In Monster Hunter Rise, your worth as a hunter is gauged by how high your Hunter Rank (or HR) goes. Complete enough quests of your rank and you’ll be promoted to the next, unlocking harder quests to keep the ball rolling. But as of the first update this month, it’s possible to hit a roadblock or “soft cap” in Monster Hunter Rise, where simply completing key quests isn’t quite enough. Here’s how to quickly raise your HR and the Chameleos, Kushala Daora, and Teostra weaknesses you’ll need to know to progress.
Further reading:
- How to make money fast in Monster Hunter Rise
- How to upgrade your armor in Monster Hunter Rise
- 15 essential tips for starting Monster Hunter Rise
How to increase your hunter rank in Monster Hunter Rise
For the first big chunk of Monster Hunter Rise, how you increase your Hunter Rank differs from how you’ll do it later on. Until you reach HR 7, all you need to do is clear enough Key Quests (as indicated by the Hub and Village counters on the top right portion of the screen) of the same Hunter Rank as yourself. In doing so, you’ll hit the first soft cap, blocking you from increasing your rank any further. To unlock this first roadblock, all you need to do is complete the HR 7 Urgent Quest which, as of the first post-release update, will bump you to HR 8.
If you’ve already completed the final Hub quest of the base game, you’ll be elevated to HR 8 upon logging in after the update. This is where things change a little.
Rather than be a mad dash to complete a certain number of key quests, from HR 8 onward, quests completed will award Hunter Rank points eventually level up your HR over time like a traditional RPG experience bar. Any hunts completed prior to unlocking your HR this way won’t retroactively apply, so even those who completed copious amounts of quests before the update won’t suddenly skyrocket to the next cap upon release.
How to skip to High Rank in Monster Hunter Rise
There’s often been an issue in Monster Hunter games where there’s a bit of a difficult disconnect between the single and multiplayer modes. Push through single-player and by the time you head into multiplayer, you’ll be forced to fight dozens of monsters that practically melt beneath your powerful weapons. By pushing through the ranks of the single-player Village quests, though, you’ll automatically jump to HR 4, boosting you through that initial slog and straight into High Rank multiplayer quests. That’s a time-saver!
How to quickly raise your Hunter Rank in Monster Hunter Rise
As of the first major Monster Hunter Rise update, the HR cap has been lifted from HR 7 all the way to HR 20, 30, and 40, with franchise-favorite Elder Dragons Chameleos, Kushala Daora, and Teostra returning to greet you at each major step.
Grinding to HR 20 isn’t too long a process. Virtually any HR 7 quest will bump you up by around two whole HRs each run. The number of monsters in the quest doesn’t matter, it’s more a case of the minimum HR requirement of the quest itself. With that in mind, you’re only six quests away from hitting the first soft cap.
If completing six quests is too much for you, you can unlock three new quests from Master Utsushi. Though they show up in the HR 7 page of the Hub menu, each of these quests pits you against three powerful monsters at HR 8 difficulty. Complete them and you’ll go up four whole HRs with each clear, turning a six quest grind into three. You can easily complete this in an hour or so.
If you’re feeling brave, another way to go about this is hopping into multiplayer Rampage Quest runs. Though these typically take longer than standard quests to complete, they give around three HR upgrades per run. Join a run midway through and you could climb the ranks pretty quickly indeed. Just don’t get killed and end somebody else’s run.
As you reach each HR soft cap (20, 30, and 40) you’ll need to clear a new Urgent Quest against a returning Elder Dragon to continue the grind. You’ll immediately gain two HRs after completing each of these quests, meaning that, depending on which quest you choose, you only need to clear two or four more quests to unlock the next. The equipment made from each new Elder Dragon includes skills that perfectly counter the next beast you’ll go up against, though, making repeated runs against these big bads likely more beneficial than running any other quest right now.
How to Unlock HR 20: Chameleos Weaknesses, Weak Points, and Best Equipment
- Elements: None (poison)
- Weak to: Dragon, Fire, Thunder
- Weak points: Head, stomach, hind legs
Chameleos guards the way to HR 30, pinning you to HR 20 until you defeat it. How you go about this is entirely up to you; the methods outlined above don’t really change. Polish off four standard quests or two HR 8 ones if you’re after speeding things up. If you’ve fought it in a previous Monster Hunter title, throw away what you know. It’s a very different fight now; this lizard is angry.
The secret to defeating Chameleos lies in negating heavy poison in any which way you can; Hunting/Palico horns, antidotes, antidobra, whatever you can get your hands on. Learn to read when it’s about to send out gaseous clouds and whether or not it’ll push them around with its wings and you’ll only have its occasional powerful punches to watch out for.
As problematic as Chameleos’ signature invisibility skill can be, it’s not quite as effective as in past games. Even its item-stealing tongue has been tweaked, now swiping the Petalace buffs you’ve gathered throughout the quest instead.
How to unlock HR 30: Kushala Daora Weaknesses, Weak Points, and Best Equipment
- Elements: None (wind)
- Weak to: Thunder, Dragon
- Weak points: Head, forelegs, tail
At HR 30, Kushala Daora blocks your HR path. Grab the Urgent Request to put it down. Doing so unlocks the penultimate soft cap, paving the way for HR 40. But it’s easier said than done.
Kushala Daora commands the wind. On top of spitting out immense tornados that can quickly render large parts of the zone unusable, its wind aura will push back melee attackers, making for a particularly tricky fight.
Luckily, there are two ways to fight back against this: The Wind Resistance skill and the Poison status. The former negates the push-back of its aura, and the latter outright turns it off while afflicted. Both boons are easy to come by through various readily available equipment, but those made from Chameleos come with everything you need right out of the gate.
How to unlock HR 40: Teostra Weaknesses, Weak Points, and Best Equipment
- Elements: Fire, Blast
- Weak to: Water, Ice
- Weak points: Head, wings, tail
Just like Kushala Daora, this deadly Elder Dragon uses an aura of its own to make attacking it innately tricky. Teostra uses both Fire and Blast elements, covering itself in the former when enraged to slowly roast nearby hunters, and relying on the latter to coat the zone with dust clouds that, when it snaps its teeth, explode for heavy area damage.
Though often opting to fight on the ground where it runs rampant, using its sheer weight to knock hunters around, Teostra can use its wings to both take flight — enabling it to use a cruel traveling flamethrower attack — and even manipulate its explosive dust, pushing, or pulling the particles to make evading the powerful bang even trickier than before.
When it comes to equipment, you don’t need anything specific to take Teostra on, but heavy Fire Resistance and anything that boosts your natural recovery can help lower your reliance on Mega Potions.
If you’re in the market for some new gear, however, the best equipment for defeating Teostra comes from Kushala Daora and its Kushala Blessing buff. This set increases Water and Ice damage dealt, nullifies the damage from Teostra’s Heat Aura, and even gives you natural health regeneration that can go beyond the usual red portion of the health bar, trivializing one of the hardest fights in the game thus far.