How can I make hunting Khezu quicker?

Question

So I hunted my first Khezu yesterday. My first monster hunter game was MH3U which had Gigginox (and Baleful Gigginox), both of which were similar monsters to Khezu but were more interesting and had faster-paced battles.

When I fight Khezu is there a way to speed up the fight? It spends a lot of time doing nothing and standing around or just hanging on the ceiling drooling and using electric attacks.

I know Khezu uses its sense of smell to hunt and is completely blind. Will making my hunter have a strong scent (either through dung or felvine or something) affect Khezu in any way, similarly to how hot/cold drinks affected how Gigginox could "see" you?

EDIT: Short version of my question: How can I make Khezu not spend so much time on the ceiling?

Answer 1

Khezu was somewhat notorious for hugging the ceiling in MHFU, and that doesn't seem to have changed. It is not usually an efficient fight as a Blademaster. Unfortunately neither sonic bombs nor flash bombs have any effect on Khezu.

Dung bombs act as usual and may get Khezu to leave the area (which might mean he's not on the ceiling of the next area). Felvine has no effect on Khezu.

I think your options are:

1. Switch to a ranged weapon, or hunt online in a party with at least one Gunner.
2. In some areas it may be possible to jump off a ledge and just scrape him with your carving knife (you may even be able to mount if you're lucky/he's in the right place). Bugstaff is good for this because of the pole vault manoeuvre. There is a big pillar in Area 5 of the Frozen Seaway which is good for jumping off. Further, the walls in Area 6 and cliff faces of Area 4 are also effective for climbing up (usuallu Khezu will walk near you if you are up the top of a wall while it is on the ceiling) and after a few whacks you can knock it off, for a knockdown and often a shiny drop. Note that getting it to fall off doesn't seem to be as difficult as triggering a regular flinch.
3. Make additional bounce bombs (especially bounce bomb+ if you have Bomb Arrowana) and try to hit Khezu with enough of them to make it flinch.
4. Stand still while Khezu is on the ceiling, in the hope of provoking it to attack you. Then dodge. Try this directly underneath the Khezu when possible.
5. Dung bomb him and hope that he leaves soon and does not immediately crawl onto the ceiling of the next area.

Of course, using traps, barrel bombs, and tranqs (the latter only if you don't need carves) as well as Fire element (for regular Khezu) will speed up the fight as a whole. That won't get him off the ceiling once he's up there but should result in reduced ceiling time overall.

The best parts of Khezu to target are its Neck (cutting damage), or its Head (impact damage and shot damage).

TL;DR Sometimes being a Blademaster is inconvenient.

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I am not sure if so-called constant rage mode has made a return in MH4U but if it has, I think doing more damage quickly to Khezu should help provoke this, and a nearly constantly raging Khezu should spend less time on the ceiling and more time actively trying to kill you. YMMV whether that speeds the fight up.

Answer 2

In general if you want to make hunting faster you could always use pitfalls (ivy+spiderweb + traptool) or/and shock traps (traptool + thunderbug or genprey fang). you can always use multiple and bring to combine more (note that each time the monsters will last less in the traps, but you still get free hits on them). Also, make sure you are hitting him in his weakspot(head or where you see more blood). Also khezu will eat poison meat. While we are at it, you might as well buy large barrel bombs and use them while he is trapped, those deal a lot of damage.

Remember in this game items are VERY useful, dont forget you can use them.

And most of the time, the scent thing can be ignored, it might be useful when fighting in groups, but when you are alone it wont matter.

If you want to fight him when he goes to the ceiling, that might be hard, bounce bombs do very little damage, and while you might get him down once, it might not be enough. Also, setting the bounce bombs might make you vulnerable to his saliva. Your safest bet is just get away from his shadow and wait for him to get down.

Dont worry, this is a long boring fight with melee weapons. Bows would be useful to get him down, but make you vulnerable to his electric attacks. Thats why I recommend setting traps and making the fight on ground longer.