The fully-grown form of Xeno’jiiva has returned to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne for two weeks, ready for you to farm her overpowered set of weapons and armor. We’ve got you covered with some handy tips, whether it’s your first time doing this siege or you’ve done it a few times and am still not sure what you’re doing.
What is the Safi’jiiva Siege and How Do I Join?
To unlock the siege, you’ll first need to have completed Iceborne’s story and defeated Kirin, Rajang, and Stygian Zinogre in Special Assignments after. If you’re having trouble with Rajang, you don’t actually have to defeat him – Just watch the cutscene and skip right ahead to Stygian Zinogre.
Then, head over to Seliana’s gathering hub and talk to the pub lass. You’ll be sent on the “Safi’jiiva Recon” mission where you’ll need to complete a mini version of the siege. You will probably need to pop an SOS Flare (or find 3 reliable friends to help you) to finish this quest. Pay attention to this Recon mission, because it’ll teach you the basics.
Once you’ve unlocked the full siege, you’ll want to find an Online Session that is created for the siege. To do that, go to “Search for an Online Session” and select “Filter Search”, selecting Safi’jiiva as your target. Then, just join a session that has at least 10 players and head to the Gathering Hub to talk to the Pub Lass again and choose “Safi’jiiva Siege” this time.
Here’s How the Siege Works
- All the players in the Online Session will participate in the siege, in 4-man groups.
- Safi will move through 3 levels, draining the energy on each level to heal herself as she gets damaged.
- Breaking Safi’s parts will net the whole session points, that unlocks better rewards for everyone when the siege ends.
- The energy on each level, as well as Safi’s broken parts, are shared amongst the whole session. For example, if a group breaks her left wing, you won’t have to do it as the points have already been earned.
- Once all the energy in all the levels have been drained, it becomes possible to kill Safi. This is usually not possible in the first time your group goes in, so most groups take about 2 runs to kill her.
Now for some general tips if this is your first time facing Safi.
Max Out Part Breaker, Break Her Parts
It is essential to bring three levels of part breaker for this fight. This is because Safi’s parts are incredibly difficult to break. At the very least, you should bring a minimum of two levels of part breaker. If you don’t have any Destroyer decorations or part breaker skills in armor, considering farming up a bit before joining the siege.
Breaking parts will earn everyone the most number of points in the siege. You’ll be wasting your own (and everyone else’s) time if you’re unable to break anything in a run.
Make sure you tenderize the part you are hitting. She un-tenderizes her parts whenever she drains energy, so make sure you re-tenderize.
You can check which parts have already been broken in ‘Safi’jiiva Siege Info” in the start menu or by talking to the Pub Lass.
Different parts of Safi’s body take more damage from different weapon types. Her head takes more blunt damage, her front legs and tail take more cutting damage, and her back legs take more blunt damage. With that said, her front legs have the most health (by a very large margin), while her back legs have the least. Breaking her legs earn the least points for the group (20 points) while breaking her tail and chest earns the most (120 and 200 points respectively). This severely limits the usefulness of cutting weapons to mainly cutting the tail.
Take note that Safi’s chest is breakable and earns a crap ton of points, but is limited to Phase 3 when she goes into a ‘supercritical’ state. It is strongly suggested that the entire party try to break her chest.
Hold Her Aggro
During the fight, you’ll notice that Safi starts targetting one member of the party who has dealt the most damage to her. If you are this person, you’ll need to keep dealing damage to Safi! This is because there is a damage check to see if you’re able to maintain her aggro. If you lose this aggro because you died or didn’t manage to damage her, she goes berserk and basically targets everyone.
You can draw her aggro from another team mate by clutching her face and flinch-shotting her with slinger ammo. This is great for weapons that are able to block and still deal damage, like Gunlance or Charge Blade.
Avoid her Super!
If you’ve played the Safi Recon, you’ll know that Safi unleashes an ultimate attack called Sapphire of the Emperor. This is only avoidable through hiding behind the rocks on the stage (superman diving, temporal mantle, and the FF Jump do not work). To check if you’re safely behind cover, watch for the blue flames washing over your character. If there’s no fire on you, it means you’re safe. I usually take this time to sharpen my weapon, drink a potion, or craft ammunition.
Use the Environment
In phase one, there are crags jutting out of the mountain face with black ribbons on them. You can break these and cause them to fall on Safi for 4,000 damage. The serious handler will tell you when Safi is in position for these to fall on her.
Also, in phase one, if Safi stands on decayed ground, you can flinch her (by dealing enough damage to one part) and cause her to fall in. Again, the serious handler will let you know when this is available.
Finally, in phase three, green explosive gas will start emerging from the ground. If you can get Safi to stand above this gas, any weapon attack will cause the gas to explode and deal 1,000 damage to her. If you have her aggro, lure her over such spots.
Bring the Right Items
Safi is a very dangerous monster, so you’ll want to bring your A-game in terms of items. Max Potions, Ancient Potions, Dust of Life, and Mega Barrel bombs are all a must. For this siege specifically, Poison Smoke Bombs are useful, as you can pop 2 and inflict poison on Safi, dealing a lot of damage over time. I personally like to bring crafting materials to make more Max Potions during the fight as well. Here’s my item loadout if you’d like a template to follow:
Bring the Right Weapon
The sad truth about this siege is that not all weapons are equally useful (unlike the fight against MR Kulve Taroth). Hopefully, at this stage of the game, you’re proficient with at least two different weapons so you’ll be able to bring something useful.
We’ve ranked the weapons in terms of their usefulness:
- Best Weapons: Light and Heavy Bowguns, Greatsword
- Good Weapons: Switch Axe, Gunlance, Hunting Horn
- Ok Weapons: Sword and Shield, Hammer, Charge Blade
- Bad Weapons: Insect Glaive, Long Sword, Lance, Dual Blades, Bow
The bowguns are king, especially if you can bring sticky ammo. This is because breaking Safi’s wings, back, and head are really difficult for melee weapons to break, and they net a decent amount of points. The Greatsword is good too, because it has an innate part-break bonus and is very useful for cutting her tail that nets 120 points. Not to mention it is incredibly easy to land True Charge Slash on her chest during supercritical, making Greatsword the best melee weapon to bring to this fight.
Switch Axe is a good weapon because power axe mode gives a part break bonus, making it great for cutting her tail and other parts. You’ll be fighting her entirely in axe mode. The Gunlance can hold aggro well, and the flat damage of shells means it is useful against ALL parts. The Hunting Horn is good because blunt damage is pretty rare, and the songs make it better than the Hammer.
I listed Sword and Shield under “Ok Weapons” because the SNS is great at tenderizing Safi. Safi’s parts only needs half a tenderize to become wounded, and the SNS is the only weapon that is capable of tenderizing two parts at once. You Claw-ryuken one part which instantly tenderizes it, move to another part, and press attack to tenderize the second part. If you’re bringing SNS, I highly recommend NOT using perfect rush unless you’re trying to slay her, because perfect rush has a part break penalty. Bringing a support build is ok too.
The Hammer is OK because it’s basically an inferior Hunting Horn in this fight (don’t hate me hammerbros). Charge Blade is OK as well, because it is a good defensive+offensive weapon that can hold aggro and help cut the tail. Safi also has a 2-star weakness to all elements, so elemental discharges are great when you want to deal damage.
For the bad weapons, Insect Glaive is pretty bad because its specialty, mounting, is actively bad in this fight. You don’t want to accidentally mount Safi – Let the Hunting Horn or Great Sword mount her during Supercritical so they can break her back. Long Sword and Dual Blade don’t really serve much of a purpose in the fight. Lance is purely for holding aggro, but Gunlance and Charge Blade do this better. Bow is bad because it doesn’t have the reach and explosive power of the bowguns.
Don’t fret if all you have are the ‘bad’ weapons though. Just be diligent in breaking one of her parts, have part breaker 3, tenderize as much as you can, Dust of Life allies when they are low on hp, stay alive, and you’ll be fine.
