We're gonna start at the very beginning and work our way to the end of all content in general. Even if you're not a beginner I'd say at least skim everything anyway because who knows, you might learn something. I'm assuming you have Iceborne, but most should still apply regardless. If you don't have Iceborne I highly recommend getting it if you're enjoying your time with the game.

Regardless of where it's placed, anything I've found to be outside of common knowledge, will be emboldened and underlined. That way you if you're just skimming you can potentially absorb something. Lastly skip around as you see fit, this is pretty long and I don't expect anyone to actually read the whole thing. So don't be surprised if I repeat myself in any capacity. Lastly, I will attempt to place a TLDR below each point.


This set of OP gear they give you right off the bat was created with the intent of helping players blitz through the base game and reach the DLC. They very much have the power to do that, as you can kinda just turn your brain off and throw yourself at the wall while playing the game with them. I can pretty confidently say, that if you're new, this will definitely harm you in the long run as you miss out on a lot of the crafting aspects of the game, as well as training you to be used to fighting a monster that is weaker than you, shooting yourself in the foot when it's usefulness comes to a complete halt. I mention this entirely because I've seen way too many people use it because it's OP, get to Iceborne, and then become lost little puppies with no clue what to do who get smacked around. I can't stop you from using it, if you really want to use it I'd say go for it, but it usually results in people ending up worse in the long run.

TLDR: Guardian Armor will harm you, please don't use it, but in the end it's up to you. I can't stop you (No one can).


Learning how to utilize everything around you is the trick to becoming a god tier hunter. For now though let's start with the weapons. Each weapon has an absurd amount of depth already and Iceborne adds even more. Go to the Training Area, and just keep hitting things (Don't forget to sharpen) until you find something that looks, and feels good. You even start with one of each weapon to start with. Personally, I enjoy Lance, Switch Axe, and Charge Blade.

In total there are 14 weapons and at some point I'll try to hyperlink a beginner's guide, and an advanced guide for each weapon. In general it's good to remember that ranged weapons take 30% more physical damage while melee weapons take 30% more elemental damage.

Here are some resources that I plan to update over time.
(LS) Long Sword: 1 (Peppo)
(Lance) Lance: 1 2 (Herny)
(CB) Charge Blade: 1 [mhchargeblade.net] (This is all you need. Thanks Tom.)
Arekkz Gaming has a nice series on every weapon that can be found here but I wanted to give some other people a spotlight

Once you find something that feels good, start learning all about it, search everywhere far and wide, gathering as much information as you can. Whatever you like about your weapon, there are probably things you can do to enhance it through Armor, Skills, Charms, and Decos. You don't have to think about any of that until you're in High Rank and even then you can still be pretty lazy about it.

TLDR (In Unga Bunga): Go to log (Training Area), smack log, find favorite hunting tool, learn hunting tool.

After getting a handle on the weapons we'll move onto dodging. If you've played Dark Souls you'll probably have a bit of a jump start, but don't think it's that easy here(It can be). If you have the time I recommend this video by Monster Hunter PH Community. But in short, at the beginning of your dodge you have 13 Iframes, 12 if your weapon does a hop instead of a roll, but don't forget your weapon might have some other evasion tools. For example: the Dual Blades "Demon Dash" has 1 more iframe than a roll giving it a 14 frame dodge.

There are several ways you want to dodge, all depending on the attack and its hitbox(es); Some attacks you want to dodge into like tail swipes, others like charges and pins should be rolled away from. Though rare, attacks that linger like massive fire fans or pools of fire must be superman dived.

In order to perform a superman dive, you must be in combat, the camera must be "pointed at the monster," and you must be running away, if those conditions are met simply holding the dodge button will make your character perform the dive. The dive has a lot of I-frames and you can chain a dive into a dive, giving you near invulnerability until you run out of stamina. The downside to performing the dive is that your weapon must be sheathed. The game does not teach this for some reason, despite it being a borderline essential skill later on.


Don't feel you have to get dodging down right away, but over time you'll get a feel for where the sweet spot is. If you can you should try to roll through the very telling animations that monsters perform when they're about to roar. Learning to dodge these early definitely puts you ahead of the curve (You can also block them if you have a shield). Don't feel like you have to be a dodge god by the time you're in Master Rank, even when people have over 1000 hours they still aren't perfect for every monster.


After getting knocked over by a monster so long as you aren't stunned or paralyzed your character will stay on the ground until you move the stick or they get up naturally. While on the ground your character is actually invulnerable (Certain attacks don't care and can hit you regardless but they're extremely rare in this game). Sometimes it's smart to simply take the hit and wait till it's safe to get up.

Here's[i.imgur.com] an "advanced" data cheat sheet you can share with your friend group when you start playing with Evade Window. Credit to u/4RT1LL3RY on Reddit.

Multiplayer is great, the community is great, just be careful when using the SOS flare since you can very easily get someone who's way, way late game, and drops the hunt from 15 minutes to less than 2 if they're trying hard enough. The community for this game is easily one of the most socially anxious as well as one of the nicest overall. My favorite example of this was a guy who just kept following me over and doing one of the bowing emotes instead of just asking for help in chat.

In my opinion the game is at its best when played with a group of friends at equal progression so try to grab those if you can. Personally, I never liked using the SOS flare until I'd killed the monster solo at least once, or with friends at a similar level. I stand by the opinion that fighting the monster solo is the best way to learn (That's just my thought, you are your own person with your own thoughts). When you use the SOS flare is up to you, but I will say that the game is very much designed with multiplayer in mind and I think its healthiest if everyone is at equal progression.

When it comes to lobbies, I personally would say the bigger the better. I say this because seeing people run around is fun, you meet people, you can use other people's canteen ingredients, and other people's gourmet vouchers. The game doesn't have the best voice chat, but if people are annoying you can always mute them but I find it fun to hear what people are up to. Funny things like that one guy on open mic talking to himself out loud about how to make his build better, or some guy discussing whether you're a guy or a girl to his friends on Discord before you answer him in chat and he dies inside as he realizes that you could hear him that whole time or you can join the hunt just to have that one guy go "C-C-Clare step on me" Have fun, go out there, do SOS flares, even if your HR/MR is capped, you're still getting XP, it's just being stored until that cap is removed.


Earlier I mentioned hitting the log with your weapon until you find something that looks good. Once you find the one that's for you, do a couple hunts to make sure and then I really, really, really recommend looking up as much as you can about your weapon. All 14 weapons have neat little things that aren't brought up in the game and some of those neat little things are crucial. Some weapons are easy to master while others are hard. Don't feel like you have to always do what's best, I'd say stick with what your comfortable with. Some tricks will be easy to learn, and others will be harder, I might have a neat list but here are two examples of what I'm talking about:

Easy Example:
Longsword can use the "Fade Slash" (△ + O), (B + Y), (LMB + RMB) to skip a part of the spirit combo, gain some red, and relocate to a more favourable position.


Hard Example:
Charge Blade has the ability to "Guard Point" which is essentially an amped up block at certain points in the animation. If hit by almost anything during the guard point, be it a fireball, roar, or monster. The block will absorb more damage than a regular block, deal slight damage to the monster if your shield is charged, and put you in an advantageous position (depending on the knockback) and can follow up as you see fit. These points are scattered throughout various parts of its attacks and are active for different amounts of time. You will probably do this accidentally a lot at first, but over time you can perfect it.

I recommend starting with the Sword to Axe Morph (R2 + △), (RT + Y), (Ctrl + LMB) as I think it's the easiest to learn.

As you progress, try to mix both weapon and monster knowledge. If you know what it's doing, you should be able to punish it. When it comes to things like what weapons you should forge, I'd suggest looking it up as what you're looking for changes for each weapon type. In general element isn't really that important (Ignore this for certain weapons) unless the monster has a 3 star weakness to it, instead focus more on attack. If you're a ranged weapon look up what to make for the ammo type your using.

Try to avoid being stunned, in general the stun status is caused by being hit repeatedly. Think of it like an invisible status bar that builds up each time you get hit. Certain monsters like Diablos have attacks (the horns) with a very high chance to stun unless you break that part off them so try to break those.


As mentioned before, this game is great with friends, you can all help each other out and kill monsters, what more could you want.

In multiplayer hunts the monster health scales actively around the number of players in the hunt. Though the value is different for every monster, in general it's 100% for 1 player, 150~% more health for 2 players, and then 200~% for both 3 & 4 players. There's no 3 player scaling, it jumps straight to 4 and if someone leaves, loses connection, or joins, the monster's HP will change accordingly. If a connection issue occurs, the monster will freeze. While frozen it will not take any damage, but you can still get charges or power up your weapons if they have that kind of ability.

It is possible to smack your friends, it won't deal any damage but will still move them around and can flinch them out of their attacks, healing, or other animations. Thankfully, a lot of weapons actually gain hyperarmour during a bunch of their attacks but for the ones that don't it can be very annoying. Try to avoid doing this mid fight. This mechanic can also cause some strange interactions due to the fact that while you are flinched by a friendly you actually gain a lot of I-frames. Example Below:

DON'T TRY TO DO THIS, IT SHOULD JUST HAPPEN EVERY NOW AND THEN ACCIDENTALLY! I would however be lying if I said I've never done it intentionally a couple times. Basically the Lance stabs me, I-framing me through the first part of the attack and then I roll through the second. This Chad did not do this on purpose. I just thought I'd mention this because it's neat.

There are situations where this can be beneficial; by default, a message in chat appears whenever a player is stunned, grabbed, or paralyzed. If you're near someone who is stunned, you can smack them out of it for a quicker recovery. If your weapon has the ability to launch (SA, GS, CB, anything with Wyvernblast), you can actually launch them out of paralysis or launch them for a mount (Please don't do that one I've only had it happen intentionally like once).

Don't do it with Wyvernblast it's not worth it I just thought I'd mention it. Don't go too far out of your way to save them, but if they're within a 2 second distance I'd say it's worth it.

Every now and then, the monster will sleep, usually it's when the monster tends to get low and limps to its resting place. It can also happen if someone afflicts it with sleep through their weapon or a Sleeptoad. When this happens the monster will enter its sleep animation and begin healing. The healing isn't really a concerning amount but just know that it's healing. The first hit a monster takes when it's sleeping will do double damage. The best attack to capitalize off of this is obviously the Greatsword's True Charged Slash but that won't always be an option, some nice alternatives are Charge Blades SAED, or Switch Axe's Heavy Slam can do a hefty amount. Just when you see it sleep, get your bombs ready and position them to blow up after the punish.

So at some point you're gonna have a question about one thing or another, questions like "What is the drop rate of this? How much health does this thing have? How do I tell if my weapon did a crit? How much extra damage does a crit do?" (The answers to those last two are there's a * above the number and you do 25% extra.)
Basically, there are two sources which will be your best friends, one is named Fextra[monsterhunterworld.wiki.fextralife.com], the other Kiranico[mhworld.kiranico.com]. The problem with these two is like your friends, they aren't always right, they don't know everything, sometimes their knowledge is outdated, and they're quite inconsistent. So basically the trick is to alternate between the two of them and google. For things like drops, rewards, and monster health, I find Kiranico is better, but I've still found it to be missing things every now and then.

TLDR: Swap between the two Wikis if you ever have any questions.


Don't slave away at an optional quest just because it has the monster you need. I have met too many people who do this and then are disappointed they aren't getting the part(s) they need. This is one of the easiest Monster Hunter's to get what you want. Use the optional until you have Investigations. Whatever you're looking for the grind will be cut down drastically so long as you are using an investigation with the rewards calibrated to what you need. For items like bones and other gatherables look for an investigation with an upsurge of that resource. If it starts to get bad, ask around if someone else has one, you'd be surprised. Try to avoid using Wyvern Prints until you're post-story, until then it's kind of a waste.

In both Astera and Seliana there's the Botanical Research Garden, this is one of the most amazing things you can use to cut down on grind. Do not ignore it! Do whatever quests you can to improve it, having 4 growth slots that are able to cut down on time running around grabbing things while you could be killing monsters is a blessing.

When you get to Iceborne and more specifically Seliana, use the Steamworks whenever you see the notification it's full. Though it's like a gambling machine, it's a gambling machine where you never lose, as you earn useful tools like max potions and armour spheres, or simple trade in items that earn you a ♥♥♥♥ ton of money. Sometimes, depending on the event you can even get a weekly Celestial Wyvern print. If you're super lucky, whenever you get all 3 red squares you have a 1% chance to get a Celestial Wyvern Print or even 10 if you're on x10.

TLDR: Use Investigations, the Steamworks, and by god use the garden.


The Clutch Claw is one of the coolest tools in the game, boasting both offensive and defensive capabilities. Learning what attacks you can escape with it, how your weapon interacts with it, and when you shouldn't will allow you to stay safe and keep up your aggression. The best way to practice using it to evade moves is to pay attention to the monster's body, in general (♥♥♥♥ you Savage Deviljho) if the body part is staying still during the attack, it's usually safe to grab on to. Most of the time when a monster uses a breath attack you can usually grab onto their wings or arms.


Pay attention to the monster's mood, which is depicted in the bottom left. When it's not angry you should almost always try to go for the Flinch Shot provided you have Slinger Ammo. When you clutch claw to its head, where if you're using a controller you can press O or B to spin it up to 3 times. If you don't spin it while performing the Flinch Shot, you can actually do it a second time provided you only smack it twice. Though some monsters will get angry after 1 Flinch Shot regardless of how many spins. Also don't forget, you can also Flinch Shot monsters off of ledges provided they can actually fall off.

Another thing you should keep an eye out for is when the monster is stunned and catching it's breath. Whenever the monster is in this animation you can actually cling onto it to increase the amount of time it's stunned, during this period you can get a full weapon attack off on the monster.

Whenever you're first initiating the fight you can also grab slinger ammo, shoot it at the ground in front and/or near them, and then go to the monster's head and get a free flinch shot. This works on most monsters (even elder dragons) as they start a confused animation and investigate the sling shot.


Within the environment are so many things that can help you, not just the resources from plants, and mining crops, but the things like Wedge Beetles and Slinger Ammo can do so many wonderful things. For example in the Rotten Vale, Torch Pods can be used to create pockets free from the toxic atmosphere and do slight fire damage to monsters standing on top of it. In Master Rank against Namielle if she's having more of a water day rather than alternating with thunder you can use Brightmoss to soak up pools of water, stopping her from just throwing you around. I'd say personally the most handy is anything that has good stun like Crystal Burst, Bomb Pods, and Thorn Pods. Torch Pods can be used to heat up Lavasioth, making him hot again, and Watermoss can be used on Barroth or Jyuratodus to take the mud off. Dragon Pods are nice against elder dragons for their Elderseal which you might not notice but it's decently effective. One thing I don't see enough people utilizing are the Wedge Beetles scattered around Kulve's arena in Master Rank, she rolls around a lot so they can be quite helpful to catch up safely.

Now the fight begins! The wall stopping you from going in (Beotodus) is first fought in an expedition, you basically have an infinite amount of feints and killing it once should net you some Master Rank armor, defense wise this armor will be better than anything else you can really get your hands on. So grab it while you can unless you've been farming some High Rank meta gear that's augmented and everything in which case you should be good for a while. Just remember to swap it out when the harder monsters come out to play.

While we're talking about DLC, I recommend checking out the steam store and nabbing all the free DLC that's littered throughout the steam page.

The new hub area, Seliana is infinitely better than Astera in nearly every way. I think the only thing that can somewhat compete is Meowscular Chef and the music, but even then it's pretty close. You also get access to the aforementioned steamworks which you will want to take advantage of.

When you complete the base story you can immediately jump into Iceborne. Now in base game you can basically ♥♥♥♥ around and do whatever you want with your skills and such provided your defense and attack are somewhat up to par. Iceborne is where you're gonna want to get serious, because otherwise fights will last forever as without good skills things can get a little harder than they should be. For most of Iceborne (At least for a first time playthrough or someone new to the series; You stop that right now, I see you typing), Health Boost 3 is almost a must. The monsters here will hit much, much harder, and in ways that you're most likely not used to. So if you weren't already, here's where you really want to start looking into what skills your weapon benefits off of. That being said, you don't have to create something that's entirely min-maxed for DPS, in fact I'd suggest avoiding that for now, and try to find something that your comfortable with and is a nice in-between since there's no way you have all the decorations for big damage.

Convert your High Rank armor to Master Rank Iceborne as soon as possible, and you're going to want to add Nulberries to your loadout if they weren't already. I also recommend keeping Astera Jerky in your loadout as though you might not think it's that useful, it really is, as being able to near-instantly heal all the red in your healthbar as well as any bleed is amazing.


Try to have all of the Palico gadgets, as well as the camps in each area. You don't have to have completed all optional quests or anything like that but try to at least have Temporal Mantle and/or Rocksteady. Vitality, while useful will start dwindling in usefulness as you progress through Iceborne. I also highly, HIGHLY recommend the Assassins Mantle acquired from the HR Event quest "SDF: SIlent, Deadly, Fierce" as it's useful for the extra mobility it provides while its excellent decoration slots and short cooldown make it a very flexible tool. This bit is now void as it's no longer attainable.


Safeguard is one of the best canteen skills for those very hard quests, the skill gives you an extra feint that if consumed has no consequences. You won't be able to get it right away, but grab it as soon as you can. The canteen ingredients consist of 6 alcohols which you more than likely won't have. You can find the list of ingredients here.[monsterhunterworld.wiki.fextralife.com] As for how to get them you can figure that out yourself quite easily from there.

Here's where you're going to get some super rare materials that will allow you to augment your weapons and some of your armor. All the really good stuff is Master Rank 100 locked right now, but you can still get some nice stuff like the Affinity augment and/or the Defense augment for your rarity 12 weapons. I'm not going to explain how it works but just know that there are two quests you need to complete to unlock both the Volcanic and Winter area. I recommend leveling up the Desert, Coral, and Forest regions. I'd suggest only leveling up the forest to level 3 to get the Yian Garuga assignment but that's up to you. The Coral and Desert areas will give you access to some nice materials. If you're planning on committing to the long run spending time here is near-essential, in order for the MR 99 quest that allows you to reach 100 to show up you must have a cumulative level of 12.

At MR 100 you will have the ability to double your upgrade level for Rarity 12 armor pieces (this is very very helpful for your first time around.) and gain health regen augments for your weapons letting you heal 7.5% of the damage you deal instantly back as health. Until then, my suggestion is combining the affinity augment and the defense augment, not for the defense but for the pseudo Divine Blessing, this can also be swapped out for the element augment if your weapon uses element to a nice degree.

I won't lie though, this is definitely the most tedious part of the game but I'd drag yourself through it.


There are some things you can do to level each area up quite quickly. I recommend saving a loadout specifically for the Guiding Lands with both Fortify and Geologist Lvl 1. Fortify because there's almost no penalty for dying, and Geologist Lvl 1 because for some reason parts dropped on floor count as bonepiles or something, as such Geologist Lvl 1 allows you to pick up parts twice doubling your rewards.

The Desert is a very good region to level up, especially for the very powerful Challenger Charm and it also happens to be one of the easiest. The Desert region happens to contain Barroth and Jyuratodus, but mostly Barroth. Barroth is a Desert specific monster that covers himself in mud,
meaning he provides a nice chunk of experience for the region. Watermoss, the Slinger Ammo, can almost instantly destroy the mud, netting you a lot of region experience quickly. There are a bunch of tricks to level each Region but this one is by far the quickest.

As long as you're using a Rarity 12 weapon I recommend quickly grabbing the Defense augment simply because it can be grabbed almost immediately from Paolumu.


So now that you're MR 24+ and you've beaten the main story you can enjoy the fun post-game content. The Steamworks gains its x10 option, this will be the best way of acquiring quick money, low tier decorations, melding tickets (Can be redeemed for any basic item at the melding lady), and basic consumables. The fuel you'd need in order to actually make this worthwhile can all be found in the Guiding Lands. However, the best way to farm fuel is the Event Quest "Farewell to Zinogre" The quest features a Zinogre that will only drop fuel for the Steamworks and Trade-In Eggs. If you were ever struggling to maintain a decent stockpile of any of these items this will solve your problems.

I'd say if you wanna take a break from the game now would be the time to do it. The story is over and it's gonna be a quick bit before the action really gets going. You'll be spending a lot of this time fine tuning your skills and getting all your gear in order and I won't lie, it will be pretty boring at times. So if you wanna take a break, this is where it should happen. It's not a race, you have all the time in the world, don't feel like you have to do this if you don't want to.

Getting to MR 100 is going to be a decently long journey. If you helped your friends out getting whatever their materials they need, or helped out random SOS flares you should've accumulated a hefty chunk of XP that shortens this journey a lot. F*ck around, have fun, try dumb builds just do things until you get there. One secret they don't really tell you is that SOS flares over the 10 minute mark have like no XP penalty and you still earn roughly the full amount. The Guiding Lands is another great place to earn XP (As tedious as it is) and you need to get a cumulative level of 12 across your areas in order for Field Team Leader to give you the final quest that raises your MR cap.

Along the journey things will get harder, Alatreon and Fatalis especially, will test your will, commitment, and knowledge of game mechanics. But conquering these obstacles and mastering them is and will be one of the most satisfying things you do.

TL;DR: Best is Guiding Lands but Elder Dragons, Tempered Monsters, Multiple Monsters one hunt, and SOS flares over the 10 minute mark also work.


Take this time to finalize a strong build. Try piecing together offensive skills like Critical Eye, Weakness Exploit, and Agitator. If you can, mix them alongside some quality of life skills like Evade Window, Divine Blessing, and Free Meal. I recommend always keeping Health Boost 3, as the monsters at this point are designed with you having it. Most people during this time opt for 3 pieces of Teostra and 2 pieces of Raging Brachy which is probably the nicest combo you can get right now (Depending on your weapon of course) Though that's quite nice and comfortable you don't have to follow it.

TLDR: For big damage late game go for crits. Try to always have Health Boost 3. There's a nice guide here by DrBonifarz

The important thing is finding something that feels good where you can take some hits and deal some of your own right back. All I ask is that you stay away from Defense Boost please for the love of god, use Fortify, Evade Window, or Divine Blessing instead. I don't blame a lot of people who go for it because the late game monsters hit really really hard without roughly 1000 defense but honestly you get more value for both Divine Blessing and Fortify. Some people even when they have full Fatalis keep it for some reason that I can't comprehend even though the difference between 1100 defense and 1400 is small as ♥♥♥♥ it's whatever. Though I can't stop you and you can do what you want, I'm telling you it's not worth it.

Fortify should put you to 1000+ after one death if your armor is upgraded and will boost your attack as a bonus. Evade Window increases your I-Frames as well as most attacks that contain I-Frames such as the Longsword's Foresight Slash (Evasion Mantle + Evade Window 5 gives Foresight Slash a full second of I-Frames) With Evade Window 5 I find most can turn their brain off half the time and just go full unga bunga. Lvl 3 Divine Blessing is a 25% chance for 50% less damage and Lvl 5 is a 40% of reducing damage by 60%.

For when you should do Special Assignments these are my recommendations:
*All of these are assumed that you are going at it solo except for Safi. Though doing Safi solo is more than possible it's quite time consuming unless you know what you're doing.

Dawn's Triumph is one that the uninitiated will be somewhat surprised about. Believe it or not the Alatreon found in this quest[mhworld.kiranico.com] actually has less health than a Master Rank Great Jagras[mhworld.kiranico.com]. I recommend using it as practice before the actual fight. The quest is non-repeatable and though it has less hp than a Great Jagras it's still Alatreon at heart and has all of his high damaging attacks.

At MR 100 you'll gain access to the health regen and armour augments. They aren't required and are still doable without them but I'd say around like (I'm pulling this number out of nowhere don't take it seriously) 70-80% of the playerbase probably isn't able to do it even semi-consistently and no one should blame anyone for it.


The main thing I'd suggest for attempting Fatalis and Alatreon early or anything else just in general is to have roughly 1000 defense. This is somewhat tricky to do before MR 100, especially while finding a way to keep good damage and/or comfort. I've seen some people grab the Frostfang Barioth helm and augment it which I honestly think is a pretty solid idea. As it's rarity 11 it only requires a regular Spiritvein Gem and can net you a nice defense bonus without getting in the way of whatever armor skill you feel you need while providing Critical Eye, slots, and Punishing Draw. The main thing I'd suggest is Fortify, the chances of you winning are quite against you, so you might as well put the idea that death is inevitable into your plans. I know I'm repeating myself but try to avoid using Defense Boost, if you have to use it I'd say cap it out at Lvl 3 or use it only if you have a Hard Defense Boost +4.


I recommend saving these two for either Fatalis equipment or Raging Brachy. More or less, there are two Celestial prints that are guaranteed and easy to acquire that I recommend saving for whenever you're in a pinch as they are only rewarded once. Using the Camera the old man gives you in Seliana two of his requests reward Celestial Wyvern Prints.

The first is rewarded for taking a picture of Velkhana while she is freezing some birds to death. This is easily done using the optional quest unlocked after fighting her and camp 15. Simply start the hunt, walk outside camp 15 to the left and wait for her to arrive. So long as you don't aggro her the first thing she'll do is walk over and use her ice breath on the birds giving you an easy print.

The second is a little trickier but you have to take a picture of Zingore, howling at the moon at midnight in the Ancient Forest. This one's a little trickier, and for the quest I recommend The Wrath of Thunder Descends. This one's tricky because it relies on the time of day.

Everyone struggles with different monsters. Here I will attempt to give what little bits of advice I have to help you overcome any roadblocks starting from Low Rank all the way to the very end of Master Rank.These will not be complete guides to each monster as that would take forever but rather an overview and perhaps some little tidbits that might help. I recommend always checking the wikis to see if they have something helpful to say about your monster. Other than that the only thing I can say is have patience and the willingness to adapt as necessary.

I'll also try to put a "Weapon Bias" bit at the top of each section. Almost every monster has a bias, where certain weapons have an advantage against it. These advantages can be big or small, and I will not be going into a lots of detail because of the disparity in each bias. These are also my opinions and you are more than free to disagree with them.

Weapon Bias: Lance, Charge Blade

After asking a good 13 or so people who they thought the hardest fights were for their first time around, Diablos was surprisingly high. A surprisingly good 7 people said they thought he was "annoying and difficult." I first played through the game with Lance so I had no clue what they were talking about. But having played with more of the weapons I can say Lance and Charge Blade definitely have an advantage here due to their shields and counter options. Other weapons have to figure out other ways to avoid the underground moves. Diablos as a whole kind of just checks if you've learned to superman dive. If you can do that reliably, the fight can be made pretty easy. The alternative is that if you have Screamer Sacs, you can make Screamer Pods which punish it for diving underground.

This monster also has like a decently high stun value. Keep an eye on its animations, most of them have a long windup with a very telling animation.

TL;DR Just superman dive lmao

Weapon Bias: Nothing too big I'd say.

Nergigante, like the previous monster, showed up when I asked people who they struggled with in High Rank, and also like the previous monster is very good at making sure you know how to superman dive. Though overall he's much more deadly than Diablos, the trick is to keep an eye on his spikes as they grow in. When they fully grow in your weapon will bounce off them unless the area is weakened with the clutch claw or if you have some other means of removing weapon bounce. Almost all of his attack animations have a big tell for what attack he's performing, be it raising, and/or wiggling the body part. This goes for nearly all of his attacks.

Earlier I mentioned bringing Astera Jerky, it's quite useful here as his spikes can inflict bleed. The jerky can be used to instantly cure bleed and any red in your health bar.

Weapon Bias: Nothing really, maybe Lance/CB? But only for Blackveil.

Vaal Hazak is very much one of the trickiest monsters to fight due the first few times around due to the effluvium mechanic that reduces your maximum health drastically. If I'm honest, the simple trick to this fight is miasma decorations or free meal + nulberries. I'd say his most deadly attack is the downward breath. He gets on his back legs and breaths down, unlike many other breath attacks this one cannot be avoided by clutch clawing to his wings. Slinger Torches can be utilized to lessen the amount of Effluvium in the air.

In terms of specifics; For shield, guard up is required for some of his attacks, Elderseal is decently helpful as once it kicks in the passive tick damage will stop until he manages to regain his strength. If you can, try to stay on his sides as it's somewhat difficult for him to punish you and it leaves you with something of a safezone.

Blackveil Vaal Hazak is a much more difficult target but once again the fight is almost trivialized by miasma decos. His supernova is quite deadly as it explodes in a donut shape, leaving a safe zone below him. If you're fighting him without miasma decos it is imperative that you get below him when he performs this nova. Overall the safezone is still there, but the passive tick damage is much more noticeable, especially when he regains his effluvium and takes a deep breath. The downward breath is a little more deadly and has 3 ticks depending on how close you are which is something you should remember if your weapon has any counter options.

Weapon Bias: Once again, I'd argue none.

So according to the Fextra Wiki this is the "hardest mandatory fight in Iceborne" and I'd say that description is pretty accurate. She can be pretty cruel the first couple of fights, but once you learn her openings she's pretty easy. The main things you gotta watch out for are her ice stream vibe-check™ attacks and anything that even remotely involves the tail. The stream attacks tend to go through a surprising amount of the environment rendering natural cover near-useless for an annoying amount of the time.


Try to play it a little safer when she's got her armor, as that's when she gets access to most of her powerful attacks. For more specifics on that I recommend checking the wiki. Any of her attacks that aren't utilizing her body can usually be avoided by clutch clawing to her wings. Whenever she flies up, roars, and refreshes her ice armor, you can usually get a free clutch claw attack just by grabbing on to her during its startup. The rings she creates for this attack can jumped into after they explode.If you're running Lance or something that relies heavily on blocks you really have to watch out for the Ice pool, as even with Guard-Up this attack cannot be blocked. Another thing to keep in mind is that even when the tail is cut off she can regrow one using ice so it's not worth targeting it too much but is at the very least satisfying to cut off.


If you don't want to mass consume nulberries your first time around (I swear Iceblight is just a mindset), the skill Resuscitate basically negates both water and iceblight while as a bonus giving you more iframes so long as you are blighted.

Rajang Weapon Bias: Lance, Greatsword, Ranged weapons, Blunt weapons.
Furious Rajang Weapon Bias: Blunt weapons, Greatsword, Ranged weapons.

Rajang/Furious Rajang is currently(2021/09/07) my most hunted monster, and easily one of my favorites. The sheer amount of chaos one creature can create is a sight to behold. Many people find him annoying because of how mobile, unpredictable, and different he is from the other monsters in this game but I love him for it. His mobility and fast recovery allows him to dodge many powerful attacks before they can land.

He breaks a lot of unsaid rules in terms of what he's able to do like rebounding off of walls when staggered. He's only 3 star to ice and is immune to all elements except water. One thing I especially recommend avoiding is trying to grab onto him, as he can grab you if you try to go for his face or linger too long on his arms. Overall he's a good lesson on getting hits in when it counts.

For starters with shield weapons, Guard Up is required to block his lasers and I recommend it while you're learning his moves. Your main openings for Flinch Shots are when he's recovering from spinning, recovering (or performing) any laser attack, the belly flop, the grab, and the super slam. Otherwise for the most part he can combo moves into each other but always has something that will end the chain and have him taking a quick breath.

When you stay grabbed onto his arms for too long he get a free pin as he grabs you off, this can be blocked if you have a shield weapon, but I recommend simply rolling just as it's about to hit you.

Lance is good overall but a unique trick you can do to abuse his unique mechanic is keep him trapped in an endless loop trying to kill you. Whenever he grabs you off his arms and throws you on the ground, you can actually recover fast enough to clutch claw counter him. He can then grab you off of him again and repeat this process an "infinite" amount of times while your teammates attack during the loop. Furious Rajang is unfortunately immune to this as when he's angry the grab attack changes to a much more lethal one.


If Rajang is transitioning to another area you can always safely grapple to him.

After getting really angry he'll do a big roar and his arms will turn red. When this happens most weapons will bounce off even. Weapons that power up are mostly exempt from this like Switch Axe's Sword mode, and Lance's Power Guard Thrust. When he's like this he gets access to more powerful attacks, and has a lot more energy in general. Now the Handler will repeatedly tell you to hit him in the head and she's right so I recommend doing that.

In terms of advice, pay attention to his combos, he can only keep going for so long. So, like a fighting game, figure out when it's your turn to press buttons. Try to stay just outside of his reach and to his front sides. If you stand behind him he might jump backwards or do a move that turns him around before chaining it into a move on you.

Weapon Bias: Nothing by like a huge margin.


Definitely not the most difficult boss, but doing it solo is not recommended, he has his healing mechanic. If you can, set your lobby filter to Safi 'jiiva and try to find a Safi lobby. In terms of weapons I personally bring a Dragon weapon for Elderseal in order to drain some quick energy. In terms of decorations I'd say just follow the wiki and go with Health Boost (Because damage), Partbreaker (Parts broken = More rewards), and Fire Resistance (He do fire) if you have room for it. If you're using a "Light Weapon" as in something that doesn't weaken a part in one hit I highly recommend Clutch Claw Boost.


Safi'jiiva's health scales as follows: 20,000 Solo/26,800 Duo/40,000 3-4 Players. The duo scaling is something to note as it's far less than the usual duo scaling. Given the right build and partner you can get a pretty quick kill. It's a fun little challenge to get down.

Try to knock him towards the boulders if they haven't been used. The boulders do 5,000 energy each which means that if you can hit him with both that's all the energy in the first area gone. Elderseal will drain 1,500 energy of the 10,000 per area. However, according to the wiki it's near-impossible to proc more than twice but that still puts a decent chunk of work in.

Starting in the second phase Safi will get angry at whoever in the last little bit has dealt the most damage to him. This is good, you want him to be angry as otherwise he can think straight, and when he does he moves a lot more radically and as a result is a lot more annoying to kill.

Don't be disappointed if it's not you, there's too many things in this game that affect damage output and I recommend just enjoying the fact that you can hit him without him focusing on you too much.

As you progress Safi's attacks will get more deadly as he gets more desperate. Personally(and also with little evidence so feel free to yell at me), I think the most difficult move people struggle with is his ring attack. He gets up on his hind legs, and slams both his forearms into the ground, creating explosive rings. The timing is finicky, but you can jump into a ring after it's exploded before the next one does, or even safer sheathe your weapon and superman dive. Some weapons will obviously have an easier time dealing with it than others.


Though it's doable solo and duo, the siege is meant to be done alongside many people (Even though the lobbies tend to get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ after a while). Like it or not, the easiest the way to kill him is through a lobby full of people who wish to do the same.

Anyway onto the more general advice.

If you happen to be the target of his anger try to be careful, not just in a survival kind of way but a teamwork kind of way. Safi will be focused on you and as such will maneuver himself around you. Also keep in mind that you have a team that wants to hit the monster, and they can't hit the monster if it won't stop moving around and doing dangerous attacks all the time.

If you're ever in the situation where you want to bring Safi somewhere you can always Flinch Shot him to steal his attention and then hopefully after he's moved he will return to the original target. You won't always have the best team, so if you find a good one I stick with them. Bad teammates are something in every game but it's not that bad here. Don't get mad at people, we all have bad days, and some people just wanna play differently than others. If you don't like your group go find a new one.

The Golden Goddess, Mommy, Gucci Girl, Kulve Taroth
Weapon Bias: Nothing really worth mentioning.

MR Kulve is easily one in my top 3 favorite fights in this game for everything from the music, her arena, her moves, those big beautiful hitzones, and her gear. While her moveset is pretty limited, some pieces are pretty tricky for a lot of people and I can somewhat understand why. Before going into the moves though I wanna mention something. One thing I don't see enough people utilizing in her arena are the bugs on the ceiling. They just kinda chill there and are pretty good for moving around if she's in a mobile mood.



Alright for starters, I'm gonna say pay attention, don't get vibe checked by her quick breath attack. When she rolls, you can evade by sticking to her arms. In her first phase you really really wanna hit her chest, doing so will cause her golden armor to heat up. For her lava pool attacks, either evade by clutch clawing to her arms, or repeatedly superman diving. Not every weapon has a fast sheathing animation so I recommend trying to clutch claw if you can if that's the case.

*I take no damage when landing despite the lava still being there visually.
She has one of the more unique supernovas in her third phase, moving to the pole, center of the room, she performs a quick breath of fire, causing molten gold to fall from the ceiling. She can use this quite frequently compared to other novas so be careful. It can be easily avoided by performing a superman dive or going to the edge of the arena. Make sure to pay attention to her while the gold is midscreen as she can get an attack off while your vision is obscured.

Weapon Bias: All Ranged Weapons

Raging Brachy is definitely one of the more annoying bosses. His armor is one of the best sets in the game which makes him almost mandatory if you want that really good damage output. Honestly, I'm still not the best at this fight. I think in terms of what I recommend for dodging is superman dives and rolling through his legs.

What else I can recommend only boils down to ranged weapons definitely having an advantage for this fight. If you are a ranged weapon I plead, highly recommend, that you use Pierce ammo because this is one long boi.

Other than that you can use Watermoss to cleanse the slime from his body, but don't think of that as mandatory. The Rocksteady mantle allows you to ignore the stun for the final phase and get some big damage off while he's stuck in the animation. Finally in terms of decos Anti-Blast and Fire resistance can be quite handy.

Weapons Bias: Dual Blades, Insect Glaive, Bow and then Longsword
Bro why the ♥♥♥♥ does Lance have no element, I went from Lance to Switch Axe and Longsword and this is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. You can knock him down in sub 30 seconds easily with dual blades. Why do I play this garbage weapon.

Returning from Tri and with all the elements this time it's Alatreon. He's an interesting monster, definitely high up there both in my favorites, and in difficulty. Fighting Alatreon requires you to either brute force him, knowing you'll probably die to the nuke, or more preferably, change your build to carry much more element. Assuming your MR 100+, using melee, have access to augments and health regen, I recommend Safi+Teo with a Safi or Kjarr weapon for your first time around. The fight is more than doable before MR 100 but is definitely a lot harder.

If you're doing it solo and brute-forcing it, I recommend Teo+R.Brach with a R.Bracky weapon. Obviously you're going to want to have fortify. Please, please, please do not SOS with this strategy in mind.

The only trick I can really give for this fight is to just keep at it when you're sure you have a build and be aggressive as possible. If he's flying and not angry you can get a free Flinch Shot that will drag him to the ground. If he is angry, pay attention to his air slams, and remember that if he's calm it's two, and if he's angry its three.

The best times to attack him are when he creates the rings that explode from the center, sprays fire from right-left/left-right, stands still summoning lighting around him, jumps up to spin and shoot fire/oil, and my personal favorite, jumping up to spray ice on the ground. Learn to punish these with your weapon and the clutch claw.

In regards to some interactions, if you're Switch Axe, and you start the ZSD before his horns start electrocuting you it doesn't always kick you off depending on the timing and you just ignore the lighting damage for some reason. Whereas if you're Lance and you clutch counter before the lightning, the hyper-armor on the claw counter can actually kill you as you're stuck to the lightning rod. It's a great time.

I'm gonna repeat my earlier bit where I mentioned the Alatreon in Dawn's Triumph has less HP than a Great Jagras. I highly recommend practicing on this one until you feel good enough for the real one. You unlock it after seeing Alatreon the first time.

Don't feel bad dying here, this is not an easy fight the first few go-arounds, and the amount of people who have typed "b*llshit fight" in chat is more than I can count. The fight takes a bit to learn but once you learn it, it can be really fun.

Weapon Bias: Switch Axe
ZSD Spam is OP as ♥♥♥♥ and when you get the right build for it Fatalis can't do much about you and Switch Axe has the ability to power up the Axe for insane part damage.

More or less, the final boss of Iceborne, Fatalis is an absolute ♥♥♥♥♥ of a boss the first few rounds. I would really really not advise fighting him until you're MR 100+. In terms of armor I recommend Teo+Brachy, Kulve+Teo. Choose whatever weapon you want , but I recommend Safi, or Raging Brachy. The skills I recommend aside from the usual stuff are Fire Res 3, Agitator, Evade Window, Partbreaker, and maybe Heavy Artillery on a mantle. Should you acquire some Fatalis gear, feel free to use it but don't forget that Fatalis is very weak to fire and his armor shows it.

Only do this when you're feeling it, as it can genuinely be mentally draining doing it over and over. All you need is the Ghillie Mantle, a Farcaster, and Heavy Artillery. Personally, I put Heavy Artillery on another mantle but you can do whichever one you want. On the hunt start you can go down with the Ghillie Mantle, place bombs on the pillar below the right-side cannon, turn the cannon once to the right, load it fully, move to the second cannon, turn it right three times, load it fully, and finally move back to the first cannon and fire it. If you have the Heavy Artillery on another mantle whip that out just before you fire. Fatalis will roar and run over to you, the cannonballs will hit, and you must move to the second cannon as he stops, from there, fire the second cannon and as long as Heavy Artillery is active this will guarantee a knockdown giving you time to smack him as you please. When he gets up, Flinch Shot him, and then Farcaster back to grab normal mantles.

Around the arena are several important things, the barricade, broken pillars, the binders, the roaming Ballista, and the Dragonator. The pillars will only somewhat reliably save you from the fan attack, as fireballs sometimes explode off them, but most of the time seem to just ignore them. Ideally, you want to stay close to him almost all the time but he likes to move around a lot so this wont always be possible. Something I recommend keeping in mind is that whenever he does a quick bite with his head, unlike when he charges around on all fours, his body actually has no hitbox.

Try to keep his head in view as with practice you can tell almost exactly what he's going to do by just paying attention to his head. Always try to keep it in your line of sight.

The most unique advice I think I have is that the clutch claw can be used to evade a lot of his attacks. For example, the attack where he breathes fire downwards while standing can be avoided by clutch clawing to any part of his body, including the head. In fact, whenever he does a stream of fire, its safe to be on his head except for one attack in his 3rd phase where he goes in a circle breathing fire, but that's only on one side of his head and because the fire pools up and tickles you. If he does a fireball of some kind it's not only unsafe but you can get one-shot if it's a big one.

During the fight, smack his head, as if you don't than his attacks in phase 3 will be super dangerous. He will recoil twice before the head breaks, if at any point he is knocked down, the knockdown will take priority over the recoil and hide it.

In terms of Flinch Shots he actually goes surprisingly far, do be weary of the corner with the ballista on the ground as there's no wall there, however on the other side there's a small tower that he can be flinched off of. Like Alatreon, so long as he's flying and not angry, you get a free Flinch Shot.

That's pretty much it for Fatalis.

Good Luck,
you'll need it.

Big thanks to anyone/everyone who read through either all of it or at least a part of it. Hopefully you learned something. I know I'm late to the party in terms of writing a guide on the game. More or less this is my way of giving knowledge to those who are just getting into the game or have been playing it for a while. If you feel like there's something I should mention then go ahead and mention it to me. I've been writing this for a while with different mindsets each time I come back to it so it's kind of a mess but at this point I just don't want it to go to waste. Lastly, I'd like to apologize for any spelling errors or inconsistencies in that regard as Steam does not like my Br*tish English and so I either ignored a lot of red lines or caved to to the Amer*can English.

You can find my guide for Rise/Sunbreak here: COMING SOON

(Grouped by Association)Big thanks to:
Kcieco
Corteza

Shadow
Teresa
Jean
Rusty
Stephanie
Swagelle
Mistake

AthenaTheEmpress

CH453R-
Goose
Daniel(Daniel)

Ashen_One

tgirl_terrorist

Seka

That one guy who went "C-C-C-Clare step on me"

And everyone else mentioned or linked to throughout the guide.

Feel free to find me 'in the wild' doing SOS flares or populated sessions with no target. Feel free to grab me, thank me, or yell at me about how I'm wrong or whatever. I don't know hit me with like a "YO IS THAT CLARE" That'd be funny.