The Definitive Elder Dragon Power Tier List | Monster Hunter 

Hello commenters, I'm not sure if this video has peaked in its growth yet, but since now a significant portion of my subscribers are from this video I'd like to ask for any ideas for Monster Hunter content you'd like to see going forward. As you may have seen, I didn't expect this video to be as wide reaching or well recieved as it was so I'm thankful for you tuning in to my little channel. If you've got an idea please post it as a reply to this comment to help me brainstorm. Edit: Recently I’ve seen people asking about the Behemoth, the reason I didn’t include it’s both a crossover fight, so I wouldn’t consider it canon, and because its powers work off of magic rather than being more grounded like your normal monsters (e.g. elemental attacks come from specialised organs in regular monsters)

Only disagreement is on Blackveil Vaal Hazak's placement. My man fuels an entire ecosystem, and by merely existing in a place would eventually turn it into a similar environment. You can see this with the infected wildlife wherever he goes, having just barely started reaching into the ancient forest. He may jot have the size, but he certainly has the environmental factor to at least crack fort destroyer tier

Makes sense that Safi was in world breaker tier. I mean if Alatreon, A BLACK DRAGON, felt threatened enough to burn and completely destroy the nest so that another one couldn’t be born even after the original’s death, then that says something about its power.

One thing to mention is that Chameleos and Namielle aren't exactly "weak", they're just non-hostile to the hunter and most other creatures. It's implied that because Chameleos is an insectivore (and a trickster by nature) and that Namielle naturally lives in the sea, they don't really see a reason to cause trouble, so they don't. If they actually wanted to cause more havoc, they absolutely could do.

Honestly surprised Val isn't ranked higher, not for pure physical attribute but the fact that the effluvium can potentially change entire ecosystems so long as the black veil is present

Capcom you have absolutely no idea how much id pay to see a ful grown safi interact with a Fatalis....im 100% serious Y'All wanna see this to

Despite not being an Elder, Plesioth should be a World Breaker rank.

Namilelle in the sea would be a terrifying fight, the sheer amount of electricity being controlled by that obviously aquatic elder would be incredibly destructive.

Amatsu, Nakarkos, Narwa and Ibushi not being classified as "ecological disaster" seems really weird

Considering how Blackviel is basically a conduit of Effluvium, rapidly infecting the area and creatures around it to make a habitat suitable for its needs, I very much question its placement in anything lower than Fort Destroyer, or even Ecological Disaster.

Nakarkos can shatter a mountain with the initial impact of it's Lazer (not even the full seven seconds, just the initial impact was needed for shattering the mountain) Along with that, he has eaten enough animals, to build a full blown island out of their bones I'd say that should at least be enough to bring him up to "fort destroyer" if not "Ecological Disaster"

If there's one i need to disagree with you put Nakarkos far too low, it's at least in the ecological disaster tier with the environmental destruction it's told and shown (by the corpses in wyvern's end) to have. The hyper beam is also capable of punching through a ludicrous amount of solid rock almost instantaneously during the death animation.

I'd say that Ruiner is remarkably intelligent rather than immortal. Between the fact that it slowly becomes more and more aggressive as it loses health, and the way it ambushed Shara after we "killed" it.

White Fatalis' red lightning goes even a step beyond instantly carting a hunter. It outright vaporizes them, erases them from existence. Getting hit by it will instantly forfeit the quest regardless of carts remaining, as your hunter ceases to exist.

Have to say Zorah is World Breaker for me. His sheer size guarantees him that spot. If he went on a rampage instead of wanting to commit seppuku, the world's geography is changing

If Amatsu's hurricanes surpass any natural one is insane it's heavily underestimated, the hurricanes would probably affect nations just by existing and these can be more intense by it getting mad. And Amatsu is constantly in these nonchalantly, and Amatsu rarely has any scars or injures since it's body is so tough just living in these hurricanes. And when Amatsu is chose to be Sunbreak's Final Boss already tells us how terrifying this elder is

Funny thing about Safi; The game devs have a few paragraphs of game lore on a data book. (I’ll send the link if people ask for it as I’m pretty sure comments with links get auto deleted now. ) That pretty much confirms Safi=Fatalis Since Safi is the new gen world class terror, they wanted him to be an equal to Fatalis. He was originall going to be black as well, but they decided a new gen deserved a new color; red Both Safi and Fatalis are considered beyond human intelligence Both Fatalis and Safi are considered the pinnacle of life; and what essentially every being strives to evolve into as both are technically immortal in their own ways. The only thing is change about this list is to put ‘eater of elders’ either below or above ecological disaster considering it was confirmed by the EXACT same guide that Nerg>Shara and he would’ve killed Shara had the hunters not intervened. Meaning that while Nerg doesn’t really cause that kind if destruction; he can take on that kind of calamity and come out on top.

I may not have grown up with these games but they introduced me to friends who saved my life. I have never had such a magical experience as playing through Iceborne blind, together, and seeing all of the newly introduced monsters. Since then I've played several previous entries and fell in love with the elders- namely Amatsu and Dalamadur. But nothing will ever compare to seeing Safi'Jiiva release a drop of Sapphire of the Emperor for the first time.

my only problem is with the existence of the entire "elder by classification" tier besides kirin because all of those guys are true elder dragons and just as strong as a toaster or a velkhana literally the exact same in-game tier just less popular and iconic as designs

Vaal and Namielle are WITHOUT A DOUBT true elders

I learned that the Lao Shen Lung in the first game was running from a Fatalis. Really puts into perspective how terrifying Fatalis is if it can make a mountain dragon run with its tail between its legs.

Aren't all Elder Dragons supposed to be Ecological Disasters by nature? I thought that was their whole thing. You can definitely see this with the Elder Dragons we have in MH: World The sheer presence of these monsters alters the sky in the map. Especially noticable with Teostra/Lunastra in the desert where you can see that the whole air is burning and Kirin just being *in* the Coral Highlands transforms the area into a permanent thunderstorm in the sky. And it's not actively doing that either. Vaal Hazak also fuels the entire Rotten Vale through it's presence. It's so deadly that it can kill/control creatures just through the spores it emits. If you fight Blackveil VH in the Ancient Forest, it canonically just emerged/arrived there yet the monsters already start to behave unnatural

I'd argue that only the Kirin species should fall under "Elder by classification". All of the others in that tier are still capable of terrible feats of destruction. Chameleos is usually considered part of a sort of triangle with Kushala and Teostra, since its poison can hurt Kushala, Kushala's wind and ice hurt Teostra and Teostra's flame and blast hurt Chameleos. Chameleos also seems to be a cut above other elder dragons in terms of intelligence, using its natural stealth to set up ambushes and avoid risky fights. I will also say that I feel like Rise did him kinda dirty, I remember him being a much bigger threat in 4U.

Very spot on list expect Amastu is literally described as a natural disaster in the games and Sunbreak sorta confirms that with the Merchant and Chefs backstory of thier homeland being destroyed by one. It's way more dangerous than something like Kulv, since it's basically able to create hurricanes and massive lightning storms.

This has to be the only video that gives Zorah some justice even if it's more on a lore/power wise thing I just love the boyo

Based on the rank difference, I wonder how Malzeno was able to hold back Gaismagorm and push it back to the depths.

I’m can’t help but feel like Capcom has massively shafted Alatreon since Iceborne. Back in 3U, it seemed like the consensus surrounding it was that it was likely comparable to Fatalis. The developers themselves have even said that Alatreon was meant to “inherit the legacy of Fatalis”. He’s still got the world-breaker status for sure, but it seems like nowadays it’s only ever referenced in relation to Safi’jiiva and how much of a pushover it would be if it fought Fatalis straight up. This is likely just me being overly critical l, but I really hope that we eventually get some kind of hint that Ala isn’t just a potential meal for the Red Dragon.

Yama incredibly underrated, as a monster it was always meant to be a more dangerous (to the hunter) flying sequel to Lao, he literally sucks up entire forests and drinks lakes

The truth is that it seems very strange to me that Valstrax and its variant are so low, taking into account that this is stronger than Shagaru and possibly Nergigante, and not to mention that his ambush would end several ancient dragons that are higher up.

Welp. I don’t agree with much of these placements (some are canonically inaccurate, such as Namielle and Blackveil occupying the “Super Elder Dragon-class” ala Dive), but I gotta respect the work that went into making this-wasn’t expecting this kind of editing on a tier list.

I can only agree with your opinions and judgement. Well thought out and comprehensive. I enjoyed it greatly. Thank you Mr. Var1ares :)

Very cool video, one of the better tier lists video out there. Loved the cinematic intros as well as the calm and informative delivery, feels like a far cry from the over produced attention demanding videos that RU-vid prioritizes. Thank you for the content, good day! (Bonus for all the crediting of other's videos)

If Versa Pietru, Makili Pietru and Oltura from Stories 1 and 2 were in this tierlist, I'd guess that Versa Pietru would be near the Top of "Fort Destroyer", Makili Pietru either at the Top of Ecological Disaster or World Breaker, And Olutra also around the same place as Makili Pietru.

Having the Safi nuke with the drop was a glorious decision during that cinematic appreciation of the elder dragons. Liking the video for that alone.

A healthy young zorah magdaros would be insane. The one we fought was old and dying. Imagine one that could move more freely and fight back

Awesome video, you should definitely do elder dragon level monsters next, though I’m sure that’ll be a bit of a longer wait due to the vast amount’s between variants, deviants & rare species.

I like how you added the halo theme song in the first bit of the video it matches perfectly of the intro of what you made

Great job! Amazing video. Earnt you a new subscriber!

Now this is new. A metal series BB fan of the Sword of the Gods (I can relate to that) also fan of MH?!?! Now you my boi earned a new sub. Looking forward to more content

That intro went so hard! And so well done!! Now I kinda want a monster hunter monsters ranked by using halo music lmao

I like that nerg has its own category cause it's just an anomaly

I feel Dalamadur should be a bit higher in the world breaking tier considering its heavily implied by the skeleton in world that the one we actually faught wasnt fully grown if you compare the scale of its spines and teeth to a hunter in both games to get a rough estimate of its size even the smaller estimates would be large enough to swallow most other monsters on this list whole

Great vid! Quick side note tho according to journals written by a master rank hunter detailing his fight with xenojiva and safi jiva, safi is not a full grown adult but merely an adolescent child.

The combination of the cutscene from Zorah Magdaros with the music gave me literally goosebumbs. Also video is great

Now I want the White Fatalis with the same kind of battle that the normal Fatalis in Iceborn

MH3U Is awesome. It has underwater combat, It had Ceadeus, First game with Alatreon, Jhen Mohran, AND The awesome Dire Miralis. I'm so glad it was my first Monster Hunter game, introducing me to the series as a kid.

The combination of Halo music and Monster Hunter earned you my Like and Subscribe. You have awesome taste. I will follow up feedback after I finish the video. Also sexy voice my man

I have got to be honest, the beginning brings a litteral tear to my eye....... Masterfully done

intro goes unbelievably hard

You forgot the strongest monster. The main hunter in each game, being capable of hunting down any monster known to humanity.

The Halo soundtrack to start your MHW vid earned my and my 3 other burner account subs lol, great work man

nice work you did there

I like this tier list video (and your use of Halo ost) and wouldn't make but one change, Id place Dahren over Jhen. Like you said it looks more fierce.

My only gripe with this is that Valstrax is shown to have an active rivalry with Amatsu on more than one occasion. CG Val is responsible for destroying the civilization in the Sandy Plains, and is regarded as being on the same threat level as Ibushi and Narwa.

Nice job on this. Any chance you’ll be doing the same to the frontier monsters sometime in the future? 27:04 Now we’re getting into the real shit

I think MH4U has some of the best monster rosters of the series. I long to see some of them return in new entries. Specially Dalamadur and Gogmazius.

You say that just because a monster is in a lower rank doesn’t mean it can’t beat a higher tier monster, yet I feel you still took matchups into too much account. For example, Kirin may get wrangled by Rajang regularly, but Rajang are adapted to fighting Kirin specifically. They are lightning-resistant and their huge arms and hands make it easier to hold one down and grab its horn to break it. On that note, Rajang only want the horn and don’t actually kill the Kirin. But a Kirin being in the area can cause thunderstorms and they can run so fast they practically teleport, which is considerably more powerful than any non-elder, even Rajang. Similar case for Vaal Hazak; while it might not be much in a head-on fight, effluvium eats flesh, living or dead, and a Vaal brings with it a lot of effluvium. It feeds off of the nutrients the effluvium gathers, and the act of it absorbing the effluvium further harms or even kills whatever it pulls it from. The effluvium can affect entire locales, driving the monsters insane from the agony. Neither of those two Elders are very confrontational by nature, but the amount by which they alter environments just by being there and performing their daily activities plus their other strange abilities puts them on equal grounds with physically stronger Elders like Teostra. Edit: Oh yeah, and Oroshi Kirin is said to have frozen an entire city in a night. That sounds powerful to me.

This makes total sense, i still want to see white fatalis lore accurate in the future (he can summon both crimson and normal fatalis to the fight)

one thing i like to point about Zora is it takes the *entire* guild to simply just get it to change direction while its already actively dying meanwhile it only takes up to 4 hunters to kill fetalis. Not saying its stronger, just saying its damn hell stronger than xenojiva

Bro safi potential it’s insane, imagine us finding about him some months later and seeing him fight agains alatreon,also IF he had fought and won against alatreon he could have adorned his life force, imagine a safi’jiiva after having assorbed alatreon☠️☠️

It's only a small detail, but shara ishvalda is the only monster in the entire series that knows that the hunter it's fighting is being controlled by us, and when it opens its eyes in the final phase, it stares directly through the camera at us. It knows we're there and that is terrifying

i feel gaismagorm should be a bit higher, mainly because it grows stronger as it feeds. we never know how powerful it may get

I know mh stories 2 is another genre of playstyle, I still would like to see where Oltura would fit in this tier list, even tho oltura is probably a juvenile in the boss battle, as an Elder dragon I still think its really powerful Edit: I would guess oltura would be between ecological disarter or fort destroyer considering it threatened most of the monsters in the game and had the ability to enrage them and make them lose control

You get a like in my book for just the intro music. Got High School Halo 3 launch vibes all over again.

Personally i think the only placement i disagree with here is Amatsu. Especially since he brings raging storms and typhoons with him everywhere he goes. I feel if anything he and Kulve should be swapped, and that he should instead be in Ecological Disaster tier? Thats just me tho. Otherwise very awesome and well explained list!

Chameleos just want to do his one to the left, one to the right, this is why it doesn’t has a turf war

I'm at work, phone auto-playing in the background. Needless to say, I was confused when the Halo theme started playing, followed by someone talking about Monster Hunter.

What a sick intro, hell yea brother

You definitely got Valstrax and Crimson Glow wrong. The former is well above regular elders like kushala and Teo/Luna, but is not very aggressive and is rarely encountered. The latter is canonically noted to be on par with Allmother Narwa in terms of power, and has the aggression to be a danger to the entire ecosystem it occupies. Fatalis doesn’t purposely melt hunters into itself. It’s literally a case of “shit happens”, where it’s chest is so hot they get stuck unintentionally. Safi is the closest thing to an existential threat the series has ever had. It’s equivalent to Fatalis, so it’s outdone in terms of power by Crimson and White, but Safi is much more dangerous on a large scale. First, it kills the land it occupies. Any place that Safi visits is drained of bio energy, leaving it permanently barren. Second, Safi multiplies quickly. The secluded valley has many Xeno cocoons, which would all eventually grow into Safi’s if they weren’t stopped. Imagine dozens of Fatalis level monsters draining every place they go, only to move on when there’s nothing left to consume, all with the ability to multiply. They’d essentially be massive, unstoppable locusts which would kill the whole planet if not kept in check.

I will say while I agree with most of this I feel as though Yama and nakarkos should be in fort destroyers, they’re much more powerful than any of the others in that same category.

Let's be fair, for gameplay porpouses we are able to kill all the monsters, and it is super fun to challenge these beasts. But if we take a more "grounded” and "realistic" approach to all monsters, anything with similar strength to a rathalos would be extremely dangerous already. The elders are basically unkillable whitout a really REALLY solid strategy, a shit ton of luck AND several excellent hunters or balistic weapons, dragonators, etc. Anything past the "True Elders" in my opinion are straight up unkillable by human beings, we are talking about creatures that are so powerful that anything build by humans would endure. Its like bro theyre legends by a reason in lore if im not mistaken but o think its a guild move to mark them as "legends" to not inflict sheer panic in the population.

Fun fact: Lao is running from fatalis

Though not physically powerful Val Hazak and its counterpart are both ecological nightmares, also Safi'Jihva I would on part with possibly White Fatalis for one reason, the both harness life in the most purest way possible and if is stated that no monster can survive the blast then I would presume that would include even the strongest. I do applaud putting Nergigante in its own spot because I see it as a "Doomsday" of monsters, I think when a hunter slays Nergi it will always come back once more as an even stronger variant. Hence why Ruiner Nergi is capable of killing Shara whilst both are in much weaker states.

I would’ve put Narkarkos way higher , he’s one class below black dragon tier.

Man that beginning Ding sound effect just gives me chill every time I hear it, Halo 3 memories can rest and now time for Mona Huna! Edit: Mona Huna and Halo = perfect

From what I've seen and heard of Nerg's lore it's both frighteningly intelligent and functionally immortal indeed. A real brute to try and keep the upstarts in line supposedly.

Vaal Hazzak, Blackveil Vaal Hazzak, and Nakarkos definitely deserve Fort Destroyer when you take into account what exactly their role in the environments they're found in are. Vaal Hazzak's existence made the Rotten Vale what it is, and Blackveil was seen to become a terror to the local wildlife similarly to Shagaru Magala but on a slightly smaller scale within a very short time in the forest. As for Nakarkos... Well, honestly I feel it's so obvious that I suspect your placement to be because you wanted to see people correct it specifically because you're a fan of the monster. Nakarkos effectively created a no-wyvern's-land full of skeletons by easily killing every single thing that made the mistake of venturing into its territory. It's similar to Vaal and the Rotten Vale but instead of just creating a corrosive gas to do the dirty work, Nakarkos just shot lasers at shit and killed it all itself. I would place Vaal Hazzak & Blackveil right above Ceadeus. Amatsu causes damage on a similar scale to Vaal but doesn't need nearly as much time, and doesn't give nearly as much a fuck how close you are to it, so I can't really justify placing Vaal above Amatsu. Nakarkos goes right above Gogmazios. If Gogmazios were more aggressive by nature and not just a massive lizard that eats gunpowder roaming the land assaulting military outposts for a snack, then I would never put Gogmazios below Nakarkos. While I would consider Gogmazios to be much more powerful than Nakarkos, it's just logically much easier to deal with and a much smaller threat to anything's life so long as it doesn't try to deprive it of its powdery meals. Just keep your armory on the outskirts of your city and establish a decent evacuation protocol, then even if it attacks you're not gonna have any casualties unless one of the hunters tasked to drive it away does something stupid. So yeah, Nakarkos gets its fairly high placement because its territorial nature, ravenous appetite, and exceptionally long range make it a bigger issue to have around than anything below it.

L on Kirin and vaal. Kirin, while hunted by rajang, are not just by lore but even shown in game of world, that just presence alone can summon raging thunderstorms within a massive radius. Vaal hazak as well because of how it interacts with the effluvium. If taken out of the vale yes I would lower it’s class like with blackveil, but normal vaal is able to use the effluvia to literally suck the life out of monsters infect with it, and is the most dominant force of the vale Luna is an eco disaster as easily shown by legends of the guild. Kulve is definitely formidable, but need to be a tier lower. Kulve is strong enough to definitely cause destruction, but almost never leaves the caverns, and will return if it does (if left alone) Those are my only real gripes, everything else is done perfectly. Normal Kirin and normal Vaal should be higher, same especially with lunastra (destroying entire ecosystems in very little time. Again shown by legends of the guild) and kulve should just be one lower

Ain’t no way you follow up that incredible intro edit with the arial font video title

I never expected to see Monster Hunter clips set to Halo music, but damn that was badass.

Is it bad that I can tell apart all of the monsters on the thumbnail even when they are all in 280p

I think Valstrax and Malzeno would be in the same tier as Nergigante. No, I'm quite sure of it. Nergigante doesn't feel any stronger than these two if not weaker. Edit: Also Amatsu is an ecological disaster class ED, much higher than Allmother Narwa. This will soon be apparent.

As soon as the castle wars remix kicks in, I knew you were a Cammycakes enjoyer

mastermind just hits my soul.

Even if people disagree with the rankings, this was a well edited video

White Fatalis is going to be the hypest monster when he gets redone eventually.

I wouldn’t say namielle or Black veil are deserving of being that low on the list. Like namielle is obviously a water dragon out of the water which makes it much weaker than it should be (thank god we fight it in a dead coral reef instead of the sea, it would’ve been a nightmare if it was in MH3U) and Black Veil can after a long enough period of time completely saturate a biome with effluvium making it inhospitable to most life.

This video is really cool! There are a few bits that feel out of place: Amatsu is definitely Ecological Disaster for me; Vaal Hazak and Nakarkos could rank True Elder and low-ish Fort Destroyer respectively if they were more aggressive than their in-game lore states (Blackveil VH could maybe rank high FD or even ED). I also think Nergigante and its variant are somewhere in the middle of Fort Destroyer rather than below it. However, the top tier as well as the vast majority of the others look great and feel accurate. Edit: Disregarding the 4th-wall-breaking eyes, Shara probably would rank lower than Dalamandur and Shah Dalamandur.

Safi should be higher He heals off energy from living things and even in the desolate valley he can heal himself loads If he was in the ancient forest or anywhere else he would be practical immortal. He would have to leave eventually but even then he's still strong The only reason he wasn't going around eating stuff was that an alatreon was going to destroy his nest and kids if he left

According to Capcom, Nergigante is actually closer to Alatreon than the "regular" Elders.

That intro gave me goosebumps

How is amatsu not an ecological disaster when its prescense literally creates hurricans, thunderstorms and rain by just being in an area.

The only one that i truly disagree : Nakarkos is more likely in Ecological disaster. I don't really know "how" the wyven's End was formed, and i doubt all the bone and skull we see were monsters killed by Nakarkos ( otherwise it means that he killed thousands of monsters, then it's world ending tier), plus we can see gigantic skeleton and Nakarkos don't focus prey bigger than him. Like Rotten vale, i assume, all these skeletons have accumulated over time, and again I doubt that he made this lair on his own. Perhaps several Nakarkos have used the wyvern's end as a lair. In any case it means that its influence is colossal, it still means that thousands of monsters have been killed and eaten and we don't know how long this place has existed. Especially since unlike the Rotten vale, this place doesn't seem to serve an ecological role, it's really just a hole in a mountain, it's not natural.

I don’t have the heart to tell him that gold has a relatively low melting point

"I'll try to sleep early tonight" What I watch at 4 am

Gotta disagree on Amatsu. If you've ever lived through or seen the aftereffect of a Hurricane, you'd know just how much devastation these kinds of storms leave behind. Amatsu has the potential to completely and utterly wreck ecosystems, especially if it stays in one place for prolongued stretches of time.

Honestly, given that Malzeno wasn’t always the false host for the Quirio (according to the MHR Sunbreak storyline), it kinda makes me wonder what a “true Malzeno” looks like and what it attacks with. If I’m not mistaken, it fought against Gaismagorm, which is how it became exposed to the Quirios to begin with. Could be an idea for an alternate version of Malzeno.

Great video, I love how it's edited, I imagine it's based on what they look capable of gameplay wise, it's not totally based in lore right?

Holy shit, Blue Archive OST is not something i'd expect on a Monster Hunter video. Great work.

By playing the theme for Yahar Gul, implying you know some bloodborne and appreciate it's ost, I decided you're a man of culture