We often hear ‘survival of the fittest’ when talking about animals in the wild – the ones best suited to their surroundings are the ones who live. In the game Monster Hunter, the monsters embody this idea, as they’re incredibly strong and able to thrive even in the most dangerous environments.
In Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, you can actually change a monster’s genes to help them. It might sound strange, but it’s presented as a way to protect species! Ultimately, combining genes is how you create the strongest and most effective Monstie companions.
What Are Genes?
Just to explain how Monsties work, their skills – both passive and active – are determined by their genes. When a Monstie hatches, these genes are selected from a shared pool, and also decide how many skills it will have.
When you look at a Monstie’s details, you’ll see a 3×3 grid showing their genes. These grids usually have empty spaces when a Monstie first hatches. You can fill these spaces by transferring genes from other Monsties.
Genes are passed between Monsties freely and aren’t used up in the process. Swapping genes is also completely free, so you can do it as often as you like.
What’s really cool is that there are no restrictions on a monstie’s genes. A monstie with Fire abilities, for instance, can still learn genes for Water or Dragom, or even skills that seem a little strange. Basically, if a gene exists, a monstie can equip it.
The Rite Of Channeling And Bingo
Rite of Channeling
The Rite of Channeling is how you’ll improve your Monstie’s abilities. It lets you rearrange genes to create the best combinations, and even discover new ones.
You have two options for swapping genes between Monsties. You can choose the specific genes you want to transfer, select the Monsties directly and let the game choose the genes, or use a combination of both methods.
Okay, so once I pick the two Monsties and the genes I want to switch, the game actually swaps those slots where the genes are, not the genes themselves. It’s kinda weird, but it means I can even swap a filled gene slot with an empty one, which is super useful when I’m trying to build the perfect Monstie. After the swap, I can keep editing the genes on the first Monstie I picked, so it’s a pretty smooth process.
With the Channeling Rite, you can discover genes your creature doesn’t currently possess. This reveals which monsters usually carry that gene and where to find their eggs, simplifying the process of finding the perfect monster to hunt.
Bingo
You might be wondering why a Monstie’s gene placement matters. It all comes down to a system called Bingo, where arranging genes to create matches gives you helpful bonuses. Not only do you get rewards for completing lines (bingos), but each type of bingo also has its own special effect.
Each gene has a specific element and attack type linked to it. Getting three Power genes in a row – whether across, diagonally, or down – triggers a Bingo! This gives your Monstie a 5% damage boost to all Power attacks. Importantly, you’ll get this Bingo even if the elements of the genes don’t match.
You can actually get multiple Bingos on one line by matching both the element and attack type of your genes. These Bingos can even link up across different rows to create even more combinations. It’s possible to spend a lot of time carefully arranging your genes to maximize these Bingo bonuses.
Excursions And Environment Skills
Excursions
Excursions are a fun way to play, but they have some restrictions. To send your Monstie on an Excursion, you’ll need a Training Talisman. Luckily, you can buy as many as you need from the Melynx Emporium, though buying a lot can get pricey.
You can send one Monstie on an Excursion at a time to earn stat boosts and learn Environment Skills specific to that area. The benefits a Monstie receives depend on which region it explores and its Ecosystem Rank within that region.
Ratha stands out because they can completely benefit from Excursions in all areas, as they aren’t part of the standard ecosystem and therefore aren’t subject to its limitations.
Let’s say you breed a top-tier Seregios in the Tarkuan region and then move it to the Azuria habitat. You can then send that Seregios on an expedition within Azuria, as it’s now part of that region’s ecosystem. If its ecosystem rank in Azuria is ‘A’, it will be able to learn both ‘A’ and ‘B’ level Environment Skills, potentially combining those with any Environment Skills it originally had from Tarkuan.
Keep in mind that a Monstie can only learn a maximum of three Environment Skills. However, by using Excursions, you can temporarily activate three top-level (‘S’ rank) Skills simultaneously, letting you create a Monstie with a highly customized fighting style.
Okay, so I learned that I can still send my Monsties on Excursions to areas where they normally aren’t found. But here’s the catch: they’ll only get the basic stat boosts from that area, not the special Environment Skills. Also, if I manage to beat the big bad Elder Dragon in each region, it’ll actually increase how much of a stat boost my Monsties get on those Excursions. Pretty cool!
If you send a Monstie with a ‘C’ rank on an excursion to an area with a higher Ecosystem Rank, their rank will automatically increase to match the area’s rank.
Environment Skills
Excursions let you build a powerful combination of Environment Skills. But what are these skills? Each area in the game has its own unique Skills that all Monsties learn automatically at birth, based on their rank.
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Each region has three levels of Environment Skills: ‘B’, ‘A’, and ‘S’ rank. If a Monstie’s Ecosystem Rank matches one of these levels, they can learn the corresponding skill. However, they’ll initially only have access to the basic version of that skill.
Each Environment Skill can also be awakened, becoming more powerful when a Monstie has the necessary genes. For instance, a Skill that originally blocked damage from frontal attacks might then block all damage.
Egg Skills
Lastly, there are Egg Skills. These are the most unpredictable part of creating a Monstie. If a Monstie hatches with a second element, it will automatically have an Egg Skill.
Egg Skills will always match the element of the Monstie that learned them, and each skill is obtained randomly. Luckily, you can transfer these Egg Skills to any other Monstie using the Rite of Channeling. This means you can keep hatching eggs until you get all the skills you want, and then share them with your favorite Monsties.
Here are all of the Egg Skills, what they do, and the element assigned to them.
| Egg Skill | Description | Element |
|---|---|---|
| Circle Stance | Grants Defense Up to all allies, increasing in strength with each use | Normal |
| Spirit Charge | Restores all allies’ Stamina | Normal |
| Nature Heal | Recovers all allies’ HP | Normal |
| Ardor Heart | Restores a single Heart to one ally | Normal |
| Solar Cry | Fills the Kinship Gauge | Normal |
| Heat Shimmer | Grants Dodge Up to all allies, increasing in strength with each use | Fire |
| Red Mastery | Grants Critical Up to all allies, increasing in strength with each use | Fire |
| Fireform | Grants Attack Up to all allies, increasing in strength with each use | Fire |
| Flame Star | Increases the damage dealt by all allies the turn this Skill is used, but user cannot attack themselves | Fire |
| Composure | Grants Wyvernfell Up to all allies, increasing in strength with each use | Water |
| Crash Wave | Water | |
| Lunar Cry | Removes all buff from all enemies | Water |
| Charge Up | Grants Regenerate and Stamina Regen Up to all allies | Thunder |
| Volt Arms | Grants Ailment Inflict Rate Up to all allies | Thunder |
| Adamant Rage | Greatly increases the damage dealt by the user on the next turn | Thunder |
| Icebreaker | Grants Wyvernfell Up to the user | Ice |
| Rime Wind | Grants Speed Up to all allies | Ice |
| Snow Mantle | Grants Critical Up, Dodge Up, and Speed Up to the user | Ice |
| Dragon Gate | Grants Negate Ailments to all allies | Dragon |
| Dragon Feller | Deals Dragon damage to random enemies. | Dragon |
| E. Dominance | Inflicts Attack Down and Defense Down on all enemies, increasing in strength with each use | Dragon |
Hopefully, you now have a good understanding of how to obtain the desired genes for your Monsties. The next step is simply discovering which genes you’re looking for.
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2026-03-13 21:09