As a mobile game, MHNow can be even more obscure than mainline games which is quite the statement if you know these games. And one of the most obscure part of the game is the drop tables. While mainline games have drop tables properly detailed, all this content is server side in MHNow and thus can’t be obtained. But it can be brute forced. After all, throw a coin 1000 times and you should roughly get 500 head and 500 tails. So with the release of season 10, I asked people to send me the results of their Ceanataur and Velkhana hunts to get approximal drop rates and understand how Now works in that domain. Let’s see the results.
Velkhana study
Over the course of approximately one month, 677 Velkhana were hunted (not accounting some people that didn’t get the logic of that experience and sent only their good results).
Regular drop study
| Drop | Slot 1 | Slot 2 | Slot 3 | Slot 4 | Slot 5 | Slot 6 | Slot 7 | Slot 8 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weapon R3 | 41,7% (282) | 48,7% (330) | 32,1% (217) | 47,4% (321) | 0% (0) | 34,4% (233) | 25,7% (174) | 70,6% (478) | 37,6% (2035) |
| Armor R3 | 40% (271) | 45,5% (308) | 31,2% (211) | 43,9% (297) | 0% (0) | 31,9% (216) | 70,2% (435) | 26,7% (181) | 36,2% (1959) |
| R4 | 14,2% (96) | 5,6% (38) | 20,2% (137) | 7,4% (50) | 71,2% (482) | 27,9% (189) | 3,2% (22) | 2,5% (17) | 19% (1031) |
| R5 | 3,5% (24) | 0,1% (1) | 12,7% (86) | 1% (7) | 24,2% (164) | 4,4% (30) | 0,7% (5) | 0% (0) | 5,9% (317) |
| R6 | 0,6% (4) | 0% (0) | 3,8% (26) | 0,3% (2) | 4,6% (31) | 1,3% (9) | 0,1% (1) | 0,1% (1) | 1,4% (74) |
Jesus that’s a lot of numbers (and I had to all add these religiously in an Excel sheet). Let’s see the most interesting things:
- Each slot has its own drop rates. This is very well shown with slots 7 and 8 with 7 heavily biased towards armor R3 while 8 is biased towards weapon R3.
- Slots 1, 3 and 5 have better drop rates, increasing progressively with slot 5 being unable to drop any R3. This seems linked to the Elder Dragon repel system. Originally there were 3 rewards tiers for Elder Dragon Interception with the low repel (2 rewards including slot 1), the high repel (4 rewards including slot 1 and 3) and finally slaying the Elder Dragon (which grants all rewards including slot 1, 3 and 5). These specific slots seems to be linked to that system, granting you better rewards the further you go through the fight.
I did a ratio between R4, R5 and R6 on each slot, the value differs so it keeps confirming that each slot has its own individual drop rates.
Regarding some results, I don’t think slot 2 is unable to get any R6 and slot 8 any R5. It’s just that the odds are so low that it only happens once in a blue moon (I mean in 677 hunts, we only got one R6 in slot 7 and 8 and one R5 in slot 2, it’s pretty telling).
Partbreak study
A quick reminder regarding partbreaks:
- Usually each rare drop is linked to one specific part (for Elder Dragons, the R4 drop can be obtained with any partbreak, the R5 is usually linked to the tail and the R6 to the head). You can check these on mhn.quest
- Partbreaks slots are ordered by parts and not by break order. The complete order is Head > Tail > Wing [L/R] > Forelegs > Back > Stomach > Hindleg [L/R] > Horn [L/R] > Neck Pouch > Body > Spike [L/R] > Legs > Antenna [L/R] > Claw [L/R] > Arm Blade [L/R] > Dorsal Fin > Tail Tip > Wings > Foreleg [L/R]. Note that each part is unique in that list: Head and Horn [L/R] aren’t the same thing, same for Forelegs and Foreleg [L/R]. For instance, the game will display Velkhana drops as Head, Tail and Wings but Nergigante drops as Tail, Horn [Left] then Horn [Right]. Also some partbreaks are monster specific like Barroth Spikes and Tzitzi Antennas. Newer parts gets added at the end of the list so you can simply remember Head, Tail then whatever left (and can check this list for specific case like Horn).
| Drop | Head | Tail | Wings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weapon R3 | 20,3% (98) | 24,6% (100) | 19,1% (99) |
| Armor R3 | 20,3% (98) | 21,9% (89) | 16,6% (86) |
| R4 | 50,7% (245) | 21,4% (87) | 64,2% (332) |
| R5 | 0% (0) | 32,2% (131) | 0% (0) |
| R6 | 8,7% (42) | 0% (0) | 0% (0) |
As explained before, you’ll never get a R5 from a head or wing break, and same thing for R6 with a tail or wing break.
Aside from that, it’s pretty clear that you definitely should go for partbreaks on Elder Dragons. While regular partbreaks have around 1,5% chances to give you a R6 (with slot 5 having the higher odds at 4,5%), the head partbreak seems to be closer to 9% for instance.
Multiplayer slot study
| Drop | Regular multiplayer slot | Bonus event slot |
|---|---|---|
| Weapon R3 | 30,7% (206) | 46,7% (71) |
| Armor R3 | 28,5% (193) | 47,4% (72) |
| R4 | 25% (169) | 4,6% (7) |
| R5 | 13,1% (89) | 0,7% (1) |
| R6 | 3% (20) | 0,7% (1) |
These results seems to confirm that you should ideally do your hunts in multiplayer as the regular multiplayer slot is pretty generous. But the bonus event slot on the other end is pretty trash, being clearly biased towards lower rarity drops. Well no big deal since at the end of the day it’s purely a bonus slot and has, it seems, no impact on the regular multiplayer slot.
The Arzuros study: ranks and drop rates
An initial study was made on Shogun Ceanataur but it lacked focus and as such ended up providing not enough results for proper comparison. But using that bad experience, I improved the following researches.
The following study was made hunting 119 2 star and 119 8 star Arzuros. The goal was to see how rarer drops get added to the drop pools.
Regular drop study
Here are the results (first line is the 2 star odds and second line the 8 star odds):
| Drop | Slot 1 | Slot 2 | Slot 3 | Slot 4 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weapon R1 | 21,8% (26) 16,0% (19) | 39,5% (47) 33,6% (40) | 72,3% (86) 70,6% (84) | 21,0% (25) 16,0% (19) | 38,7% (184) 34,0% (162) |
| Armor R1 | 31,9% (38) 16,0% (19) | 37,8% (45) 31,1% (37) | 25,3% (30) 21,8% (26) | 74,8% (89) 74,8% (89) | 42,4% (202) 35,9% (171) |
| R2 | 23,5% (28) 21,8% (26) | 10,1% (12) 16,0% (19) | 0,8% (1) 3,4% (4) | 1,7% (2) 3,4% (4) | 9,0% (43) 11,1% (53) |
| R3 | 22,7% (27) 22,7% (27) | 12,6% (15) 10,1% (12) | 1,7% (2) 3,4% (4) | 2,5% (3) 0,8% (1) | 9,9% (47) 10,3% (49) |
| R4 | / 11,8% (14) | / 5,9% (7) | / 0,0% (0) | / 0,8% (1) | / 4,6% (22) |
| R5 | / 10,1% (12) | / 3,4% (4) | / 0,0% (0) | / 0,0% (0) | / 3,4% (16) |
| R6 | / 1,7% (2) | / 0,0% (0) | / 0,8% (1) | / 0,0% (0) | / 0,6% (3) |
At first glance, this study confirms some results from the Velkhana study:
- Each slot has its own odds
- Slot 1 has around 70% chances of granting you anything else than a R1, while slot 2 has around 30%
- Slot 3 is biased heavily towards armor R1 while slot 4 is heavily biased towards weapon R1
Regarding the addition of rare drops, it seems to me that it’s done by lowering the R1 odds (slot 1 armor R1 is especially jarring).
Partbreak study
Arzuros was only selected due to having only one easy partbreak for the same purpose of checking how rare drops get added to the loot table.
| Drop | Forelegs |
|---|---|
| Weapon R1 | 31,9% (38) 11,8% (14) |
| Armor R1 | 20,2% (24) 10,9% (13) |
| R2 | 26,9% (32) 31,9% (38) |
| R3 | 21,0% (25) 19,3% (23) |
| R4 | / 17,6% (21) |
| R5 | / 6,7% (8) |
| R6 | / 1,7% (2) |
These results seems to further confirm the theory that the rarer drops are added by lowering R1 odds. As a conclusion, even while looking for lower rarity drops other than R1, it’s better to hunt higher rarity monsters.
It also confirms that partbreaks are really worth it, having better odds than the regular slots (though not as busted as Elder Dragons partbreak drop rates).
