Before you can consider yourself a top-ranked Monster Hunter, you'll have to prepare yourself for when these monsters come calling.
In General
- Most of the early quests in the first generation's games involve you gathering items to slaying monsters that are as large as you are. Then comes Yian Kut-Ku, the giant pink wall for any prospective hunter. And it only gets harder from there.
- Credit also has to go to the series' mascot Rathalos, if only as an acid test to see how well the player handles a more difficult aerial opponent. Unlike his more land-based female counterpart Rathian, Rathalos is more aggressive, and forces newer players to get better at reading tells, and to get creative to try and get him to the ground.
- As far as the Elder Dragons go, most players are likely going to encounter Kirin first; sure, it's a Glass Cannon when compared to the other Elder Dragons you'll encounter, but this is the time where elemental resistances and all that field research becomes more important. If you don't do even the basest amount of research in the field, then you're in for a longer fight than normal.
Third generation:
- In Tri, the Qurupeco is a real problem for the reason it can call for backup by imitating monster calls. In High Rank, he becomes a real pain as in high rank quests he can call the Deviljho. This teaches the player to have Dung Bombs. Then there's Lagiacrus, as the Current it generates has a chance of inflicting Waterblight, which chews through your stamina. Ceadeus literally fires a torrent of water as one of its main attacks.
- Purple Ludroth in 3 Ultimate is the offline introduction to High Rank, and it makes sure to let you know what you're up against in the rank. You're dumped into a brand-new map with no available supplies except a map and a torch. Your enemy is more than just a simple Palette Swap, for it uses new attacks (both for the subspecies and for the Royal Ludroth in general) and he's a lot stronger and tougher than any normal large monster you've fought up to this point. And to add insult to injury, you're stuck with Low-Rank armor and weapons.
Fourth generation:
- Monster Hunter 4 has the mission "Advanced: Odd Ape Out", your first introduction to the unpredictable and aggressive Frenzied monsters in the form of a fight with a Congalala that's been infected with the Gore Magala's "Frenzy virus".
- Daimyo Hermitaur in 4 Ultimate. It is the first monster you fight in High Rank, where the game is shaken up by putting you onto a new map, giving you some new monsters that are not palette-swaps of previous monsters (or with viruses), making you wait for supplies, and spawning you away from the map's base camp (thus you cannot pick up the map immediately). It also has High-Rank health and damage outputs, while you're still in Low-Rank armor with Low-Rank weapons.
- Monster Hunter Generations:
- For Hunters who got their start with World, the Great Maccao wound up serving as an unintentional one as it is the most complex "warmup" monster, far and away more difficult than the Great Jagras with greater mobility, and comes from a classification of monsters (the raptor-like Bird Wyverns) that went underrepresented in World.
- While generally any "Urgent" Quests required for advancement to the next tier of quests is intended to be this, Tetsucabra deserves special mention, owing mostly to it being different compared to the previous bosses you fought (many of which were giant versions of the animals you find wandering the stages). Additionally, Tetsucabra has much much more health and much more protected areas compared to the previous enemies you fought. At that point, you better have upgraded your weapons. While it is a returning monster, 4U had placed you against several other monsters that weren't just giant versions of standard monsters before you fought it.
- Malfestio and the Fated Four's very own Mizutsune, which introduce the new gimmicks that the game has thrown at you (Confusion and Bubble respectively).
- Redhelm Arzuros is the first Deviant unlocked and by far the most punishing for unsuspecting players. Its quests are unlocked at a mere HR 2, which is equivalent to the 3 or 4-star village quests. Arzuros is a slow, predictable, and surprisingly frail Warm-Up Boss. This should be just a little bit tougher, right? Once you actually encounter the Redhelm and hear a different Scare Chord than usual, and then it stuns you with a roar, you know This Is Gonna Suck. Its health and attack power are on par with upper High-Rank monsters, it has extremely powerful and wide-hitting claw attacks, can use a Ground Pound like Lagombi, and it's heavily armored so half your attacks will bounce off. The Deviants were designed to change the way players fight them compared to normal members of the species, and the Redhelm hammers that fact in hard.
Fifth generation:
- Monster Hunter: World has a few examples:
- Tobi-Kadachi is used to teach you to dodge properly (with him being very fast, but having a notable startup lag in most attacks) and to pay attention when the monster's enraged (where said slow attacks are changed to have a much bigger range).
- Anjanath, an extremely aggressive fire-breathing tyrannosaur monster that, unlike the previously encountered Great Jagras and Tobi-Kadachi, will go out of its way to pursue you through zones, teaching you the advantages and disadvantages of the new continuous open-world map. It's also a lot stronger than either of the aforementioned, and because it is threatening the main base in the Ancient Forest, it must be hunted before the player can move on to other regions.
- Diablos, already rather infamous in the MH community for being something of a Badass monster, makes everything you've fought up until this point look like wet noodles. It's an astonishing Lightning Bruiser with ferocity that exceeds even that of Anjanath. It can regularly wipe out half your health in one hit, and it can burrow underground to prevent you from retaliating and to sneak attack you. It also teaches you the importance of awareness against sneak attacks.
- Nergigante is the first Elder Dragon you fight and an indicator of the difficulties you'll be facing should you go after its brethren. It's lightning fast, capable of flying (unlike the Diablos) and its body is covered in spines that harden to prevent any effective damage. It has a divebomb attack that can kill you instantly if it hits and has a massive AOE. Worse, once you come near to killing it, it will retreat to a small area where you can't dodge its divebomb attack effectively, and it will use it more often.
- To the surprise of nobody familiar with it, Deviljho (added in the Spring Update) is an absolute nightmare. It can be found in any HR Quests and expeditions, and the player fresh into HR won't come close to having the means to hunt it unless you have sufficient Decorations and bring an armor forged from high-end apex monsters or Elder Dragons.
- Tempered Kirin, encountered at HR49, is hands down the hardest boss of High Rank, even moreso than Tempered Deviljho. Any player who has up until this point ignored elemental and status resistances and focused on a pure damage build will find their Glass Cannon character shattered very quickly. In addition, because many of its wide-reach AOE attacks are almost guaranteed one-hit kills, it is too risky to hunt in groups, so players who are not paying attention to elemental and status resistance, coasted along playing group hunts, and haven't learn to solo hunt are in for a triple lesson.
- The Iceborne expansion gives you the following:
- Beotodus may be the Warm-Up Boss of the expansion, but it's also this because it teaches you the importance of adapting the environment in Master Rank and how they can affect the Hunter.
- Banbaro is a Goddamned Boss due to being an invading monster like Deviljho and Bazelgeuse, but it also shows you the advantages and disadvantages of having two or more monsters in the same area in Master Rank as well as teaching you the importance of using Dung Pods.
- Viper Tobi Kadachi, Nightshade Paolumu, and Coral Pukei-Pukei teach the player the importance of resistances in Master Rank, as their use of elemental blights and status ailments can quickly decimate a Hunter's health bar.
- The return of Barioth provides a faster, sturdier, and more aggressive opponent than any of the previous monsters the player has faced. It shows you the sheer difficulty of Master Rank while teaching you the importance of utilizing offensive skills to finish the hunt early, bringing higher tier equipment, and fighting smart against stronger monsters, since several of them are previously That One Bosses (or still in the case of invaders like Tigrex, Deviljho, and Rajang) from older games.
- Fulgur Anjanath is this for those who still haven't learned their lesson about hunting Master Rank monster subspecies: aside from having a different element (Thunder in this case), it's stronger, more durable, aggressive, and has new powerful and devastating tricks its nominate counterpart doesn't have.
- Monster Hunter: Rise:
- The first few monsters faced in the Village quests are Theropod Bird Wyverns and Ursid Fanged Beasts, sharing simple movesets and being predictable enough. Aknosom, a true Bird Wyvern and the Village LR3 Urgent Quest boss, moves very differently from them, is both fast and strong, and has the first elemental projectiles in the game. It's a manageable fight for players good at dodging, but still a significant step up that encourages you to take advantage of Rise's systems that encourage exploring the map before fighting.
- Bishaten, the Village LR4 Urgent Quest monster, hammers in the need to use the new mechanics in Rise. It's even faster than Aknosom and thrashes around unpredictably more often, and is surprisingly smart and varied for a Primate Fanged Beast, using fruit projectiles to poison and stun you. It necessitates doing plenty of Rise-exclusive preparation (collecting permabuffers, attacking with Silkbind moves consistently, and using Wyvern Riding to bring monsters towards it or slam it into walls) to make the fight go smoother.
- Aurora Somnacanth, if you didn't get the hint from Blood Orange Bishaten, will sadistically punish players expecting to fight like its base monster, since it is significantly more aggressive and loves to strike at odd angles with its tail.
- Malzeno in Sunbreak teaches players many of the mechanics of the endgame Afflicted monsters, such as enraged state and dodging Qurio swarms, as these are the result of the latter looking for a new host following Malzeno and Gaismagorm's deaths.
- Monster Hunter: World has a few examples:
