PowerRankings

Ranked on what is shown, not what is filedworld · legacy titles

Taxonomy,SurrenderedThe Monster Hunter power ranking

The Hunter's Guild publishes numbers. Quests carry a star rating, hunters carry a rank, and tempered monsters in the New World carry a threat level of one, two or three. None of them measures the animal. A star is a property of a hunt — the same Kirin is a five-star low-rank job and a threat level three, at opposite ends of the Guild's own scale — and the top threat tier turns out to be identical to the category the Guild uses for creatures it has given up sorting. Placement here comes off what a game depicts.

The short answer

Ask what an elder dragon is and the Guild answers honestly. Its analytics director: "We've taken to using the term 'elder dragon' for any creature that defies ordinary classification." Its chief ecologist, on Nergigante: "There's only one way to classify a monster that can't be classified, and that's to toss it into the elder dragon pile." The category is a drawer for the unfiled, and Akantor left it once a shelf was found — not by weakening, but by becoming classifiable. So this page ranks on the one thing the games put on screen: turf wars, where two monsters fight and the game records a winner. Read that way the Guild's top bracket lands at the bottom of this ladder, because almost every fight it is shown having ends in a draw.

Continuity

EvidenceCrowdΔ
Tier 00 · off the scale

The numbers have no slot for them

Neither is ranked, for the same reason from opposite directions. One is the largest thing in its game and the Guild's scale has no entry for it at all. The other exists, by the game's own admission, only in fairy tales.

00.1––·

Zorah MagdarosAn elder dragon the size of terrain

New WorldgameOff-scale

It is measured at 25,764 centimetres, roughly two hundred and fifty-seven metres, and the hunt against it consists of standing on its back and mining it. The Guild never kills it. One assignment ends in failure and the next one settles for steering it away from the Everstream and out to open ocean. It is unranked because the scale this page argues against has no entry for it either: with no tempered form there is no threat level, and its two quests are rated four and six stars, below hunts for animals a fraction of its size.

  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Hunter's Notes, Zorah Magdaros

    The Research Commission has not determined where it is travelling or why.

  • shownMonster Hunter: World · Assigned Quest, A Colossal Task

    The operation repels it toward open ocean rather than killing it.

  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Assigned Quest, A Kestodon Kerfuffle

    Its arrival drives a Kestodon herd into new territory, which becomes the hunt.

00.2––·

DalamadurFour hundred metres, sourced to fairy tales

Older titlesgameOff-scale

At 44,039 centimetres it is the largest figure the series publishes, and the arena is effectively its own body draped across a mountain. The Guildmaster issues the hunt while calling it a fairy tale, and the monster list agrees: the only mention of its existence is in stories, which claim it can level mountains with a single twitch. It is unranked because the game labels its own evidence as legend, and a ranking that took the label seriously would have to place it on nothing.

  • statedMonster Hunter 4 Ultimate · Hunter's Notes, Dalamadur

    Its only documented mention is in fairy tales, which claim it warps the surface of the world.

  • statedMonster Hunter 4 Ultimate · Gathering Hall quest, Advanced — Speartip Menace

    The Guildmaster issues the hunt while calling the monster a fairy tale.

  • shownMonster Hunter 4 Ultimate · Speartip Crag

    Its tail digs a channel through the arena and it later destroys half the battlefield.

Tier 01 · shown changing a place

The environment is different afterwards

Each of these does something to its arena that the player causes and then has to fight inside. Not described in a codex entry — depicted, and mechanically load-bearing while the hunt continues.

01––·

Safi'jiivaThe mature Xeno'jiiva

New Worldgamecontested

Wound it and it pulls bioenergy out of the surrounding valley to heal and re-harden, which the player watches happen and then has to work around. Strip an area of that energy and it abandons the area to find more, so the siege is partly a contest over a resource rather than a fight. Its heaviest attack leaves rock crags standing in the arena, and those crags are the only cover from the next one — the terrain a hunter survives behind is terrain the monster made.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Safi'jiiva Siege, Secluded Valley

    Injured, it absorbs ambient bioenergy to heal and harden itself.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Safi'jiiva Siege, Secluded Valley

    Draining an area of bioenergy forces it to relocate in search of more.

  • statedMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Hunter's Notes, Safi'jiiva

    It absorbs energy from its environment to heal itself and change the ecosystem.

02––·

Shara IshvaldaVibration made into terrain

New Worldgame

Solid ground becomes quicksand under a hunter's feet, and the monster moves through rock the way something else would move through water. The arena collapses around the fight rather than containing it. It is 2,910 centimetres, about a ninth of Zorah Magdaros, and it is the one the fiction credits with altering land — which is the page's argument in a single comparison, since size is the other number the Guild publishes and it does not track this either.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Assigned Quest, Paean of Guidance

    It forms quicksand to trap hunters and tunnels through land as though it were water.

  • statedMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Hunter's Notes, Shara Ishvalda

    Vibrations from its wingtips reshape the earth and deny hunters their footing.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Hunter's Notes size record, Shara Ishvalda

    It measures 2,910.91 centimetres.

03––·

Xeno'jiivaWhere the continent's energy ends up

New Worldgame

In its critical state the energy inside it overflows into the room and sets off explosions in the surroundings, which is not a description of what it might do but the condition the last third of the fight takes place in. The Commission's own notes on it are an admission rather than an assessment: a new species whose relationship to the other elder dragons is unclear, and whose ecology is unclear too. The game names it as the terminus of the New World's energy flow and stops there.

  • shownMonster Hunter: World · Assigned Quest, Land of Convergence

    Its body erupts and its overflowing energy causes explosions in the surrounding area.

  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Hunter's Notes, Xeno'jiiva

    Its relationship to the other elder dragons is unclear, as is its ecology.

  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Assigned Quest, Land of Convergence

    The quest names it as the point the New World's energy flow leads to.

04––·

AlatreonElementally unstable

New Worldgamecontested

Escaton Judgment covers the whole locale in a shockwave carrying every element, and the research notes attached to it suggest the monster may not be aiming it — that the attack falls out of its element switching rather than being chosen. The older monster lists call the species a living natural disaster whose actions can affect weather. Iceborne's notes then hedge the claim and explain away the missing evidence in the same sentence: rumoured to control all elements, and most records of it burned.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Assigned Quest, Dawn's Triumph

    Escaton Judgment releases an all-element shockwave across the locale.

  • statedMonster Hunter 3 · monster list, Alatreon

    Its actions can affect the weather, and the entry calls the species a living natural disaster.

  • statedMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Hunter's Notes, Alatreon

    It is rumoured to control all of the elements, and most records of its existence have been burned.

Tier 02 · shown beating other monsters

A recorded winner, on screen

Turf wars are the only comparison Monster Hunter actually stages. Two large monsters fight, and the game scores it: a winner, a draw where both take damage, or a coin flip. These carry a positive record.

05––·

RajangA fanged beast, by the Guild's own filing

New Worldgamecontested

Thirteen recorded turf-war wins in Iceborne and no losses, and the wins include Kirin — an animal the same game files at its highest threat level. Everything Rajang draws with is an elder dragon: Kushala Daora, Lunastra, Namielle, Teostra, Velkhana and the rest. The Guild does not classify it as one. Rise later publishes a per-monster threat rating and puts it at eight stars, level with Teostra and Kushala Daora, which is the same finding arriving through a different number.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · turf war, Guiding Lands

    Rajang defeats Kirin, an elder dragon, in a recorded turf war.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · turf war list, Rajang

    Its matches against Kushala Daora, Lunastra, Teostra and Velkhana are each scored a draw with both damaged.

  • statedMonster Hunter Rise · Hunter's Notes ecology tab, Rajang

    Rise rates it eight stars, the same rating it gives Teostra and Kushala Daora.

06––·

DeviljhoNever not hungry

New Worldgame

It beats Diablos, Legiana and Rathalos on the record and loses to nothing, drawing only with Bazelgeuse. The behaviour worth the placement is stranger than the tally: it picks up a large monster in its jaws and swings that monster into a third one, damaging both. The developers built a carry animation for at least one large monster in every main locale, so the behaviour is not a scripted set piece but something the field can produce wherever the player happens to be.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · turf war list, Deviljho

    It defeats Diablos, Legiana and Rathalos, and draws with Bazelgeuse.

  • shownMonster Hunter: World · field behaviour, all main locales

    It uses a carried monster as a weapon against another, damaging both.

  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Hunter's Notes, Deviljho

    Its metabolism forces it to seek prey constantly, and it snatches large monsters in its maw.

07––·

Vaal HazakThreat level three, and the only one with a win

New Worldgamecontested
Kills
  • Girros and Raphinos standing in its effluviumsmall monsters, killed as a side effect of the monster restocking its own vapour supplyMonster Hunter World — Iceborne

Of the six monsters at the New World's top threat level this is the only one shown defeating another large monster: it beats Odogaron in the Rotten Vale, the single case of a non-elder losing such a match to an elder. Strip its effluvium coat and it rears up and inhales the vale back into itself, killing any small monsters standing nearby to restock. It is ranked here rather than with its own bracket because that is where its record puts it.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · turf war, Rotten Vale

    It defeats Odogaron in a recorded turf war.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Rotten Vale, effluvium-drain behaviour

    Deprived of its effluvium it inhales the surrounding vapour, killing nearby small monsters to restock.

  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Hunter's Notes, Vaal Hazak

    It uses the vale's fatal vapour in what appears to be a symbiotic relationship.

08––·

Black DiablosA Diablos in heat

New Worldgame

Three recorded wins — Barroth, Rathian and Pink Rathian — against one loss, to Savage Deviljho. Set against an ordinary Diablos the game refuses to pick a side and rolls for it, which is a small and honest admission: the two differ by aggression and colour, and the record declines to turn that into an ordering. The Hunter's Notes says the black shell marks a female in heat and signals heightened hostility to everything sharing her habitat.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · turf war list, Black Diablos

    It defeats Barroth, Rathian and Pink Rathian, and loses to Savage Deviljho.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · turf war, Wildspire Waste

    Its match against an ordinary Diablos resolves randomly rather than to a fixed winner.

  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Hunter's Notes, Black Diablos

    The black shell marks a female in heat, signalling heightened hostility to others in her habitat.

09––·

OdogaronCarrion, hoarded

New Worldgame

Five wins to two losses, and the losses are both to Vaal Hazak. The observable ecology is the better evidence: it hauls a Legiana's body through the Rotten Vale's tunnels to its nest and adds it to a stockpile of meat already there, which is a claim about habit rather than about one fight. Its eyesight is poor enough that Tzitzi-Ya-Ku's blinding flash does nothing to it, and the game demonstrates that inside the turf war between them.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · turf war list, Odogaron

    It defeats five monsters including Uragaan and Radobaan, and loses to Vaal Hazak.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Observable Ecology, Rotten Vale

    It drags a Legiana carcass to its nest and adds it to a stockpile of meat.

  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Hunter's Notes, Odogaron

    It scours the Rotten Vale for carrion and treats anything, monster or man, as a potential meal.

Tier 03 · the Guild's top bracket

Threat level three, and what it is shown doing

The six monsters the New World files at its highest published threat level, plus the one the fiction fears most. Their depicted record against other large monsters is almost entirely draws, and the smallest of the six is beaten outright.

10––·

NergiganteFiled under elder because nothing else fit

New Worldgamecontested

The Commission concludes from field evidence that it feeds on elder dragons, and the chief ecologist explains the classification by admitting there is nowhere else to put it. What the game depicts is narrower than the reputation: against Kushala Daora, Teostra and Lunastra the game records three draws and no wins at all. The one thing it is unambiguously shown doing is ruining a capture: it lands on Zorah Magdaros mid-operation and knocks the binders loose.

  • shownMonster Hunter: World · Assignment, One for the History Books

    It lands on Zorah Magdaros during the capture attempt and dislodges the binders restraining it.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · turf war list, Nergigante

    Each of its matches against Kushala Daora, Teostra and Lunastra is scored a draw with both damaged.

  • statedMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Chief Ecologist dialogue, Astera

    The ecologist says the only way to classify a monster that cannot be classified is to put it in the elder dragon pile.

11––·

TeostraMonitored by the Guild

New Worldgame

Its aura builds through the hunt and, at maximum, it climbs and detonates a supernova around itself which spends the aura completely. Damage to the head weakens the aura and prevents it, so the whole sequence is a resource the player can take away. Against the two other elder dragons it meets in the Elder's Recess the record is two draws. The Guild is stated to monitor the species closely, which is the strongest thing said about it and is not the same as anything shown.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Elder's Recess, Teostra

    At maximum aura it flies up and releases a supernova that consumes the aura.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · turf war list, Teostra

    Its matches against Nergigante and Kushala Daora are each scored a draw with both damaged.

  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Hunter's Notes, Teostra

    The Guild closely monitors their movements because of how dangerous they are.

12––·

Kushala DaoraA wall of wind

New Worldgame

The wind shell around it deflects gunner shots outright, and it roars again partway through to strengthen the shell, so the barrier escalates while the hunt runs. Damage to the head topples it and weakens the barrier, which makes the whole defence a thing the player dismantles rather than endures. Its meeting with Nergigante finishes level, which is what this whole bracket keeps producing against itself.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Elder's Recess, Kushala Daora

    Its wind barrier deflects gunner shots and is strengthened by a second roar mid-hunt.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · turf war, Elder's Recess

    Its match against Nergigante is scored a draw with both damaged.

  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Hunter's Notes, Kushala Daora

    It shields itself with fierce winds that prevent anyone approaching, and its skin is hard metallic scales.

13––·

LunastraBlue dust, and one shared attack

New Worldgame

Her attacks leave blue fire on the ground which ignites when her own fire lands on it and then spreads, so the floor of the arena becomes progressively less usable through the hunt. Fought alongside Teostra and both enraged, the two combine their supernovas into a single wide attack — the only paired attack in the game, and the only case of two monsters here cooperating rather than mauling each other. The notes hedge the pairing itself: reports that she travels with him are still unconfirmed.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Elder's Recess, Lunastra

    Her attacks leave blue fire that ignites and spreads when struck by her own fire.

  • shownMonster Hunter: World · The Blazing Sun

    With Teostra present and both enraged the two merge their supernovas into one wide attack.

  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Hunter's Notes, Lunastra

    Reports that she travels with her mate Teostra are still unconfirmed.

14––·

FatalisThe kingdom is hearsay

New Worldgamecontested

The most feared monster in the series has the thinnest depicted record on this page. Iceborne's notes say it is rumoured to have destroyed a kingdom in one night and taken the castle as a roost, and the wording carries its own hedge. The hunt is fought inside Castle Schrade, so a player sees the ruin and never the ruining. Even the briefing that sends every nation against it calls the thing a fable in the same sentence. Its quest sits at six master-rank stars, alongside many others.

  • statedMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Hunter's Notes, Fatalis

    It is rumoured to have destroyed a kingdom in a single night and taken its castle for a roost.

  • statedMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Assigned Quest, The Black Dragon

    The commander's briefing calls it a fabled scourge while committing every nation to killing it.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Castle Schrade

    The hunt takes place inside the ruined castle, which is shown already destroyed.

15––·

VelkhanaEleven draws, nothing else

New Worldgamecontested

Iceborne's cover monster appears in eleven turf wars and finishes level in all eleven. Nothing is recorded as beating it and it is recorded beating nothing, against Savage Deviljho, Kushala Daora, Lunastra, Ruiner Nergigante, Rajang or Teostra. Its own notes hedge twice in one breath — said to freeze all in its path, and able to conjure ice according to legend. A monster whose entire depicted record is draws is ranked on draws.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · turf war list, Velkhana

    All eleven of its turf wars are scored a draw with both monsters damaged.

  • statedMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · Hunter's Notes, Velkhana

    It is said to freeze all in its path and, according to legend, conjures spires of ice.

16––·

KirinFive hundred centimetres, top bracket

New Worldgamecontested

This entry is the page's argument compressed into one animal. It is 536 centimetres against Nergigante's 1,848, the smallest in the top bracket by a factor of three. The Guild rates a tempered one at threat level three and gates it behind hunter rank fifty. The untempered animal is available to a hunter of rank eight. And in the Guiding Lands a fanged beast the Guild does not file as an elder dragon at all beats it on the record. Its own notes admit the species is barely known.

  • shownMonster Hunter World — Iceborne · turf war, Guiding Lands

    Rajang defeats it in a recorded turf war.

  • shownMonster Hunter: World · Hunter's Notes size record, Kirin

    It measures 536.26 centimetres, against 1,848.12 for Nergigante.

  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Hunter's Notes, Kirin

    Kirin are so rarely sighted that little is known of their ecology.

All 4 citations
  • statedMonster Hunter: World · Optional Quest, Gone in a Flash

    An ordinary Kirin is the target of a five-star low-rank optional quest.

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