Hazard Primordial Malzeno Solo 5'33" (GS, no pets/armor augments) [MHR: Sunbreak PC]

Say hello to one of the most difficult GS matchups in the game! Many of these counters are harder to pull off than they look for various reasons.

I have a lot of thoughts on this monster, primarily negative. Many of my complaints mellowed out after learning his moveset but I still don't think that final phase is ever excusable.

The fight has three primary phases - start, blood, and final. His enrage basically doesn't play into it at all besides activating agitator and giving you a roar counter. The first phase is almost entirely based around pre-charging on moves that lead into the wing stab/sweep. However, the extremely wonky hitboxes on the sweep mean that you have to stand at an extremely specific medium range to not be hit by it. Too close or too far and you get hit.

The bloodening phase is quite fun once you're able to identify the moves that lead into counters - the gradual explosions and the 5 radial projectiles are the easiest. The double wing stab/sweep (which can also lead into a slam instead) can be punished but is incredibly hard to estimate the correct distance for since he moves forward very far during the combo.

The final phase is complete ass because you have no time for any counters outside of the double tail thrust. Even worse, if you stagger him you can interrupt his long move chain and he won't lead into the collapse, restarting instead... wonderful.

Overall the monster is way too reliant on waiting for good move RNG on punishable moves to be fun in regular gameplay and the final phase is incredibly obnoxious for taking all control of the fight out of the player's hands unless you play dual blades or something. Another huge gripe is the huge amount of moves that are randomly tagged as true unblockables, limiting your ability to interact with them.