The hunt craze will probably level off a bit in a week or two, like the Eternal Bond reservations. Catching the hunt targets will still be tough, but much more reasonable - even prior to the 2.5 adjustments, S ranks on Excalibur were going down within 45 seconds of a pull.

If I were to suggest a temporary fix though:

1. Hunt targets will be invulnerable for the first 3 minutes after they appear on the open world map. Targets under invulnerable status during this period are surrounded by a circular aetherial barrier effect, similar to the round barrier surrounding players prior to the start of a guildleve.

2. Certain elite marks are able to use effects (cooldown buffs) which make them harder to kill. Your target may use these effects based on how fast its HP has depleted, the number of opponents - or even after a set time.

- For example, when Garlok reaches 50% HP and 20% HP, damage dealt by Garlok will be increased by 20% each time and stacking to 20% extra damage, but this does not occur if at least 2 minutes have elapsed when the HP checkpoint is reached.
- Some will apply a 20% damage reduction for 45 seconds each time they are hit by a DoT, with a 90 second cooldown.
- Other marks can heal themselves: each time 20% of HP is lost, the target will heal itself up to 10% of total HP depending on how fast the HP was lost, up to five times (50% total HP).
- Another mark might have a "DPS check" mechanic that heals 50% of a target's HP every 5 minutes, making it much harder or impossible to kill the hunt target if you can't finish it off in time.