Rathalos Blademaster: Unlocking the Hydra BEAST!

In this article, we are going to break down exactly how to enable and get the most out of the latest free Legendary Champion in RAID: Shadow Legends, Rathalos Blademaster – part of the 2024 Promotional Event with Monster Hunter.

First of all, acquiring Rathalos is very simple, all you need to do is open the game 7 times during the promotion window, and it’s as simple as that – on day 7 you will be rewarded with a brand new, exclusive Legendary Hero that is going to be unobtainable once the event ends, and no, he cannot be pulled from shards – just like the Ninja Events.

Before we dive into how to enable Rathalos, it’s worth going through his skills, and talking about why in fact he is actually so good, and more so, why he is so valuable for Hydra Clan Boss.

Now, I’m sure many of you have seen the dominance of teams utilizing Trunda in Hydra, where a single A2 against a set of decapitated heads can yield unspeakable damage, seeing some of the top players hitting damage numbers in the billions, well, that’s not necessarily unobtainable anymore for the average player – yes crazy damage like this is always going to be ridiculously hard to pull off, but finally we have access to a free Champion who is capable of dealing monstrous damage under the correct conditions.

First of all, we’ll look at Rathalos’ A1 Ability, Spirit Thrust, which is just a single target hit, which has the opportunity to place a 60% [Decrease DEF] debuff, which is good, but the best bit about it is the fact that against bosses, this cannot be resisted – so no ACC is required to build this boss-killer!

On Rathalos’ A2 ability, Spirit Step Slash, he attacks 1 enemy, which will ignore 25% of the target’s DEF, however on bosses… take that 25% and replace it with 100% – He has a 100% True Damage hit, which is massive against bosses which large amounts of Defense – realistically it’s massive everywhere, we’ve all seen the importance of sets like Savage and Lethal, and how much damage value they  can add to a build! But that’s not all – every second use of this skill will not only attack 1 target, but it will also attack ALL enemies, which in Hydra is 4x True Damage hits!

The third and final active skill from Rathalos, is Overhead Slash, a powerful AOE attack that also grants Rathalos with a 30% [Increase C.DMG] and 30% [Increase SPD] buffs, now one thing to mention here, unless you are timing things perfectly in Hydra, this does make him a target for the Head of Mischief unless the rest of your team have these buffs, which Increase C.DMG is quite a tricky buff to find for the whole team – so you have three options with this skill, you can either disable it completely, build Rathalos with enough Resistance to deal with the Head of Mischief… OR Find somebody who can bring this buff for the whole team – the first option is generally the easiest.

Now finally, onto Rathalos’ Passive Skill, Rathalos Mastery – the real reason he stands out, Rathalos will inflict 50% more damage against target’s under [HP Burn] debuffs, whilst also receiving 25% less damage from them, and every FIFTH skill he casts, will deal 200% more damage! This is absolutely insane, when timed correctly with the True Damage from his A2 Skill, can result is numbers comparable with Trunda in Hydra, and that’s what we’re here to help you achieve in this article!

When it comes to building your Rathalos for Hydra Clan Boss, it’s important to meet several stat requirements, both offensively and defensively, to get the most out of the Champion.

As we’ve mentioned already above, due to the way his A1 skill works, you will not require any accuracy at all for this build, as he will ignore the bosses Resistance stats.

Offensive Stats:

Rathalos’ damage in your runs is going to be vital, so ensuring that you have 100% critical rate is so important, because you do not want one of his 200% boosted damage attacks to land a normal hit, these need to be critting without fail, outside of this you will need to boost his Attack, and Critical Damage to high levels, there are a few breakpoints that we would advise targeting whilst maintaining 100% Critical Rate.

Early-Mid Account:

For an early to mid-game account, you should be aiming for an ideal amount of 4,000 Attack, and 150% Critical Damage, of course, the more the merrier, but this will allow you to get a good amount of damage out from your Rathalos, whilst of course, keeping to the goal of 100% Critical Rate.

Late-End Game Account:

The possibilities for an End-game account are huge, especially when you add in Awakening and Empowerment, however, with those aside, you can expect an End-game build to reach upwards of 6500-7000+ Attack, and 250% Critical Damage without Empowerment or Awakening Bonuses – once these are added, well, you could be dealing with stats in the 8000+ attack range, whilst still having 300-350%+ Critical Damage.

Speed:

Speed will always be relative to the stage you are facing, you want to make sure that your Rathalos is rotating through his skills quickly and going at least 1:1 with the enemies you’re facing, this may be reduced drastically by the addition of [Increase SPD] and Turn Meter boosting from your team, but below are the listed maximum speeds of the Hydra heads for each difficulty.

Normal: 210

Hard: 220

Brutal: 230

Nightmare: 250

Defensive Stats:

Hydra Clan Boss can hit incredibly hard, especially when you’re facing higher difficulties such as Nightmare, and as such, you need to ensure that you can survive with your Rathalos, yes he will be accompanied by supporting Champions that will help to keep him alive, or even revive him if he does die sooner than anticipated, but the saying goes “A Dead DPS is a useless DPS” – so aim to have a good amount of defensive stats at the same time as all your damage.

In an ideal scenario you will have Increase DEF, Strengthen, and maybe even Ally Protection, paired with some form of healing or shielding, which will drastically reduce the damage you’re taking, but aiming for around 2000 Defense, and ideally a minimum of 35,000 – 40,000 HP will help to keep your Rathalos alive for long enough to really pump some damage.

Due to the fact that Rathalos does not need ACC, you will want to push into the Defensive Tree, this will allow you to gain the benefit of having Blastproof to reduce your AOE Damage taken by 5%, whilst also picking up Retribution to give Rathalos the chance to counter-attack from time to time.

As for Offensive Masteries, you’ll first be picking up the standard 5% Critical Rate and 10% Critical Damage, the second Tier 2 Mastery we would recommend for Hydra is Heart of Glory due to the fact that Rathalos is going to be at 100% HP frequently, giving him an extra 5% Damage Boost.

Next up on Tier 3, you will want to take Single Out and Lifedrinker, Single out will give you an execute effectively, boosting your damage to low health enemies (sub 40%) by 8% whilst Lifedrinker will help to top you up to gain more benefit from the previously selected Heart of Glory.

For Tier 4 Masteries, Bring it Down is the way to go, with the Hydra Bosses having a large HP pool, of course this 6% Damage boost is going to be active at all times when attacking them, so it’s a no-brainer here, paired with Cycle of Violence to get the chance to decrease the Cooldown of his skills!

Tier 5 Picks will be Methodical to increase the consistent A1 Damage, and Kill Streak, which will gradually increase the damage you are dealing each time you kill an enemy.

Last but certainly not least, we have the Tier 6 Mastery – and for this one, we’re leaning towards Warmaster as the go-to option, the reason for this is Hydra Heads have a large amount of HP, so the triggered damage from Warmaster is pretty substantial, while Helmsmasher goes wasted with his A2 ability already ignoring 100% of the target’s DEF.

There are several key elements needed in a team to get the maximum potential from Rathalos, however its important to mention that obtaining the PERFECT STORM of support will require some top-tier Legendaries, so we will do our best to detail a more free-to-play/accessible team as well as a very end-game team.

Important buffs:

• Increase ATK
• Increase DEF
• Strengthen
• Increase SPD

Important Debuffs:

• Defense Down
• Weaken
• HP Burn
• Hex

Outside of these debuffs and buffs, of course you will need to deal with the Hydra Mechanics at the same time, so you will likely want to bring in a Block Buff Champion, and a Provoker.

One important thing to remember with Hydra, is that clearing your Champions out from being devoured is really important, so running a secondary DPS is rather important for the longevity of this run, as if Rathalos is the only Damage Dealer, he may find himself getting eaten if he is devoured.

End-Game Recommended Setup:

• Rathalos Blademaster – Damage
• Krisk the Ageless – Increase SPD, Increase DEF, Ally Protect, Provokes & Mischief Tank
• Lydia the Deathsiren – Decrease DEF, Weaken, Strengthen, Increase SPD
• Acrizia – Secondary Damage
• Ultimate Galek – HP Burn, Block Buffs, Decrease SPD
• Lady Mikage – Increase ATK, Increase C.DMG, Buff Extension, Shields, Ally Attack

Mid-Late Game Recommended Setup:

• Rathalos Blademaster – Damage
• Lydia the Deathsiren – Increase SPD, Strengthen, Decrease DEF, Weaken
• Mithrala Lifebane – Increase DEF, Hex, Increase ATK,
• Visix the Unbowed – Decrease SPD, Provokes, Ally Protection
• Akoth the Seared – HP Burn
• Sun Wukong – Secondary Damage, Block Buffs

Early-Game Recommended Setup:

• Rathalos Blademaster – Damage
• Mordecai – Increase ATK, HP Burns (Available via Promocode)
• Starter Champion – Secondary Damage
• Uugo – Decrease DEF, Block Buffs
• Apothecary – Increase SPD, Healing
• Ghrush the Mangler – Decrease ATK, Healing

Now that we’ve covered why Rathalos is good, how to build him, and who to accompany him with, it’s time to get into the nitty gritty of how to actually deal massive damage with him, and as much as he will naturally do large amounts of damage, min-maxing this requires you to create the perfect storm.

First things first, you will want to make sure that you have as many heads as possible dead, leaving them exposed to taking increased damage, but not only do they need to be dead; they need to have HP Burn on them, as well as Weaken, and ideally Decrease DEF (however, this isn’t relevant to the A2 from Rathalos)

Next up, you want to make sure Rathalos has Increase ATK, ideally Increase C.DMG from either himself or from Lady Mikage, to increase his damage as much as possible.

Finally, you want to make sure that the skill timings are lining up, for the ‘Perfect Storm’ here, you need Rathalos to have his A2 Skill, Spirit Step Slash ready and available to use, on it’s second use (triggering AOE attack) – on top of this, you want this to be Rathalos’ 5^th skill to gain another 200% Damage boost on the A2 skill.

With all of these damage multipliers, paired with the fact that Rathalos ignores 100% of the Bosses DEF on his A2 Skill, you are in for some ridiculous damage, we’re talking easily 10mil+ damage in one single skill.

Of course, having this perfect storm happen is tricky to land, but it’s not always necessary, regardless of having the perfect storm scenario, Rathalos will deal a HUGE amount of damage from his A2 skill throughout the fight.