Character Stat Questions

[Alaskan Glitch]

First, I want to begin by saying that I'm new to ARK. I've only created one character, and I am left wondering about some of the choices I've made when I leveled up.

Naturally, I brought up my weight carrying capabilities right away. I also threw a few levels into Stamina and Health. By the time I had my Weight at 500, Health and Stamina at 150, I started pumping levels into Fortitude. I'm still not entirely sure what it does, but I understand it is like your constitution. Allowing you to endure harsher environments for longer periods.

By the time I reached 85th level my Fortitude was 50, my Weight at 500, Health and Stamina at 150, and I was taking out by a 12th level Thylacoleo.

If a 12th level marsupial lion can take me out so easily, then I clearly am not pumping my levels into the right characteristics.

Should Weight, Health, and Stamina be the three highest characteristics? How important is Fortitude? How important is increasing your Oxygen?

I got the distinct impression that I am playing a very out-of-balance character.

[Graf Schokola]

Health - is easily health -> 300+ (depends on what you are doing)
Stamina - How long you can run and use tools -> 150+
Weight - how much you can carry -> ~400
Fortitude - resistance vs hot/cold/torpor effects -> nothing or 12 or 24
Oxygen - how long you can stay under water + increasing swimming speed (most players dont skill this) -> nothing
Run speed - to follow dinos or run away -> 20%+

To fight 1 vs 1 a land dino you need:
- HP to stay longer alive.
- Stamina to run or use your melee weapons.
- Weight to carry weapons and armor.
- good weapons
- good armor

Every Thyla will take you out when you dont have a very good weapon and high armor.

[Stephen]

Originally posted by Alaskan Glitch:

First, I want to begin by saying that I'm new to ARK. I've only created one character, and I am left wondering about some of the choices I've made when I leveled up.

Naturally, I brought up my weight carrying capabilities right away. I also threw a few levels into Stamina and Health. By the time I had my Weight at 500, Health and Stamina at 150, I started pumping levels into Fortitude. I'm still not entirely sure what it does, but I understand it is like your constitution. Allowing you to endure harsher environments for longer periods.

By the time I reached 85th level my Fortitude was 50, my Weight at 500, Health and Stamina at 150, and I was taking out by a 12th level Thylacoleo.

If a 12th level marsupial lion can take me out so easily, then I clearly am not pumping my levels into the right characteristics.

Should Weight, Health, and Stamina be the three highest characteristics? How important is Fortitude? How important is increasing your Oxygen?

I got the distinct impression that I am playing a very out-of-balance character.

Thylacoleo has special ability to pin you down, so no matter how much health and what good armor you have, it will kill you anyway if you don't have somebody or you tame around to save your life.

Generally your stats looks fine to me. As a suggestion I would put some points into movement speed until it gets to around 120%, sounds weird, but in fact it will give you opportunity to run away from predators. Stay away from dangerous area like redwood where thyla spawns until you have body guards with you. A little bit of stamina also helps for escaping but don't go too high, somewhere around 200.

Also, you are able to make mind wipe tonic to respec your character so you can re-balance the stats depends on your temporary needs.

Oxygen is pretty much useless since in early game you should avoid deep water as much as you can and in late game you have scuba which gives you infinite oxygen until it breaks. Along with oxygen, don't waste any point in food and water because they are essentially useless.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Graf Schokola:

Health - is easily health -> 300+ (depends on what you are doing)
Stamina - How long you can run and use tools -> 150+
Weight - how much you can carry -> ~400
Fortitude - resistance vs hot/cold/torpor effects -> nothing or 12 or 24
Oxygen - how long you can stay under water + increasing swimming speed (most players dont skill this) -> nothing
Run speed - to follow dinos or run away -> 20%+

To fight 1 vs 1 a land dino you need:
- HP to stay longer alive.
- Stamina to run or use your melee weapons.
- Weight to carry weapons and armor.
- good weapons
- good armor

Every Thyla will take you out when you dont have a very good weapon and high armor.

Thanks, that helps.

I was putting too much into Fortitude and not enough into Health. A little less into Weight, and a little more into Stamina. Presumably by the time you are doing water tames you've already manufactured oxygen tanks and scuba gear, which explains why more oxygen for your character isn't required.

Focus on getting the best weapons and the best armor. Makes sense.

I didn't see the Thylacoleo until it was too late. I was in the Redwoods on my Pteranodon and it jumped from the side of one of the trees while I was in flight. By the time I had my weapon prepared I was already dead. As far as I know my Pteranodon is still somewhere in the Redwoods.

[Graf Schokola]

Originally posted by Alaskan Glitch:

Focus on getting the best weapons and the best armor. Makes sense.

I didn't see the Thylacoleo until it was too late. I was in the Redwoods on my Pteranodon and it jumped from the side of one of the trees while I was in flight. By the time I had my weapon prepared I was already dead. As far as I know my Pteranodon is still somewhere in the Redwoods.

Yes. Thylas are hardly to kill with a ranged weapon. You need a melee weapon like a sword for this.

[Zera_Fox]

For me Health is typically my "dump" stat. I go for survivability above all else, which means my health reaches 400+.
But I also don't put a lot into melee, never touch water, food or oxy.
Fortitude is my secondary dump.
Weight to about 400 sounds about right, weapons, ammo and armor gets heavy after all.
Speed depends on playstyle if you ask me. I spend a lot of time on the ground but I always have a strong dino companion with me too.

You can't fly through redwoods safely, go over or around because of thyla.
They are deadly but I've never had one kill me with decent armor and my health pool.

[Seneca]

I have always 10 Points (=20 Fortitute) on my chars, that's enough for withstanding one or two poisinous bites from scorpions and stuff. More points into Fortitute makes only sense for special situations (e.g. extreme cold, area full of poisinous animals, etc)

[botrep]

Thylacoleo is pretty strong dino. Proly a Rex 12 or a Therizino 12 would take you out as well.
The thing is more hp is allways better especially on hardcore. What hp does is to give you time to fix an error you made (like being dismounted) or give you time to run away when your armor breaks. On hardcore i get 550 hp already by lvl 70, i only put points into hp/run/fortitude/weight (i can live with 220 weight)
because i don't wanna die, obviously. I don't put points into melee damage cause i use ranged. When armor breaks i run away but normaly it doesn't because i look around and if there's a rex or therizino i kill it first. Thylacoleo will dismount you indeed. Get very good armor with a lot of durability and they won't be able to harm you for a while (until armor breaks) and have some melee damage wpn and melee damage stat (in this case this is good stat) and slash them dead. Health is good to have as much as possible but it will only buy you a couple of hits after armor breaks or mistake has been made (Ex. you forgot about oxygen underwater or you're in hypothermia zone). Torpor helps to avoid knockout and is good cause that leads to dead. TLDR get a very good armor and a lot of hp for when armor breaks and avoid fighting dismounted if possible or finish them fast if forced to dismount.
Also i think you can respec using mindwipe tonic (it's pretty expensive) so you can redistribute your stats. I never tried mindwipe so i don't rly know how it works.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Thanks for the input. Judging by your advice, I was definitely doing things wrong.

I need to make Weight and Health my primary stats, and Stamina and Fortitude my secondary stats. Get Speed up to 20%+ when I'm not pumping levels into the other four stats, and stay up-to-date on the latest weapons and armor.

I noticed nobody mentioned anything about Crafting, which I presume should be left like Food and Water, at 100% and not improved.

[Stephen]

Originally posted by Alaskan Glitch:

I noticed nobody mentioned anything about Crafting, which I presume should be left like Food and Water, at 100% and not improved.

Indeed. Crafting skills is a "all or nothing" stats, people usually consume a mind wipe tonic and put all points to crafting skills when we need to craft some blueprints to maximise the possible crafting bonus, and then wipe it back to the original stats later.

[🦊 Hermit]

Stat balance really depends on individual preference and playstyle. For example, a lot of people here have advised you to raise health, but I would say don't bother, because most of the time you'll be on the back of a dino and they'll tank hits for you. Also some are saying don't bother with fortitude, but I find it to be one of the most useful stats in the game, and always get a good amount on it.

At the end of the day, though, take all the advice and find a character build that works for you personally. Feel free to experiment, because as others have already said, you can wipe your stats and respec any time^^

My personal take on things, just to add to the info pool:

Health - Low priority. If I have some spare levels later on I'll dump a few in here, but I prefer to avoid damage rather than tank it. Plus as I said above, when riding a dino most things will hit that instead of your character.

Stamina - High priority. A good amount of stam will allow you to keep running when a dino is on your tail. If you can run without tiring out, you can pass some other targets like weak herbivores, and the predator behind you will likely switch to target them instead, letting you go free.

Food and Water - Never bother with either of these.

Oxygen - Mid priority. I like to have a lot...I usually get an oxy stat of around 400. This coupled with lazarus chowder allows you to stay underwater for ages even without scuba gear. And some unofficial servers have the server setting where oxygen increases swim speed, so on those servers I can out-swim even wild manta rays.

Weight - High priority. One of the most valuable stats, I always get +100 in this first, then add an extra 100 every so often between levelling other things. Usually end up with around 700-800 or so.

Fortitude - High priority. I usually get this stat up to 10 right after my first 100 in weight, then bump it up to 30 very soon after. It helps to resist temperature extremes (you won't get too hot/cold as often), reduces the speed at which you lose food and water, and improves resistance against torpor. And I think it might increase HP regen a little too.

Movement speed - Mid priority. Nice to have some of this to outrun faster preds, but I find if you have too much it makes it annoying trying to walk around your base to craft things. I find approx. 124% speed is ideal.

Crafting - as already mentioned, that's an odd one which is best to spec separately when making things.

[Scourn]

health cannot be a low priority unless you plan to just stay on the island map forever. On all other maps there are dinos like Wyvern, basilisk etc that damage the rider. A high level wyvern especially lightning can take out a 100 health rider in one to two hits and then you lose your mounts running back to get your stuff.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Scourn:

health cannot be a low priority unless you plan to just stay on the island map forever. On all other maps there are dinos like Wyvern, basilisk etc that damage the rider. A high level wyvern especially lightning can take out a 100 health rider in one to two hits and then you lose your mounts running back to get your stuff.

I was not aware that I could bring my character to other maps.

However, that does not change things. Even on The Island I'm having things take me out while in flight (e.g. Thylacoleo). I will definitely be beefing up my Health, along with Weight. I will also pump about ~24 to 30 into Fortitude mainly to stave off the effects of poison, and throw some into both Stamina and Speed.

I'll bring my Weight up to between 250% and 350%, and my health to at least 500%. Stamina and Speed I will make between 125% and 150%.

Thanks for setting me straight.

[Scourn]

Look for good bps from crates especially on maps like ragnarok for your armor as you can find high hyper/hypo BPs in loot crates also. I never put points in fortitude even on maps like scorched earth where its like 150 degrees during heat storms as if you can find good bps like good desert armor there or fur on other maps that negate temperature issues. Mix and matched you can still pull over 600-1000 armor which negates pretty much any dinos without having to put points into fortitude since the leveling up of it is like 2 pts and trivial.

Also poison is negates by good armor. Run around in primitive stuff you will get torpor much quicker than say flak or riot etc.

[Dj DNA]

It is true you need a bit more health. you will always stay squishy tho, remember you are just human amongst dino's. The biggest factor into being more tanky is armor hands down. A strong set of armor is what will keep you from dying within two or three hits

[Batza]

You haven't mentioned if you play the game on single player or on an official/unofficial server, but if you mention a level 12 thyla, I guess you're playing single player. One of the differences between the 2 is that on single player the tamed dinos get a lot more health and damage per level, than on a server.

I play on a solo server cluster, with settings close to that of single player (at least in terms of tamed dino health/damage), and I use it to my advantage. I like my dinos to take care of killing other dinos, not doing it myself. I always try to be mounted as much as I can when I'm not in my base. In your case, a thyla is a problem, because it dismounts you. It is hard to survive that, what can help is a big health pool, good armor (flak, if you can get and craft from blueprints which increase the quality/armor, it's even better), and a good weapon, shotgun can help. Also, before you leave your base, set the ptera to follow you, then when the thyla attacks, the ptera will come to your aid, and may even kill the thyla (if you put some points into its health and damage).

I put 5-10 points into stamina, and the rest I divide evenly between health and weight, I don't bother leveling other stats. Leveling movement speed can help sometimes, but as I said, I prefer my dinos to take care of business, I don't need that. I also don't bother with fortitude, its not needed 99.9% of the time, other things can help with that (good quality fur armor for cold climate, getting an otter for both hot&cold etc).

Also, if you're playing single player, there are tons of settings to tinker with and make the game as hard or as easy as you want, also to be less grindy, and lots of other options. And I'm not even mentioning mods, which can add tons of quality of life improvements, and make the game a lot more fun.