Escaton Judgement: Looking Back at Monster Hunter's Biggest Controversy - Heavy Wings

[@HeavyWings]

Hope you all enjoy this video! Remember to like, subscribe and share! Also check out my other videos! kzbin.info/aero/PLiycajElJ3oagkdmRzyeNPRH-85qp9cFn&si=n8njwjjUPSlLkhoV

[@nothing-of5yc]

I have a question are elemental weapons useful if the monster isn't weak or resistant to the element in monster hunter 3U?

[@SwaxGuy]

But it is the case with alatreon you can raw dog him all you want if your good enough with four players you can beat him before the first escaton

[@TheKnightDrag0n]

He is still the great wall in iceborne, to this very days you can still see full parties going into the alatreon fight with non elemetal weapons, and getting wiped 5 minutes after.

[@HeavyWings]

I'm surprised that's still happening, surely they know by now?

[@Pokecraftking]

​@HeavyWings eh, new players sometimes just go full "brain off" or ignore the npcs and don't pick up on the element until a bit later, and some people see the people running pure raw sets for speed runs and think "I'll do that too!"

[@z-uwu4687]

@@HeavyWings yea he’s right been doing hard carries for AT velk fatilis and Alatreon and new hunters keep making the same mistakes 😂 they learn but it’s funny so many people making the same mistakes as launch Honestly it’s nice seeing more people experience him

[@pizzahunter69]

I think they changed that. You don't need to beat him to progress to Fatalis. Or was that not what you meant with him being a wall?

[@z-uwu4687]

@@pizzahunter69 you don’t but you still need to watch the cutscene from entering the fight to get the quest for the weak version then slay that one

[@1000Tomatoes]

I'm a pretty casual player, so I didn't know elemental damage was bad in world and used them because it just feels better to use your knowledge of the monster to prepare a specific weapon to fight it with. In that vein I think elements being bad seems like bad design.

[@davidvelez9124]

I absolutely agree, as a veteran for most of the franchise i that bringing proper elements with a elemental build regardless of weapon should be the most effective way to fight instead of just making a crit build and calling it a day

[@zacharyhansen8250]

I wish element damage was just a boost on top of raw damage that you could build for optionally if you want to absolutely max out your damage.

[@william_sun]

Elemental damage isn't actually bad in Iceborne. In fact, the strongest elemental weapons are stronger than the strongest non-elemental weapons for more than half of the game's weapon types. The problem isn't that elemental damage is bad; it's that elemental damage isn't good enough to make elemental weapons worth farming for for the average player. For most of the weapon types where elemental weapons are stronger than non-elemental weapons, the difference is only on the order of 10%, and for most players, the difference between completing a hunt in 20 minutes and completing a hunt in 22 minutes simply doesn't matter.

[@TwoPumpChumper]

@@william_sunare you calling fatalis an elemental weapon because it has dragon element?

[@william_sun]

@@TwoPumpChumper No, Fatalis weapons are typically considered to be raw weapons in builds because their Dragon elemental damage is relatively weak compared to "real" elemental weapons. However, I was probably confusing the meta at various points of the game's lifecycle when I made the "more than half" statement because of how long ago this was, and it's actually only about a third of the weapon types at post-Fatalis endgame. Specifically, in post-Fatalis Iceborne, Dual Blades, Bow, Hunting Horn, and Charge Blade are considered to be elemental weapon types where matching the monster's elemental weakness is often going to out-perform the Fatalis weapon. In earlier metagames (post-Kjarr World through post-Alatreon Iceborne) elemental weapons went in and out of the meta for most other weapon types. Additionally, Light Bowgun has multiple different playstyles based on your preferred ammo types, and elemental ammo types have been in the meta for the majority of the game's lifespan. (The only reason why elemental ammo is not viable for Heavy Bowgun is because you run out of ammo too quickly and can't carry enough ammo and crafting materials at once to finish late-game hunts without restocking.)

[@DaisZX]

The invisible modifier was the part that angered me most. At least at the time of release. I used charge blade and build specifically for big elemental SAED damage. a week later I found out that the SAED attack specifically was crippled against Alatreon. I adapted and used other attacks and can now easily solo the first elemental break for a whole party. It was how the in-game damage was deceitful and I could never get complete information from the game itself that soured me to the experience. Had I not seen the data online, "I need to do more damage" would have been inflated to absurd levels using what I believed to be my best elemental attack. Call it deceitful, call it counterintuitive, call it artificial difficulty. Something here is wrong and goes against the grain.

[@HeavyWings]

0.1x modifier go BRRRRRRRRRR No honestly I kind of laughed when I saw that, like wowww they really did not want actually good elemental weapons to dominate there, huh?

[@johan9428]

CB has one of the lowest elemental damage requirements to depower EJ (you need to do 638 elemental damage for the first depower). While elemental phials have a 0.1 multiplier, all the other attacks of CB have a 1 multiplier (only GS and GL have a more generous multiplier, 1.1), including the additional hits from savage axe (which are physical hits, not phial related). Thus, it is stupidly easy to depower EJ with CB when playing savage axe. The one thing which still bothers me is the fact that Alatreon has bad elemzones (22 of ice/fire weakness at most in fire/ice active) and good hitzones, meaning that you are forced to lower your overall damage just for the sake of passing EJ. For CB, the best CB to use to pass EJ and do maximum damage is Frostfang CB (thanks to its impact phials, purple sharpness and the possibility to put two attack augments on the top of health augment) with a raw focused set, not the Kjarr Ice CB.

[@MenrvaS]

To be fair, SAED has special elemental modifier of 9 instead of 1. Meaning, if they didn't put a 0.1 hidden modifier in there, there would be even more outrage because the meta would shifted heavily to elemental CB. Without that, CB can easily topple Alatreon with one SAED in solo and that is not good for everyone else. Yeah... doesn't excuse the fact that the modifier was hidden though.

[@tratamarack441]

Yeah, i also hate that elemental SAED got done dirty like that, especially when most endgame content favors savage axe more.

[@zhenfeng1991]

UP and down swing damage is crazy but yea kinda boring

[@aidans8493]

Frostfang releasing after Alatreon is still a really weird decision to me

[@HeavyWings]

It's one of those things where both monsters are added together but the quest for Frostfang was released a month later. Staggered releases like that can get people to keep playing.

[@lilfuzzballa]

@@HeavyWings yeah but Frostfang didnt feel tough at all. Feels like Frostfang should have been added in the very first update along with Rajang.

[@Willzb-xk4ew]

What's frostfang?

[@lilfuzzballa]

@@Willzb-xk4ew It's Frostfang Barrioth.

[@Willzb-xk4ew]

@@lilfuzzballa ah don't think I've fought that one yet

[@Bones_MaIone]

Honestly, the main thing I dislike about Escaton is that it has become engrained into Alatreon himself. When people think of Alatreon, they don't think of the well telegraphed moves, the super satisfying hitboxes or his outstanding design. They think of Escaton. I really wish Escaton didn't exist, because wether it's good or not, the controversy around it dominates Alatreon discussion. And it really should not.

[@cchieffkiefbeff]

Also puts a major dent in alatreon ever returning, hell be met with boos and hate right from the get go because everyone will expect escaton, even if he doesnt have it in a later installment. Also yeah, rvetone just thinks of escaton nowadays when talking about alatreon, and frankly i think its because the game makes you focus on it so much; its this looming thing that you always know that if you dont care enough about it then it will just cart you instantly, youre basically conditioned to not care about anything that isnt escaton, attacks are just attacks now, a wall that gets in your way of stopping escaton, not the amazing choreographed and visualized actions they actually are; really, everything you have to prepare for is escaton related, its all about escaton Thats my major gripe about iceborne alatreon, basically everything revolves around escaton judgement and whether or not it will kill you, him changing elements isnt a sign of a new and dangerous moveset coming, it just means that now you cant stop escaton effectively anymore, the changing of elements is now something you explicitly want to see as little of as possible Whether or not escaton is good or not, one thing is for certain: in the eyes of the people, alatreon was certainly better off without it, as it has undoubtedly forever smeared his name, went from badass avatar black dragon to that guy with the dps check with mixed receptions

[@robodragon126]

Of course the thing that sets it apart is what people remember, they don't talk about the other things because plenty of other monsters share those same aspects

[@hughmongus6959]

Satisfying hitboxes? Lol, his horn attacks will deal full damage to you while you're clutched onto his tail, I died to that once. "Alatreon hitboxes" is a running joke in my friend group because of his numerous full-body attacks designed to punish clutch claw

[@thechugg4372]

@@hughmongus6959 The thing with alatreon is, I'm pretty sure this is the one boss where different people worked on different attacks, the thunder hitboxes are pixel perfect, something that you almost never see in MH, meanwhile the ice hitboxes are like going back to freedom unite level of hitboxes

[@elfmonster1476]

@@cchieffkiefbeff I don't think it really threatens his odds of returning, since he just won 10th place in the official monster popularity rankings. Even after the Escaton Judgement controversy, he remains more popular than the likes of Mizutsune.

[@DragonHybryd]

Honestly I imagine it would also be less hated in general if shattering the horns both times would also just mean Alatreon couldn't Escaton Judgment and even extended the time before EJ goes off from the 6-ish minute timer to say 12 or 15 after a single horn break, and that could be balanced out by making it significantly easier for ele weapons and harsher ( but not just straight up death) for raw given the "can only break during dragon element mode". hell go for spectacle, do "too much" elemental damage and a horn explodes instead, still stopping EJ. That would also of ment a huge mental relief for both parties with elemental weapon users having that relief significantly sooner. I've been playing more again recently and did a three man and even though being lance I had full access to the head for 12 minutes straight doing between 200- 400 dmg to the head regularly it gets nerve-racking when you KNOW you've passed the break threshold ( 3,697.5 dmg if kiracino is right) and the horns haven't broken the second time after the 1st feels like it breaks the instant Alatreon goes dragon element mode. the other two I played with weren't slouches either and were playing with the right element. I use to play a ton of MMO's and personally have always HATED dps checks (Especially if the fight already has a timer to begin with) since for those it could be (and usually is) an equipment issue and not a skill one (and as mentioned in video it was far too easy to reach Alatreon so very likely equipment issue). while I was one of the people who took full advantage of guiding lands I also played with people who either didn't or couldn't due to time issues (job/ had to restart from the beginning due to save file issue so lost a ton of deco progress) and it really showed how rough EJ is to deal with when it's just 1 person who's prepared. I ended up figuring out how to make a set that could deal with BOTH judgments zero horn breaks (or "best" possibly worse case scenario 1 break) and even though it still works, even with multiplayer scaling, it's ridiculous/ nerve-racking being the only person who can manage worse case but possible to survive scenario. to shorten this up, if Capcom hadn't made the dps check a small secret timer with multiple secret multipliers possibly per weapon that, in essence, one shot and instead a check that you could counter with in multiple ways that didn't one shot with mild preparation (health booster+ and mega/ two mega potions and your good to go like after 1 shut down) he'd absolutely not be as hated. I personally love the fight, I just LOTHE Escaton Judgment specifically for how poorly thought out it is.

[@DiaSynapsid]

I could see Escaton still using its current design if breaking both horns fully disabled it. At the start, you would have to worry about a lot of things, but once you manage to reach that threshold, you just cracked the case. Now, when swapping, it would just be like how it went from x to dragon. A good reward for keeping the flow. Hell I could imagine that in a hunt: one horn, already taken care of. The party gets the topple again. But Alatreon is tricky. The party fails to break the horn before Escaton, and Alatreon swaps elements. Fast forward, Alatreon is back in dragon state, and it is down to the wire. The difference between continuing the hunt or failing. Whether Escaton kills them, or the hunters earn the right to potentially slay it. Alatreon's clock counts down, but BAM! Someone breaks the second horn. The party sighs in relief. No longer will they have to worry about topples, or horn breaks. But the fight isn't over yet, for the Blazing Black Dragon still lurks. Fight Monster Hunters, for everlasting peace!

[@fadingghost9723]

I wish they would disable moves depending on what parts you break more often in Monster Hunter. The first one that comes to mind for me is Velkhana's tail stabs. It doesn't matter if you cut off the tail, it still does them which feels really odd.

[@dessert711]

​@@fadingghost9723 It would be neat if the ice armor mode had the full tail stabs still but the broken armor mode had the shortened stab, because most of the tail spear is made of ice armor anyway. But yeah, I wish there were more responses to broken parts. You cut off an Uragaan or Radobaan tail and they trip during their rolls, and you break the Barioth wings to have it skid when it jumps... Then you break both of the wings of an Azure Rathalos and it just flies up and spits fire like normal. Wing breaks in particular seem rather useless really.

[@hasten4435]

I think its actually impossible to break alatreon’s horn in his first phase as in the game won’t let you

[@DragonHybryd]

@hasten4435 That's why I specified dragon mode

[@FlyingScott]

What I dislike so heavily about fights like Alatreon or the other Sieges is how stating your dislike for them is always met with "hurdur ur just bad". No. Sieges and Alatreon (Fatalis to a lesser extent, he really just seems to be "hit hard, life good") don't follow the patterns thus established by the games. People still dislike Lunastra (mainly) for introducing a two-hit instakill combo and a DPS check in her first assignment when she was introduced to World. Sieges and Alatreon took these ideas, so far foreign to World newcomers and veterans alike, and ran with them for the worse. The game taught us XYZ. People can rightly be taken aback when after countless hours and 20 years of XYZ, there's this sudden moment where we have to perform ABC. You don't scold someone for teaching them how to ride a bike, and after a while of no deviation with your lessons you give them stilts with roller blades on the foot end and they don't perform well.

[@HeavyWings]

It's just a lazy way to dismiss legitimate gripes, and people love saying it because it gives them an ego boost. People get mad at me for emphasising how easy World is whenever I criticise the game, but I pretty much only do it to get ahead of people saying "You only have problems because you're bad". It doesn't stop them unfortunately.

[@robodragon126]

The siege fights and the black dragons probably break this formula people cling to because that's the point, they're considered as monsters stronger then regular elder dragons, you're playing by their rules in their game and these hunts are meant to replicate that

[@kDallas_]

Thats the point

[@raisp6073]

Alatreon gives some people such inflated egos and I do not know why. It has a bs dps check that’s poorly communicated to you tied to a guaranteed kill. Even if you meet the check the attack comes anyway.

[@The_Mewster69]

@@raisp6073Honestly the fact that he could still pull off an Escaton Judgement even if you managed to meet the DPS check rubbed me the wrong way. Would have been a much more satisfying reward to just cancel it out. I still think the biggest crime is that breaking both of his horns doesn’t stop him from switching elements and he can still get a fully powered judgement because of it.

[@carterlazarus813]

I think there is one valid complaint regarding being forced to play a certain way, you aren't allowed to play safe. Having to get an elemental weapon and element set is extremely annoying; but if you're good enough, more basic elemental weapons can be effective. But some people play more defensive playstyles, they don’t mind taking 40 minutes on a quest in exchange for not getting hit as often. While slower, this playstyle can be just as effective. That's why I think it's bad taste that basically all of Iceborne's endgame requires faster, offensive playstyles. You don't need to be a speedrunner; but Safi, Fatalis, Alareon and especially Kulve Taroth cannot be played safe if you want to win. To be clear, I'm pretty happy with how Alatreon and Fatalis taught me how to be a faster hunter, it saves a lot of time in all quests across World and Rise. I get the feeling a lot of formerly defensive players like myself feel the same. BUT there are people who've beaten Alatreon/Fatalis and still feel burned by needing to speed up, and I think that’s valid. Being forced to change playstyles isn't so much an issue of weapon element, it's that people were literally forced to change HOW they play the game

[@londorsblade7241]

I understand the thought process here, but I have to disagree with some points. I think aggressiveness is too often conflated with recklessness in monster hunter. Many hunters build and play aggressively in end game hunts, not from a desire to speedrun, but because they understand that the monster can’t attack you if it’s dead or incapacitated. I would argue that playing aggressively and killing a monster in 20 minutes is significantly safer than playing defensively and killing a monster in 40 minutes. That’s an extra 20 minutes you have to stay alive, which I believe offsets the perceived safety of defensive play. Additionally, passive play also means less topples, stuns, and statuses inflicted. I find that a lot of newer players end up surviving more when they start playing more aggressively. This is because they are interacting with the monster more frequently in putting themselves in situations where they can be damaged. As a result, they learn movesets and openings much faster, and are able to safely capitalize on them more consistently. I think capcom knew this going into Alatreon’s release, and used Alatreon as a stepping stool to “train” players for Fatalis, who also requires higher DPS. Fatalis was obviously going to be the capstone and hardest fight in the game, so the 30 minute timer made sense. However, I do think Capcom did a disservice to players by nerfing the hell out of the Alatreon side quest that unlocks Fatalis. Just my two cents.

[@carterlazarus813]

@@londorsblade7241 I never conflated aggressiveness with recklessness? If I did, I probably wouldn't like the playstyle or find it very effective. Right now I can go out and kill any monster in ~10 minutes, often without getting hit. increase to ~15 for elders, including Alatreon, Fatalis, Primordial, etc. It's effective when you know a hunt but I certainly wouldn't call it riskless. Playing less passive can get more topples and shorter enrage states; but that itself is meant to be the reward for good offense. Alatreon and Fatalis have their own topples and rewards for good play, so adding a timer on top of that is unnecessary. There are already things to encourage a more rapid DPS which allows natural building of a hunters skills and speed, so what's the point of making unnatural additions to fights to force this speed instead of the ways most hunts already seamlessly encourage it? There are also still benefits to playing slower. Your first few hunts of a monster should be slower so you can learn the fight without putting yourself in as many risky situations, plus a slower hunt can give a player time to target parts more directly for part breaks, something you flat-out cannot do with Alatreon if you want to hit your element check and break the head because its other parts are so far away from these important areas and you have such limited time. I have killed over 100 Alatreon. I have seen the tail come off 4 times. Wings broken a couple dozen times. If you could slow down a couple minutes to target those parts better like you can with nearly every other monster, there'd be no issue. Using Alatreon's DPS check as a stepping stone to Fatalis's short timer just calls into question again why Fatalis needed such a short timer when it already has the most health, highest DPS and overall hardest fight of any monster in the entire game. Alatreon is literally my favorite hunt in the entire series. But there will always be arguments for a slow playstyle; and when there's nothing wrong with slower play in any other hunt, forcing everyone to play at a similar pace with no warning takes control away from the player in regards I find more egregious than forcing certain weapon attributes (especially when you can beat Alatreon without element if you're good enough, I've done it solo once just to see if I could and I'm by no means a speedrunner).

[@cheesy_potato9243]

I think it could be argued that alatreon making you have a more aggressive playstyle is a preparation for fatalis with his short quest timer+his enormous hp but I don’t like getting too into these arguments Those are just my thoughts

[@londorsblade7241]

I didn’t say YOU conflated it, I just said IT gets conflated. Several of the points you made here are good, such as Fatalis and Alatreon having their own mechanics that reward good play. Taking advantage of those mechanics does require more aggressive play, though. The built in timer for fatalis and hidden timer for escaton judgement help encourage more aggressive play, which I believe was a strong design choice as players were rewarded for going out of their comfort zones. Personally, I appreciate it when developers challenge players by creating challenging and unique experiences. They often times receive negative feedback at first, but age incredibly well. Needing to bring elemental weapons encouraged players to go back and hunt monsters they hadn’t fought in ages and grind out new armor sets, try new weapons. Killing alatreon and fatalis brought such a sense of accomplishment, and still continues to do so as they remain incredibly popular monsters to hunt even today. To your point about hunting monsters slowly at first: I think this is very valid. I personally hunt more aggressively to start, as I believe I learn windows and openings faster by pushing the limits. However, I imagine most players do play slower until they are used to a monster. The point of my post wasn’t to pick an argument with you, it was just a great prompt for me to share my thought on slower, defensive play being riskier than calculated, aggressively play due to providing the monster more opportunities to kill you. I imagine that this doesn’t apply to a seasoned hunter like yourself, but I do see it so often with newer hunters. Their passiveness ends up getting them killed after 20-30 minutes into a hunt, they get frustrated by what they perceive as wasted time, and they quit playing. In a weird and probably cynical way, Escaton is a mercy for players who would have lost anyway, carting them early and saying “hey, you’re not ready for this yet”, instead of wiping after 30 minutes and causing even more frustration. I appreciate the dialogue though, man!

[@aizero-ih3uy]

as someone who played defensively, i felt this, my thought process was "oh, this monster did this thing, so i gonna put this resistance to resist it" on the whole game up until the big 4, i legit didn't put much offensive deco the whole time i played the game, so when i'm at alatreon, i was at loss on what to do, although i eventually beat the big 4 with the help of sos, i still didn't felt accomplished until i can solo them, but those defensive playstyle has become my safety blanket that's really hard to let go, now taking a break because of it, and considering starting a new game to learn from scratch, but try to be on offensive this time

[@sacred944]

I surprised the stupid element cap wasn't mentioned when talking about element sucking so bad. That's one of the biggest reasons it sucks in World. Even if it had the ammount of skills as raw does to buff it, without wearing a specific armor set (Safi's armor skill raises the cap) you'd hit the cap relatively soon and no longer get any value. Raw damage has no such cap besides any HARD damage number in the damage like a 9999 rpg number

[@HeavyWings]

I'll be honest, the element cap slipped my mind, but it's still a very valid point!

[@magb8632]

Raw damage has a cap tho, should watch team darksides video on the highest attack damage in mhwi

[@sacred944]

@@magb8632 that's the hard damage limit cap not a raw damage cap Also it's MUCH higher than the element cap to the point it's just not realistic to hit. Any weapon can hit the element cap and very easily

[@magb8632]

@@sacred944 oh sry i confused both then

[@deinonychus1948]

@@sacred944 that's one major thing Sunbreak got right, I remember fighting MR Diablos with an Aurora Somnacanth CB and being shocked by the 350 or so damage dealt by the SAED's elemental phials! granted, I think Sunbreak went a little too far with the elemental superiority but I'd prefer several purely elemental builds than 2-3 near identical raw builds like in World/Iceborne!

[@drxavier1870]

The greatest part of the Alatreon Comtroversy is that the Devs never nerfed Alatreon, rather they force you to fight an extremely weak Alatreon before fighting the one thing harder than Alatreon, Fatalis I genuinely think the Alatreon in Dawn's Triumph was a prank from the Devs, as the Alatreon in that quest has less HP than a Master Rank Great Jagras

[@HeavyWings]

Like I said in the video, they seemed to know not enough people beat Alatreon and wanted Fatalis to be easily available.

[@leonfrancis3418]

@@drxavier1870 It was definitely a laugh on all the people begging for nerfs. As a matter of fact, when the Fatalis patch launched, there were Reddit posts asking if Alatreon had been nerfed that needed to be megathreaded and responded to by a mod.

[@mariofan1ish]

If it was a joke from the devs, I personally find that very petty. Serious, widespread criticism shouldn't be met with jokes saying "There! Is that what you all wanted LOL".

[@drxavier1870]

@@mariofan1ish They said multiple times that you needed Elemental Weapons. They buffed Element damage values for every single weapon category. What did everyone do? Bring there Raging Brach + Teostra mixed sets they copied off KZbin because they think Blast is an Element or something

[@mariofan1ish]

@@drxavier1870 And what does that have to do with responding to an extremely controversial monster by throwing a joke version before Fatalis? My point isn't about clarity, it's that if it really was a joke, that's kind of an asshole move.

[@howardxu8050]

Another issue I had with alatron: Gunlance shelling effectively does no progress to his element damage progress, despite it having the best modifier for element, effectively it means that you have to play as a worse lance, and it’s element damage is already pretty bad to start of with

[@azzygl]

Pokeshell raw gunlance can meet the elem check with fire damage from shelling

[@azzygl]

@@hectorcolman5948 This is straight up false, because all shelling does a small amount of fire damage.

[@azzygl]

@@hectorcolman5948 Have you ever bothered to look up weapon motion values?

[@hectorcolman5948]

@@azzygl Now I just read them and found it's true, it deals a small amount of fire damage. I've been living a lie 9 years. Sorry.

[@azzygl]

@@hectorcolman5948 this is why proper self-research is important ladies and gentlemen

[@tTaseric]

The Afflicted monsters DPS check was also fairly forgiving in its own way because of bloodblight. It rewards aggression and discourages passivity.

[@HeavyWings]

That's very true, It was a cool mechanic!

[@ricardorunos9782]

And unlike Escaton, the burst attack is not an instakill. So the price of failure is not as steep.

[@The_Mewster69]

⁠@@ricardorunos9782Not to mention, you could also stop the burst if you met the dps check unlike Alatreon with its Escaton judgement.

[@jacobmaitland3613]

Also you can avoid it with good it with good reaction timing

[@HeckYep]

@@jacobmaitland3613 Yeah if you start walking away when the animation starts and then walk back in and do a little counter-clockwise loop to dodge the projectile you don't even need to sprint to dodge it. I'm a hammer main and wouldn't even stop charging for it.

[@FumetsuGetsu]

I'm at 29:30 into the video, and I want to add on to your point of how fun it is to learn the fight. When enraged, Alatreon can do three lines of lightning strikes. While learning the fight with LS I realized a cool combo: You can foresight slash the first strike, cancel into a special sheathe to dodge the second strike, and then Iai Spirit Slash the third one. Learning this, and then pulling it off consistently, has made Alatreon a top 5 fight for me. Learning how your weapon's moveset can interact with a boss' moveset like that, is what keeps me playing. Great video by the way. 🖤

[@HeavyWings]

Woah I kind of want to try that now lol

[@TheTexasDice]

To expand on "Some Elemental Weapons suck": Alatreon fights (and most of Master Rank for that matter) were not designed with bowguns in mind. Capcom quintupled the monster health in High Rank, without giving Gunners extra ammo. Which would be fine, because you can fire multiple ammo types and craft more ammo while on the hunt, right? Wrong. Your crafting capacity is very limited, so unless the quest allows you to go back to your item box, you won't get enough ammo to one-tap a fight. Second, bowguns in MHW are designed around using ONLY one type of ammo. A balanced bowgun using spread, pierce and normal to do damage and sticky and status ammo to support the team... doesn't work, because your set skills and the bowguns are designed around abusing one type of ammo. Which brings us to bowguns. You can completely cheese a lot of monsters by hyper-focusing on only using either Spread, Pierce or Sticky ammo exclusively with all the damage buffs. There is no way for an Elemental Heavy-bowgun (which has absolute garbage motion values on Elemental Ammo) to get through an Alatreon fight without running out of Fire or Ice Ammo. And because of Escaton Judgement, you are not allowed to FARCASTER back to base and restock. So playing bowgun against Alatreon is basically a mandatory cart to restock. But if you have a mandatory restock baked into the fight, you might as well just take STICKY ammo and stunlock alatreon to death and take the Escaton deaths on the chin.

[@shimmeringsol725]

My major complaint with EJ is that as a gunlance main I am locked out of using a major part of my weapon as shelling don't do any elemental damage. Forcing me to basically play as a lance.

[@BtecINK]

In regards to the hazard risen elders in Rise, I love how they feel completely optional. It felt like Alatreon in Iceborne was necessary to beat to experience the full game, since it's the only way to fight that specific monster. In sunbreak the endgame challenge was simply buffed up versions of monsters I've already fought

[@HeavyWings]

Yeah Alatreon and Fatalis feel as necessary as Amatsu and Primordial imo, they finish off the games story so you do feel compelled to beat them.

[@vivil2533]

​@@HeavyWings the hazard risen elders are clearly Post game content. Made for people who beat the game, but want more content. Post game content is good especially for a game like monster hunter. Iceborne is in a weird place because Alatreon and Fatalis are not presnted as Post game content, but things like Silver Rathalos, and Brute Tigrex are.

[@Biouke]

I agree, in Rise/Sunbreak I beat every monster at least in their base form and continued playing until the grind/difficulty was enough for me. World on the other hand still have some end game monsters I just didn't beat, and some I only beat once or twice so couldn't craft much gear and it made the next ones even more difficult because of the power creep.

[@1QUOTE1]

What I hate the most about Eschaton isnt the damage check, or the elemental requirement, its the fact its completely unavoidable damage, regardless if you pass the check or not. The whole entire game you're taught to avoid attacks to survive and that heals are there to patch up mistakes, and I can usually gauge my improvement by how many heals I have left after a hunt...so why did they think putting in an unavoidable nova that you eat a snack to survive was a good idea? I beat Alatreon first try and don't really struggle with him, but it still feels bad having done literally everything right and still take lethal damage that I can only circumvent by healing like its an MMO. EJ hurting you despite succeeding just goes against basic player psychology, which is insane because it's stapled to a monster with easily the cleanest hitboxes and most fair AOE in the entire game. A great fight held down by a mechanic thats feels almost designed to be hated.

[@HeavyWings]

I can't stress enough that most of my deaths in the early attempts were from the suppressed version of Escaton. So annoying lol!

[@mariofan1ish]

You know, when you describe it as "a supernova you can only survive by eating a snack" who tf came up with this design choice 😂

[@WH40KHero]

In my opinion there are two types of Superattacks. The first type is well telegraphed, keeps you on your toes all the time its being executed, requires skillfull play or knowledge to avoid and only then oneshots you if you fail in one or more of these outlined categories. The second type is binary: Perform a specific action and you're golden, and if you're not you're dead The first type is imho superior to the second type, because it rewards skillfull play and preparation, while the other time does neither. The second type also doesn't foster skill growth as you can only do it entirely right or completely wrong, no inbetween. WorldBorne Alatreon has the second type of Superattack. Monsters like 4U Gogmazios or GU Amatsu have the first type of Superattack.

[@wits_end.]

And you can't even superman dive to it iirc. It's very not monster hunter at all!

[@MusTheFan]

So the biggest problem with him is that you're insecure? You need to see lots of potions remaining to feel good about yourself?

[@Huntereeno]

I really think the lack of information hurt his reception. I don't mean the fact that you need to use elemental weapons, the game already gives you like 4 popups and constant NPC dialogue telling you to. I mean, the game doesn't tell you about the elemental damage cap, neither what the limit is or that it exists at all. It doesn't tell you the elemental hitzones. It doesn't tell you the damage modifiers for each weapon type. The whole limited horn break/ killing him before the 4th escaton thing can be avoided if you still mostly build for raw but with a little bit of extra element, but that's not the impression people were given. Element sucked in World, but not for Alatreon, and for some reason they hid that fact. I think they kinda shot themselves in the foot with that a bit.

[@HeavyWings]

The video was largely already written and I didn't want to extend it to be over an hour, but I found out that in the Alatreon developer diary, the developers suggested that a squad of players could bring different elements to "cover all weaknesses" That is - objectively - terrible advice! It's actually counterproductive and I can't believe they suggested that! So yeah people were REALLY unprepared!

[@DiaSynapsid]

@@HeavyWings With how Alatreon is designed, it feels like they didn't playtest him enough. I feel like if you could still do elemental damage in the wrong mode, the statement would've held weight. In a solo hunt, you would only do it if you were crazy good, but it would be an option. It would be difficult to pull off, but with how the thresholds are, not impossible. It could've be practical, or at the very least interesting to have a 2-2 split in fire and ice. But with how he is now, doing having even one guy do no elemental damage in a non Dragon mode is essentially just a free Escaton fail. I get bringing the right element for the right mode, but the all or nothing philosophy just seems so misguided and impulsive on the dev's part.

[@DaShikuXI]

You literally have a book in game that tells you the hitzones of monsters. Also element sucked in World, but not in Iceborne. Element was strong from day 1 of Iceborne, not just for the Alatreon fight, and that was common knowledge at the time. The only thing that is poorly communicated is the element cap, but even that is something you can visibly see when you're building your set.

[@Huntereeno]

@@DaShikuXI He covers that first point in the video. The Hunter's Journal gives you physical hitzones but not the elemental ones (and the physical ones are kinda vague at that since they just use a star rating instead of actual numbers)

[@HaibaneKuu]

To be frank, that's a problem with monster hunter in general. A lot of mechanics are unclear, and the numbers on the weapons make no sense. Elemental damage is multiplied by 10 when displayed on weapons for no good reason, making it seem like it's bigger than it is. Raw weapon damage also is multiplied by random numbers (yea, to represent that some weapons have bigger motion values, but still), so the numbers we have on display have some rather vague relevance to the numbers used in calculations. My favorite example is that skill that was something like "increases affinity when certain conditions are met" - that's just chef's kiss. What conditions, are you going to tell me? How much does it increase the affinity? The mechanics of the game themselves are pretty solid, but they are impossible to know without external sources.

[@Gandalfsoda]

Good video! I will throw my hat into the ring for this discussion. I've always loved alatreon, i've even speedran his fight in iceborne. I think a lot of the problem is how capcom themselves didn't explain the mechanic well enough. How the weapons can realistically hit the check at the same threshold with their own modifiers for elemental damage as well as how vague the ingame notes is about Dragon element specifically, which is utterly useless in fire/ice mode. As well as telling people to run separate elements to cover the check-- which is TERRIBLE advice, as the check is scaled based around the amount of players. If you're fighting fire alatreon, you all want to run ice/water weapons. Any fire to potentially cover his shift to ice mode is only weighing you down. Overall i think if they explained the mechanic more thoroughly than "you have to use elemental weapons!" people would be less peeved. But then again, people probably would've skipped through that text anyways and still complained.

[@HeavyWings]

Still baffled as to why the devs suggested covering all elements, it's like they forgot the horns stopped him from switching.

[@Gandalfsoda]

@@HeavyWings maybe they'd expect people to go through both horn switches but... idk i feel even a group of two would kill him before that!

[@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS]

It's just stupid and gimmicky... what exactly is the value of having this type of design, period? If they want people to make and use different sets or weapons, this isn't how you got about it. Not even close. I'd love to have a different set for every monster. It'd give me something to build long-term in the game, but in the end it's a bad idea because damage skills are tied to armor, and damage skills are ultimately the best thing against every monster, so you mostly make one armor set and use that forever. They're too scared to take the damage skills off of armor and maybe put them somewhere else, and so nothing will change. The gimmicky dps check/speedrun-focused monsters are just a half measure, not at all real set diversity.

[@CerberusMalt]

It's a stupid gimmicky fight that feels as though it breaks the mold of how the rest of the game lets you play. Being told to go element when I've been playing the whole game as a raw greatsworder feels awful, I don't get to play my way, I have to fuck off and make some shitty element build because Alatreon says so.

[@handtomouth4690]

​@@HeavyWingsbeing intellectually to superior to the MH devs must feel nice though.

[@jeresomthimh8111]

I hunted 4 alatreons, that was enough for the full armor set and a fully leveled GS, not fighting it anymore

[@HeavyWings]

*Anakin voice* Because of Escaton?

[@jeresomthimh8111]

​@@HeavyWingsYes, I don't even find him that hard, it's just that dps check that ruins the entire fight for me personally

[@deinonychus1948]

@@jeresomthimh8111 personally, I just consider it part of the flow now; with a good elemental build and proper positioning to break the horns (which most players will want to do anyway purely for the sake of damage) the whole Escaton Judgement mechanic is simply a small hurdle you overcome without even noticing Yes, it was really hard to overcome it at first (2-3 days for me when it launched) but as someone who has beaten Alatreon many times with different weapons and different playthroughs; I hardly even worry about Escaton Judgement anymore and that's not even the main issue, EJ isn't the true reason why millions of players failed the quest in his initial debut; the reason, as some of the devs have admitted, was the lack of proper communication regarding how the elemental DPS check worked and how certain parts of it were implemented If it ruins the fight for you, I'm not hear to judge; but personally, EJ hardly even bothers me anymore lol

[@mariofan1ish]

​@@deinonychus1948Also remember though that you're talking to a Greatsword player. As a GS main myself I feel qualified to say that one of the biggest draws if the weapon is getting the fattest damage numbers possible, and forcing yourself to make an entirely other set specifically designed to emphasize the not-big numbers of your weapon runs directly in contrast to one of the biggest parts of the weapon's identity.

[@truecaliber1995]

​@@HeavyWings _Because of what it's done, what it plans to do!_ 😂

[@StarScream_47]

Turned a cool monster into what most people only remember as a single gimmick... That's bad design without question.

[@handtomouth4690]

I question.

[@buzzysoda8933]

He was probably the only wall that I actually had to rebuild all my set and learned what to put on my armor (rather than mindlessly copy from "BEST BUILD FOR MHW:IB"). I actually had fun with him. Do I find him annoying? Nah, he was hella fair. He had a fuck ton of window of opportunities that you can punish him for. Do I find the judgement bullshit? I did, but thru many trial and errors, I actually find it quite fitting for him.

[@Tidlefire]

I really hate how there's no way to avoid Escaton. Unless you kill Alatreon before outright before can use it you WILL take damage, and that just feels bad in a series where proper positioning and moveset knowledge lets you avoid everything.

[@HeavyWings]

Afaik he's the only boss in the series where a no-damage run is impossible, but I might be mistaken.

[@xxNightxTrainxx]

​@HeavyWings isn't it possible to slay them before they use Escaton? If you're extremely good at least

[@serenity3157]

@@xxNightxTrainxx Saw some party with no element just using pierce HBG in less than 2mins before

[@johan9428]

That's a bit unfair to hang this on Alatreon when it is Lunastra who introduced the unavoidable (for blademaster) heat damages with her nova in MHW. Before that, we had Teostra and Lunastra in MHFU with their flame aura, which eated your health very fast when in close range, unless you disabled it by hitting their head repeatedly of if you used Kushala Daora armor.

[@darthvaderreviews6926]

Yeah, I prefer Fatalis where the breath attack enhancement is _essentially_ a fail state for most average players, but you have some leeway to break the head partway into Phase 3, or can theoretically ignore it by perpetually avoiding his fire.

[@rafabuda0]

My biggest complaint about it is how artifical it feels. I never like when a game bottlenecks it's players into a single playstyle. The elemental DPS check should be the best strategy for the fight, yes, but not the ONLY one. Having an annoying mechanic like this in an endgame fight doesn't make me want to change my playstyle and try something new, it makes me want to put that fight aside and not touch it.

[@gabadaba5436]

While the argument about nuke attacks being overdone by the end of Iceborne makes sense, one of the things that wasn't discussed very much was how they provide players with a chance to chill for a few seconds - and how important it is. The attack itself and the break in monster aggro gives you a chance to sharpen, reapply buffs, heal, and just mentally relax from constantly reading the monster. Granted, not all nuke attacks are like this, but the three main points of comparison for Alatreon (Fatalis, Behemoth, and Safi) are. You do get a small window of non-aggression with Alatreon, but if you aren't relatively high skilled, your time is usually better spent rushing him down to maximize your damage, something made mandatory by Escaton despite the 50 minute time limit. Every speedrun I've seen uses these gaps to their fullest, and I imagine most average players also try to use these as much as possible, again adding another layer to Alatreon's impossibility for average players. I just hope they do a better job with the endgame of Wilds, but I can't help but feel like they'll power creep themselves into a corner again.

[@Tortugostalker]

For me this topic only comes down to 2 things: 1.- When I finally managed to defeat Fatalys, I felt immense satisfaction accompanied by a genuine feeling of joy and achievement. With Alatreon, that didn't happen, it was more like: the nightmare is finally over. 2.- I gladly face Fatalys again and again with a smile on my face. But that will never be the case with Alatreon.

[@FierceDietyLink100]

Which should never be case when hunting unless its jyura,beotode, lavisioth, because their boring but tri ala and generations?? ala are fun just give us iceborn ala minus dps ohko and make it when breaking his horn he doesnt shift anymore

[@darkbeetlebot]

Something a lot of fivers don't realize is that element weapons have ALWAYS worked this way. It just became more apparent in World because of how bloated the raw of weapons became and how bad the hitzones of monsters became. Old games also had skills that gave much more significant boosts to elemental damage, whereas world's element boost skills are trash.

[@bongwaterbojack]

Took my friend and I about a month of doing 2-4 runs every few nights to get past Alatreon. Mind you, we didn't look up any guides. We very much wanted to figure it out ourselves. Now we're at a point where each of us can solo him at like a 50% success rate. It's a difficult fight, but doable. Definitely feel like it was a case of people being frustrated by MHW getting hard when the rest of the content was much more mild.

[@leonfrancis3418]

@@bongwaterbojack It was definitely a challenge to overcome.

[@nexus3756]

That's one thing that really annoy's me and annoyed me. Theres just not nearly enough pacing for this. It feels like its just for an entirely different game at points with the end game monsters. Absolutely it is something to be learned and overcome. But it feels really bad. It feels like "good job little timmy. Your first great jagras. Now have fun fighting vaal hazak next." It *feels* like that to me. Which made it like. an unfun grind kinda feeling. That's what I didnt like.

[@MrMajorAwezome]

First off, amazing video with great context of before and after Alatreon's release!! As a 5th fleeter, I found Alatreon a challenging, yet fun fight but never really understood all the hate/criticism. Since I played through world/iceborne just this year, I had all the knowledge of the game being out for 6 years, which was a massive help, especially for Alatreon. Going into the fight, I already knew the mechanics, what gear to bring, and when/where to attack for the elemental topple and horn breaks. I think your compilation of all the main criticisms of the fight, the explanations, and the rebuttals gave me a great perspective from others who may have gone into the fight blind and/or been veterans of the series. This perspective was hard to gain from a few paragraph post on reddit or other online forums, but was detailed excellently in this hour long video, but such is the difference of the two mediums. I still think Alatreon is a good, enjoyable challenge, but the criticisms of it are much easier to understand and sympathize with.

[@genogamma13]

Basically in the metaphor of carrots and sticks, Capcom decided to use a gigantic redwood of a stick to club players into using elements with a giant deadly fatalis shaped carrot.

[@docdragon0796]

I remember reading " i play for hunting a large animal not a God" that stuck with me for a while with alatreon

[@e69alpha]

I think that statement loses weight when you remember in each game you eventually kill God level monsters who are op even without a party wipe

[@karndrogo]

All the elder dragons are essentially forces of nature lore wise, so that doesn’t really hold all the wah

[@e69alpha]

@@karndrogo right? An akantor is a walking volcano who's tail you can cut off

[@_piranha]

That's just lame. Why wouldn't you be excited to fight a godly monster ?

[@Laj_93]

I'm here to fight Gods 😩

[@BenHowe901]

I would argue that one of the biggest issues with Escaton that wasn't covered here is that dealing with it is wildly weapon dependent. Saying that the DPS check is easy to beat while showing footage of you playing longsword kinda defeats your point. Longsword's standard playstyle is also its highest element playstyle, so you can just... play the weapon as long as you're using an elemental option. The modifiers also did help the heavier weapons, but claiming they made it equally easy for all weapon types is untrue. Hammer and lance both have a modifier of 1, but lance hits vastly more often and has a far easier time meeting the DPS check. Switch axe and dual blades also have the same modifier of 0.6 - despite hitting with vastly different frequencies. Greatsword has a modifier of 1.1, meaning it should be hitting slightly less than twice as often as dual blades. Anyone who's played those weapons can tell you that's not the case. And that's not even getting into the garbage with CB phials. Then there's gunlance, whose damage is almost entirely comprised of shellings, which are not impacted by the weapon's elemental damage (they have a miniscule fire portion, but that cannot be buffed in any way and is not impactful whatsoever). Beating Alatreon with gunlance requires you to switch to a low-damage poke-based playstyle simply to be able to beat Escaton. Hammer finds itself in a similar boat, needing to avoid using its strongest attacks in order to deal enough elemental damage. For any weapon like this, dealing that much less DPS means they'll have to stay in the fight far longer, and at that point the inability to prevent the 4th Escaton is a real threat. Bowguns have a hard cap on how much elemental damage they can deal on account of limited ammo. Even with crafting extra ammo types, they can still very easily get into a situation where they simply cannot beat the DPS check no matter what they do. This is far from my only issue with EJ (Ala's tendency to stall during the 3-minute period you have to deal elemental damage, the complete reliance on out-of-game info, etc...) but this is probably the most glaring one to me, and it rubbed me the wrong why that you claimed beating it is easy when you were essentially playing on easy mode. Not every weapon has that kind of privilege, and a lot of the people who struggled to beat EJ were far more likely to have been playing the weapons least able to combat it than simply incapable themselves. Tl;dr the difficulty of beating Escaton varied wildly by weapon and the weapons most impacted by it had a harder time with the other parts of the fight as a result.

[@epic4242]

Lance has an element multiplier of .7. I'd argue it is the hardest weapon to get the topple with in the game as a lance main. I hate Alatreon specifically because lance is the worst weapon to use

[@epic4242]

Lance's multiplier was .7 and as a lance main even frostfang weapons required 100% uptime to even have a CHANCE of a single knockdown

[@senounatsuru6453]

The bowguns having limited ammo is compounded by the fact that THEIR ELEMENTAL DAMAGE IS NERFED INTO THE GROUND for the check, having a .2x multiplier.

[@BeardedBooper]

This is such an engaging essay! You hit all my contentions and all my praises with the fight, nailed the uncomfortable difficulty curves in Iceborne and the improvements SB build upon. I *want* to love the Alatreon fight - it has so many spectacular qualities, what with the pacing, attack patterns, hitboxes, visuals, you name it - but Eschaton and its counterplay is just unbearable enough that, ever since I got all the equipment I wanted from Ala on my 2nd playthrough, I may never go out of my way to fight it again. Compare that to Risebreak's Special Anomalies, which I feel *excited* to jump into every time I open the game, or Palzeno and Scornmalo, who I am surprised are not extinct for how many times I and my party have hunted them (and have failed against each more times than I've *fought* Alatreon, yet still come back to them!) It is a small tragedy that such a fun fight has such an equally bitter aftertaste. Still recommend the experience though.

[@Smashtistic]

Until this video I didn't even know there were elemental modifiers for the weapons.

[@joereed8872]

Fun fact on the teostra super nova. There is a specific point of his song that lines up with the 100-second timer, so if you listen for that part specificly, you could always dodge it

[@grootgroot2208]

HUH?! This peaks

[@chelsthegameruiner8669]

Teostra was an issue with his attack? I personally struggled with Lunastra and her nuke attack. Not saying I never beat her though, she became easy after awhile

[@joereed8872]

@chelsthegameruiner8669 in gen 4 and earlier, teostra's nova hit a little harder and was significantly faster and, I think, unblockable. It wasn't something who could dodge on reaction, and outside of having high fire resistance, it was a oneshot. But as mentioned in the video it happened on a 100-second timer exactly. And those 100 seconds lined up with a change in his music so you could listen to the music to know when to keep your distance. His fight wasn't really hard if you knew how to do that. World teostra is definitely hard on a base level

[@TRIC4pitator]

35:08 fatalis is so much more enjoyable, there's a lot of spectacle. The damage is crazy high, sure, but you get a lot of carts in the special assignment, and 30 minutes timer (which I hit 3 times before I could get him down to 3rd phase). All and all, he actually feels like a FINAL BOSS.

[@RyanJW001]

I have a few corrections/clarifications I want to make: 1. Element is very good to invest in on most fast weapons classes, and meta builds specifically maximize investment in element as a higher priority than raw. This includes investing in critical element and elemental augments, even to the point that weapons with customize options have been meta for most of iceborne (even before kjarr came to master rank). That doesn't mean a majority of their DPS necessarily comes from element, but it does tend to be the most efficient place to build dps overall for these weapons. Note: some monsters just have poor elemental hitzones, and even element favored weapons don't necessarily favor heavy investment in these cases. Zinogre is one such example. These are, however, the exception, not the rule. 2. Nonelemental boost only applies to weapons that have an unawakened status/element, or no status/element at all. Raging brachy weapons, for instance, are not eligible, and the only time NEB eligible weapons have been common to the meta was the base patch when shara and acidic glavenus weapons were top contenders. In base world, NEB was indeed stupidly overpowered, and a widely available option on meta sets. 3. Blast isn't very good. In fact, over a long fight, it performs significantly worse than element because blast procs become less and less frequent due to monsters building up resistance to the status. It IS however, the best status for damage that a player can use for DPS assuming they have high enough dps uptime that poison doesn't win out. To say raging brachy weapons were good because of blast is simply wrong. They were good because they had excellent raw, good slots, and purple sharpness without investment. You will never run out of white sharpness on a raging brachy weapon unless you just forget to sharpen, and if you have a good master's touch build, you will spend most of the time in purple. Blast was only ever a bonus.

[@flutterymuffins]

I will say you've definitely covered this more in depth than most people I've seen online. I never struggled with knowledge of how to beat Alatreon, and it got really annoying to try to look up guides and help for the fight as all anyone would say is "equip element and topple him get gud". As a veteran of some time Alatreon walled me HARD. Harder than any other fight in all of MH. It took me roughly 25-30 attempts with and without skilled help and over 100 hours of on and off hunting to finally beat him for the first time which i did about a week ago solo. This grind was *miserable*. While almost all my complaints are covered very well there are some small things I noticed personally that irk me. For one thing bonking him, at least solo, is a herculean task as the hitbox for the walls in the arena are wildly inconsistent. Ive seen him hit the boulder horns first and just slide off of it like butter. And while I cant state this definitively, I'm 95% sure Alatreon is coded to shorten or stop mid attack if you clutch claw his face and knock you off. Speaking of, if he happens to use an electric attack it will instantaneously bust a fully upgraded temporal mantle in roughly a single second 😮‍💨 As for Escaton, I still think its bad. I hate that it made me change my entire armor item loadout and play style, I hate disingenuous mechanics, and I hate that it can punish you for small mistakes; I had plenty of times where he would EJ right after I had been hit hard or stunned or knocked down and didnt have time to heal the EJ even if I had gotten the topple. I even grew to somewhat enjoy his moveset over time, but I was never able to enjoy the fight as EJ was always looming over me. This fight almost ruined my enjoyment of MHW even after over 500 hours, and I think that Alatreon being the penultimate boss of IB left a bad taste in my mouth. Ranting aside I think this is a fantastic video and you've done a great job hitting all the major points, and thanks for being rather neutral and not shaming people who love the fight or the people who take issue with it^^

[@scragglie]

fantastic and in depth video about difficulty in monster hunter. an hour long video and not 1 second was wasted or uninteresting. bravo man this was fascinating to watch.

[@xlokiju766]

Great video, but small correction, you said the only way to get critical element is to equip silver Rahtalos armor, that is true for "True Critical Element", normal critical element also comes with velkhana armor and basically all rath armors, not only silver I believe. Just a tiny point in a otherwise great video :)

[@kittentacticalwarfare1140]

You get the crit elem also on Kulve's Kjaar weapons too

[@ST3V3fic]

Another issue with alatreon which is an extension of the farcaster, is that with LBG and HBG you'd run out of elemental ammo way before alatreon is dead, and because of how elemental ammo is designed you cant carry enough ammo or crafting materials to continue the fight. Furthermore even with escaton judgement it is just mathematically better to still do raw damage or blow him up with HBG

[@yeetleskeelte3460]

And I'll STILL see people run Raging Brachy weapons on this guy nowadays

[@HeavyWings]

Blast is an element, right?

[@yeetleskeelte3460]

Schrodinger's Element

[@deathlance123]

3 months later and i have seen some dudes running brachy and a guy running viper kadachi ls

[@samuraispartan7000]

MHW introduced a lot of defensive items and armor skills that made it extremely difficult for monsters to deal damage. The temporal and rocksteady mantles, combined with powerful armor skills like divine blessing and free meal massively crippled the power of conventional attacks. Lunastra was the first monster that had some means of circumventing the mantles. After Lunastra, almost all of the DLC monsters had OP gimmicks that felt more like litmus-tests than attacks that could be skillfully avoided or countered.

[@johan9428]

My two dislikes about EJ: 1) Alatreon elmzones are terrible while his hitzones are good, meaning we deliberately have to make choices that lower our overall DPS just to beat EJ (except IG, which can go full raw while putting in auto-attack an elemental kinsect on the arms). Pushing players to use elements by introducing a mechanic which kills you if you don't while not addressing in the slightest the reasons why players don't use elements in the first place is a receipt for outrage. Just make elements a relevant source of damage. In Iceborne, Savage Deviljho, Stygian Zinogre, normal and black Diablos are monsters against which elements can be more powerful than raw. Slow weapons should also be tuned so elements are also viable with them. This is a Pb which has been going on since the beginning of MH, yet absolutely nothing has been done to correct it. For that matter, Iceborne director thought it was a good idea to put a 0.7 multiplier on the elemental power of IG and Lance, making them even worse at elemental damage than GS and Hammer, in a game where he was trying to get players to play elemental. What the Hell? I hope MHWilds will undo these nerfs and I am glad Iceborne director is gone from the MH team (insert the tenderizing mechanic here), even if I still like a lot MHWI. 2) The fact that Alatreon can still shift to its opposite active, even after both horns are broken. Essentially, this is a DPS check within a partbreak check within a DPS check, which is just silly. Sure, Alatreon is most likely near death and, yes, an experienced player can beat Alatreon solo before he can swap (or even before he can fire a second EJ). But Alatreon is balanced around Kjarr and Safi weapons. Safi'jiiva is forced multiplayer. Solo players would spend a year farming for his armor and weapons because of the energy drain being balanced around 16 players. For players on console who didn't pay for the PS+/Xbox live, Safi weapons/armor are off the table. In my opinion, MR Kulve Taroth DPS check is even harder than EJ. When I first fought Alatreon, Frostfang Barioth was not here yet, and I couldn't pass the first phase of MR Kulve Taroth (I didn't know what the check was. A partbreak check as the NPC said? A damage check? Once I figured out it was a DPS check with partbreaking extending the timer, then I built accordingly and killed MR Kulve Taroth on the first try, but it was well after Alatreon and I had to get the infos about the DPS check on the internet due to how bad and misleading it was presented in the game). My only options were the Beotodus weapons, which are severely lacking in raw, meaning Alatreon had enough HP to switch to Ice active, then kill me with the next EJ (for my first kill, Alatreon shifted two times to Ice active, each times killing me with the next EJ, and was in Ice active mode for the third time when he finally died). Alatreon is my favorite fight in the series, but if he returns, I hope elemental damage will be reworked so using elements against Alatreon is not a necessary handicap to not be killed by EJ. Maybe making EJ a temporary damage boost for Alatreon to the point his elemental attacks can OS you (like Fatalis blue fire) should you fail to meet the check would be better.

[@rosegod444]

Even with Escaton Judgement I still love this fight, made me think about what’s best to bring as opposed to just brute forcing a fight which I felt World and IB did a lot

[@LizardMan8675309]

My problem with Alatreon is that he conflicts with the primary philosophy of Monster Hunter hunts. They usually have a long timer so that over the course of the fight it incentivizes you to learn the monster and improve. This way you will eventually finish the hunt unless you cart too many times. Alatreon’s hard damage check doesn’t allow this where you only have a fixed amount of time to meet the threshold. It also made certain weapons borderline un-usable (looking at you GS) because they are incredibly inefficient at applying elemental damage, meaning that a lot of people’s main weapons were a massive hindrance

[@CardboardBoxGod]

This was a fight where I started hating how World/Iceborne scaled with player count and probably how poorly it implemented, I remember playing when the updated recently had dropped and my three other friends were too stubborn to switch their setup or use the recommended Element for the knowledge we had at the time and with many tries we never killed the monster. After they all left I decided to try the monster on my own and what do you know I kill it first try with zero struggle, the horn shattering was significantly easier and I was consistently suppressing Escaton Judgement on my own. I don't remember if we ever did get back and beat Alatreon as a team but I do remember them all killing Alatreon at some point whether it be with the power of retrospect or they went and solo the monster with the knowledge I gave them about how it was significantly easier to control Alatreon's quirkiness. I'm glad this video exists as I always did find Escaton Judgment to be awful and I always felt alone on this matter (especially my friend circles)and only to be met by people of the extreme sides of "You are just bad" to "You just hate x game" on the internet.

[@HeavyWings]

I've criticised World in the past for making monster health too low and then jacking it up way too high for Iceborne, but it's likely that because it was their first game with health scaling, they didn't know the right levels, and they seem to have got it right in Rise. But yeah health scaling can be a bit of a problem. It makes soloing the game a more pleasant experience, but it means that if someone isn't pulling their weight, the whole team will suffer. It all falls apart at the weakest link, so to speak. Back in the day I believe hub quests were scaled for 2.5 players. So things would be hard but doable for one, ideal for 2 and 3 and with 4 you would have an easier time. I quite liked that in theory.

[@Frank-kq4te]

Encouraging players to build elemental damage is one thing. Enforcing it with a oneshot mechanic is another. Not giving enough information to players is also bad enough, the fact that to this day I didn't even know his arms had elemental weak points speaks for itself. Also I never liked the two mandatory condition is to win the fight, both breaking his horns and the elemental discharge. Fatalis to me did this way better, you don't have to break his horns, but if you do the attacks are weaker.

[@YAH93]

Yeah, Fatty is easier than Alatreon at this point. Hell, even in the old gen games, I would rather fight the Fatalis trio than Alatreon.

[@raz0rbladeapolo]

World went much further than any MH game before it when it comes to hand holding for the player. I think they purposefully went out of their way to make Alatreon a "classic" experience. The mechanic just doesn't work well in MH imo.

[@dinolamb8400]

⁠​⁠@@YAH93I say that depends on your weapon your using. I know that Fatty is one of charge blade worse match up while alatreon is charge blade best match up.

[@GlobBlubb]

World was my first entry into Monster Hunter and I got around playing it about half a year ago so I heard about the elemental dps check before. It took me an entire week of practice runs to beat Alatreon, including the gear grind, but ultimately it was one of the most memorable fights in the game and I love it so much. It's just as he said in the video, for the first time I was actually forced to learn a monster's move set in and out. The grind itself was surprisingly fun, though. I distinctly remember the first time I didn't panic when Alatreon threw down the fire circles and dodged into the inner ring for a punish. Pure bliss. The most misleading thing about the quest is the MR25 requirement. Being new to the series and not knowing any better it kinda felt like an insult when it says 25+ on the box but 50+ was not enough. Oh, how naive of me. Now I know for anyone without any prior MH experience it's a mislabeled MR100 quest. (at least for me it was ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

[@toxicitzi357]

I'll stick to what I've been saying for years about Alatreon, I very much prefer how they evolved this idea from World into Sunbreak by giving monsters a critical state that comes after their enraged states, starting with Xeno'Jiiva. Like you said, that feels more natural with their moveset and screwing up there feels like it's your fault, because you're failing the same attacks that are slightly super powered now and in general, they have more interesting dynamics going on with the fights, softening up more parts to make monsters more susceptible to damage, thereby rewarding calculated aggression, as well as a topple mechanic that still feels amazing even after hundreds of hours, seeing the monster reeling back and falling down hard on their backs, or doing a massive backflip into the ground, in the case it's an aerial topple, it's just, Glorious.. That's the kind of feeling David probably felt when taking down Goliath. I know that EJ is beaten into the ground, but I do think that a much more unforgettable fight was lost due to getting this mechanic, if we'd gotten a critical state for Alatreon, similar to all monsters before or after him in Iceborne and later on in Rise/Sunbreak? For me, that would've made Alatreon the best monster in Iceborne, bar none.. On the other hand though, it gives me big hopes for the future of the series how the developers looked into this and developed challenge for monsters in such a great way. All of that said though, I'm not entirely I'm not entirely opposed to this idea and all in for just 1 type of powered up moves/states, there are ways that they can make something like EJ work and I think it would be similarly to how Amatsu's massive attacks work.. That way we can get some interesting and dynamic attacks that can be the signature moves of more peculiar monsters like these, for another example, Fatalis's breath attacks were done in a pretty interesting way even though on the surface, they seem fairly simplistic.. And knowing that these are the devs dealing with these kinds of conundrums? I think we're in the best hands for this, I can't wait to see what they've got cooking in Wilds.

[@HeavyWings]

God yeah I love the critical states! Especially with Primordial, Bloodbath, Ruiner Nergigante. It rules so hard, like a final test of sorts. I also agree that having the occasional guaranteed OHKO can work, but they feel less special when there's like 4 of them.

[@MrRAGE-md5rj]

@@HeavyWings or when it's literally being spammed as the monster is on it's last breath, i.e., Safi'Jiva.

[@joshmerchant8737]

ive always said, anyone of my complaints alone doesnt ruin him, but all of them together makes him to annoying for me. NOT to hard, he isnt to hard, just annoying for me. i CAN beat him, but i dont WANT too. Don't hurr durr me with the "jus get gud duhhh" shite. Eschaton judgment is cool on paper, but the execution was lacking. The way sunbreak handled the idea was golden for me, so its not all bad.

[@ijhh100]

Alatreon is my favorite monster from when I started in tri and just in general now. My only issue in world is I honestly I didn't know if I was doing things correctly with a great sword because nothing told me of the different values per weapon type on release. This made the fight feel hard to identify my mistakes. I don't have friends, and random people dropped like flies, so I face and beat it solo.

[@johnnycashtng6712]

Thanks for this review, me and the nephew will be continuing to try our best to beat this dragon. For sure I know with enough experience we can learn his move set as we've done with other quests. It'll work out

[@chrishandsome7012]

I do not like any mechanic that forceably bottlenecks players into specific builds regardless of their overall stats and build they personally had set up, and this is no exception in my opinion

[@MusTheFan]

How does playing with a different build affect you at all? It doesn't change how the weapon plays very much, you just treat the game as a chore and decided to not have fun creating new weapons and armour for a specific monster

[@senounatsuru6453]

@@MusTheFan If it encouraged a different build, that is one thing. This forces a build unless you're solo. That is the unacceptable part.

[@MusTheFan]

@@senounatsuru6453 who cares bro? "Oooh my bonking stick looks different this is such a huge change!! How dare they make me suffer through this!!!!!"

[@senounatsuru6453]

@@MusTheFan You're being disingenuous. Monster Hunter World heavily enforced a Raw meta and disincentivized elemental builds. When they forced people to use the overall worse elemental builds (unless extremely specialized) without explaining the fight other than "Use elemental weapons!" that made people upset. Quit with the appeal to triviality shit.

[@MusTheFan]

@@senounatsuru6453 only if you quit it with the fallacy fallacy shit. Making builds to suit monsters is a significant part of the game, and if you don't engage with it I'm afraid you don't belong in society at large

[@ricardorunos9782]

Burst was also in World, just as Elemental Acceleration and locked behind the Namielle set.

[@HeavyWings]

Ah, TIL!

[@backslash4141]

I like alatreon because, as an insect glaive main, it made my kinsect more than just: "grab buffs, set and forget 'til i need more buffs" Instead, my kinsect WAS my elemental damage, allowing me to bring a raw damage build. I'd love if we could utilise our kinsect a bit more like that in Wilds

[@Abedeuss]

Insect Glaive is probably the most fun weapon to use against him, that I agree with. You can pretty much kill him with JUST the kinsect.

[@firesire3971]

This is super interesting timing, I just returned to World and finally solo'd alatreon myself earlier this week. For some context, my first mon hun game was 3U, and I struggled with Alatreon back then. I can't recall beating him. I was hyped for his addition into world, but struggled on first release. I knew about the elemental necessity, I was running chargeblade which I was certain had enough damage from SAED to make it work. But I was still failing. Finally, while on call with some hunter friends, I took time and re-evaluated my setup. I had been running primarily Alatreon into him, assuming it was obviously the best considering its elemental resistances and the boost to elemental damage. It turns out no, 3 pieces of safi and 2 pieces of alatreon gave me a huge boost in elemental damage, and the safi set bonus gave so much consistent sustain, alongside vigorwasp. I managed to get two kills later that night, and was very hyped. Now I am here and see that SAED is explicitly nerfed for Alatreon's EJ stagger, and feel a bit robbed while still understanding the reasoning. Without the nerf, SAED would've absolutely dominated the hunt, but I really wish we got a pop up telling us it wouldn't be as effective. Regardless, I still love the fight, Alatreon's animations and kit are near perfect in my eyes, and I always viewed my failure against EJ as a failing on my part, not Alatreon's. I had actually been grinding to unlock augments (Im only MR 98) when I re-attempted with the new kit, and I can 100% say without EJ's difficulty I never wouldve bothered to do so.

[@jordan.z.m]

Here's the thing if you're playing a ranged weapon one shots have always been in the game since they take 30% more damage just for existing. This is often what drives me nuts in world and rise end game is just a series of one shots until I can basically finish the quest without getting hit and no one talks about it because there are only 3 gunner weapons and most of the community isn't using them. Just to be clear this is coming form a bow player cause to some extent I get it for the guns but the bows not really playing at range to the same extent.

[@HeavyWings]

Afaik gunners having low defence is to balance them, since they don't have to be close to the monster, and are capable of massive damage. Bowguns get the best speedruns in like every game iirc.

[@raccoonofmotivation20]

The funny thing is that its not really a defense reduction, its them getting an elemental def. Bonus rather than physical when most attacks are highly physical, even elemental ones. If they make damage work more like souls in the next game, ranged might get a significant buff

[@raydhen8840]

Yeah, I get you. I've tested Bow against Alatreon few times, not a fan. Because Bow is Ranged weapon that you have to play like Melee weapon, without physical def bonus, thus making them glass cannon. Yes Bow has nice evade & Alatreon hitbox are one of the fairest, but one error and you're done, this is a top of managing stamina between shooting & evading (and/or occasionally drinking dash juice) because Stamina Management skills, just like Element buff ones, are sucks in Worldborne (Which they also fix in Risebreak).

[@HauntedAnimations]

My only issue with Alatreon is me having to go hunt down a frostfang Barioth cause I have actual shite luck with getting parts i want

[@siegwardinspirit]

Feel that. I've had hunts where I was missing a single uncommon item for like another 10 fights despite breaking the necessary parts.

[@Tyrantbal]

World Alatreon just never became fun for me. I don’t mind the prep work, or changing my gear. I switch my set up often, to keep the game interesting. Specially when hunting the same monster over and over. Alatreon and Lunastra were the two monsters I only hunted to get their gear, then never again.

[@SkojSkull]

Fantastic video bud! I remember when the review bombing was happening when the monster came out 😅 it was a wild time for sure. It was a hard fight for sure and still is! I just hope they keep bringing in the challenge for wilds! It's going to be an insane ride for sure!

[@Revonlieke]

Meanwhile me doing Altreon for 12hours straight learning it and eventually we just took a bunch of widerange skills with us and healed through Escaton by force. From what I gathered it wasn't such that people didn't know what to do. Pretty early on in a random group lobbies people realized they needed to do elemental damage. But many players were just coming from the back end of Iceborne meta which was very Raw focused and no-one really had any elemental weapons or sets specifically for it. At best alot of people managed toonly bring the Kjärr Weapons from Kulve, but without specifically having a high elemental sets. And combine that with laying with randoms, it quickly became a shitshow because not everyone was able to keep uptime with their weapon consistently. I personally realized that the best option I had, ws to bring Thunder element, because that way, regardless of which state Alatreon was in, I atleast was able to push the elemental threshold when others couldn't. And majority of the time people did not break the horns, so Alatreon was always switching from Ice to Fire, so it was almost a necessity to have someone able to keep uptime on elemental topples if possible. So what we ended up doing is; Be able to do the 1st elemental topple, and heal with relative safety. But it quickly became problematic after that if there was no horn break. So alot of it was realiant on 1 player having thunder at that point and once Alatreon goes Dragon active and everyone is able to deal elemental again, it was a hit or miss if we got the 2nd topple before 2nd escaton. But for that we did have the friendship wide-range system which helped us to stay alive by force. the funny part about this is that afterwards we had killed Alatreon just 2 times or so, I brought a friend who didn't know anything about the fight into it and we killed Alatreon with only him using a raw weapon while the rest of us dealt with the elemental stuff. And it was somewhat funny, considering how we struggled in random groups for so long.

[@DiaSynapsid]

The only reason I can see them releasing Frostfang later would be the pandemic. If they were released simultaneously, would it have stopped the "why should I build element" complaining? Most likely not completely, but the sour taste would likely be lesser.

[@Revonlieke]

@@DiaSynapsid Well MR kulve had been out for months at that point and people didn't get those weapons, nor did they get their Safi weapons maxed out for element. Everyone was just too focused on what people were saying was the best on youtube so all they had were raw builds unless you were a bow main. Sad as it is, MH meta directly effects how regular people play the game, what builds they make or don't make. And also, Alatreon had a lot of returning players who don't necessarily play super actively so it was a big problem for those as well since they didn't play enough to get to the level you need to be to beat Alatreon nor have the gear. Sure frostfang would have helped. But I believe Frostfang weapons to be utterly gamebreaking for progression as well. So had it been released earlier the weapons would have needed to be much weaker as well.

[@thenerdbeast7375]

I do know Alatreon was when my brother quit playing and on my initial play through it is also where I stopped progressing as I was maining Great Sword, one of the worst elemental weapons so I wasn't confident I could meet the elemental DPS check. Even if I was maining Dual Blades or Bow, weapons that do do elemental well in World, I don't enjoy the idea of a DPS check as someone who is an MMO refugee and joined Monster Hunter to escape that sort of thing.

[@deinonychus1948]

27:25 The opposite happened to me, I practically swore off Blast weapons for a while after Alatreon!

[@lavalakeninja2245]

That bit about the elemental hit zone thing was just the thing I needed to get my clear. Thanks for the tip! As a hammer main I kept laying into the head so results were inconsistent. Still prefer fatty.

[@spookyfrogs1874]

HE'S BACK i love your videos so far alatreon and fatalis are the only two monsters i haven't beaten after all my time with world :/ i don't even know how to begin approaching them. i've beaten fatalis in mhgu and alatreon many times in mhgu! but pretty much insta-cart every time i try in world, even before EJ -_-

[@HeavyWings]

First of all, thank you! Secondly, if I could offer some advice, watch someone else fight them. That's what did it for me and Fatalis, could not beat him with longsword, watched a speedrun and while I didn't become an expert, I figured out there were much better ways of dealing with certain attacks that would allow me to be more offensive. It can work well!

[@divinestorm3562]

57:05 I don't think the difficulty in sunbreak was a "response" to alatreon and iceborne exactly I think it's more of a testament of the fact the developers are watching what people do and don't like and learning from that which makes me more hopefully for wilds and to see what they do with a difficulty in that. Because I always say this to all my friends but there are no game devs I can think of that are as dedicated and care as much about their games as the monster hunter devs do I'm genuinely proud to be apart of this of this community

[@lander6443]

You know what would be a better way of not having the accessible camp for Alatreon while also not disabling farcasters for no reason? Just not have a camp. Have one of the npcs say in a one off line that it’s too dangerous to set one up. There’s still a ‘camp’ area where you start the quest and go back too when you die, but there’s no actual way to restock. With this you still can’t change weapons if Alatreon switches elements, but it would feel more natural and less cheap than randomly disabling farcasters. It would also turn the farcaster into a ‘get out of jail free card’ if you fail the Ej check.

[@twoseasonscoffee3976]

Farcaster can be used as free jail card if you fail elemental check to survive eschaton judgement? Have you fought fatalis,behemoth,safijiva? they disable farcaster when The nova in process not the whole mission. Disabling Farcaster is stupid idea to begin with! Also didnt putting camp is also more questionable than disabling Farcaster

[@TheElino]

The camp already exists from Safi'jiiva tho Why would it suddenly be gone? That makes less sense than the camp just being there tbh

[@Flubbadon]

Great video, pretty much my thoughts in Alatreon exactly. He’s great and very memorable but I have my issues with Escaton.

[@ftsvectors2164]

My complaint is that he’s really just not a fun fight. I’ve never had the life and fun sucked out of me like Alatreon. Mind you, me and my friend grinded the entire Safi Jiva raid by ourselves. Do you have any idea how long that took? We had more fun doing that than fighting Alatreon. And the thing is, if I say this in the forums, I’m gonna be hit with “git gud”. Even though I’ve beaten him enough times to have his weapons and his armor. I don’t even consider myself a good player but I had hear how people were saying Furious and Raging were hard when they released. But it took me one and two tries respectively. I’m not terrible. And people saying “oh well you just need elemental weapons” like I didn’t already have them. I’m a fashion hunter, so I made sets merely because they looked cool. I didn’t even need to make a weapon for him. It wasn’t hard. But the fact that you needed to focus on his arms(which the game doesn’t tell you) and that I played CB and the phials did Jack sucked. Honestly no wonder why I felt half the time I was an offensive gremlin but nothing was happening makes sense. And the fact that Escaton happened regardless really rubbed me wrong. Especially because the weakened version still did so much damage. But back to my biggest complaint, he’s boring! For as much as I heard about the infamous “Black Dragons” Alatreon really isn’t all that special. You talked about having to learn his moves. Honestly you barely even have to do that because half his moveset comes from other monsters! He’s not even memorable! I can’t legit remember a move that screamed “wow! I’ve never seen that!” Outside of Escaton. He didn’t live up to the hype and his fight was cheap. I think the devs getting rid of Farcasters and making a much easier one for Fatalis is a clear indication that the devs knew they messed up but refused to admit it.

[@clintriggen3554]

World Alatreon is only in the Black Dragon group because they have a weird gimmick that is not explained at all and in fact some of the explanations you are given in game are actively counterproductive when facing them.

[@superguy183828]

I'm definitely in the : Alatreon was bad design camp. I get that having 1 monster break all the "norms" that you're used to could be interesting, but it just wasn't fun to play. SO MANY secret, unexplained mechanics, and so much forcing of everyone to use the same thing. Making certain weapons suddenly much less viable all of a sudden is dumb. But regardless of Alatreon disagreement in the community ; I think we can all agree : Fatalis was a masterpiece. Absolute perfection in design and triumph in achievement to beat him.

[@Lin_Nascimento]

The main gripe is that, with every other monster, now matter how much you take damage, eventually you will be able to kill it, Alatreon breaks that rule. He's an mmo boss, not a rpg boss

[@HeavyWings]

Yeah it's definitely very different, easy to see why people struggled with him.

[@DaShikuXI]

I mean that is objectively false because you have both a timer and limited lives to stop exactly that. Alatreon is no different from any other fight in the game in that regard.

[@joshmerchant8737]

@@DaShikuXI iceborne alatreon *undeniably* takes multiple notes from behemoth, who is LITERALLY an mmo boss brought in from an mmo game (Final Fantasy XIV). youre statement is "objectively false". safi and kulve are in the same boat, mmo bosses in a non mmo game. whether its bad or good is debatable.

[@leonfrancis3418]

@@Lin_Nascimento This is easily disproven. Go start a hunt with Rajang. Get hit until the timer runs out. Tell me if you eventually won that fight. There is a timer, a win condition, and a monster one hunts to achieve that win condition.

[@MusTheFan]

Sucks to suck

[@lKrlal]

Thanks for this video. As a person that picked up World/Iceborne recently, you do a very good job at summing it up pretty well. The progression in Iceborne endgame is confusing at best, with the game throwing incredibly hard monsters at you, that require you be at higher MR to get access to better Guiding Lands farming and materials, that are nearly a MUST have for these fights. With that said, I was really looking forward to fighting Alatreon, as I've been soloing the guy since his debut in Tri, yet I had a hard time explaining why I thought Iceborne Alatreon was such a bad designed fight because of Escaton Judgement. I sincerely find his fight entertaining, I like fighting the guy, yet the restrictive measures taken (and to add insult to injury, with hidden mechanics the game doesn't tell you about, that are different ONLY for this one fight) make it bad for me. I don't mind EJ being a DPS check, if anything, I used the Afflicted and even Risen as good examples as to how you can add DPS checks without restricting the player so much. MH has always been a game about letting the player decide how to finish the quest, restricting them to using one thing or two does not make a good game design, and World seems to be more about that than other games. Granted, they learned about that in Rise/Sunbreak, but alas, we spoiled the fandom so much, that just because we get tough monsters that don't 1HKO you, the game's "too easy". Hopefully Wilds will use both WI's and RS' experience to make difficulty better AND scale better.

[@Dopamemenergic]

Insect Glaive players stay winning with Alatreon given that the kinsect alone can fulfill the elemental requirement, allowing us to use any glaive.

[@HeavyWings]

That's so wild lol, Insect Glaive rules.

[@NagaTheOctopus]

Adding to this : there's a very seldom documented glitch that specifically affects Switch Axe : Alatreon's elemental tresshold isn't affected by the elemental damage of clutch claw attacks That is to say if you use a Zero Point Discharge with an elem build and elem phials on alatreon you arn't actually progressing his DPS check This was never fixed and it applies to all weapons but since SA's ZPD spam is one of the more accessible gameplay styles for the weapon to deal focused damage its specifically a weapon that suffers the most from it

[@Segundachanceemgames]

As a newcomer to the series (first game was world), I LOVED Alatreon, he was my main goal for months, until I decided to farm the Safi Jiiva armor set and Kulve weapons. Once I did that, I beat him on my first try, before that, I was banging my head against the wall with the set I used to every monster before, maybe people didn't want to adapt, or change, they wanted to keep their "good for all" set, I defeated Alatreon on last Christmas for the first time, with 17 min on the timer, it felt great! If I could beat him, the said veterans, who says stuff were way harder back then shouldn't have a problem with it. I went for the plat on Worldborne and RiseBreak, and I'm having a blast in GU now Greatsword is easy mode there for real, I'm clearing all the quests, and I've only had 2 carts so far, didn't fail a single quest all the way up to 9 stars. I had a cart for Zinogre and one for freaking Khezu lol Fun game anyways.

[@deinonychus1948]

"I had a cart for Zinogre and one for freaking Khezu" You used Rathalos armour... didn't you? Not that I'm any better, as I've been replaying MHGen on the 3DS just for the hell of it and after beating Nakarkos; my only triple cart so far has been Dreadking Rathalos, and until I farmed the Astral Set, I was using full Rathalos armour (that failed quest against DK was with LOW RANK Rathalos armour lol) It's hard to believe that many years ago, I had rage quit MHGen after losing to Low Rank Hub Gypceros lolololol

[@seanfortes7156]

Great video. Is even motivating me to have another go at Alatreon. I loved Monster Hunter World, and Iceborne and still have the best and fondest memories, but I injured my arm around the time Alatreon released, and then life interfered in other ways, and by the time I had my first few attempts much later... I was mostly a solo hunter, who used Great Sword... really struggled. A lot of the info you gave in this video, I was completely unaware of. Back then I even tried to use SOS after a few days of trying, but we'd usually fail and then I would feel a bit guilty. Despite being my first wall in Monster Hunter, I never really disliked Altreon or the game, or the design of the fight (well knowing some of hidden mechanics would have been nice...), just figured I might have to move on and or try again later. That being said, at that point, I had felt like the game had given me and some of my friends hundreds and hundreds of content, enjoyment and good memories. Before Wilds come out, I should revisit World/Iceborne and give Alatreon (and Fatalis a go). Am happy I found your channel, will subscribe and have another great Monster Hunter creator to watch! Cheers!

[@Tetra_76]

Nice video! Alatreon is one of my favorite fights in the series, for many of the reasons you pointed out. I loved the challenge, and I loved that it really forces you to master the fight and optimize all your openings, not unlike demo Magnamalo which I also loved conquering. To me, slowly mastering fights this way is a core pillar of MH, so I always enjoy any monster that emphasizes that aspect, and I hope that's the way Wilds approaches its tougher fights, when we get to them. Having to keep up with a monster in terms of damage, being aggressive, learning all the openings... it's so much more satisfying to me, and more unique, too, as most other "hard" games typically place more emphasis on dodging crazy attacks than striking back like that. Maybe Escaton Judgement was a little clumsy in some ways, but I for one hope to see more DPS checks in Monster Hunter lol.

[@HeavyWings]

I dunno if I like being forced to master them like that, as satisfying as it felt to overcome monsters like Fatalis. I kind of liked the Sunbreak approach where you had an "easy" version of the monster and then an amped-up stronger one, particularly the hazards. You got the version for the casual guys who don''t no life the game like the rest of us, and the version for the no lifers. That works for me!

[@DiaSynapsid]

Fight definitely feels learnable. And it is satisfying. But for me, a bunch of gimmicks that keep piling on each other that keeps me from enjoying the Alatreon fights to their fullest.

[@Bbill9908]

After I slowly gained knowledge of Alatreon and Fatalis, I felt it so satisfying to finally understand the attacks. I was so happy on each first kill of each of them, especially because I'd done them solo. I initially hated the instakill, but as I understood the mechanics, I learned to actually enjoy them

[@Aravaganthus]

Capcom wanted people to use elemental damage and instead of making elemental builds good they made all the others bad for this one fight. Oh, and dragon water and thunder builds were still useless.

[@KalleDemos666]

I think the thing that legitimately made EJ the absolute worst was the timing of it, at the time of release we had the release of Golden Rathian which had Poison weapons with the best Raw, then we got Safi weapons which despite having elemental in them it turned out that the most meta weapons were Blast weapons, then Raging Brachydios which were again Blast, the most meta weapons were status effects and suddenly they're asking us to ditch those Meta weapons that still worked for 99% of the monsters to make a build SPECIFICALLY for Alatreon, something a lot of people didn't want, didn't like and weren't ready for.

[@revolversnake126]

The fact that you still take unavoidable damage even if you pass the dps check sounds terrible to me.

[@BoosterGoldy]

very interesting breakdown excited to see more of what ur channel has to offer.

[@namename2040]

To be fair with amatsu, primordial, alatreon, and fatalis if you were playing the game since the beginning you wouldn't or shouldn't have the issue of fighting them too early. I don't think Capcom cares about you late purchase or late playing experience like that

[@PrepucioDou]

damn, hearing odibatorasu's theme all of a sudden was really confusing lmao, really good video tho

[@doomboi789]

God, I legitimately despise Alatreon. I find his hunt to be far more annoying and frustrating than something that actually feels difficult in a "fun" way. I'm somewhat thankful for his existence, as he forced me to somewhat abandon HBG and pick up two of my new favourite weapons, Lance and GS, but he's still not fun in the slightest. "Artificial difficulty" is a pretty fitting description for his fight. And even though I can kill him in around 20 minutes with 0 carts, I'm constantly foaming at the mouth with rage, every second that I'm forced to fight him. I've killed Fatalis almost 40 times now, I find his hunt to be the single most enjoyable and easy to understand hunt in the game. Hit the head, break the horns, weaken the fire, be aggressive, win. Meanwhile with Alatreon, his arms are weaker to elemental damage than his head, despite his head being more susceptible to raw damage. His tail is weakest to ranged damage but you need to constantly focus your attacks on his front if you want to survive and you can't chill out and go for a tail cut (this makes my unga bunga GS brain very unhappy). The giant rocks around the borders of the area are super finnicky with when they decide to grant you mercy and let you perform a wallshot, so you'll end up wasting a crucial potential damage window and just end up enraging the damn thing. Then he flies for a good 3rd of the fight and has what is easily the most annoying mount in the game. I've killed him around 10 times, with most of those being me getting online and deciding to kill him purely out of spite. Not to mention the fact that critical element is an armour skill rather than a decoration, making it annoying to have enough room in your build to both deal optimal damage and have any comfort skills like free meal. I would genuinely consider Alatreon to be more difficult, or at least more infuriating, than Fatalis. I can sit back, relax, take it relatively slow and steady with Fatalis and still kill him in under 25 minutes, or even wipe him out in 19-20 minutes if I choose to put effort into playing the game and being hyper-aggressive with Lance. I have no other option than to be hyper-aggressive against Alatreon, and it feels exhausting, especially when you can't farcaster out at any point in the hunt to restock or get more food buffs. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that Fatalis is fun for me, Alatreon is not. Maybe I'm just bad at the game, maybe I'm completely wrong with everything, all I know is that if I was held at gunpoint and forced to fight Alatreon, I would still face him, but constantly be muttering curses as I stare at my screen and watch as he slides off a wallshot rock for the 5th time in a row.

[@calar8]

My problem with DPS checks is that it invalidates a large number of playstyles. Players are now REQUIRED to make sure they do as much damage as possible in their sets at the expense of all other skills. Players should be rewarded for making powerful and effective builds, not just the builds that do the most damage. It doesn't matter with Alatreon that I have a nigh indestructible tank build for Gunlance that can handle every other attack in the game, or a fun sleep/paralysis set that tactically suppresses the monster, if it isn't min-maxed to the gills using only damage skills then its useless. Players should be rewarded for digging in and optimizing their own hunting style, not conforming to 1 specific style.

[@deinonychus1948]

This monster single-handedly shaped me into a true monster hunter! I'd always call for help when the going got tough and that actually worked rather well, until Alatreon... it was the first monster that I fought alongside everyone else (I came into Iceborne before Alatreon but after Raging Brachy) and it was quite difficult having to contend with the fact that I wasn't the only one struggling, EVERYONE was struggling! Took me 2-3 days of fighting it before I finally won, and now I can solo the beast almost effortlessly, even doing the fight with the HUD off by accident (I had fought the Crimson Fatalis mod and turned the HUD off to get a screenshot for the thumbnail) and still winning! and in subsequent playthroughs, I actually struggle against Alatreon more than Fatalis, as I've killed the latter on my first try TWICE, once with Longsword and the second with Switch Axe, whereas Alatreon was still quite hard with both (especially Switch Axe, as I was less experienced with that weapon, even though it was my main throughout that playthrough)

[@HeavyWings]

That must have been a really cool feeling, to collectively struggle together against a new monster like that lol.

[@lordkingboo8859]

Wow I did not understand Alatreon at all. I though you had to just brake the horn and that is how you survive escaton judgement. Well it time to get back on the grind, thanks for info. Also great video.

[@TheTexasDice]

One more thing that is really artificial: The Assignement for Alatreon ALWAYS starts you off the in Arena with the cutscene, while the repeatable quest starts you in base camp. That means until you beat Alatreon for the first time, you cannot eat in camp (if you forgot to eat in the base), you cannot safely drink your buff items and you can't load a different type of ammo for your guns, like Wyvernsnipe.

[@constantinebratanata]

The big problem with Alatreon for me as a gunlance main was that all of gunlance iceborne's major damage increases were monopolized by Wyrmstake Blast (WSB) which is only for shelling damage which aside from like single-digit flavor fire damage doesn't do elemental. The way to do elemental damage with gunlance is to only use the physical attacks but since there were no improvements on that side, I didn't use any physical attacks. Also why play gunlance if not for the GUN. I was already doing shelling only by the end of World and Iceborne only encouraged me to double down on that. Asking some players to suddenly use a completely different moveset than one you as a developer encouraged specifically and one that purposely neglects the very core of the weapon's identity encouraged seems pretty artificial to me. I did enjoy his fight otherwise (like his attack animations) and eventually beat it with a friend but that fight left a bad taste in my mouth. By contrast, I enjoyed Fatalis all around much more despite it being much harder. I also don't like the arbitrary disabling of farcasters. At least make up some story explanation for it. It just comes off as a developer giving up and dropping all pretense.

[@henrysolis6925]

Memorable doesn't not mean fun fyi

[@mehdi.dz4541]

The second point he said about that we usually can chill during fight and suddenly have to be aggressive during a little time is frustrating but hey it adds spice and challenge to the game.

[@be643]

The fight is not the issue, its the restriction on weapon type. It requires so much grinding for a specific element weapon. Judgement is a pain but it changing its element is worse given you. Plus it is isnt the easiest to damage given its time on the air. Not the hardest fight but definitely most hated.

[@Laj_93]

The grind isn't that bad lol having to use different weapons isn't a big deal

[@Demonz2000]

I like how the entire alatreon debate went from "This fight is hard 😭" To "This fight is hard 😈"

[@primalrager2434]

131 views in 16 minutes bro still got it

[@Mitchlaut]

Wanted to comment as someone who played when alatreon was released. 1. At the time, the DPS check required a good player who could maintain clutch claw weakened points and constant elemental damage. This was the first check of hardness that not many people appreciated. 2. RAW dmg was king when alatreon came out. This was the first time RAW couldn't do it unless you soloed and accepted faints. 3. At the time of Alatreons release, bow, DB's, and LBGs were the main weapons who could use elemental damage well. However, the only real boost readily available for elemental was the elemental + slot 4 gems. This made a wall for newer hunters who didn't have the gems and made those who had the gems figure out what to sacrifice off their builds. At the time, fatalis gear wasn't around so trying to build correctly could drastically change builds. 4. Time required to kill alatreon: thus was the first creature in iceborne that took many players a day or two to get the first kill. I played with a guild of players who all tried banding together the first few times, and then we broke away for solo attempts. We figured out that a good DB or a LBG with 2 elements built in for enough ammo were the best ways to handle alatreon. However, out of the guild of 14 players, myself and 4 other players played the fast weapons and the others had to learn (or relearn) weapons and copy builds. For those in our guild who didn't have the gold rathion, we suddenly were farming it. It took a week for everyone to get their first kill but it did happen. 5. Astera Jerky was the thing we figured out early thankfully. But it was annoying as several of us didn't stack astera Jerky in storage. Was quite a grind, but I enjoyed it. The armor though left something to be desired. Just my inputs to hopefully help people understand the feel of IB at the time of release.

[@jada_9827]

noobs will say nerd are being elitist fucks for saying its fair nerds will say noobs are well, noobs for saying its unfair but more than fair on unfair its the fact that no other monster has a dps check with a party wide instakill in mh history, its simply out of place, it does not belong in a chill game like mh...

[@HeavyWings]

True. There's a lot of valid viewpoints I think.

[@maheee]

i didnt know there was this controversy back then, but i do remember my first alatreon experince. i had to make sets especially for alatreon. took me 8 hours to first clear. it was really satisfying when i finally beat it.