Written by Belletrist Grimm of Jenova (please contact me if info is inaccurate)

Contents show

Unlocking Everything

Let The Hunt Begin	At your Grand Company	ARR B Ranks	Requires lvl 50 DoM/DoW and second gc lieutenant
Let the Clan Hunt Begin	Foundation (12, 11)	Level 1 Clan Marks	53 DoM/DoW
Better Bill Hunting	Foundation (12, 11)	Level 2 Clan Marks	56 DoM/DoW
Top Marks	Idyllshire (6, 7)	Level 3 Clan Marks	59 DoM/DoW
Elite and Dangerous	Foundation (13, 11)	Weekly Elite Bill Mark (B Rank)	60 DoM/DoW
One-Star Veteran Clan Mark	Kugane (10, 10)	Level 1 Veteran Clan Mark	61 DoM/DoW
Two-Star Veteran Clan Mark	Kugane (10, 10)	Level 2 Veteran Clan Mark	63 DoM/DoW
Three-Star Veteran Clan Mark	Kugane (10, 10)	Level 3 Veteran Clan Mark	66 DoM/DoW
Elite Veteran Clan Hunt	Kugane (10, 10)	Weekly Elite Veteran Clan Mark (B Rank)	70 DoM/DoW

The Basics

Linkshells

99% of sharing hunts revolves around linkshells. These are chat channels created by people that can be accessed anywhere. You can create them by talking to a linkshell distributor (found right by the mail moogles in the 3 major city states), but it’s much easier to find an existing hunt ls. You can have up to eight of these and cannot reorder them, which is really annoying.

You can type in these linkshells with /l1 /l2 /l3 etc (that is an L not an i thank you fonts) and the default keybind to open the linkshell menu is L or it can be found in the Social menu.

To join a ls you have to go into the linkshell menu and hit accept on the channel… a lot of people don’t realise this and accidentally let an invite sit without joining.

Linkshell Cleaning

It is somewhat tricky to clean hunt linkshells. There is no way to determine hunt activity (or lack thereof) besides keeping track of people, which can be very hard in a 128 person linkshell. You can determine whether people have been online since the last maintenance. People’s search information does not display their Jobs bar if they have not been online since maintenance; it’s just dashes. If someone has a level 70, but no job, they haven’t been online since the last maintenance (unless they didn’t do their job quests for some reason). This can be used to clean linkshells of people that have not been online in a specific time (7 days after maintenance to clean people who have not been online in 7 days, 3 days after for 3 days offline, etc).

Linkshell Oversaturation

It is not always the best idea to create new hunt linkshell. While the idea of running a hunt linkshell can seem interesting or appealing to some, too many linkshells is really bad for hunts.

If a linkshell is created without a large demand for one from people without a linkshell, it is being filled by people from existing linkshells. While this can further interconnect linkshells, it primarily dilutes people who call and scout. It (1) creates a high demand for and dependence on relinkers to connect these linkshells (2) slows down the calls themselves, because they have to be relinked multiple times to reach linkshells, which can cause people to miss hunts (3) can entirely cut off linkshells from calls if the relinkers are not online or are busy, causing people to miss hunts (4) makes communication about spawning and scouting attempts much less effective, wasting people’s time, and (5) increases the need for multiple linkshells, which wastes the limited linkshell spaces.

Linking Hunts

Linking hunts is pretty much a must for hunting unless you’re solo killing them. Hunts are linked in coordinate form, but the coordinates themselves aren’t that important. When a hunt is properly linked, you can click on the link and it opens a mark (called a flag) on your map of the position. You can right click on a map to make a flag.

To link a hunt, you use commands in <>. You cannot capitalise these commands.

<pos> links your location

<flag> links the last flag you opened

<t> links the name of the mob you’re targeting

<thpp> links the % of hp the mob you’re targeting has

This is what my call to link a B rank looks like…

The [2] means I linked it in my second ls or /l2

The “b rank ➛” I wrote because there is no command to link rank

The “Aswang” is from a <t> command

The “ ➨ The Azim Steppe (22.1, 16.8) Z: 0.4” is from a <pos> command

The overall call looks like “/l2 b rank ➛ <t> | <pos>”

Macros

Macros are basically commands you can link to a button you can put on your hotbar. You can type out “/l1 A rank <t> <pos>” or “/l7 S rank <flag>” in the macro and just have to click one button to link the hunt. This is especially useful if you are in more than once hunt ls because you can set it to link a hunt in both. You can find these under the System menu. I like to keep a few in the bottom corner of my screen for convenience. To the right is the macro menu with an example of one of my macros.

Is this a hunt?

You can tell when something is a hunt based on the symbol by its name. The symbol will be bigger than normal and also determine the rank. Some quest mobs will have the A or B rank symbol, so make sure the mob is level 50/60/70 before linking it as an A or B rank.

What Rank is it?

Hunts have ranks and the different ranks determine a lot about a hunt. I will go into drops, windows, scouting, and spawning later. Each hunt has a set rank; they don’t randomly switch around.

A Ranks	S Ranks	B Ranks
These are the generic hunts. You find them. You kill them. You get drops. These hunts have a red/orange symbol, the same as S ranks.	S ranks can be thought of as a more intense A rank. These have to be spawned by doing certain things or meeting certain conditions and drop the best rewards. I wrote a slightly more advanced guide that includes how to spawn S ranks here. They have the same symbol as A ranks.	B ranks are basically “personal” hunts. They have a similar symbol to A and S ranks, except it is blue. Because of this, some ls do not want B rank calls. They only are worth killing if you (A) want the achievements and title for killing them or (B) are assigned them as your weekly B rank. You can pick up your B ranks at your grand company (ARR), the forgotten knight in the foundation (HW), and at Kugane or Rhalgr’s Reach (SB).

A Rank vs S Rank

You can tell the difference between A and S ranks by

(1) knowing their name – if unsure of rank you can google it or check Ariyala.

(2) S ranks are generally bigger and can be seen zone wide, A ranks can only be rendered when they are in render range like normal mobs

(3) Most S ranks have to be spawned by doing certain things, so it is somewhat unlikely you will randomly find one anyways

Finding and Spawning Basics

Windows / Respawn

Hunts aren’t always up. Once they are killed, there is a set time before they can spawn again. Once this time is reached, a “window” is opened. This is the range of time in which a hunt can spawn.

Hunts don’t spawn exactly x hours after you kill them. If you kill Luminare, it has a 4 hour respawn. Once 4 hours have passed, it has a 2 hour window. This means that it can spawn 4-6 hours after it is killed. If it has not spawned once it reaches its max window time (in this case 6 hours since it was last killed or 2 hours into its spawn window), it’ll be force spawned at the window’s max time.

Many servers use http://ffxiv.ariyala.com to track hunts. Once the minimum respawn time is reached, the timer turns green and starts counting up. If you see the timer next to Luminare is green with 0:22, this means it is 4 hours 22 minutes since last kill and 22 minutes into its respawn window.

http://ffxivhunt.com/ https://xivhunt.net/ and https://ffxiv-the-hunt.net also exist, but I don’t know which servers use them if any.

	A Ranks	S Ranks	B Ranks
ARR	These have an hour respawn window. These windows open 3-4 hours after killed (depends on A rank).*	These timers are much more lengthy than A Rank timers. Found on here.	These respawn seconds after they are killed.
HW	These have a 2 hour window that opens 4 hours after kill.	48 hour window opens 84 hours after kill, 30 hour window opens 50 hours after maintenance
SB	These have a 2 hour window that opens 4 hours after kill.	48 hour window opens 84 hours after kill, 30 hour window opens 50 hours after maintenance

*Marberry and Sabotender Bailarina open after 4 hours. Melt, Maahes, and Marraco open after 3 hours. All others open after 3 hours, 30 minutes.

Scouting / Spawning

Hunts have to be found. People generally run or fly from spawn point to spawn point, maps of which can be found here or here.

S Ranks have to be spawned by doing certain things. This is specific to the individual S rank and can be found here or here.

Drops

(up to date as of 4.4)

	A Ranks	S Ranks	B Ranks
ARR	40 Allied Seals, 20 Centurio Seals, 30 Allagan Tomestones of Poetics, 10 Allagan Tomestones of Mendacity, and chance of a Blood-spattered Mark Log	100 Allied Seals, 50 Centurio Seals, 100 Allagan Tomestones of Poetics, 30 Tomestones of Mendacity, and a change of a Blood-spattered Mark Log	100 allied seals and 5k gil once a week.
HW	40 Centurio Seals, 30 Allagan Tomestones of Poetics, and 10 Allagan Tomestones of Mendacity*	100 Centurio Seals, 100 Allagan Tomestones of Poetics, and 30 Allagan Tomestones of Mendacity	100 centurio seals and 5k gil once a week.
SB	40 Centurio Seals, 30 Allagan Tomestones of Poetics, 20 Allagan Tomestones of Mendacity, 10 Allagan Tomestones of Genesis and a chance of getting a Cracked Cluster (estimated at about 50%)	100 Centurio Seals, 100 Allagan Tomestones of Poetics, 80 Allagan Tomestones of Mendacity, 30 Allagan Tomestones of Genesis, and 1 Cracked Cluster	100 centurio seals and 5k gil once a week.

*All of HW A ranks, except Stench Blossom and Campacti, have a chance to drop a faded music roll.

Allied Seals can be spent at your Grand Company’s Hunt Billmaster.

Centurio Seals can be spent at the lower level of the Forgotten Knight (Ardolain and Yolain) for HW items. For SB Satsuya and Estrild in Kugane and Leuekin and Billebaut in Rhalgr’s Reach sell the SB items (same items in each location).

Items available include materia, ventures, aetheryte tickets, minions, music, gear, and hunt logs (used to trade in for more items like emotes, gear upgrades, a mount, and striking dummy).

Drops are given based on enmity generated during the fight. Partying up can increase credit because it is calculated off the whole group’s enmity. If a player holds agro at anytime throughout the fight, they are usually guaranteed full credit (This is why some players pull the hunt if they’re in a queue; to get full credit without a party). Unless the hunt dies very fast, most players (including healers and dps) can generate enough enmity to get full credit during ARR and HW A ranks.

Daily Hunts

Daily hunts are normal overworld mobs that you are assigned to kill. When you are assigned them, they drop seals and extra xp. You can find their spawn locations here.

Early Pulling / Sniping

Early pulling, resetting, and sniping is NOT against terms of service. Harassing people is. Doing these things with an extremely obvious malicious intent can get you in trouble with ToS (and resetting is the most against ToS). You are in no way obligated to link hunts in hunt ls; you can just kill them. Some ls or groups DO have policies that say you cannot snipe and it’s not exactly a horrible thing to share with others, so it’s your choice to make. That said, it is often a pain in the ass to solo them.

As I mentioned earlier, people are in no way obligated by ToS to link the hunts they find. People take the time to find/spawn those hunts. If people do that, yelling about “early pulls” or “why didn’t you wait” probably isn’t going to encourage them to put in the effort to scout and spawn more (or share the benefits of those things with you).

If you are consistently getting to hunts after they are dead (but showing up directly after call), I would consider looking for a more active ls because you are most likely getting relinks of calls made by another hunter not in that linkshell. There is also a small chance that the scouter is pulling hunts directly after they call them (but that’s very unlikely because they probably, hopefully, wouldn’t call the hunts in the first place if they’re going to pull right away).