Loading ...Kushala Daora: Comprehensive Guide
January 6, 2009 | 
Author Kushala Daora. He has won the monster battle and he has for sure obliterated more than one newbie hunter who took him to easily. I take it as my personal task to give all those some tools and tips at hand.
Kushala can be encountered on different locations: Snowy Mountains, Jungle, Desert (Night) and in the town. While it is normally not worth mentioning Kusha has some traits in each of those areas which are nice to know. So I will make a tactics guide in several parts with some tips about the areas and most of the information in the general part.
Information which pertains to MHFU are in italics.
Kushala Daora (General information)
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Kusha is an elder dragon. That means he has a crapload of hitpoints which will normally need more than one encounter to fully reduce to zero. However he’s the weakest of the bunch.
His HP values are:
- Elder: 7000
- Felyne: 10500
- Guild: 8400
- Guild Hi: 10500
- Guild G: 13650
Given a good weapon you may be able to kill him in one round. Each round can last up to 25 minutes if you deal enough damage to him to be repelled. If you haven’t reached the damage threshold at the 25min mark the quest takes longer until that threshold is breached.
In any case, his hitpoints take over to the next quest (in the same quest level as in Elder, Felyne, Guild, Guild Hi, Guild G). Practically you can attack up to five different Kushas at the same time.
On some levels he’s referred to as Rusted Kushala, which doesn’t mean anything regarding carves or rewards. It’s just the same Kusha with some brownish skin.
Quest patterns: Once you have cleared a quest, Kusha may appear in the same quest level in a different area. For example on Elder he is either in the Snowy Mountains or in the Jungle. It’s the same Kusha though. The quest also appears randomly and you need to clear both areas for a purple clear on the quest level.
To break his body parts he does not need to be hit with a specific element, unlike Teo or Luna. Especially his head can and should be broken with any kind of damage. His head is the source of his most annoying attack, the wind. When its activated he pushes back every hunter within reach unless you have the Dragon Windpress armor skill. Once the head is broken the wind stops.
The wind stops also when he’s poisoned which is the reason you are supplied with poison throwing knifes in the elder quest. Use them and attack his head relentlessly.
Another annoying pattern he use is his hovering. He jumps up and hovers the area, using breath attacks, claws and airborne stuka dives. It’s pretty useless to attack him when he’s up as you can only reach his legs with most weapons and they don’t take much damage.
What you should do when he’s up is exit the area and reenter. He will return to his preferred landing point and can be attacked normally. Your cat may interfere with that.
His standard attacks and moves are:
Backjump: He jumps backwards and roars. On higher levels he may skip the roar and instantly charges forward after a backjump. Anyway you should try to follow him and attack his head as this is one of the times you can land some serious damage.
Backjump into flying: Similar as the above, but he ends up hovering. There’s no chance for a good combo here.
Backjump with breath attack into flying: Same as above but he gives out a breath attack (see blow) in the opposite direction he’s backjumping.
Forward breath: He rears back and spits out his breath. Very damaging and throwing you away quite far. To avoid don’t stand before him, but you know that already, don’t you?
Forward charge: A standard charge attack, no homing or circling abilities. He just runs you down.
Claw and turn: He turns 90 degress and pounces in front of him. Normally he does that twice, making the turn 180 degress. Small damage but annoying and combo breaking.
Hovering, local claw: He hovers, positioning himself above you and makes a claw/tail attack. Minor damage inflicted.
Hovering, stuka dive: This attack is always followed up by its counterpart, the stuka return. He flies towards you and claws the ground. This deals heavy damage and should be avoided.
Hovering, sweeping breath: Annoying and deadly. Just try to stand behind or below him when he does that.
Hovering, circling breath: Same as above, but he’s not moving forward but instead makes a 360 degree turn.
Breakables:
You can break his head, wing and cut his tail. As I already said you don’t need a specific element to break his body parts. You need to have his hitpoints down to 40% to cut his tail, so don’t go for it on a fresh Kushala. Tail cutting is recommended as you get a chance on the Tail parts (Duh!) or the jewels on higher ranks.
Weapon recommendations:
To be honest with you, you can beat Kushala with every weapon class in this game, be it SnS or Duals or even Bow or LBG. He’s very easy to fight once you got rid of his wind aura since he’s very slow and predictable.
Concentrate on raw damage added up with dragon or thunder. Aim for the head mostly.
When his head stagger limit is reached, he falls sideways and his head/tail/wings can be attacked freely. If you attack his legs he will only stagger without falling unlike wyverns.
Area hints
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Snowy Mountains: His breath attack is able to freeze you (aka snowballing). Take some Thawing Agents with you just in case. Or let his wind aura or landing wind hit you to break the snowball without taking damage. He only flies around the northern parts.
Jungle: He’s bringing rain and storm so forget about Bombs. Lightning rods are nice and all, but don’t deal much damage. He’s mostly in area #3 or #4
Desert (Night): It’s a brown Kushala with no special traits. He’s in the big areas.
Town: You can use the Ballista in the two areas he’s in for up to 1000 damage. Do that, they also help you in breaking his head. When he’s in the big area he sometimes attacks the dragonator platform even if nobody is up there. Use this to sharpen, heal and then attack when he’s landing.
In the other area he always lands on the lower ground if you exit/reenter when he’s hovering. You always enter the upper platform with the ballista. He will then fly up and land on the upper platform. Nice opportunity for head attacks.
Conclusion:
That’s all you need to know about Kushala Daora:
Break his head.
Exit/Reenter when he’s hovering.
I hope you liked my small guide.
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Keep in mind, I’m only HR4 working on HR5, but I noticed a couple of more things while taking on Kushy.
Like Fresh said, the wind pressure thing is probably the most annoying. Consider a Diablo D armor set with Dragon Wind Pressure until you bang off enough horn to stop the wind.
While hovering I prefer to teach him lessons. Flash bombs (one of the few times I ever use them) tend to make him come crashing down to earth along with being stunned if he is hovering. Also, while he is turning during a hover, bounce bombs are fun. Just stand in the dark spot and let em go.
In the town, the dragonator is operable, so while he is banging on it or hovering near it, setting it off will bang him up pretty good.
Anyway, hope you don’t mind a non-uber-HR fan adding to the guide.
Here’s another tip for the Town, when he’s in there area with the ballistas, for some reason, he doesn’t understand that he can simply fly over the ledge, so instead, he’ll land, take off, and slowly land again in the section you’re in. So if he’s down in the grass area, stay up by the ballistas and heal, sharpen, ready a ballista shot and he’ll obediently come over to your area in a nice slow fashion. Poor Kush. But its his fault so wail away on him. (This is ideal for getting in some good face/horn hits and tail cuts).
Absolutely legit tips from the two posters above. I forgot about the flash bombs, they are useful on Kusha indeed.
I had a problem in the Town using the ballistas if he knows you are there in the big – he likes to fly up and wind attack you while you are aiming the ballista. Otherwise, he also bangs against the wall and knocks you off. The best time to use the ballistas is when he hasn’t noticed you yet and is just strolling around in the far end of the field.
Hmm, I just remembered there are ballistas by the dragonator…sorry for the confusion. I was referring to the area (2 I think) that’s before the dragonator/wall area. The little grassy knoll/ballista section.
about the wind armor kushala have, there’s a trick to it.. look at the wind armor, it mostly go wind, blow, wind, blow.. you can somehow attack kushala in the blow step aka the last animation which knock you back mostly.. give a count of 2 and hit him.. this is how i break his head fast if i get unlucky with poison knife.. mostly used with GS, LS, SnS, DS, HH
Correction to my post above. I didn’t use the ballistas much in the smaller knoll area (he usually was right next to me), just the ones by the dragonator in the larger knoll. I’ll have to try that next time.
In the larger area you can usually get off a good number of shots if he hasn’t noticed you and is just strolling around the other end of the field, but if he knows you are there he likes to use his wind attack which still knocks the sh** out of you even though he is way below you.
As far as the wind pressure goes, call me lazy, but I prefer to just don some Dragon Wind Pressure armor and wail away until the wind wall goes away permanently.
Of course, I’ve yet to kill any of the Elder Dragons in less than three rounds…
and question time.. lets say i’m unlucky with my poison knife, and kushala is in rage mode(more wind armor).. being a bow user how should i shot him without my arrow getting blown back near 90% of the time?? with the mere 20 poison coating+15 provided it may not be enough hit done for poison to take effect most of the time.. any pointers?
when he blasts wind (on the ground) shoot his head. keep repeating that and he will ether be poisoned or his crest will break. but after a while, if you broke his head, he can regain his wind powers.-.-
I usually use a stun weapon (Dragonwood LS), wait for him to blast wind then get 1-2 hits and retreat.
If your lucky you can paralyse him quickly and take some cheap shots at hit head till it breaks.
Then just keep attacking its side and avoiding its flying attacks until its over
Kind of a noobish question but
Do traps work on KD? (or for that matter any Elder Dragon?).
I never use them unless I am actually trying to capture (i.e. very rarely)
nope!! tried shocktraps 3 times n nothing….its like magic!!
Uhm.. have you tried pitfall traps?
(To start off I use a GREATSWORD) Yea, I had alot of trouble with this guy at first, but once I killed him the first time, the second time was waaay easier. and the 3rd, and the 4th.. etc. X ).
Anyways, the main thing I do when fighting Kushala Daora is: when he has wind aura going, i wait for him to do a wind blast, run around his head and attk it, quickly rolling through the attk to the other side of his head. You almost always get away with it if your lucky. It takes me about 5 or 6 blows with Titernia or deadly serpentblade(both of which are awesome weapons), and then the wind aura stops. I can then freely run under the guy and get a crap load of hits in.
Or, chop off it’s tail. but for that it has to have taken 40% dmg.
Diving from his charge is dangerous, as he can just whip around and own you, so avoid his range at all costs.
I mostly attk after wind blasts and snarls.
As for his hovering, stay just under and slightly behind him for a safe spot,and try to slash at his legs, cuz if you knock him down when he’s up, you’ll get ALOT of hits in.
Flash bombs are very effective, but try to use them when he’s up in the air as he falls and squirms around abit before getting into his usual stunned stance.
Hope this helps, MHFU rocks.