[ Guide ] Monster Hunter Stories 2: Understanding Genes

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We’re running through a check-list of post game stuff here in Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, and next on the docket is a genes guide. Here’s our other guides for the game to check out before you continue:

Granted, genes aren’t limited to the post-game of Monster Hunter Stories 2, as you can already begin testing your luck for these when you get your very first glowing egg. We especially highly recommend reading our findings on the game’s mechanics BEFORE you start planning genes.

BASICS

Any Monstie can inherit any gene from any other Monstie. This can allow you to have a Rajang that can spit fireballs or summon hailstorms if you so desire.

Besides the genes themselves, you can also try for a Bingo. A Bingo will consist of a complete line of same colour genes, which can provide boosts such as a 5% bonus on elemental attributes / head-to-head or both simultaneously. You can get a maximum of Eight bingos, with the bonus limit capped at 150%.

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It is possible to change a gene’s position to better suit a bingo, but it also requires you to replace a gene from its original position, then have another Monstie to inherit said gene to the position you desire. Not forgetting needing additional Monsties with the same gene for upgrading, making for a time consuming, resource draining process.

However, as tempting as a mono-colour bingo is, it won’t necessarily make your Monstie better. This guide will aim to provide tips on optimizing your gene builds, as well as sample gene combos.

BINGO BOARD

There is another factor that affects Bingo Boards: the “weight” of the egg. The heavier an egg, the more slots can be unlocked naturally. Locked slots can be unlocked using species specific Stimulants, obtainable from Melynx Inc at 4 Bottle Caps each. One slot requires one Stimulant. The locked slots would affect placements, as you might expect.

Some Monsties can have all slots unlocked naturally, with the Stimulant meant for every other occasion.

ROLES

Before you jump straight into gene builds, you’ll want to understand your chosen Monstie’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, determine where you’ll be using your Monstie.

Take Kirin, for example. It comes with innate high Crit Rate, but its native skills cannot crit. Thus, if you were to build a Kirin around its Crit Rate, you will want to replace its skills with ones that can crit. If you don’t mind it not critting, then build around its native skills instead.

PVE-focus: Single target damage, with skills that complement a Monstie’s element
- Additionally, you will want to exploit Double Attacks and / or win Head to Head battles as much as possible
PVP-focus: AOE skills and buffs are generally more valuable
- Players are much less likely to have directly counter-able Power / Technical / Speed skills, packing ailments / status effects / self buffs instead
Support-focus: Pack on buff and debuff skills, as well as many defensive genes as possible

There’s additional consideration to be made if you’re going to be in mostly single or pair battles in PVP where you might want even more specialization. Due to the flexibility of genes, PVP “builds” can be highly unpredictable.

GENE PLACEMENTS

Here are some optimum gene placements you may want to reference. The bingo placements will be up to your own discretion, and feel free to make the necessary changes according to a build you want, besides Power / Technical / Speed bingos. To wit:

Pick out what genes you want
Plan their placement on the bingo
Get the genes

Take for example the use of the Rainbow Gene for this Kushala Daora. You may prefer to avoid Rainbow Genes entirely as they essentially only work as connectors. In this case, the Rainbow Gene is utilized to connect several pairs. You can consider the Rainbow Gene when you have at least three pairs.

In comparison, this Rajang has no need for a Rainbow Gene as the 3×3 genes it has can make sufficient bingos by themselves without sacrificing a slot for a connecting Rainbow Gene.

The Gammoth and Deviljho gene placements showcase how you can place off-colour genes while still maximizing the number of bingos you can hit on. In this exact order can you get a 6-colour bingo, not counting Power / Speed / Technical bingos as the colours for these vary depending on their type.

Where possible, try and place off-colour genes at corners to reduce interruption of potential bingos.

BAD GENE PLACEMENT

See how this gene placement gives you 3 bingos, when the off-colour genes occupy a whole column. Compare this to the placement below.

BETTER GENE PLACEMENT

In this example, the off-colour genes have been moved to the bottom right corner. You now have 4 bingos instead.

GENES

CRITICAL

	Colour	Type	Name
Active Skills	White	Speed	Onslaught S
	White	Technical	Onslaught M
	Yellow	Power	Onslaught L
	White	Power	Gravious M
	White	Speed	Nergigante M
Passives	Purple	Speed	Critical Eye XL
	Purple		Critical Heal
	Yellow		Critical Kinship XL

Criticals is pretty much your best method of dealing the highest damage possible. Critical Hits also means you can get more Kinship points and / or healing where relevant. The Active Skills listed here have synergy with critical passive genes. You don’t need to have all of them, but it’s a good idea to pick from this set.

HEROIC

	Colour	Type	Name
Passives	Red	Power	Heroic XL
	Cyan	Technical	Vigilance XL
	Cyan	Power	Tenacity
	Purple		Critical Healing
	White		Self-Heal XL

This build is focused on avoiding loss of hearts thanks to Tenacity (survive any attack if your HP is over 50%). You can also get the damage boost from Heroic genes. The Critical Eye gene is an option to increase your crit rate. The combination of Vigilance and Critical Eye means you can expect a very high Crit Rate when below 50% HP, and you can easily go back into the safe zone with Critical Healing.

AILMENTS

	Colour	Type	Name
Passives	White		Inflict Ailments XL
Passives	White		Salt in Wound XL

As you might expect, this is to boost your chance of landing debuffs, as well as improving their effects. Ailments are especially useful in PVP, where you’re unable to directly attack an opposing Rider in order to displace both Monstie and Rider.

DANCER

	Colour	Type	Name
Passives	White		Self-Heal XL
	Blue	Speed	Dancer XL
	Purple	Power	Bloodsuck Gene L
	Yellow	Technical	Bloodsuck Gene M

These genes will ensure you get the speed and damage boost as often as possible through Dancer. The Dancer gene’s bonuses can trigger when your Monstie is at full HP. The Bloodsuck Gene will allow for a percentage of damage absorption. Pair this with Self-Heal and defensive buffs, and your Monstie will always be at full HP thus maintaining the buffs.

GENERAL TIPS

All genes can be upgraded twice. Each upgrade will require inheriting the same gene, upon which you may get improved power / rate / duration / effects. An upgraded gene is indicated by stars: one star for one upgrade, two stars for max upgrade. In short, you need three of the same genes for max upgrade
Some skills cannot crit, so going all-in is not advisable in these circumstances
XL and L (or lesser) genes cannot stack, but the bingo bonus works. Example: With Fire+ XL, Fire+ L, only Fire+ XL will be active

GENERAL DAMAGE BOOST GENES

Colour	Type	Name	Effects
Red	Power	Fire+ Gene XL	Greatly boosts fire attack.
Blue	Power	Water+ Gene XL	Greatly boosts water attack.
Cyan	Power	Ice+ Gene XL	Greatly boosts ice attack.
Yellow	Power	Thunder+ Gene XL	Greatly boosts thunder attack.
Purple	Power	Dragon+ Gene XL	Greatly boosts dragon attack.
White	Power	Might Gene XL	Greatly boosts non elemental attack.
White		Salt in Wound XL	Increases damage done to enemies with abnormal statuses by a good amount.
Blue	Speed	Dancer XL	Increases Speed when at full HP. Also greatly boosts attack and defense.
Blue	Technical	Fortify XL	Boosts abilities when you lose a Heart. Greatly boosts attack and defense.
Red	Power	Heroic XL	Greatly boosts attack at 50% HP or less.

SPECIFIC DAMAGE BOOST GENES

Colour	Type	Name	Effects
Yellow	Technical	Synchronize Gene XL	Greatly increases Double Attack damage.
Purple	Power	Merciless Gene XL	Spend more Kinship Charge to unleash skills at full power. Greatly increases skill power
Purple	Power	Vicious Gene XL	Greatly increases Head-to-Head damage.
Cyan	Technical	Kinship Skill+ Gene XL	Greatly increases Kinship Skill power.

DEFENSIVE GENES

Colour	Type	Name	Effects
White		Health Up Gene XL	Greatly increases maximum HP
White		Protection Gene XL	Sometimes reduced the amount of damage taken.
White	Technical	Iron Wall Gene XL	Greatly boosts non-elemental defense.
White	Technical	All-Res Gene XL	Greatly boosts all elemental defense.
White		Self-Heal XL	Recovers a great amount of HP at the end of each turn.
Red	Technical	Fire Res Gene XL	Greatly boosts fire defense.
Blue	Technical	Water Res Gene XL	Greatly boosts water defense.
Yellow	Technical	Thunder Res Gene XL	Greatly boosts thunder defense.
Cyan	Technical	Ice Res Gene XL	Greatly boosts ice defense.
Purple	Technical	Dragon Res Gene XL	Greatly boosts dragon defense.
Yellow	Power	Potential Gene XL	Greatly boosts defense at 50% HP or less
Cyan	Technical	Tenacity Gene L	Survive a hit that would have otherwise been fatal when HP is 50% or more.
Blue	Technical	Fortify Gene XL	Boosts abilities when you lose a Heart. Greatly boosts attack and defense.
Blue	Speed	Dancer Gene XL	Increases Speed when at full HP. Also greatly boosts attack and defense.
Blue	Speed	Evasion Up Gene XL	Sometimes evades an enemy attack. Cannot evade H2H or kinship Skills.
Blue	Speed	Evasion Instinct Gene XL	Greatly boosts Evasion at 50% HP or less.

OTHER GOOD GENES

These are genes you can primarily find on Elder Dragons. Some Monsties may also have them, including Palamutes. If you want these genes but have no Bottle Caps, then you can try farming Nergigante eggs. If you do have Bottle Caps, then farm the genes with Palamutes. Palamutes have 7 – 8 potential genes compared to an Elder Dragon’s 35.

Colour	Type	Name	Palamute	Other monsties?
White	Technical	All-Res Gene XL		No
White		Self-Heal Gene XL	Fire	No
Cyan	Technical	Tenacity Gene L	Ice	No
Purple	Power	Negate Ailment XL	Dragon	No
White		Salt in Wound+ Gene XL	Thunder	Yes
Blue	Speed	Quick Gene	Water	No
White		Inflict Ailment Gene XL	Non-Elem	Yes
White		Soul Kinship Gene XL	Non-Elem	Yes

SAMPLE BUILDS

DEVILJHO – PVP

Dragon Breath Gene (L)	Bloodsuck Gene (L)	Merciless Gene (XL)
Power	Power	Power
Dragonclad Gene (L)	Negate Ailment (L)	Dragon+ Gene XL
	Power	Power
Zinogre Gene XL	Tenacity Gene	Heroics Gene
Technical	Power	Power

This Deviljho is built to be tanky with Heroic and Tenacity genes. Heroic for increasing damage above 50% HP, and Tenacity to prevent one-shot kills when above 50%. The basic strategy is just simply to take damage, then heal back up. From the Bloodsuck Genes you have Dragon Eater to help you regain lost HP, with Dragon Breath being your main AOE damaging skill. Negate Ailment is slotted in for both the gene colour bonus and prevent statuses such as Sleep or Paralysis. If you have an opening, you can set up with Dragon Clad to deal more damage the next round.

SILVERWIND NARGACUGA – PVP

Foul Gas Gene (L)	Savage Roar Gene (XL)	S Head Start Gene (L)
Technical	Power	Speed
Protection Gene (XL)	Might Gene (XL)	Dash Gene (L)
	Power	Speed
Inflict Ailment Gene (XL)	Negate Ailment (XL)	Salt in Wound+ Gene(XL)
	Power

This build takes advantage of the 7 Speed stat, one of the highest in the game. With Savage Roar to potentially knock down your opponents before they can move, you could end the game right there and then. The S Head Start Gene from Monoblos is to enable priority attacks for any finishing blows before they can heal. Divine Protection increases Silverwind Nargacuga’s survivability, off-setting its natural fragility. Inflict Ailment and Salt in Wound is to increase Vacuum Blast’s (from Dash Gene L) Bleed chance. For a more offense-oriented Monstie, you can swap out Negate Ailment for Dancer.

KIRIN – PVE

Potential (XL)	Thunder+ Gene (XL)	Onslaught Gene (L)
Power	Power	Power
Zinogre (L)	Partner (XL)	Critical Eye Gene (XL)
Speed		Speed
Last Stand Gene (XL)	Critical Kinship Gene (XL)	Critical Healing Gene (XL)
Technical

This utilizes Kirin’s natural high Crit Rate, pairing it with Ivory Lagiacrus’ Plasma Pressure to crit even more often. Potential and Partner genes synergizes with Last Stand to increase damage when you are low on HP, as well as inflict Paralysis. Zinogre’s Thunderfist is there to make Kirin speedier. Rounding off the build is Critical Eye for even more Crit Rate, Critical Healing for heals on crits, and Critical Kinship for increased Kinship gain on crit.

Hopefully this breakdown of how genes work in Monster Hunter Stories 2 has helped you figure out your prioritization when it comes to Monstie builds.

For our other guides, check out:

Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: 2021-07-09

Nintendo Switch, Steam

A new adventure awaits you in this second installment of the turn-based RPG series set in the world of Monster Hunter! Become a Rider and form bonds with friendly monsters known as Monsties to fight alongside them as you take part in an epic story.