Malzeno - Weakness, Tips, Armor - Monster Hunter Rise Guide - IGN (2024)

The monster Malzeno is a new Elder Dragon introduced in Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak. This page covers Malzeno's weaknesses, tips to beat it, item drops, armor, and more. See the Sunbreak Monster List page for a list of all large monsters in Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak.

Looking for particular information? Click the links below to jump to the sections:

• Ecology
• How to Beat Malzeno
• Item and Armor Suggestions
• What Dango to Choose
• Dealing with Bloodblight
• Combat Tips
• Malzeno Weaknesses
• Rewards

Malzeno Ecology

Whether you're looking for Malzeno's characteristics, threat level, or even known locations, check out our detailed table below for even more information on the monster's ecology.

Malzeno - Tips, Tricks, Strategies, and How to Beat

Malzeno makes for a punishing fight. It can cause the bloodblight status with its attacks, which will gradually drain your health and reduce your overall health recovery if not dealt with. On top of this, it's agile, darting around with tail whips, ground pounds and stomps that can deplete your health bar significantly. It also deploys bats in clusters, to release orbs of bloodblight, creating a larger area of attack.

Weapon, Armor and Item Suggestions

Like any monster in MH Rise: Sunbreak, all Weapons are viable if you know how to handle them well. However, slashing weapons generally do more damage to every part of Malzeno's body except the head, where Blunt attacks deal slightly more damage. Projectile weapons deal the least amount of damage to Malzeno. Aiming for Malzeno's head with any of these weapons will do the most damage, then its forelegs, and then the tail and torso.

Malzeno is weakest to the Dragon element, but is somewhat susceptible to Fire. As for ailments, it's somewhat susceptible to Blast and Iceblight. As you can't inflict Iceblight on your own, use a Beetle, or Wyvern Ride an Ice-element monster like Lunagaron, to take advantage of the weakness.

You'll want to take in recovery and health items to keep your stamina and health topped up during the fight. Remember to try and not use these up until you've recovered from Bloodblight, however, so their effectiveness isn't wasted.

Dango Suggestions

Some of the Dango options that prove useful against Malzeno are Dragonsbane, which grants you 10+ dragon resistance, Magnacrisp, which prevents you from fainting one time when damage taken exceeds your remaining health, and Cacaoutstanding, which halves the effect duration of Defense Down and speeds up blight recovery. As well as these, Analeptic is a good idea as it increases health recovery from items, which Malzeno specifically targets with its Bloodblight attacks.

Tips to Deal With Malzeno's Bloodblight

Malzeno's unique ability is the Bloodblight status that it inflicts. You'll notice when this happens, as a red icon will appear above your health bar, that looks like three droplets. Bloodblight is designed to gradually reduce your health and penalise your health recovery. The amount of health you can gain from using recovery items, for example, is greatly reduced when inflicted with bloodblight. To create a balance in the fight, when you're inflicted with bloodblight, the amount of damage you deal with an attack, you can back in health. With this in mind, you'll want to take as many opportunities as possible to be aggressive with attacks when the droplet icon appears above your health bar. This is also the way you recover faster during battle.

Malzeno Combat Tips

Before heading straight into the fight, pick up Endemic Life such as spiribirds to get your health, defence, stamina and attack boosts. It's also a good idea to use Wyvern Riding to your advantage, too. (See Wyvern Riding Guide - How to Mount and Tips for more details). There's a Lunagaron in the Citadel that appears when you're sent on the urgent quest to slay Malzeno that proves beneficial if you can mount it and use it against Malzeno. Lunagaron is capable of ice attacks and Malzeno is susceptible to iceblight, but its finishing move is also multiple slashes using its sharp claws. You can also mount Malzeno, and charge it into the walls. Luckily, where you'll fight Malzeno in the Citadel map has small areas where you can run it into walls up to three times before the riding gauge depletes.

There are three stages or forms that Malzeno can take during the fight. For the first one, you need to watch out for the vampire bats it will send out that can inflict Bloodblight. You'll see these swirl around Malzeno before they're unleashed, so be sure to evade them. There will also be plenty of tail whips, where Malzeno will rise up and perform a somersault before slamming its tail into the ground. In addition to this, you can expect ground pounds, that will send shockwaves of rubble across the area.

When Malzeno becomes enraged, it will start to glow and will have specific body parts that become vibrant with a cloud of red emanating from them. When this happens, you'll be prompted to attack these parts to weaken them and deal the most damage. During this phase, it will become more agile and the attacks from the second phase will become more frequent. It will also start to use the talons from its wings, lunging forward to pierce down into the ground. Dodge out of the way of these attacks to survive them.

During the third stage, when Malzeno is at its strongest, you'll receive warning dialogue from your hunter that the next attack is about to hit hard. For this, Malzeno will raise into the air and swirl its tail around for a wide-arching Bloodblight attack. Immediately following this, it will drop a cloud of red bloodblight that will continue to spread and ripple across a large area. When this happens, the best thing to do is get as far from Malzeno as possible! Malzeno will also disappear into clouds of black smoke and quickly dart around the area, so you'll need to do a lot of evading during this.

It's generally best to try and attack Malzeno's head and neck area, but this is also where it will spit out a beam of bloodblight, so stick to a pattern of attacking, then evading after a few solid hits, to avoid fainting.

Malzeno Weaknesses

Malzeno is weakest to the Dragon element, but is somewhat susceptible to Fire. As for ailments, it's somewhat susceptible to Blast and Iceblight. As you can't inflict Iceblight on your own, use a Beetle, or Wyvern Ride an Ice-element monster, like Lunagaron, to take advantage of the weakness.

Malzeno Rewards and Drop List

Break Malzeno's Wings, Forelegs, and Horn to get additional rewards. Malzeno's tail can also be severed.

Malzeno Master Rank Rewards