One of the most iconic Monster Hunter creatures, the winged wyvern known as the Rathian can quickly take down a hunter who doesn’t come to battle properly prepared. There are plenty of Rathian elemental weaknesses to exploit, as well as a few ways to mitigate the beast’s more deadly attacks if you plan ahead and wear the right gear.

Let’s set out on the hunt! 

Preparing To Fight Rathian in MH World

This flying wyvern is the female version of the Rathalos and has a very similar attack pattern. If you haven’t come across any Rathian yet in MH World, they are found in the Ancient Forest and Wildspire Waste areas.

Due to the Rathian’s main attack types, be sure to wear either fire-resistant or poison-resistant armor until you nail down the wyvern’s attack patterns and learn how to neutralize its main attacks.

Knowing the Rathian’s elemental weakness is also extremely helpful. Fire obviously does no good, while thunder and dragon attacks deal increased damage.

On the 0-3 star scale (0 being immune and 3 being most susceptible), these are the Rathian ailment and elemental weaknesses: 

Poison: 1/3  Blast: 1/3 Sleep: 2/3 Paralysis: 2/3 Stun: 3/3  Fire: 0/3  Water: 1/3 Thunder: 2/3 Ice: 1/3 Dragon: 3/3 

 Rathian Weaknesses

Monster Hunter: World Rathian Combat Strategy

The Rathian has two main attacks you should always be on the look out for: firing flaming projectiles from the mouth and attacking with a poisonous spiked tail back flip maneuver. 

To lower the difficulty level of this battle, be sure to attack the tail segment while Rathian is in the air. Severing the tail removes the poison tail attack entirely, making the battle less stressful.

On the ground, focus on the Rathian face attacks instead. Utilize dragon, thunder, and stun attacks to be most effective in this fight.

Later in the game, the Pink Rathian variant is more aggressive and harder to kill, but has the same basic elemental and ailment weaknesses as the base type. Pink Rathians also drop the rare Monster Hardbone component.

 Monster Hunter: World Rathian

Have any other Rathian fighting tips and tricks that work well? Let us know all about your Monster Hunter: World strategies in the comments.

If you need more help hunting down and capturing all those legendary monsters or crafting materials, check out our other Monster Hunter: World guides right here:

Beginner’s Guide - How To Always Be Ready For The Hunt How To Mount Monsters Monster Hardbone Farming Locations Nergigante the Elder Dragon’s Weakness