Hammer main having trouble with HR Zoh Shia

[u/Renekii4]

Not new to the series, but the HR Zoh Shia Is giving me problems. I managed to beat It in the First mission, but i played rather safely and used like 30 options. Now in trying to kill It again to get that gem, and i'm realizing that the Hammer seems really the most inefficient weapon to beat It. You gotta focus on that giant head, but it's really the most Dangerous zone to play around with the Hammer having Little to no mobility and no guard. He goes for that downward Fire breath, unavoidable even with extended Dodge if you are already attacking, or that rathian Walk that does ridiculous amount of damage and stun, and if you use offset Attack as much as i do (cause the entirety of Wilds teaches you how much valuable they are) you'll find yourself having problems doing some on him cause 80% of his attacks are aoe. Just a simple post asking if i'm the only One having problems with this specific weapon, or even maybe some tips.

[u/dasisteinthrowaway1]

It’s so much harder with hammer (and probably horn but I don’t play it) than with anything else. Switch axe is kind of annoying but nowhere close to as painful as using hammer. The front legs feel like they have trash blunt hitzones, so your only option is to hit the head and the wingarms when they’re down. Good luck getting around the aoe extended hitbox fest around both of those parts with our piddly hook dodge, those attacks basically require some kind of adept dodge or perfect block if you’re not well positioned.

Basically you want to stay under him and next to his left foreleg like 99% of the time and dodge straight back or diagonally out of his body. Dodge when you stop hearing him shout for every attack that’s not the downwards fire breath, the hitboxes on this fight are fake, you can’t visually react because they all extend super far in front of him(except for his rathian run for some reason). It’s a high rank monster so he’s got really long punish windows for a mighty charge but you have to roll whatever attack comes next after the recovery if you feel like finishing the hunt in under 20 minutes(you have to be willing to trade on small attacks basically). I slotted evade extend 2 and it felt like it made the hook dodge go further but it might have just been cope/placebo. I only offset him in the beginning and when he’s not enraged. And in the final phase when he white fatalis lightnings everywhere just run straight at him and try to set up a mighty charge on the wing arms when they come down/are on tje ground

If we had valor/courage hammer this fight would be amazing. Gib valor sheathe capcom pls hammer does no damage anyway 🥲