Monster Hunter Wilds Investigation Guide: Reward Tiers, Farming Strategy, and Which Investigations to Keep

What Are Investigations?

Investigations are repeatable hunts with randomized bonus rewards. They’re the main farming tool in Monster Hunter Wilds and the most efficient way to get rare monster materials, decorations, and Artian crafting components. If you want optimized builds, you’ll run investigations. A lot of them.

Each investigation targets a specific monster, has a set number of attempts (usually 3-5 before it expires), and comes with bonus reward slots in Bronze, Silver, or Gold tiers. Those bonus slots are what make investigations worth running over standard quests. The base quest rewards are the same. The bonus slots are the difference.

How Investigations Unlock

Investigations aren’t available from the start. They unlock as you progress through the story and expand the Research system. By mid-Chapter 2 you’ll start seeing them appear at the Investigation Board in your base.

How new investigations generate: Every time you interact with a monster during hunts, you build research data. Picking up tracks, breaking parts with Focus Strikes, wounding targets, and completing hunts all contribute. This data converts into new investigations that appear at the Investigation Board.

The key insight: aggressive hunting generates more investigations than passive hunting. Breaking three parts on a Rathalos hunt generates significantly more investigation data than just killing it without targeting weak points. Focus Mode and wound destruction aren’t just damage tools. They’re investigation generators.

Quest Types Compared

Monster Hunter Wilds has three quest categories, and understanding the differences matters for farming.

Assigned Quests are story-locked. You do them once to progress the campaign. Fixed rewards, fixed monsters, fixed conditions. Not repeatable.

Optional Quests are repeatable hunts with standard rewards. Consistent and reliable but no bonus reward slots. Good for learning a monster or farming common materials. Not efficient for rare drops.

Investigations are repeatable hunts with bonus reward slots on top of standard rewards. The bonus slots (Bronze/Silver/Gold) provide additional material rolls that can include rare drops, decorations, and Artian components. This is where efficient farming happens.

The math is straightforward. An optional quest gives you X materials per hunt. An investigation gives you X materials plus Y bonus materials from the reward slots. Over dozens of hunts, that Y adds up to hours of time saved.

Reward Tier Breakdown

Bronze Slots

Small bonus. Extra common materials, some Research Points, occasionally a low-tier decoration. Better than nothing, but you’re not farming for these. A full-Bronze investigation is barely better than an optional quest.

Silver Slots

Meaningful bonus. Decent chance at uncommon decorations, rare monster materials (gems, mantles), and mid-tier Artian components. Silver is where investigations start pulling ahead of optional quests in efficiency. Two Silver slots on an investigation makes it worth running.

Gold Slots

The prize. Gold slots have elevated drop rates for rare decorations, Wyverian Bloodstones, gem-tier monster parts, and high-value crafting materials. A single Gold slot investigation is worth more than two or three Bronze investigations in terms of rare material per time invested.

The ideal investigation: multiple Gold slots. Double Gold is great. Triple Gold is rare but it exists, and when you get one, run all attempts before it expires. I’ve gotten three Rathalos Gems in a single triple-Gold investigation. That kind of luck would take 15+ optional quest runs to replicate.

Bonus Conditions and Restrictions

Investigations don’t just come with reward tiers. They also come with conditions that modify the hunt. These can make the hunt easier or harder:

Time limits. Standard hunts give you 50 minutes. Some investigations cut that to 30 or even 15 minutes. Shorter timers mean you can’t afford mistakes or slow play. The payoff is usually better reward tiers.

Faint limits. Standard is 3 faints before quest failure. Some investigations limit you to 2 or even 1. One-faint investigations are stressful but tend to come with Gold slots.

Player limits. Some investigations restrict the party size. Solo-only investigations exist. Two-player limits exist. These don’t necessarily have better rewards, they’re just narrower in scope.

Weather conditions. Some investigations lock the weather to a specific state for the entire hunt. An investigation specifying Extreme weather means you’re fighting in a storm the whole time. Harder, but the rewards reflect it. See the weather guide for how Extreme conditions affect specific maps.

Multiple targets. Some investigations require hunting two or more monsters. These give more total rewards and more HR experience per run. Multi-target investigations with Gold slots are the most efficient farming option in the game.

My general filter: I’ll accept time limit and faint limit restrictions if the reward tiers are Silver+ or if it’s a Tempered investigation. I won’t accept a 15-minute timer with one faint for Bronze rewards. That’s a waste of effort.

Tempered Investigations

Tempered investigations are a separate tier. They target Tempered monsters (glowing, harder-hitting versions) and drop materials that standard investigations can’t provide. Artian weapon components, higher-tier decorations, and Wyverian Bloodstones all come from Tempered investigations.

Tempered T1 (monsters like Chatacabra, Kulu-Ya-Ku): Drop R6 Artian materials and common decorations. Entry-level Tempered farming.

Tempered T2 (monsters like Rathalos, Gravios, Nerscylla): Drop R7 Artian materials and uncommon-to-rare decorations. The mid-tier farming zone.

Tempered T3 and Arch-Tempered (endgame monsters, HR 100+): Drop R8 Artian materials, rare decorations, and build-defining jewels. This is endgame.

Even a single-Bronze Tempered investigation is more valuable than a multi-Gold non-Tempered investigation for endgame purposes. The exclusive material pools make Tempered investigations the priority once you can handle the difficulty.

What to Keep, What to Discard

Your investigation storage has a limit. Hoarding everything means new investigations get discarded automatically when the list is full. Manage it actively.

Always Keep

Any investigation with 2+ Gold slots. Run these first.
All Tempered investigations. Even Bronze-tier Tempered investigations drop exclusive materials.
Multi-monster investigations with Silver+ rewards. More rewards per time spent.

Keep Temporarily

Single Gold slot investigations for monsters you need materials from. Farm them while building that specific weapon or armor set, then discard.
Investigations with moderate restrictions and good rewards. A 30-minute timer with Silver slots is fine. A 15-minute timer with one faint and Bronze slots is not.

Discard Immediately

All-Bronze non-Tempered investigations. Not worth your time.
Investigations for monsters you’ve already farmed out. If you have everything from Rathian, delete Rathian investigations to make room.
Investigations with harsh restrictions and weak rewards. 15-minute timer, 1-faint limit, Bronze rewards? Delete.
Partially used investigations you’ve abandoned. They sit in your list forever unless you clean them manually.

The Farming Loop

Here’s the cycle that generates the most returns per hour:

Pick your highest-tier Tempered investigation with the best reward slots.
Hunt aggressively. Break parts, destroy wounds with Focus Strikes, target blue Tempered Wounds. Every part break and wound destruction adds material drops and generates new investigation data.
Collect everything after the hunt. Don’t skip the reward screen. Check your investigation data.
Visit the Investigation Board. Register new investigations that appeared from your hunt. Discard junk. Identify the next best investigation.
Repeat.

The loop feeds itself. Hunting generates investigations. Better investigations give better rewards. Better rewards build better gear. Better gear lets you hunt harder Tempered monsters. Harder monsters generate even better investigations.

Multiplayer Farming

Investigation rewards aren’t shared or split. Each player gets their own rolls from the bonus slots. This means multiplayer investigation farming is strictly better than solo if your group is competent.

Four players killing a Tempered Rathalos in 8 minutes means four sets of investigation rewards in 8 minutes. Solo, that same hunt takes 12-15 minutes for one set of rewards. The monster HP scales up in multiplayer (roughly 2.5x with four players), but the combined damage of a coordinated team more than compensates.

The only catch: if your group is sloppy, carts frequently, or doesn’t break parts efficiently, the HP scaling works against you. Run multiplayer with players who know the fight. Random SOS lobbies work for standard investigations but can be unreliable for harder Tempered hunts.

Quick Tips

Pick up monster tracks even when you’re not hunting that monster. Free investigation data.
Don’t waste Gold-reward investigations on a fight you might fail. Save them for matchups you’re confident in.
The Seikret auto-collects tracks and traces while you ride. Free passive data.
Tempered investigations are always more valuable per attempt than non-Tempered ones. Prioritize them.
Clean your investigation list regularly. A full list means new investigations get auto-discarded. You might lose a triple-Gold Tempered investigation because your list was clogged with old Bronze runs.
The Melding Pot at HR 41 lets you convert excess materials and duplicate decorations, but direct investigation farming is more efficient for specific targets.

For more on Artian weapon farming that relies on Tempered investigations, see the Artian weapons guide. For general progression advice, check the beginner’s guide and endgame progression guide.