when he has much less targets to deal with.

THE AVATAR’S RULES

As soon as you start fighting Alatreon, the timer to you surviving his strongest attack begins to tick down. The only way to survive it is by dealing enough elemental damage to him before time runs out, which is around 6 minutes. Halfway through that timer, he’ll shift from the starting element to dragon, and will use Eschaton Judgement to switch to the next element.

Successfully dealing enough elemental damage to it will cause it to get knocked down for a bit, it works separately from the usual KO Status we get with sticky bombs and hammers (so let’s call it Elemental KO, for now). This will also indicate that you can survive his big nuke attack later.

Also, when Alatreon shifts to Dragon Active, the horns can actually be broken, which is a must for those who are using either fire or ice element to deal good elemental damage to Alatreon’s initial element for that quest, as there are two separate event quests that indicate how the fight begin go.

Also, the escape item, farcaster, can’t be used for this fight. So you can’t really escape his big bad attack or retreat to resupply, unless you let yourself be carted. Diving, rolling, or hiding behind terrain will not prevent the damage, either. Basically, achieve the objectives within the time limit or pay the price.

TAKING DOWN THE TITAN

Preparation

The game itself will throw information at you at what to use and what works, but generally any elemental weapon will work, but I would recommend playing around with Fire, Ice or Dragon as they directly interact with Alatreon’s defenses. You’ll want your weapon to have about 500-600 elemental power for the slower weapons and around 300-400 for the faster attacking weapons.

In terms of defense I actually don’t recommend building on elemental defense but you might want to have Blight Resistance. While this Elder Dragon is capable of throwing all of the elements at you, they all seem to do around the same damage regardless of elemental defense. But getting paralyzed, losing stamina, hp, or being unable to do elemental damage are definitely things you don’t want to deal while fighting this terror.

If you can manage around 900 armor defense this should make most of his attacks survivable so long as you have over 100 HP. I’d recommend the following skills on your armor:

For offense, it’ll have to depend on what weapon you’ve got on you, but you’ll want to sneak in Part Breaker if you’re going with Fire or Ice elemental weapons.

As for items you want to bring you’ll want to have the usual healing items, Astera jerky, and some crafting materials for Dust of Life and Max Potion. Remember that you can’t retreat.

The Game Plan

Your primary objective is to trigger at least one elemental knock down, doing so will make surviving Eschaton Judgement doable. Note that the attack strength of this move resets after he uses it, so you have to do another elemental KO to survive the next one. So you gotta attack, attack, and attack some more until the game tells you you’ve done your job. If you’re not confident about reading to Alatreon’s attacks, the hind legs are generally a good safe zone, though you get less damage values.

Once he goes into dragon form (Alatreon always does, as you see on the flowchart above), you’ll really want to break off a horn if you’re wielding a fire or ice weapon. Which can be done rather quickly if you can manage a flinch shot into a wall, which is difficult. There are only 4 spots that you can ram him against within the arena of doom. Doing the flinch shot while airborne is also viable and much easier to do, but it doesn’t seem to be as consistent when it comes to making the horns break.

Failing to break the horns doesn’t spell doom for you if you managed to get an elemental knock down, but getting to the next one will be difficult if you’re using fire or ice weapons, but not impossible.

That’s about it. Yes, the plan is simple, but dealing with all the attacks is the hard part. You might want to practice on him solo for a bit so you know what exactly he’s capable of dishing out. Some attacks are better off blocked, but you’ll generally want to dodge everything.

ATTACKS TO LOOK OUT FOR

To be honest, everything, but here’s the the top killers I’ve experienced with my trials with him:
(FYI I just came up with these names)
Fire Beam Sweep – Shoots out a linear beam and swings it from it’s right to left, very short tell, moves fairly fast. This is actually easy to side-roll if you can steel your nerves. Otherwise, run to the side of his head.
Fire Bomb – Shoots a fireball into the ground, which does explodes 3 times in an outward fashion. The tell is hard to tell apart from from his 3-way fire ball, but you can actually run or roll away from the explosion if you don’t panic.
Lightning Barrage – This has two versions, one going toward Alatreon and one going away from him. It seems random at first, but observing where the initial lightning strikes go will tell you where it’s safe.
Dragon Burst – Charges in the air, flies to where you are and releases a dragon element burst after a short delay. Pretty deadly while enraged, constantly moving more or less makes this easy to dodge.
Combo Attacks – Alatreon’s lighter attacks normally come in two parts, usually by swipes or him just running through the arena. An extra attack is added when enraged, which can be a breath attack. Be mindful of this so you know if you’re supposed to continue dodging or if you can do something else.

OTHER TIPS

What do you mean I shouldn’t block? Even at Guard 5, he has a good number of attacks that still give push back and a chunk of damage. You can have it as a comfort skill but you generally take less damage and get more work done if you evade. Guard 5 is more of a comfort thing rather than something you really need.

Can I let them do the work and be a healer instead? I really don’t recommend it. Time spent healing is time spent not attacking, and Alatreon has you on the clock. With a capable enough party, having dust of life on each of you should be more than enough to support each other.

There’s this video that can kill Alatreon in 2 minutes! Yep, with endgame gear, fully upgraded. It’s possible, but I don’t think everyone will have that level of dedication farming gear to that level. Heck, I don’t.

I can’t reach your recommended stats, what do? It’s an endgame monster, and honestly the gear you get from him, in my opinion, isn’t really designed to outclass the current meta equipment. So don’t worry and take your time farming.

That’s it for now, try to enjoy your time fighting Alatreon, that is when he’s not introducing your face to the floor.