how do hunts work?

[ExiledOne]

I'm only aware of hunt bills you pick up from the GCs but from reading on the forums it seems that folks are hunting elite marks other than ones posted on these boards.

Is there another hunt log book?
are there merits of hunting a mark without having a bill for it?

[Kaitlen]

S & A Rank Mobs

Here's a detailed summary:

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...newish_people/

Tracker for Kills/Window Timers: (There are quite a few out there, this one is my favorite)

http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/ >> Menu at the top >> Hunt Tracker > Select your data center > Select your world > view window timers for S & A rank mobs.

When an S or A rank pops in a zone, you'll see people /shouting for invite for hunts, etc.

S Ranks are harder, require more people/time to kill.
A Ranks are not 'hard' but can be trouble some with one alliance only. (YMMV!)

You don't need to be in a party to attack, but to get full credit, it helps to be in a party with other people attacking the mob.

[KinnisonArc]

You can't earn allied seals from defeating monsters that has no red mandragora icon on top of their names so merits of hunting them without its bill (mandragora icon indicates that the monster is in your currently accepted mark bill, check from Key Item.) and there are no other hunt log aside from the class hunting log.

The elite mark you mentioned are the A and S marks, which you can yield allied seal by just participate in taking it down (with or without party) and unlike the weekly B mark and daily monster/FATE boss, you don't need posted bills to acquire allied seals from them at all so try to find a party to fight these so you can earn the maximum seals easily.

[BlueThunder]

Just like B Rank, the A and S ranks have a variety of fixed spawn locations in each zone. These marks don't require you to have a hunting bill in order to get a reward.

A Ranks are an 8 party mob that when getting full credit, they yield 40 Allied Seals and 30 Tomestones of Soldiery. These have a respawn timer of aprox 4 hours.

S Ranks are fit to be take down with a full alliance or more and when killed, full credit will earn you 100 Allied Seals and Soldiery + 10 Poetics. These however have a different respawn time that goes from 1 1/2 day to 3 days, and a specific condition needs to be met for them to appear. Hunt Masters in the area give you a clue about how when you ask them about S Ranks.

Like the others mentioned above, players use spreadsheets to keep track of kills to calculate when a respawn is available. Also you can check other sources on the net for a more specific definition on what triggers an S Rank in the area to appear.

[Buff_Archer]

Also, if you find a hunt monster and it doesn't have the symbol over its head for being aggressive, it's a B rank. If it does have the aggressive symbol it's an A or S rank.

[godwin]

When in doubt watch for inv shouts and herds of ppl going somewhere.