Monster Hunter Rise is rife with armor and weapons for players to craft. Some require unique materials while other require materials from the monsters that players will be hunting throughout the course of the game. The Icesteel Hammer is one in the latter category that was added with Monster Hunter Rise's 2.0 update.
Getting to Kushala Daora
Most of the parts needed to craft the Icesteel Hammer are from Kushala Daora. Kushala Daora is an elder dragon that can manipulate the wind and has popped up in the Monster Hunter series quite often. It was missing from Monster Hunter Rise when the game first launched, but it's back now with its animal-inspired weapons. Players won't be able to immediately fight it; however, there are a few steps that players will have to take to get to Kushala Daora.
First off, they will have to make their way through the High Rank hub quests and defeat the final boss. Once they've done that, their hunter rank will unlock until they reach rank 20 at which point it will cap again.
Once players have reached rank 20, a new urgent quest will unlock to defeat a Chameleos. Once Chameleos is defeated, the hunter rank cap will unlock once more until level 30. At level 30, players will then be asked to fight Kushala Daora and they can get to work collecting materials to craft its armor and weapons including the Icesteel Hammer.
Forging the Icesteel Hammer
In order to forge the Icesteel Hammer, players will need the following materials:
- 4 Daora Carapaces
- 2 Daora Claw+
- 1 Daora Tail
- 1 unit of Elder Dragon Blood
All of these materials can be obtained solely from fighting Kushala Daora, but as with all monster parts, the drop rates of the various materials differ.
Players have a 16% chance of being awarded a carapace at the end of a Kushala Daora hunt. There is a 30% chance of carving one off Kushala Daora's body and a 17% chance of carving one off its tail. Finally, due to the way the game rolls for drops, when picking up a shiny drop, there is either a 30% or 34% chance of it being a carapace.
As for the claws, there is a 21% chance of being rewarded one for completing the hunt and a 15% chance of carving one from the body. If Kushala's wings are broken then there is a 30% chance of being awarded two claws. Shiny drops have a 10% chance of being claws.
The tail is probably the rarest of these materials. It has a 12% chance of being awarded at the end of the hunt and an 80% chance of being carved from the tail. These are the only avenues in which to get a tail, so if players are missing this, they'll have to focus fire on the tail to cut it off.
The Elder Dragon blood can be acquired from every elder dragon, not just Kushala Daora. With Kushala Daora, there is a 15% chance of getting Elder Dragon Blood from a shiny drop. The blood is typically awarded at the end of an Elder Dragon hunt as part of the additional rewards players receive that the game does not specify a drop rate on.
Once players have all these materials, they can go to the blacksmith and forge the Icesteel Hammer. It has 180 attack, 36 ice element, 10% affinity, one level 1 decoration slot, and a little bit of blue sharpness. Notably, the name of the weapon is technically "Icesteel Hammer I" which indicates it will be further upgradeable as more updates to the game come.
Monster Hunter Rise is now available for the Nintendo Switch. A PC release is slated for 2022.