User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Arch-Tempered Monsters/@comment-24734669-20190831210632

TBH, most of the Arch-Tempered monsters suck Kelbi balls. Most of them are usually just regular-ass Tempered Elder Dragons with mega-inflated HP and damage and a shiny new armor set associated with them. Even some of the monsters that did get changes just made them even more annoying and unfun to fight (like Vaal Hazak's miasma cloud spam and Kushala Daora's immunity to flash pods). That said, there are a few exceptions:


 * Aside from being able to use explosions more often, Teostra actually got some cool new attacks. It can create explosive dust near its head before rapidly detonating it, and it can also combine the classic Elder Dragon back-hop with a release of explosive dust. While they don't seem like much, they make Teostra a much more fun and clever fight.


 * Zorah Magdaros, while not objectively good this time around, has gotten many changes that render it no longer useless:
 * If you leave Zorah's magma cores broken for too long, it will charge up energy before creating a massive eruption, causing magma balls to fall from the ceiling and all of its magma cores to spew out lava.
 * You have to actually repel Nergigante by damaging it this time around; no longer does it realize it left the stove on and leave the area after a minute. As well as this, Zorah can turn its head to fire a magma ball at Nergigante, which is a really cool touch.
 * Zorah can now take a large chunk out of the barrier's strength with a giant magma ball; fortunately, you can interrupt this attack by restraining Zorah or feeding it cannonballs. As well as this, it can slam its head into the barrier, allowing you to climb on its head, destroy the magma core on its nose, and break its neck; however, the magma core on the head regenerates now, forcing you to pay attention to it a lot more.


 * Out of all the Arch-Tempered monsters, the monster that got it the best was Xeno'jiiva; what was once an incredibly ham-fisted slogfest has become one of the single most awesome fights in the game. In addition to eschewing its first phase, attacking much more aggressively, and creating longer-lasting patches of molten ground, Xeno'jiiva can cause explosions with any ground-penetrating attack and can use a more explosive version of Nergigante's wing batter attack; in addition to this, when it goes Super Saiyan, it can create a forward chain of explosions that melts the ground below it, and its explosive slam attack can create a massive ring of explosions instead of a single one. In all, Xeno'jiiva is the best Arch-Tempered monster in the game, bar none.


 * Nergigante, while not as good as Xeno'jiiva, also seems to have gotten it good for the last Arch-Tempered monster you fight. It now has much more HP than Kushala Daora and Teostra, and its spikes can now take many more hits before breaking, meaning that you will no longer be able to stun-lock it into oblivion; as well as this, it goes Super Saiyan much earlier than usual (at around 65% HP as opposed to 30%). On the other hand, the one new attack it got, the infamous homing insta-dive, can be pretty cheap at times, as it comes out very quickly, deals lots of damage, and can be spammed to hell and back. Finally, it has gotten some awesome new music tracks. While the previous battle theme was a little generic, the new one is utterly bombastic, and is a great way to tell you "one of your biggest foes is back for some sweet revenge, and you are up for one hell of a fight"; when you finally kill it, you are greeted with the Iceborne "special quest complete" music, a beautiful sound track that gives you a sense of satisfaction and makes you look forward to the many monsters arriving in what could possibly be a vastly superior experience to the base game.

TL;DR: Xeno'jiiva >>> Nergigante > Teostra >>>>> Zorah Magdaros >>>>>>> everything else