Hunt-A-Thons and ED Interceptions

[Last update: 18 January 2026]

Hunt-A-Thons (HAT) are a game system in MHNow allowing to fight 5 monsters in a row on a gathering spot. These fight series are a great way to farm rare monsters so understanding how they work can help your progression in the game.

Interest and constraints

4 rare monsters with 2 having meta weapons, say no more

Aside from the rare monsters, each HAT fight can be done in mp without any distance constraint. HAT monsters have around 200% of their original HP, these not scaling on the players number (unlike regular mp fights). So you better use this to your advantage to get easier fights and the mp hunt bonus slot.

Winning a HAT fight grants 200% of the original zenny, HRP and season pass rewards. Fighting drops can also be increased as you get a random chances of getting a bonus reward slot granting 3 rare 2 or 3 drops, 2 rare 4 or 5 drops or even a r6 drop.

Obviously not everything is perfect and HAT are monetized. You can do one HAT every 3 hours, aside from specific paid events. If you want to bypass this issue, you need to buy Ultra Hunting Tickets.

Elder Dragon Interception

Elder Dragon Interception (EDI) are specials HAT where you only fight one Elder Dragon instead of the 5 monsters of a regular HAT. EDI follow their own rules.

The fight in itself is special as you first have 75s to deplete half of the ED health. If you reach that threshold, the remaining gets increased by 75s. The fight is thus split in 2 phases, the second phase being way more dangerous. The phase shift is signaled by an impressive and destructive signature move from the Elder Dragon.

You can see here solos against Kushala and Teostra to get an idea of the gameplay (obviously just like regular HAT, EDI can be done in mp without any distance constraint).

Regarding rewards, the fight is failed if you don’t get past the first health bar under the initial 75s. But if you reach phase 2 without killing the monster in the whole 150s, the Elder Dragon is repelled and you get 4 rewards slots plus any partbreak done during the fight.

If you manage to slay the Elder Dragon, you get no less than 8 reward slots plus the succeeded partbreaks. Elder Dragons have also less drop variety than regular monsters, their drops starting at rarity 3.

EDI being HAT, they use the same 3 hour cooldown. Doing a HAT thus prevents you from doing a EDI in the 3 following hours, the opposite being true too unless you use a paid Ultra Hunting Ticket.

HAT spawn logic

HAT appear on gathering spots, with a 20 min announcement followed by a 25min activation period. The first HAT of the day are announced at 5h55 and start at 6h15 with a 5min variation time. The last HAT of the day is announced at 23h00, starting at 23h20 (and ending at 23h45).

Announcement	Spawn	End
5h55 – 59	6h15 – 19	6h40 – 44
6h20 – 24	6h40 – 44	7h05 – 09
6h45 – 49	7h05 – 09	7h30 – 34
7h10 – 14	7h30 – 34	7h55 – 59
…	…	…
22h35 – 39	22h45 – 49	23h10 – 14
23h00 – 04	23h20 – 24	23h45 – 49

HAT frequency is based on the biome gathering spot numbers. We can thus differenciate between « rich » biomes with 4 or more gathering spots and « poor » biomes with 3 or less gathering spots.

Rich biome with 8 gathering spots: we get an announcement for the 18h05 time period with an active HAT on the 17h40 one

In a rich biome, HAT will chain all day, following a set pattern randomly established each day. The next HAT announcement appears 5min after the current HAT begins.

Poor biome with only 2 gathering spots: an announcement for the 18h05 time period but no HAT for the 17h40 one

In a poor biome, the HAT frequency is halved. Thus the announcement for the next HAT will only appear 5min after the previous HAT ending (on the previous table, you can forget the 6h20 and 7h10 time period for instance; this logic can be alternated on the first day of events as they might impose a first HAT at 9h00).

EDI spawn logic

EDI spawn logic use a bigger system. If there’s one HAT on a biome, there’s only one EDI in a 2X2 biome square replacing one HAT.

The general rule is that there’s is always one biome vertically, horizontally and in diagonal between 2 biomes in the same EDI state.

For instance in this huge area I stitched back with my little hands, you can see in every big red square (the famous 2X2 biome squares), the top right biome is in an EDI announcement state while the lower right one is in an active EDI state. The EDI will synchonously move between the 4 biomes constituing a red square on a 1h40 cycle (aka 4 times 25min). The pattern within the squares randomly changes every day.

Due to these 1h40 spawn cycle, you can predict perfectly where the EDI will spawns in rich biomes with precisely 4 gathering spots (since HAT will cycle on the same 4 gathering spots). Every 1h40, it will be the same gathering spot in an active EDI state.

Same biome with a 1h40 time difference, same gathering spot in an EDI state

This cyclic system can be a problem for poor biomes. Since poor biomes only grant 50% of HAT, there’s a real possibility that an EDI spawns… When the biome is in its cooldown state. If this happens, there won’t be any EDI in this biome for the current day.