Let's talk about Hunts - a detailed rundown of their assumed mechanics

[Ultimatecalibur]

Sorry to not be able to add anything, but I have a couple of questions about spawning S ranks.

If you do the spawn conditions correctly, how do you know if it's spawned? Does it spawn instantly? Does it always spawn next to the person that caused it?

S ranks do not always spawn next to the person triggering it. Only by searching or someone spotting the S rank can an S rank spawn be confirmed.

I've seen a couple of people mention "landmines" and "spawn points" here. Do all hunts have a few dedicated places that they spawn at or can they be anywhere?

All elite marks (B, A and S) have set points that they can spawn at on the map. There seem to be close to a dozen different spawn points on each map and not every elite mark will use every spawn point. What we refer to as "landmines" is in reference to several of the S ranks having proximity sub-triggers. (i.e. Nandi requires a player to have the invisible "Minion" status up and move near the active spawn point)

Do we have any information on Kaiser Behemoth or Bird of Paradise? The hunter-scholar in the Sea of Clouds doesn't even mention an S rank in the area, so no story for hints. I've not checked Western yet but it sounds like a similar situation.

I suspect that they have been disabled until 3.01 or 3.05 in order to prevent problems from occurring in the "starting" zones due to them spawning near Aether Currents or Quest locations while there were insufficient level 60 characters to kill them. An A rank in the Churning Mists caused some problems on my server during EA when it spawn near an Aether Current. So this is likely the case.