Most useful creatures in Ark

[Kaijor]

Hello!

So, I'm new to Ark. I've been playing it for a few days now and have really enjoyed it so far. I have now gotten to the moment where I can begin to tame creatures, but I do not have a great inventory since I'm so new to the game. So, I was wondering if you, the community, could help me and maybe others who are also new. So I ask, what do you find to be the most useful creatures?

And just to make it a bit easy to read for others and myself, it would be appreciated if you could reply in this format:

Name of the creature:
Special ability:
Brief Explanation about why you like it:

This creature could be your favorite creature. Or it may not be your favorite, but you find you use this creature the most.

All answer are very much appreciated, and I thank you for taking the time for answering. Please have a great Sunday! 😊

[drazan]

meat: theri
wood: theri
fiber: theri
berries: theri
hide: theri
stone: doedi
obsidian: doedi
crystal: mantis
metal: ankylo
oil: ankylo

[Kaijor]

Thank you so much guys! I really appreciate all the posts. It's super helpful.

[fcaleyo]

If youre in ragnarok try rhe griffin yo get around the map quickly, and its especialy helpful for getting wyvern eggs

[Marksthecylon]

The poor forgotten Raptor. While most other people will say it's nearly useless and outclassed at most things by other creatures (And they would not be incorrect). At a high level it actually is very good as a mount to take in to caves.

[A.Loris]

Dont forget the Equus. They are available at lvl 10 on ragnarok map (need rockarrot in others) easy to tame, and high lvl can knock out almost all beasts without the use of tranqs. Great spead and berry picker.

My altime favorite are Argy, doed, beaver and Thylo. Low storage foot print for their abilities. Quetz/wyver/griffens and rex are end game musts. Dont forget the shoulder beasts too.

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

danodude님이 먼저 게시:

Kaijor님이 먼저 게시:

Thanks Deathseye! Just curious, why a doed?

It gets truckloads of rocks... which you need for cementing paste which is required in HUGE loads for large metal bases.

With the introduction of beavers and beaver dams (at least on TheCenter) no one actually uses rock for cementing paste any more. It's terribly slow in comparison to flying around to all the beaver pools in TheCenter and getting 2800 paste in 15 minutes from beaver dams.

[Wittmann]

Thylacoleo is one of my favorites. Very strong, fast, really good hp an carry weight, can climb rocks, trees etc. An very good at collecting hide/pelt etc

[RhialityCat]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the frog? Unless it got a nerf that I'm not aware of.

Name: Beezlebufo.
Ability: Creates cementing paste whenever it kills and harvests an insect.

[Venom]

I love the megatherium.. Gathers fiber by the boat load, thatch, Wood, Berries, Chitin, almost everything.

[GreenMan]

My favorite, MUST HAVE dinos are as follows.

Ankylo: Metal miner. There's nothing better for wacking metal nodes, and metal weighs only 25% as much on it. Also anky's are tanky as hell. They take reduced damage. Construction dino.

Beaver: Mobile smithy, collects major wood (beaver get major wood! love that joke) which has reduced weight, can swim. Can use crossbow off it's back too. I know mammoths get more wood and it weighs even less on them, but beavers can fit inside easy and be carried easily. Construction dino.

Doedic: Stone miner. Collects hella stone, which weights only 25% as much on it. Construction dino.

Those 3 are the core of any base contruction in my opinion. Additional must haves:

Therizino: Collects everything but stone. Gets thatch, wood, berries, fiber, meat, and does a hell of a lot of damage, can stand up to rex's just fine. All praise the tickle chicken.

Wyvern: This is a tough one. I used to recommend quetzels. But wyverns are, without a doubt, more useful in varying situations and easier! to get if available at all. Raising them is possible even without milk, if you have a Daeodon to heal them. Can carry most everything a quetzel can, fight very well, and are far faster.

Basilosaurus: It's the water dino KING. Easy to tame (passive tame), even low levels ones have high hp, immune to eel or jellyfish, can't be grabbed by squid. And regens health very fast on the surface. Not really fast or high damage output, but it's legit better than any other water dino short of the squid. And the squid has an unfortunate tendency to not hit things that are in kissing distance, so can get manta'd to death.

That's about it. Have to have the first 3, after that, you need a flyer, meat collector and water dino to the the remaining resources (oil, pearls, hide, CP, etc).

[Black4Halo]

soon to be rock drake depending on what it can gather

[sir_palamides]

Doedicurus
Reduces the weight of Stone when it carries it
Can help a good base in a short amount of time.

Castoroides
Reduces the weight of Wood when it carries it
Helps for fast base building and is a great water fighter watched a wild T-rex get murdered in a shallow water fight.

Tapejara
Flies like a helicopter with the ablity to cling to rock walls
with a few bumps in weight and staimina can easly travel from one side of the map to the other non stop.

T-Rex
Land Killing machine
I have 3 ..2 females one male +extra eggs and mate boost ...they take down Alpa Raptors and Alpha Carno's easy.

Raptor's (Lots of them )
Low Level cave Killing Machines
I Hit the low level cave located south , during the day only and carry 100 Stimulant potions and a good Bow. Set to attack my target and sic them on anything that you see as a threat.

Spino
Great Shallow water Fisherman
I damage is less than a T-Rex but it can bite faster than a T-rex which = more DPS over time . They kill Sharks easy if the shark doesn't swim away in fear for it's own life.

[Corbae]

the order for most people rushing in a new game.
1. First tame a berry collector to make more taming supplies. Trike is probably easiest to find and tame. Though on rag I spawn in the highlands and just get a horse as they are easy to find, need no saddle and not a lot of predators though dont give a lot of berries.
2.Pteradon(though you have to wait till 37 to make a saddle so not a priority)
3. Something to defend yourself. Pretty much any strong carnivore.
3. Doed or Beaver.
4.Anklyo
5.Quetz
Once you have the dinos on that list you have a good group to start a base. After that then there are tons of dinos to tame.

[nicolejackson4481]

All of them have a use but I will list the ones that I suggest (my favorites and the ones I tame most often).

(For simplicity's sake I'm calling everything in this list a dino but I know a lot of these (if not most) are NOT dinos.)

Good starter Dinos:
~Pack of dilos - protect you from minor threats; easy to tame
~Trike - good for basic collecting and combat until you can tame other things; fairly easy to tame
~Raptor - fast transport for early survivor; fairly easy to tame

Utility Dinos:
~Doedicurus - Stone gathering
~Ankylo - Metal and Flint
~Beaver - Wood
~Bear - Fiber & berries, plus it has a lot of weight for it's size and makes a good general transport animal
~Megatherium - Chitin and some fiber; I don't always tame these but they are good if you need a lot of chitin (plus they are adorable!)

Air Travel Dinos:
~Pteranodon - Very fast; mainly used for exploring and drop farming; fairly easy to tame
~Argent -Slower but fairly good weight for transporting resources; good for picking up most dinos for transport and/or taming (This is my general go-to for air travel); moderately ease to tame
~Quetzal - very good weight; moderate speed; can pick up most dinos for transportation/taming; fairly hard to tame (I mostly only use these for transporting dinos/resources or for picking up large creatures to take them to a taming box)
~Tapejara - Fast; moderate weight; fantastic handling; multi-seater which is also great for taming purposes; hard to tame (This is a great end-game flier for general purposes; downside is it can't pick up many creatures)
~Griffin - If you have access to one I HIGHLY recommend it! They are really fast and REALLY fun to fly! (And not too hard to tame if you make a proper taming pen.)
~Wyvern - (SE and Ragnarok only) It's hard (but, in my opinion, fun) to steal eggs and raise them but they are fun to ride; they are quick and powerful but they don't have a very good turning radius so they can be a bit unweildy at times. I recommend taming one if you have the chance but I would not say that they are the best air mount.

General Transport Dinos:
~Thylacoleo - fairly powerful; fast; can climb cliffs and trees pretty easily; is an absolute joy to ride! (Thylacoleos are by far my favorite mount; I highly reccomend getting a few!)
~Equus - Good all around transport dino; is fun to tame (in my opinion) and can also help tame other dinos with it's kick attack (I've tamed lots of raptors and sabertooth tigers this way)
~Bear - Good weight; fairly powerful; pretty fast (especially once it has built up some speed) can eat meat or berries so it is easy to feed
~Iguanodon - Quite fast; uses almost zero stamina while running on four legs; moderate weight
~(Deinosuchus - This is a mod creature but if you can add mods I highly reccommend this one. It is a giant crocodile that looks and sounds pretty realistic and it's a very fun mount! My sister actually thought it was a vanilla creature until I told her it was a mod.)

Combat Dinos (Non PVP):
~Pack of wolves - powerful and compact; has a pack bonus; don't need a saddle to ride
~Sabertooth tigers - quick and versatile; a high lvl one can deal with most threats
~Bears- Powerful and can deal with most threats
~Spino - Adorable and powerful; good for both land and water; great shallow water fisher (It's great fun to jump in a pond full of fish and masacre them all in a few bites! >:) mwahaha!)
~Rex - These are most people's go-to for combat and boss battles; personally I find them too slow and hard to manuver but most people have good results with them
~Giga - Deals a ton of damage but they are hard to tame and you have to be careful that it doesn't get angry and massacre you and all your tames
~Honorable Mention: Flock of Dimorphies- These little guys can do a surprising amount of damage in a flock! (they can literally kill AND eat something in about a second if you have enough of them) however, this large of a flock can be hard to control because they are easily lost and hard to get back in a pen. They also have pretty low health so you may lose some (or all) if you go up against something that does a lot of damage and has a lot of health. It's pretty hilarious to see them desend upon stuff like a cloud and make it dissapear in a second like some horror movie though!

Water Transport: (I don't know as much on this topic becuase I rarely explore the ocean; I hate the ocean...)
~Ichthy- Very fast; not great in combat but it can outspeed everything so just watch where you're going and be careful where you park it
~Basilosaurus - Very good all around dino; moderate weight; fairly good speed; gives you a source of oil; immune to jellyfish and eels; heals very quickly; downside is that it takes damage if you go too deep but the damage is fairly minor so you can actually explore below it's depth threshold as long as you watch it's health (This is my recommended general water transport)
~Megalodon - Great reliable general transport and exploring dino; okay speed; pretty good weight; pretty good power
~Baryonyx - Pretty fast on both land and water; nice becuase you don't need a water pen to keep it; has a nice tail attack
~Plesios/Mosas/Squid - These are the more high tier dinos that are very powerful but hard to tame; I have not tamed many of these just because I don't like the ocean

I highly recommend that you NOT tame a manta unless you are VERY careful how you cage it; almost every single manta I have tamed has died within 30 min of me taming it because if it goes out of water it will die almost instantly. If you want to keep them; cage them in a pen far from the surface

Shoulder pets:
~Ichyornis - doesn't make a great shoulder mount because it is so big but it can collect fish and makes a good source of prime as well as making it easier to tame other creatures like the duck and the otter
~Jerboa- purely adorable (only attainable on SE and Ragnarok) but is only useful on SE
~Monkey - adorable but mostly only useful for PVP (opens doors) but it can throw poo at your enemies which can be pretty funny
~Otter - absolutely adorable and can provide some insulation as well as black pearls
~Dimorphie - kinda cute and can provide a little bit of protection from minor threats

I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of good ones but these are the ones that I tame the most.

Also, if you're looking to gather a specific resource and you don't know what it best to collect it you can go to ark.gamepedia.com, type in the resource name and then under the "gathering" section it will tell you what creature(s) and/or tool(s) are best for collecting that specific resource. (For instance, organic polymer is best collected with a club, a chainsaw, a sword or a pelican.)

[Moonlilia]

If you're playing on Ragnarok, I highly recommend finding an Equus and taming it. The map has naturally spawning vegetables, which allow you to quickly tame one, which you do by sneaking up to it, feeding it, then mounting and feeding it continuously, until it's tamed.
Overall, it's my favorite starting dino simply because it serves multiple purposes. It's fairly fast, has a lot of stamina, a fair amount of health, and can be rather powerful. It has a main attak where it uses it's head to bash, and has an alternative attack where it kicks with its hind legs, which is great for knocking out dinos, and then taming them. The best part is that it doesn't even need a saddle for you to be able to ride it, so you don't need to grind for levels just to be able to make use of it :p