Variants

Variants are a new system introduced in Missions and Monsters that customizes monsters, similar to the Class System for humans.

Mechanics
A monster can have up to 2 variants active - one primary variant, and one secondary variant. Each variant has 2 active abilities that can be unlocked, 2 passive abilities, and 1 counter. A monster can use any ability in either their primary or secondary variant, and benefits from all 4 passives. Similar to humans, they can select any counter they have learned, even if it was not unlocked from either of their active variants. These abilities and passives are in addition to any abilities and passives that the monster has naturally (for example, a Vangal will always have Fortitude and Deep Wounds regardless of which 2 variants it is using). Compared to human characters, monsters have more passive abilities total (6 vs 4), but have less flexibility in deciding which ones they want to use, since the passives must be tied to their active variants.

In addition, a monster's primary variant offers various statistical bonuses. These can be bonuses to any Statistics, but can also include bonuses to mobility, debuff immunity, and special Movement types. You can see a full summary of these bonuses in the Stats comparison page. Monsters only earn AP for the primary variant and their base monster class. Variants each have a visual effect associated with them that will appear on your monster if that variant is active - these visual effects can be overridden or adjusted in the Guild.

Unlocking Variants
Initially, the only variants available are Guard and Pack Leader. 3 variants can be unlocked by completing specific Missions - the rest are unlocked by acquiring Serums - a type of Badge that unlocks new variants for monsters. At first, serums can only be obtained through specific missions, but later they can be purchased from Shops, randomly dropped from enemies, or Crafted.

Most variants have prerequisites that need to be met in order to use them. In addition to requiring Serums or mission unlocks as mentioned above, the monster may need to have unlocked a certain number of abilities in their monster class, or enough abilities unlocked in other variants. Note that monsters found in the wild may have one or more advanced variants without any experience in the prerequisite variants, much like human guild recruits assigned an advanced class.

Even if they have a variant that has a serum-requiring variant as a prerequisite (such as a Horned Monster, which would normally require Feral to be unlocked), you will still need to meet that variants prerequisites and expend a serum to unlock it. This means it can be prudent to tame monsters with a serum requiring variant, rather than one it unlocks, if only to expend fewer rare serums.

All Variants
Below are all the variants available with their prerequisites. If a Requirement mentions "Monster X" it means the monster needs that many abilities unlocked in their base Monster Class.