Monster Hunter Wilds Progression Guide: HR Milestones, Gear Checkpoints, and Unlock Triggers from HR 1 to Endgame

Quick Start: 5 Things to Do Before Anything Else

Verified on Monster Hunter Wilds v1.040.00.00 (Title Update 4). HR thresholds and unlock conditions may change with future patches.

1. Focus on story quests exclusively — HR caps only unlock via specific main missions. Optional quests generate Hunter Rank Points (HRP) but won’t break a cap on their own.
2. Don’t upgrade Low Rank armor past level 3 — your first High Rank armor piece outclasses the best Low Rank set you can build. Save upgrade materials.
3. Pick one weapon type and stick with it — switching mid-game means learning a new moveset and rebuilding your upgrade path. If you haven’t chosen yet, our best weapon for beginners guide walks through every type.
4. Start stockpiling Artian materials when Tempered Monsters appear — they’re the bottleneck for endgame weapons and you can’t over-farm them.
5. At HR 41, clear extra missions before grinding toward HR 100 — Lagiacrus, Seregios, and key Tempered variants are locked behind these missions, and you’ll want them available for farming.

How the HR System Actually Works

Monster Hunter Wilds uses a two-layer rank system that catches nearly every new player off guard. You earn Hunter Rank Points (HRP) from every activity in the game — quests, hunts, investigations, bounties. These points accumulate and push your HR upward.

The catch: soft caps prevent your HR from rising past certain numbers regardless of how much HRP you’ve banked. A soft cap only breaks when you complete a specific story (assignment) quest. Until that quest is cleared, HRP queues up silently. Clear the quest, and the accumulated points apply all at once — which is why players sometimes jump 5 or 6 HR in a single session after finishing a chapter boss.

Story quests aren’t just narrative beats. They’re the literal unlock keys for each tier of content. Understanding this eliminates the most common mid-game frustration: grinding optional quests for an hour and wondering why your HR won’t move.

Not all HRP sources are equal. From highest to lowest yield: main story quests, investigation quests with bonus rewards, event quests during active rotation, multiplayer hunts (a party bonus applies to all members), and then optional quests and field surveys. Capturing a monster instead of slaying it also yields marginally more HRP from the same hunt — a small edge that compounds across a full farming session.

Low Rank Progression (HR 1-8): The Campaign Phase

Low Rank covers the entire main story — six chapters, 21 missions, approximately 16–18 hours. Your HR increases alongside the narrative, capped at HR 8 by the time you reach the final Chapter 3 mission.

Clearing the Chapter 3 final mission — “Monster Hunter” (defeating Zoh Shia) — triggers the High Rank unlock, rolls credits, and shifts you into a completely different gear tier.

Low Rank gear philosophy: Resist the urge to invest heavily here. The Hope armor set (Divine Blessing 3, Stun Resistance 2) works for the early chapters. If you want a stronger mid-LR option, three Bahara pieces plus two Alloy pieces give Quick Sheath 3 and Evade Extender 2. For weapons, Bone weapons carry higher raw damage than Ore alternatives through most of Low Rank. Avoid elemental or status weapons until High Rank, where elemental builds pay off against specific weaknesses. The single best piece of LR advice: don’t upgrade past what’s needed to clear story quests comfortably.

The Three HR Gates of High Rank (HR 9-40)

High Rank is where Monster Hunter Wilds’ real progression lives. The HR 9–40 bracket contains three hard gates — each requiring a specific story quest clear before your rank can advance further.

Gate 1: HR 9–15 — Chapter 4-1 (Defeat Yian Kut-Ku)

High Rank begins at Chapter 4. Your first priority — before any optional quests — is replacing your entire armor set. Even basic HR armor built from the first High Rank monsters you encounter dramatically outperforms whatever you carried out of Low Rank. The defense gap alone justifies an immediate rebuild, and the skill slots on HR armor open up build options that simply don’t exist in LR.

The better play at HR 9–15 is mixing individual armor pieces for Attack Boost and Weakness Exploit rather than chasing full set bonuses. Set bonuses become worth the investment once you’re building toward your actual endgame setup.

Gate 2: HR 16–20 — Chapter 4-2 (Defeat Frenzied Nerscylla)

Frenzied monsters appear here — standard monsters infected with the Frenzy virus, exhibiting altered behavior and increased aggression. These aren’t just reskinned versions of earlier fights. Frenzied variants drop different materials and represent a meaningful difficulty step above standard High Rank hunts.

Use the HR 16–20 bracket to research your target endgame armor build rather than reacting to whatever drops. Knowing your HR 41 armor goal means you can read monster weaknesses strategically rather than crafting whatever’s available.

Gate 3: HR 21–40 — Chapter 4-3 (Defeat Tempered Lala Barina + Guardian Fulgur Anjanath)

This is the longest and most impactful HR bracket. The mission “Wyvern Sparks and Rose Thorns” — within Chapter 4-3 — introduces Tempered Monsters and simultaneously unlocks Artian weapons, the endgame crafting tier.

Tempered Monsters are identified by purple scoutfly trails. They hit harder than standard variants, have larger HP pools, and drop Artian materials — the primary ingredient for the best weapons in the game. Three matching Artian materials of the same rarity forge one Artian weapon, which you then reinforce up to five times for incremental stat gains and elemental customization.

Target armor sets for HR 21–40:

• Gore Magala Beta set — High Rank exclusive; Critical Status and the Frenzy virus mechanic synergize into strong crit builds once you understand the infection window
• Guardian Arkveld Beta set — dense individual skills; the 3-piece bonus layers well into mixed endgame combinations
• Incremental mix option — Guardian Ebony Odogaron Gloves (Burst 2) + Rathalos Chest or Coil (Adrenaline Rush) + Xu Wu Helm bridges the gap if you’re building toward a specific endgame setup rather than committing to a full set

For a full breakdown of which armor sets perform best at High Rank and what each one requires to craft, see our best armor sets guide.

Endgame Entry: HR 41+ After Defeating Arkveld

Chapter 6 contains one mission: “What Lies Ahead.” The final boss is Arkveld. Clearing it removes the HR 40 soft cap entirely and marks your arrival at the game’s true endgame.

What HR 41 unlocks immediately:

• Tier 1 Decoration melding at the Melding Pot — craft specific decorations with Guild Points rather than relying purely on quest RNG
• Extra missions for Lagiacrus and Seregios if you cleared “A World Turned Upside Down” at HR 31+
• Tempered Mizutsune extra mission (HR 41+, after completing base Mizutsune extra)
• Nerscylla Clone and Omega Planetes extra missions
• Zoh Shia extra mission unlocks at HR 50+
• Support Hunter attack power boost at HR 50+; additional stat increase at HR 75+

The critical mistake at HR 41: grinding straight toward HR 100 without completing extra missions first. Each extra mission adds that monster to open-world spawns and investigation pools. Lagiacrus, Seregios, and their Tempered variants provide materials you’ll want well before HR 100 — unlock them first, then start the grind.

Standard build template for HR 41–99: Attack Boost 7 + Weakness Exploit 3 + Critical Eye 7 forms the skeleton for most crit builds. Layer your weapon’s specific synergy skills on top — Critical Element for elemental weapons, Critical Boost for raw builds.

The HR 100 Wall: What Changes and Why It Matters

HR 100 is Monster Hunter Wilds’ primary endgame threshold. Everything before it is preparation; reaching HR 100 opens the game’s hardest content simultaneously.

What unlocks at HR 100:

• 9-star difficulty quests — Arch-Tempered monster variants with expanded movesets and significantly higher damage output
• Tier 2 Decoration melding — higher-tier decorations that were inaccessible at Tier 1
• Rarity 8 Artian weapon parts — the current damage ceiling, above the Rarity 7 Artian weapons available from HR 20+
• Gogmazios extra mission (added in Title Update 4 v1.040.00.00)
• Tempered (9-star) versions of Rey Dau, Uth Duna, Nu Udra, Jin Dahaad, Gore Magala, Arkveld, Mizutsune, Lagiacrus, and Seregios
• Tempered Rathalos roaming Scarlet Forest, Oilwell Basin, and Wounded Hollow
• “Established Hunter” trophy/achievement

The rank ceiling extends to HR 999, but HR 100 is where all meaningful content gates open. Past that, the loop is farming Arch-Tempered monsters for their materials, upgrading to Rarity 8 Artian weapons, and using Tier 2 Decoration melding to slot your ideal build skills.

Gear Checkpoint Table: What to Target at Each HR Tier

Progression by Player Type

The fastest path to HR 100 and the most satisfying path to HR 100 are different routes. Here’s how each player type should approach each phase:

For a broader look at all core systems — combat fundamentals, Palico setup, and the camp and crafting layers that feed into everything above — our Monster Hunter Wilds Beginner’s Guide is the right starting point.

Fastest Ways to Farm HR at Each Tier

HRP sources ranked from highest to lowest yield per time invested:

1. Main story (assignment) quests — highest base HRP and the only way to break soft caps; always clear these first
2. Investigations with bonus rewards — the bonus-reward tier multiplies HRP significantly; prioritize these over standard investigations at the same difficulty
3. Event quests — “Anguish and Atrocity” and “Eldrich Enigma” during active rotations offer above-average HRP rewards; check the event calendar when grinding
4. Multiplayer hunts — a party bonus applies to all members; a 4-player party hunting a Tempered monster in 4 minutes outperforms solo play on HR per hour even accounting for session setup time
5. Field Surveys at ≖6 difficulty — efficient once you’re comfortable with multi-monster encounters; Tempered Monster field surveys add Artian material drops on top of HRP
6. Standard Optional Quests — reliable but slower per-hour than the options above

One mechanic most players overlook: capturing a monster instead of slaying it yields slightly more HRP from the same hunt. The gap isn’t dramatic per hunt, but across dozens of hunts in the HR 40–100 grind, it adds up to meaningful time savings. For weapon matchup decisions to find what makes multi-monster hunts fastest for your playstyle, see our Monster Hunter Wilds weapon tier list.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did my HR stop going up?

You’ve hit a soft cap gated behind a story quest. Check your quest board for uncompleted assignment missions — the game doesn’t explicitly tell you that your rank is capped, which is why this catches so many players off guard. No amount of optional quest or investigation grinding will push you past a soft cap without clearing the required main mission.

Should I rush to High Rank or enjoy Low Rank?

Low Rank runs 16–18 hours and is worth experiencing once for the story and to learn your weapon. Don’t farm it heavily though — the gear doesn’t carry over meaningfully, and every hour spent farming LR armor is time not spent building toward your actual endgame setup. Rush Low Rank on replays.

When should I start building Artian weapons?

As soon as “Wyvern Sparks and Rose Thorns” unlocks the system around HR 20–25. Start with Rarity 7 Artian and reinforce it five times. Hold the Rarity 8 upgrade until HR 100, when the higher-tier parts become available and the upgrade ceiling jumps.

What’s the fastest route to HR 100?

Story quests first — they grant the highest HRP and break caps. Then chain Investigation quests with bonus rewards. Event quests during active rotations can significantly speed up the HR 41–100 grind. Running multiplayer for the party bonus beats solo farming on HR per hour once you know the hunts well.

Is there content past HR 100?

Yes — the rank ceiling is HR 999, but HR 100 is where all major systems unlock. Past that, progression is about perfecting builds with Rarity 8 Artian weapons, Tier 2 Decoration melding, and clearing the Arch-Tempered monster roster. Gogmazios, added in Title Update 4, is among the hardest targets currently available.

Sources

1. Hunter Rank Farm Guide and Unlocks — Game8
2. Endgame Guide — Fextralife Wiki
3. Game Progress Route — Fextralife Wiki
4. Monster Hunter Wilds Hunter Ranks Explained — Icy Veins

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.