Rathalos General Information¶

The Rathalos is a variant of the Rathian, that fights differently enough to earn its place in many, many quests. The first time you’ll face it is during the assignment A Fiery Throne Atop the Forest, which begins after the First Wyverian expedition. After completing this assignment you should unlock the quest When Desire Becomes an Obsession, and you should also be able to talk to the Armory clerk to pick up the quest Redefining the .

So much for Low Rank. In High Rank play, after the mandatory Elder’s Recess expedition you should unlock the quest Rathalos Rematch, allowing you to freely hunt High Rank Rathalos in a safe quest format. At around the same time, talk to the Armor clerk to pick up another quest featuring this monster - The Red and Blue Crew.

After hunting a High Rank Rathalos you should also get the quest Special Arena: HR Rathalos.

Rathalos Strengths and Weaknesses¶

The Rathalos’s head is the most vulnerable part of its anatomy, followed by the wings and tail, which are moderately susceptible to damage. The head, wings and body are all breakable, and the tail is severable.

Rathalos is weak to Dragon damage and resistant to Fire, unsurprisingly enough.

While not terribly susceptible to any ailments, Sleep, Paralysis and Stun are more effective than Poison and Blast.

Standard Rathian preparations are called for, but even moreso with Rathalos, as it’s much fonder of using its fire breath than Rathian (although not quite as much as Azure Rathalos) without losing any desire to smack you with its poisonous tail. Protecting yourself from both damage-over-time effects via a Fire Resistance score of twenty or higher (to make yourself immune to immolation) and three ranks of Poison Resistance will signiciantly simplify the fight. Flash Pods are also highly recommended, as Rathalos enjoys flying about more than Rathian, to the point where hitting the aerial beast can be a chore with some weapons.

Rathalos Attacks¶

The Rathalos at first glance looks awfully similar to a Rathian. At second and third glance, too! In fact, the Rathalos is virtually identical to the Rathian, although their behaviors are different enough to warrant mention. First, however, the similarities. You can expect most of the same attacks from the Rathalos that you saw the Rathian used, including the standing fireball attack (sometimes in a triple-fireball variant), the “pace-back-and-forth” “attack”, the aerial tail flip along with the standard bites and tail sweeps.

Where the Rathalos differs is in how it prosecutes these attacks, largely preferring to stay aerial, where it’ll perform flying charges, clawing dives, breath fire both as a fireball and as an arc, this last attack mostly being close range. In addition, the Rathalos also has a diagonal aerial tail swipe, although it’s much less common than the vertical one, which it’ll spam even more relentlessly than the Rathian did. Fortunately, being in the air often means it’s less likely to use its ground-based attacks. Like the Rathian, the Rathalos makes liberal use of fire attacks and can inflict poison with its tail attacks.

Since it tends to remain flying a good portion of the time, Flash Pods will prove to be invaluable for this fight. On top of that, you can save yourself a lot of grief by wearing armor with the Fire Resistance or Poison Resistance skills. The Rathalos will still have no trouble dealing damage to you, either way, but eliminating at least one of the damage-over-time effects and mitigating fire damage will help quite a bit, and at this point in the game, you should be able to grind for an craft armor that suits your needs well enough.

The rare drop for Low Rank Rathalos is a Rathalos Plate, which is a very rare carve or reward. You can increase the odds of getting this material if you break the head or body, or carve the tail. You can also get Rathalos Plates from High Rank Rathalos, but it’s a harder battle with less odds of a Rathalos Plate drop, since breaking High Rank Rathalos’s parts won’t reward one.

High Rank Rathalos, instead, gives you a Rathalos Ruby when you break the head, body or when you care the tail. It’s also a very rare drop and carve.