Tips and Tricks for HR Zoh Shia

I want to preface this by saying I am not some god tier hunter, and I am also not trying to tell anyone how they should play the game. You paid for the game you play it how you want.

Anyway, since HR Zoh Shia came out, I've got around 30 kills so far. I started responding to SoS and hosting my own investigations with my Mushroom Mancer build to help MH newbies get their kills. I have failed ALOT of hunts trying to help others get their Zoh Shia kills. I have seen ALOT of deaths due to things that I think a lot of players simply do not know about. So, I decided to do a write up of fight specific tips, and then some general tips and tricks to help newer players. Here are some things I have noticed that I think alot of new players could benefit from.

Apologies for the long write up, skip to TLDR if you don't want to read. I will try to summarize the key points as efficiently as possible at the end.

FIRE NOVA (DEFINITELY NOT LUNASTRA)
The single biggest thing I have seen people die too.

When Zoh Shia does his big fire nova/blast there is usually a big tell. A lot of players seem to not know when it is coming. The first one he does is usually shortly after the first time his white armor regenerates on his head. To clarify, I mean after you break it off the first time, do some damage, and the white armor regenerates. If you die to this first one often, just keep that condition in mind.After a good amount of fights you will get a feel for when this will be. In addition to this, he also has the same animation as the guardian monsters where he begins drawing wylk (or w.e it is called) from the ground. This is obvious because there will be a bunch of white mist/particles will start forming. Then crystals will come up first, giving you a short time to position accordingly.

A big tip here is to pick up some elemental pods as soon as he regenerates his head armor the first time (after the conditions I mentioned above). The reason you do this, is THE ELEMENTAL PODS, WHEN SHOT AT THE CRYSTALS, CREATE SAFE SPOTS. The crystals themselves are ignited, created the larger blast. Shooting the wylk crysals with an elemental pod destroy these crystals. This also applies to the small crystals he will periodically summon throughout the fight. You can also shoot those with elemental pods when he is standing over them to do additional elemental damage. Once the crystal is destroyed that entire area the crystal was covering becomes a safe spot.

Once those crystals are destroyed you can walk up in that area and if you are ranged you can create a HUGE DPS WINDOW. When I play my HBG build, and there are other ranged attackers in the fight, I do not seem them walk up with me to attack. NOT ONE TIME IN 30 KILLS and probably around 50-60 attempts in SoS. Once those crystals are destroyed don't be afraid to walk up and abuse the free damage window. This is probably the largest dps window in the fight and no one abuses it. I personally even pop my corrupted mantle here.

Sir, a Second Nova has hit the hunter
I see a lot of people die to this as well. Almost as much as the first one.

This one is a bit more difficult to read, but is very manageable. He will do the same animation drawing wylk from the first nova. This nova will summon crystals in a 270 degree radius from his frontal area. If that is confusing thingk of a square, and zoh shia is facing the top of the square. The two sides are also not safe, but THERE SAFE SPOT BEHIND ZOH SHIA. When you see the large crystals spawning around the 3 sides of the monser. RUN BEHIND HIM. Once you feel more comfortable with the fight, or if you have elemental pods (I hope you are starting to see the importance of elemental pods during this fight), you can also destroy those crystals to create more safe spots similar to the first nova. If you do the one in front of him, this creates another large DPS window (These windows are more easily abusable by ranged players).

**Bonus for Novas
If you really want to get sweaty, but dont play ranged, bring a good ranged weapon to swap to and call your Seikrat (more on Seikrat below) as soon as he begins to cast the first nova. Switch to the ranged weapon and just start blasting him for a shit ton of free damage. I prefer a HBG with Wyvern Heart. After he comes down from the breath animation, switch to paralysis ammo (if your HBG supports it obv) and immediately paralyze him for another DPS window. This is not really as efficient on the second nova because the window is not as big and obvious, but can be applied there as well.

C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER
Iykyk. The next thing I see a ton of people die to is combos/consecutive attacks that Zoh Shia does. These are most commonly fireballs, wing slams, and tigrex runs. When players get knocked down, I think it is intuitive or instinctual to immediately try to get back up. I see this literally every single fight. Player gets knocked down, starts getting up or calling their seikrat and immediately gets blasted by the follow up attack. PSA TO NEW HUNTERS. YOU GET IFRAMES WHILE LAYING ON THE GROUND. I assume a lot of new hunters don't know this because I never see people abusing the iframes to live through combos. There seems to be a heavy reliance on using seikrats to escape combos, but there are times where it is actually getting you killed. Especially as larger and more dangerous monsters are released. This fight has made it extremely obvious how reliant hunters have become on Seikrats. Without fail I see this every fight and even if the player doesn't die they come dangerously close. Start getting into good habits as more difficult monsters start to release. This is applicable in every single fight in Wilds.

That being said, when he does the longer fireball combo where he does the first 3 and then two longer charged fireballs, you will not be able to lay on the ground the entire time. This is where superman dive comes in. For those who don't know, YOU GET IFRAMES AS SOON AS THE ANIMATION STARTS AND ALSO SUBSEQUENTLY WHILE LAYING ON THE GROUND. To do a super man dive, you must be facing away from the monster (or be running leap of faith) and simply start sprinting and jump. If you cannot do this consistently it is probably because you are not facing away from the monster. This can be extremely helpful to force iframes and escape dangerous situations. You can jump away from danger and also use this to force on the ground i-frames. Do not rely so heavily on your Seikrat. Learn the glory of iframes.

Other General Tips and Tricks.
Those are the the ways I see people die the most, so I wanted to be more detailed in that area. Here are some other tips and tricks you can employ to make this fight better.

- STOP USING SEIKRAT 24/7
(already touched this for one reason above, but here is another)
There are plenty of situations where you can use the Seikrat beneficially, especially for sharpening. But, it is soooo funny to me that people are so obsessed with these meta builds and maximizing DPS, yet spend half the fight running around on their seikrat. You know what the Seikrat does? It causes a GIANT DPS LOSS. You don't need to run 10 miles away to heal and sharpen. If you insist on using the Seikrat dont run so far away. The further you go from the boss the longer it takes to come back. Stay in a close range where you can make it back to the boss in a timely manner. Every single fight, EVERY SINGLE ONE, I am the first person by a long shot to start attacking the boss during his openings. I am not the most amazing hunter but I have a lot of experience. The key to high dps is high uptime. A mediocre build that has high uptime on the boss is going to do more than a meta build with someone who is not fighting efficiently. Monster Hunter is a game where experience and skill means alot more than the meta builds. The Seikrat, just by its nature, causes uptime to be really bad if there is too much reliance on it. There are two animations (a mount and a dismount) that you have to go through plus the time it takes to run back to the monster and your animation to start attacking. If you are going to rely on Seikrat that's fine I am not dictating how anyone should or shouldn't play, but use it efficiently and limit it where you can. Fight on the ground and learn the combat. You will see your damage and kill times go up drastically. As a veteran hunter, I can immediately tell who is new to the series and who is not by who has high uptime on the monsters.

Zoh Shia has a lot of attacks that leave MASSIVE openings. Like some of the biggest openings in the entire series (or maybe it just feels that way because of recency bias). I am consistently mind blown by how much damage everyone is missing out on. I am sometimes joined by a lone hunter here and there for sometimes the entire first half of the opening.

Almost all of Zoh Shias attacks can be blocked even without guard up (i think one of the big fireballs counts as a special attack that requires it, but can't recall). All of them minus the novas can ignored from iframes.

- TAIL CUTTING
Almost every fight, I see players attacking the tail while it is still encased in armor. YOU CANNOT SEVER THE TAIL OR DEAL PART DMG TO IT WHILE IT IS WHITE. There are two reasons this is really bad. First, Zoh takes reduced damage on armored parts. Every fight I see people attacking the tail when there are big juicey black spots exposed. You are doing less damage and are not contributing to the cut at all. Some players are maybe just scared and want to play safe and if that is the reason thats fine, just spreading awareness on this. Second, the tail has laughably low part damage threshold to cut. As soon as the tail turns black, the tail can be severed easily even without having attacked it all prior. This goes back to the sentiment that so many players are obssessed with Meta builds and then play super inefficiently. What is the obsession with the meta builds if you are going to play inefficiently? I guarantee even with my mushroom mancer build with ZERO dps jewels is doing more damage attacking the weak points than the armored tail. Again, this is not to knock anyone. If you don't feel comfortable in the danger zones, then continue to attack the tail or legs. Staying alive is the most important thing in getting the fight done.

- Environmental Damage
For those who don't know, there are big hanging structures above Zoh Shia that you can abuse for some big damage and create windows. I don't see people bring them down as often as I thought. Especially people that are dying a lot. They are far away from the boss healing or doing whatever. The are not actively in combat. The monster is right under the debris, and they don't do it for some reason. It can be a big way to contribute to the fight if you feel your uptime isn't great. Just wanted to shed a bit of light on this.

- PLAYING WITH SUPPORT
This is just a bit of niche advice, but as I stated above, I enjoy helping people with mushroom mancer. Its fun to play my own mini game and keep people alive. I don't know why, but even when people are being kept at 100% health the entire fight they STILL have bad uptime on the boss. This isn't as applicable for hunting horn (because the raw heals just dont compare), but if you do play with a mancer, just keep attacking the boss as much as your heart desires. We want to keep you alive. We want you to do those big numbers. You don't need to run away and heal every time you take damage. You are going to get healed. Sharpening is reasonable obviously, but I do not understand why I am the only player attacking the monster half the fight when everyone is full health and fully buffed with every shroom and seed possible. Stay in there!

You aren't trapped in there with Zoh Shia, he is trapped inside with you.

TLDR:
USE ELEMENTAL PODS TO CREATE SAFE SPOTS AND DPS WINDOWS DURING FIRE NOVAS. THE ELEMENTAL PODS CAN ALSO BE USED TO DAMAGE HIM BY SHOOTING THE SMALLER CRYSTALS. ABUSE IFRAMES TO SURVIVE COMBOS. TRY TO LIMIT SEIKRAT USE SO YOUR DPS UPTIME IS HIGHER AND YOU CAN LEARN IFRAMES FOR FUTURE CONTENT WHERE IT WILL BE NEEDED. USE ENVIRONMENT DMG. PRIORITIZE WEAK SPOTS OVER TAIL. KEEP HIGH UPTIME WITH SUPPORT.

If you read this, I hope you found something that helped. Best of luck hunters, and get those kills. I will probably help some players this afternoon if anyone needs help getting a kill, drop a line and I will try to help later.