Monster Hunter Rise added several new monsters to the series' ever expanding roster. One such monster is the oni-like Goss Harag who can use icy breath to create weapons on its hands to defend itself against hunters. It's a fairly late game monster in Monster Hunter Rise, being at the end of both low rank and high rank so players should expect a bit of a challenge.
To prepare for the hunt, players will want to spec for ice resistance if they can. If the armor they want to use has poor ice resistance, then if possible, eating dango for ice resistance is a good idea. Barring both of these options, bringing nullberries is also wise as Goss Harag can cause iceblight. Two things about iceblight in Monster Hunter Rise, however, are different from past games. The first is that iceblight no longer causes hunters' stamina to drain faster than normal but it now slows down the cooldown of wirebugs as well. It can now also be removed without nullberries by rolling several times. However, rolling out of iceblight takes significantly longer than rolling out of fireblight.
As for weapons to bring into the hunt, if players are running an element, especially with dual blades or some bows, it should be fire or thunder, preferably the former as that is what Goss Harag is weakest to. Goss Harag resists all other elements. It also has a two star susceptibility to blast damage and fireblight, but every other status effect is rated at one star effectiveness.
Goss Harag's hitzone values are fairly even across the board when it comes to weapon type, meaning that no matter what weapon players are using, hitting Goss Harag in the head and hitting his ice weapons is going to do the most damage. Notably though, elemental damage does the most to its arms and legs. When Goss Harag goes into a rage, its arms and face will turn red and those areas will take increased damage as well.
Every Goss Harag fight takes place in the Frost Islands, which means that there will often be lampsquids swimming about. These forms of endemic life can be helpful as just touching them can give the hunter increased affinity, defense, or heal them depending on what color the lampsquid is.
Goss Harag deals with mostly physical attacks so ranged weapon users like Gunners will want to stay at a distance. Be aware, Goss Harag will certainly attempt to close the distance with several of his attacks. Players who are using melee weapons like Blademasters will want to be ready to dodge roll out of the way or block depending on the weapon they're using. Players should especially watch out for Goss Harag's melee attacks when it has fashioned ice weapons on its arms. These can do significant damage, but the flipside is that, as previously mentioned, Goss Harag takes additional damage when its ice weapons are attacked. Not only that, attacking them enough will result in them breaking which will cause a shiny drop and a knockdown.
While Goss Harag is melee focused, it does have some ranged attacks. It can fire an ice beam out of its mouth straight ahead and after it does this it will follow up with a sweeping ice beam attack. The sweeping one is a bit harder to avoid, but the fact it always comes after the previous ice beam attack gives players some time to prepare. Many silkbind attacks can help players to avoid getting hit by this ice beam. Goss Harag can also, if it has an ice scythe, throw shards of ice at players from afar. Finally, one attack sees it slam the ground causing a tremor that travels in a straight line, that can hit hunters at long range.
Monster Hunter Rise is now available for the Nintendo Switch. A PC release is slated for 2022.