What is Hunting How to Hunt How to Upgrade Gear Q & A 3rd Party VRTuber Resources Credit
What is Hunting How to Hunt How to Upgrade Gear Q & A 3rd Party VRTuber Resources Credit

Dawntrail Zones

Endwalker Zones

Shadowbringers Zones

Stormblood Zones

Heavensward Zones

A Realm Reborn Zones

-----
Proper Hunting Etiquette

Please note that the following is purely opinion based, and therefore, is to be taken with a grain of salt. If you disagree with part or the entire whole of this message that is fine. Everybody's playstyles are different and there isn't a definitive write or wrong in how people choose to play. This is for new players who may otherwise be afraid of how they should, or should not act.

There is a LOT of drama involved in the hunt. There will be hour long shout wars spanning multiple zones if somebody does something somebody else didn't like. The causes of this drama usually stem from people "Pulling Early". Pulling early is a way to describe people or groups of people who attack a mob before a sufficient amount of people have gathered at the site. Sometimes it’s because they are worried they won't get the maximum reward, sometimes they are solo and getting the first hit in means a better chance to get gold, sometimes they are only worried about only themselves or their party and don't care about anybody else, and sometimes they just want to cause Drama. Though many servers are pulling away from offical "pull times", it may still be considdered rude to pull before enough people have arrived.

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.

Some notes about hunt trains

  • Do not hunt solo, join parties to get max credit.

  • Hunt credit is based upon emnity generated. Having as many tanks in your hunt party will guarantee that you get max credit for the kill.

  • Please do not have minions or chocobos out during hunt trains that are highly populated (100+ hunters), this creates more drawable objects that each person must render and kills the mobs faster to make it harder for some to get full credit.

  • 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 even before you ask.

  • Do not go ahead of the conductor. Wait for the conductor to announce the location of the next mark before you engage, and wait until the main contegency arrives before you engage as well. Pulling early can cause deaths due to mechanics being underway when the others arrive.

  • 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 until it clears up. Just keep trying if that happens.


Dawntrail Zones
Endwalker Zones
Shadowbringers Zones
Stormblood Zones
Heavensward Zones
A Realm Reborn Zones

Although with 5.0 the amount of A and S rank mobs have climbed significantly, there is not a steady stream of them available to players. Because of this, sharing of the hunt mob is highly encouraged. There is a saturation point where there can be so many people at a site that getting a gold rank on the kill becomes difficult, but to me it seems like its a lot easier in 3.0 to get gold. Many times, a system of "Pulling at X:XX server time" has been attempted, and during parts of the day it may actually work, but never count this being the case.

Being the first to pull a mob gives you a lot of contribution to the kill because of the initial aggro bonus generated by being the first to land a hit. Some people think that since they are solo, they deserve the right to this first hit because it will help them get a higher rank on the kill. In my opinion this is not the best way to share and joining a party or creating your own for just this one kill is highly encouraged. It’s my opinion the first hit should go to the party who found the mob and announced it for others to come and share. It would also be helpful if the person who found it chose an appropriate time to pull the mob and announced it in shout to the zone. If that person is solo and they found the hunt mob but did not join a party; then in my opinion its ok for them to get the first hit in this scenario. These situations are not always what happens, so be prepared.

Another form of drama is the infamous Miscall or bad info re-lay of information. This might happen when someone sees a shout or a communication of some kind with a position, but no information about what is there, and assumes it’s a hunt mob and calls it out. Too many miss-calls might get you kicked from a Linkshell, or some people might blacklist you as well.
Sometimes there is a troll, who announces that an S rank is at a certain position and the whole server shows up to an empty field. Sometimes a person finds a normal mob and assumes its a hunt mob and announces it, or sometimes they think a B rank hunt mob is an A rank hunt mob. All of these things cause a lot of drama and should be avoided if possible. Learning the names and identity of all the elite hunt mobs is encouraged to help avoid these mistakes. If you make this mistake, and announce it, rectify it as fast as possible. Let people know that its a miss-call or bad info, creation of a macro for this is sometimes helpful in getting this done.

In Grievance, we have a No Drama Clause that we take to heart. We do not like drama, epically the creation of such Drama; therefore any member of Grievance found to be causing drama might be subject to disciplinary action. As such, here's my Fox's list of the Do's and Don'ts of hunting!