Established Hunter - Reach Hunter Rank 100
Hey everyone, Krauser here!
So upon sinking about 150 hours into the game so far, i've kind of realised a few things that may help some of you. If you find much faster ways, or even better yet, more optimal ways of doing this, please share either in a guide or the comments down below!
First things first, HR 1-15 is Story Mode, there's no expediting that process, HOWEVER, you ARE earning Hunter Rank Points or XP in a sense while doing it. So if you and your buddies stop to farm a set of armor or weapons along the way, you are still earning points even if it doesen't look like you're progressing. Most of my team went from 15 to 23-27 upon completing the last story mission.
Secondly, if you're playing as part of a group, you DO NOT have to do everyones missions over again and wait for their cutscenes to finish to join them. Start your story mission, run to where you need to go, see the cutscene, and back out to Astera, you'll be able to repost the quest, and your friends (as long as they're the proper HR) will be able to jump in from the beginning to help. This is also helpful because if you two or four are at the same point in the story, you'll both get the completion instead of running it needlessly twice, and anyone who's already done it will get the results screen and get booted out and earn what they're suppose to earn, and you will too but will still see all the cutscenes etc. If one person watches their story cutscene, backs out, and waits for the other person to watch theirs and joins that current mission without the other person backing out to Astera and posting it as a fresh quest you WILL NOT get creditted for it and have to run it twice. And don't worry, every quest in the story mode releases as an optional quest you can post at anytime EXCEPT FOR TWO. See spoiler for details as they're still fully doable.
*** Spoiler - click to reveal ***Zorah Magdaros (a mid game boss) and Xeno'jiiva (the end game boss) will both release as timed events so to speak, so between every quest you go on, you might hear intense music begin playing in Astera and you'll get 1-2 tries at these guys randomly that anyone of the proper HR can join. If you do other quests, a chance ticks down, once the 1 or 2 tries are gone whether its from doing the quest or not, it'll disappear, but eventually will reappear. Listen for the music and check the popups. Also, the higher you get HR-wise,
the more they will spawn.
Thirdly, End Game...
At this point you're technically at "End Game" but there's tons to do and quite frankly, you're just getting started. You'll have research to do for more bases, you'll have side missions for new items and cloaks and abilities (check for exclamation points on your map) and by exploring you'll maybe find new camps to setup to spawn at etc. (Another Note: Don't forget the Third Fleet Hub Area may have some of these quests to do.)
Welp, that's the normal stuff. You've got some new focus' here. You have armor and weapon farming. That one's obvious, and you'll be earning XP for those. You'll be clearing up Optional Quests to get new ones (DO NOT DO THESE MORE THAN ONCE UNLESS YOU HAVE TO) so get your checkmarks. Capturing creatures get you special arena quests which can help for farming too. That's decent. I also just found out that there are different "completed" levels. If you have a Silver "Completed" next to your quest stars, this means you've done every quest that has popped or or is available SO FAR. Capturing creatures will release the Arena Quests, and these also count. When you kill every arena variant or unlock the extra optionals to do, the Silver Completed will eventually convert to Orange Completed meaning you now have every quest in that tier done.
So go down your checklist, BUT if you're farming harder materials like gems, or you want your Gold Crowns for biggest and smallest monsters (see the other guides for those, ive posted detailed explanations there) do Investigations. Better reward chances, even if you pop in solo and fire a flare, its just worth doing and you're working towards your 50 Investigations done. I also can't stress enough to stop walking every 15 feet or so and let your fireflies look for things. Between every few missions manage your investigations as you might have better drop rates, setups, or better yet the Tempered Monsters whicl ill touch on later. After that, hit the Arena. Might take a bit, but you get special coins for joke armor that either looks really nice, is funny, or has some kind of really awesome hidden talent. You get things like a felyne head as a helmet, or the old guild knight and maid outfits. 50 Arena's go from there to another achievement. They also might spawn these King Sized Monsters.
Why do I keep bringing up the Crown monsters? Because I guarantee you'll have HR 100 way before you have the crowns unless RNJesus and you are tight.
Eitherway, one thing we did was around the 40 mark we were farming Nergigante's and every 2-3 of them we were levelling up once. It doesen't take long to rank, but there's another achievement you're missing out on. And there's more caps on your HR involved.
Level 29, you hit another cap and get another Urgent Mission to kill 2 Bazelgeuse' at the same time... And they're also both Tempered. So if you haven't been finding blue tracks with a purple threat level and seeing these tempered beasts appear in Investigations they should now.
I strongly recommend you use the Zorah Magdorah gun, with the Xeno'jiiva armor and Long Range, use your WyvernSnype ammo, and unload on these poor souls. Becomes a joke at that point.
If you hit a wall here just like HR 15's xp cap, you're still earning xp and will jump once the quest is finished.
After that, Level 49 stops you too with a Tempered Kirin. I personally prefer hammers against these guys, with the Vitality and Thunder Mantles.
Once that's done you'll be getting xp like crazy as you start getting tempered Elder Dragons as quests and even dual Elder Dragon Hunts.
As far as new caps, at HR 100 you get a triple Elder Dragon Hunt (if you're going for Optional Quest Orange Completions this counts) and thats it.
Other than that, even though there's less xp, if you're farmed up and just need to grind, start farming low rank for your Crowns. Don't feel like doing that? Elder Dragon Hunts like Nergigante Investigations are the way to go till you hit tempered and then do those.
Also, HR 100 isn't the cap btw. There are HR 131's floating around out there, and plenty of DLC coming like the Deviljho from the previous games, along with a few other monsters. Im holding onto hope that ive still yet to see some of the classic elder dragons like Lunastra or the Fatalis' or Akantor but we shall see!
Hopefully this helps hunters, and until next time, let the Sapphire Star be your Light!
Oh! And one last note, as long as your HR 15, you should be able to do almost any quest anyone posts. The exception being the HR Walls such as 29, 49 etc. And some higher threat level Tempered Quests will also require higher levels. I can confirm at the moment I have a Triple Threatted Vaal Hazak for 2 players, 2 faints and 50 minutes that requires HR 50. Also, weekly tempered hunts (events) are great farms for the xp!