Quests

Every event quest in Monster Hunter World is advertised by its reward and almost never by its price, and the price is not zenny. It is how many times you have to run the thing. One hunt gets you into Iceborne. Three gets you a hammer. Twenty-eight gets you the full set of Guild Palace weapons, and nobody puts that number in the headline.

So this page sorts our quest coverage by run count, from one to twenty-eight, so you can decide whether an evening is worth it before you start rather than after the fourth attempt.

One run: getting into Iceborne

There is no quest to hunt for here, just a sequence, and the only real requirement is Hunter Rank 16 and a finished main story. Install the expansion, clear the base game, and a tutorial prompt appears telling you a Legiana has been sighted in the Ancient Forest.

From there, talk to Feisty Fiver, who stands to the left of the quest board in Astera. That starts a quest where you walk past the Handler in the Ancient Forest until the cutscenes fire. When they finish, Master Rank unlocks and the Hunter Rank cap comes off, which is the actual reward. Talk to the Commander in Astera to leave for Hoarfrost Reach, and the first large monster waiting there is Beotodus. Kill it and you are introduced to Seliana, the new base of operations, which has its own quest board and merchants.

One run each: the 116 optional quests

Iceborne's optional quests are graded from one star to six, and the rating tells you both the difficulty and the size of the reward. There are 116 of them in our catalogue, and the distribution is worth seeing because it explains where the game expects you to spend your time.

The Special Arena quests are the ones worth understanding rather than just working through. They put you against a large monster on a purpose-built map where you get to use the environment as a weapon: a Cannon, Ballistae, a falling boulder trap, and past a certain point in the story the Dragonslayer. They only appear once you have captured your first monster of that species and are at a high enough Master Rank, so a Special Arena quest showing up is the game telling you it thinks you are ready. The full 116 with locations, weaknesses and rewards are on our optional quests guide.

Three runs: the two hammers

Two event quests cost almost exactly the same and pay very differently, which makes them a useful comparison.

A Shocking Climax puts Namielle and Zinogre in a single hunt in the Coral Highlands, which is a mercy because it means no hot or cold drinks. It does not give you the weapon: it gives Unity Symbols, and you need three to forge the Space Lord Super 8 at the Smithy. That hammer is 1,248 raw and 640 water with a +40 defense bonus, which is unusual for a hammer and genuinely worth having. Both monsters use Thunder, so a Thunderproof Mantle is not optional, and a Waterproof Mantle helps against Namielle specifically. Bring a blast weapon and, if you can, other hunters.

Beef is Never a Mi-steak pairs Ebony Odogaron with Glavenus in the Wildspire Waste, and the fight is more forgiving than that sounds. Ebony Odogaron causes Dragonblight and Bleeding, protracts a second set of claws when enraged, and is strongly weak to Water while being resistant to nothing at all, so you can attack it however you like. Glavenus deals Fire and Fireblight, is resistant to Fire, and sets its tail alight when enraged; watch its throat, because it glows before a fireball. Water again is the answer, with Vitality Mantle to reduce the damage and Fireproof for the Fireblight.

The catch on this one is not the run count. Two Meaty Canteen Tickets make the base hammer and a third upgrades it to the Rarity 11 Juicy Well-done Hammer, so three runs minimum, but the recipe also wants materials that only exist in the Guiding Lands. A mid-game hunter can farm every ticket they need and still not be able to craft it. And at 1,612 raw with 210 fire and no special stats, it is honestly a novelty. Run it because you want the hammer on the shelf, not because it beats what you have.

Twenty-eight runs: 50 Shades of White

This is the one where the arithmetic changes the decision. The quest itself is short: a single Barioth in an arena, MR 7 or above, up to four hunters, and you fail if the timer runs out or you faint three times. The reward is a Fest Ticket.

One Guild Palace weapon costs two Fest Tickets. There are fourteen of them, so the full set costs twenty-eight tickets and therefore at least twenty-eight clears. Those weapons start at Rarity 10 and can each be upgraded to Rarity 12, but that upgrade wants Hero Coins from Master Rank arena quests, with Arena Master Quest 06 and 07 the efficient source. They have strong raw damage and hidden Water element, and our own coverage is straight about the ceiling: they are not as good as Safi'Jiva gear.

So the honest read is to pick the one or two Guild Palace weapons your build actually wants, at four to six runs, rather than treating the fourteen as a checklist.

The Barioth fight itself rewards preparation over damage. Break the claws first, because that cuts its mobility and leaves it vulnerable for a few seconds. It is weak to Fire and Thunder and resistant to Water and Ice, since it deals Ice damage and inflicts Iceblight itself. Bring Pitfall Traps and Flashfly Cages on your Palico, slot Ice Resistance, Warming and Resuscitate, and make sure your weapon is at white sharpness before you start. Flash Pods stop it pinning you while you heal. If its eyes turn from blue to red, it has enraged.

As many runs as the event allows: Holiday Joy Fest

The Holiday Joy Fest arrived with Iceborne's 12.01 update, running from 20 December and followed by the Grand Appreciation Fest across Astera and Seliana in January. It is the only entry here whose content is gated on owning Iceborne: without the expansion you get bigger login bonuses, limited bounties and shop sales, and that is all.

With it, the event quests pay VIP tickets that forge holiday armor for both you and your Palico, layered pieces included, with red and gold sets patterned after Tigrex and Nargacuga and a Shishi-mai lion-dance outfit for the Palico. The Lunar Terrace gets a Chinese New Year makeover and the Handler changes into a golden cheongsam. Most of it is cosmetic, and one piece is not: Oolong Alpha+ makes Joyful Tickets come faster, so forging it early pays for the rest of the grind.

The item that changes every number above

The Lucky Voucher is the single most useful thing in this bucket and it appears in two of our event pages almost as an aside. Burning one before a hunt improves your reward drops, and during the Grand Appreciation Fest you get three of them a day. Every run count on this page is a best case that assumes the tickets drop, and vouchers are what make the best case likely.

The other multiplier is registered bounties. They stay active across any quest you take, so an event hunt can complete a bounty at the same time and pay you twice for one trip. Our bounties guide and investigations guide cover how to set that up before you leave.

The monsters you will meet more than once

Three monsters appear in both halves of this bucket, which means learning them once pays twice. Barioth is the 50 Shades of White target and also turns up in the three-star and tempered optional quests, and both our pages agree on the same approach: break the claws, bring Fire or Thunder, and keep Flash Pods handy. Glavenus is in Beef is Never a Mi-steak and across the three and four-star lines. Ebony Odogaron is in the same event quest and again at four stars.

Namielle and Zinogre, the A Shocking Climax pair, both reappear later as well, Namielle in a five-star hunt and a tempered six-star, and Zinogre in a Special Arena quest. For the two hardest fights in the game, our Fatalis and Stygian Zinogre guides go deeper, and our Iceborne beginners guide is the place to start if Master Rank is new to you.