Zorah Magdaros’ Arch-Tempered form is now available to fight in the console versions of Monster Hunter World. All you have to do is look in the event quests page on the bulletin board and hop right in.
Arch-Tempered Zorah Magdaros is actually not too different from regular Zorah Magdaros (the second fight specifically). However, you don’t have a lot of time to take down the beast so every bit of damage counts.
Here’s how to beat Arch-Tempered Zorah Magdaros.
How to Beat Arch-Tempered Zorah Magdaros
Bring weapons with the water or dragon element as Zorah Magdaros is weak to them. Leave your status effect-inflicting weapons in the trunk as they will have no effect on Zorah Magdaros. Armor or decorations with the Heavy Artillery skill will boost the power of your cannon and ballistae fire, which will help you a lot in the second phase of the fight.
Once you enter the mission, head to a hitching post right away so you can hop onto Zorah Magdaros’ back. Your first task is to destroy the three Magma Cores located on its back. They’re in the same location they’ve always been, so just check the mini-map for reference. The magma the cores shoot is even more powerful, so it’s imperative that you run back when they start to glow. Having a weapon like the hammer or long sword is useful as it does high damage while allowing you to be mobile. Zorah Magdaros will occasionally change shape but that isn’t really a problem.
Keep your eyes to the ceiling while on Zorah Magdaros’ back as you’ll often find stalactites hanging above. The barrels on the side of the stalactites can be shot with your Slinger ammo so that they crash down onto Zorah Magdaros for free damage. So be sure to scoop up some rock ammo when you first hop onto Zorah Magdaros.
Eventually Nergigante will show up on the wide, arena-like area towards the back of Zorah Magdaros. Nergigante isn’t that big of a deal as you simply have to repel it by doing enough damage on it. It’s also not Arch-Tempered or even regular-tempered. However you can’t just simply ignore it like when fighting regular Zorah Magdaros, so be sure to repel it as soon as you can. Try placing bomb barrels in the arena so that Nergigante runs into them right when it lands.
As a reminder, you’ll find ore deposits all around Zorah Magdaros so be sure to stop by and mine them when you get the chance.
After a while you’ll end up on a wall. Here you have to fire cannons and ballistae ammo at Zorah Magdaros to weaken it and complete the mission. Focus more on the cannons as they do way more damage than the ballistae. You can occasionally run out of ammo for a nearby cannon, so try to find a new ammo pile that’s close to a cannon. Zorah Magdaros will occasionally charge the wall but it doesn’t do much damage to it. However it can destroy cannons and ballistae.
Zorah Magdaros’ charge attack is devastating but you can interrupt it. You’ll be notified by the Handler when it’s charging an attack. When that happens, fire binder ammo from a ballista and fire cannons to interrupt the attack and stun Zorah Magdaros for a while.
If you hop down from the left side of the wall, you can hop on the deck of the ship. The ship not only has more cannons to fire but also has the switch for the Dragonator. The Dragonator does massive damage to Zorah Magdaros and is essential for beating it. It only fires every five minutes according to US Gamer, however, so make sure the beast is right beside the ship before you fire.
NPCs will be around to load up cannons, so you can run around and fire them when they’re fully loaded. You’ll know when they’re fully loaded when the NPC waves to you.
Do all that and you should beat Arch-Tempered Zorah Magdaros with minimal headache.
Arch-Tempered Zorah Magdaros Rewards
Beating Arch-Tempered Zorah Magdaros will earn you materials used to forge the gamma version of the Zorah Magdaros armor set. The gamma set has much more defense and way more decoration slots than the alpha and beta sets. That being said, some of the individual armor pieces in the alpha and beta sets have better skills than some of the individual armor pieces of the gamma set.
Wearing at least three gamma Zorah Magdaros armor pieces will grant you the Critical Status skill which increases status effect damage when inflicting critical hits according to IGN. The introduction of gamma Zorah Magdaros armor makes status element builds a lot more viable as you now have much more defense and decoration slots to work with, making you more powerful against tempered monsters.
Here’s a breakdown of the gamma armor set:
Head – Windproof 2, Critical Eye 2, one level two decoration slot
Chest – Tremor resistance 2, three level one slots
Arms – Earplugs 2, one level three slot, one level one slot
Belt – Bombardier 2, Critical Eye 1, one level three slot, one level two slot
Legs – Blast Attack 2, Critical Eye 1, one level one slot, one level two slot
In addition, you can complete a delivery quest with the special materials from Arch-Tempered Zorah Magdaros to get the Origins Layered Armor.
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