How to Hunt

Hunting is an easy and fun way to earn rewards in FFXIV. When you first start out, you need to be able to get the calls. Hunt linkshells are one of the ways of getting that information, the Aether Hunts Discord is another. Not only do you get calls for trains and S ranks for every Aether Datacenter Server, you can also request access to linkshells as well. I find when hunting having a large diversity of linkshells in helpful in getting the jump on hunt mobs. The best way to handle A ranks in Shadowbringers and Stormblood areas is with hunt trains, so leave them be. With Heavensward and A Relm Reborn hunts, they are easily soloable, but if you want to announce it using shouts and relays in your hunt linkshells to share the reward, then go right ahead.

The Hunt Train

The hunt train put simply, is a community guided event that lines up all the A rank marks to be killed by players to achieve the most community reward for the least amount of time spent. Instead of looking for individual hunt mobs, calling a bunch of people to come kill it, and spending a lot of time traveling for each of the 12 A ranks; now they all get taken care of in quick secession. The leader of the hunt train is called the Conductor, will provide all the information and flags for the hunt marks, and attempt to keep the train organized to ensure that every player gets the full reward. The best place to get notifications for hunt train announcements is the Aether Hunts Discord! This is a thriving community with members across all the Aether Datacenter. On this discord, there are channels that share when S ranks pop and when Hunt Trains are forming; as well as community events and Final Fantasy XIV News and Information. It is a great community discord.

Some notes about hunt trains

  • Please do not have minions or chocobos out during hunt trains, this creates more draw objects that each person must render. This will help everyone have a better time and make killing the hunt mobs easier.
  • Most servers have their own etiquette about how hunts are handled, be mindful of which server you are on and go with the flow.
  • Midgard and most others encourage players to join parties for hunts in party finder, if there is not a party finder available, please make one, it will fill.
  • During hunt trains when a lot of people are hunting there will be things called Vibe Checks. Where when you traverse to a new zone there will be a marker close to the zone in point where you should wait until the train conductor calls the mark location. This allows people on slower connections and hardware to stay caught up with the group.
  • Each hunt train has a conductor, or a person who relays the mark locations and where to go next. Listen to the conductors, they will provide information and will answer questions sometimes before you even are able to ask.
  • Always try to move to the next zone as fast as possible when a lot of people are hunting, you may get caught in “server congestion” and will not be allowed to teleport to that zone. Just keep trying if that happens.

Solo Hunting

You can earn seals and nuts doing daily hunt logs provided by NPC's as an easy way of earning that extra reward to get your desired goal faster. You can also search for A ranks in the OLDER zones and call up people to share the reward.
NPC's that hand out daily and hunt logs are located in the following locations:

  • Allied Seal Mark bills - Hunt board located in each of the grand company areas in the 3 starter cities.
  • Centurio Seal Mark bills - Clan Hunt Board Located in the Foundation at (x12,y11), by the forgotten knight teleport.
  • Nutsy clan Hunt Mark bills - Clan Hunt Board Located in The Crystarium at (x9.5,y9.4), by the Temenos Rookery teleport.
  • 6.0 Nutsy Clan Hunt Mark Bills - TBD.

    It's helpful that you set up macros for announcing hunts. I personally use four macros. One for announcing a mob that I am targeting to the party, one for announcing a mob that I am targeting to my link-shells, one for relaying a flag that someone else has provided with the rank to party, and one for relaying a flag that someone else has provided with the rank to my LS's. You can repeat these for announcing S ranks as well as A ranks. B ranks are not to be announced in link shells or party chat. If you want to be kind, you can shout in zone for the location of the B rank mob. As a rule for ANY announcement, always always always include the mobs Rank.

    Examples of macros include.
    "/p Blimey, I seem to have discovered a rare form of A rank named <t>! Come on down to <pos> and watch me put me thumb in its backside!".
    "/l2 SSSSSSSSSSSSS RANK AT <flag>!!1!oneone!".
    "/shout Is anybody looking for this B rank <t>?".

    If you are doing more than one linkshell, separate out each on separate lines in your macro. Common syntax used in macros for hunts:

    • <t> - Whatever you are targeting, caution on this one, this can be a player, a trash mob, a primal, whatever you have targeted at the time.
    • /shout - Channel for shout.
    • /l# etc - Linkshell 1, linkshell 2, linkshell 3, etc where # is the number of the linkshell in the list.
    • /fc - Free company chat.
    • /p - Party chat.
    • /cwlinkshell# - Cross World Linkshell where # is the linkshell number.
    • <flag> - When you click on a link someone has provided a flag will appear on your map, if you then type in chat you will relay those coords and provide others with the ability to click on that link themselves. You can also create flags manually by Ctrl + click on a map you have open.
    • <pos> - This is your current position. This will provide a click-able link to others that they can click on to get a flag for your location.

    When hunting for elite mobs it is best to hunt in groups. In the newest zones, it is almost impossible to solo a gold rating for an A rank, and completely impossible for an S rank. There are three ranks of rewards you can receive when hunting. Much like bronze, silver, and gold for Fates; hunt mobs give out diminished returns if you or your party does not contribute enough to the fight. Contribution is typically summed up by how much enmity you put into the battle. Doing a lot of damage, getting heavy hits early in the fight, using a lot of enmity generating skills, and massive over healing are valid strategies for getting gold during a hunt.
    A good way of keeping track of what has been killed and when S and are available for spawning is to use a tracker website, such as Faloop.

    When hunting for B ranks, feel free to give a shout in the zone to ask for that particular mob. If you manage to find your B rank, feel free to ask in zone before killing it if anybody needs this particular B rank, but make SURE that you announce what rank it is.