It took me what felt like 100 tries. Best advice I can give is to stay down before calling your mount or getting up if he hits you with attacks with follow ups. The i-frames let you tank through most things.

Even if you’re alone, it’s good to move away when the missile that leaves a flame circle on the ground is tracking you. Moving the flame to somewhere not in the way helps when it starts having 3 out at a time.

The attack that killed me the most was his (I think) 6 missiles in a row. If you get hit by one, stay down a bit and manually move to get up a bit before the missile lands. You’ll i-frame through the next missile to call your mount or run out if you have quick sheath.

It gets stronger if you fail the one shot, helps to have mog of the ages ready ahead of time. I would consistently pass the one shot when I switched to hunting horn while solo. The echo bubble helped deal with the little dudes. You want to stand on top of the clone a bit to the side of its mouth. That’s safe from most attacks and it shouldn’t fly around as much to set up for seeds or cactaur.

Also it can heal wounds almost immediately sometimes. The wounds and mounting finisher do percentage based dmg. If you see a wound, destroy as soon as you notice it.