The Definitive Guide to Herbivores

A guide written by a herbivore player for herbivore players, new or experienced

Introduction

The Definitive Guide to Herbivores.

By [InV] Golden Chicken

On the Isle I am a huge Herbivore player, and have only recently started playing carnivores and learning to hunt. As such, I have a lot of experience playing herbivores, their tactics and how to avoid predators.

I’ll first provide you with a few basic tips to playing herbivores, and my guides will focus on helping yourself and not relying on anyone else to defend you, but may involve same-species defence skills.

The Basics

These are the skills that you need at least have in order to become a decent herbivore player, as well as a player all-round.

• Don’t trust any other player.
  Unless they’re your friends and you know you can trust them, don’t. Don’t even go near them as they may simply be a scout for a mega-pack or KOS herd looking for something to kill.
  
  
• Stay Quiet.
  I love the herbivore sounds as much as the next person, but broadcasting everywhere or even friendly calling and F calling will get you noticed and killed by carnivores looking for an easy meal.
  
  
• Listen, look, watch.
  9/10 I can hear a carnivore pack calling because they don’t use the above rule and will call loudly. Even if they don’t- if it’s a large predator you will be able to hear their large footsteps before you see them, giving you a chance to dart into the trees and hide. Most important of all, keep a look out and watch for danger. You can easily spot something the size of a Utahraptor darting between the trees if you know where to look. They will use your blind-spot behind you, or when you’re eating to attack, keep an eye on the trees when you do.
  
  
• Keep to less popular lakes and destinations.
  In other words; avoid Triplets, Marsh and Twins/Centre as these are hotspots and are more likely to have heavy traffic and carnivore activity. There are plenty of other lakes on the map that are more welcoming to herbivores than those death-lakes.

These are the basic rules of herbivore life and even a single herbivore can live for a long time if you follow these rules.

Specifics

Here I will talk about the specific dinosaurs and any tips to them that can only be utilized by them. I will give any detail necessary for survival, not just a rush to progress to the top tier as I believe that’s not the point of this game. The point is to survive as a dinosaur and have fun, not a race to see who can rush up and kill as many apex in one Shantungosaurus lifetime.

Psittacosaurus

Psittacosaurus

(Taco/Psitta. Starting dinosaur)

The starting dinosaur for the herbivores. It’s very slow, but easy to hide in an environment with plenty of underbrush.

Stay hidden. If you spawn in and there are dinosaurs around you, try to move in and out of the trees. If there are any bushes near you, use those to your advantage. If you’re spotted, dart in and out of the bushes and take fast turns to confuse your pursuer. If you have enough time, run through some tree and make a sharp turn around one or two them, then once behind a tree, turn and ‘bury’ your head into it. This works best on a hill as it also hides your tail, but even in long grass it can hide you.

In general if you want to survive as a Psittacosaurus, you need to be somewhere where you have unrestricted access to food and water. You can survive long trips without both, but that may hurt you in the long run, especially if you are unfamiliar with the location or need to cross wide open areas where you will be easier to spot. Areas to survive are generally the swamp and any lakes with food that can be accessed with a twenty minute round trip back to water.

Dryosaurus

Dryosaurus

(Dryo/Bean. Requires 2 progression points)

Dryosaurus is the next stepping stone on the herbivore tree, once passed you have a choice of four dinosaurs to choose from.
Dryosaurus is a perfect example of a dinosaur that can use cover to its advantage. It’s small, agile and decently fast, so any expert with this dinosaur will be able to avoid almost anything under the right conditions.
The same tactic of Psittacosaurus is also useful to Dryosaurus; dart in and out of bushes to confuse and allude predators. Dryosaurus will be more affective at this due to their speed boost and tight turn radius.

When traveling long distances, don’t go under half-stamina especially in open areas, in case you need to run from something, this way you can travel at a decent pace while still able to run from things that will kill you.
If you do need to battle, however you can’t take on a lot of things. You can one-shot Velociraptors and you can kill other Dryosaurus. But anything more powerful than a Herrerasaurus, you’ll need to run, especially if you’re not in a group of other Dryosaurus.
The best place for a Dryosaurus to survive is either swamps or redwoods, as each environment gives the things necessary for Dryosaurus to survive; Food, water and cover to hide in. Swamp is especially useful if you wish to nest, as it provides enough food in their quick growth time as well as have water for them to drink and ample space to hide.

Gallimimus

Gallimimus

(Galli/Speed Chicken. Requires 25 progression points)

Gallimimus has the unique advantage of currently being the fastest animal in-game. The only thing that can out-speed the Gallimimus is an Ambush-Sprinting Carnotaurus, and the only thing that can outlast your stamina is a Utahraptor, and as such those two animals are your major predators when you are a Gallimimus.

Use this speed to your advantage and listen for danger and run at the first sign of it.
With Gallimimus’ speed comes the cost of its health, as it can be taken down easily by a Utahraptor if caught out and may have some damage done to it by even a Herrerasaurus if not careful.
You can still hide as a Gallimimus, as they can crouch relatively slow to the ground, but the main method of survival is running, not hiding. Hiding can benefit you if a change of tactics is needed as your predators won’t think of a Gallimimus hiding, they’ll think of it as a running animal and will look for one, so use this to your advantage when predators are around.

Gallimimus has a very easy time moving from one place to another, but is best played in open areas where it’s harder to hide, as you can spot potential predators long before they’ve reached you and you can be gone by the time they start running. However forested areas may also be viable as Gallimimus is nimble enough to weave through the trees to avoid predators. It may take some time to practice, but weaving is a skill vital to all players.

If you want to fight with a Gallimimus, right now it’s rather had to do as they are bugged and can only kick smaller things if they are crouched, and it’s unwise to kick larger carnivores as they can easily turn around and kill you, especially if they are keeping an eye on you. Running is always the first option for any Gallimimus, as it’s simply too risky to stay and fight. If you happen to be with a group, you can use yourself as a distraction to help slower members escape any predators by jumping and weaving in front of them, making yourself a tempting target but don’t get too close as you may end up their lunch.

It’s also worth a note that Gallimimus’ calls are rather irritating to most people, and so if you do the above tactic, calling would actually be advantageous as they will agro on you to shut you up.

Maiasaura

Maiasaura

(Maia. Requires 35 progression points)

Maiasaura are one of the best balanced of the tier 3 herbivores. They’re very speedy, but have reasonable bulk to them and can hit hard and even break bones with the right luck.

Like with the Gallimimus, speed is their main game, and can run from almost anything save a Carnotaurus. They’re best in open environments with trees close-by so that they can simply dart into them for safety if ambushed by predators. Their food and water are sustainable for a relatively long amount of time, so can travel long distances in search of food and a safe place to drink, and it’s wise to do so, not only so you can learn the map’s lay-out but also avoid unwanted competition if any other dinosaurs come to the same lake as you.

Their downfall is that they’re not very agile and have a mediocre turn radius, so trying to hit something without the use of alt-turning is a pain. However, you can take on one or two Utahraptors if you’re good enough at combat and have had experience using Maia’s speed and its poor turning radius to combat the agile Utahraptor.

A lot of people will most likely target you if you are a Maiasaura, simply because Maiasaura leads into Shantungosaurus, which is associated with KOS, and many people would want to eliminate the threat before the threat becomes too large to deal with. So with this in mind, the first rule of not trusting anybody comes into play much, much more dire while playing as a Maiasaura than any other herbivorous dinosaur.

Diabloceratops

Diabloceratops

(Diablo/Dibbles/Potato. Requires 30 progression points)

Diabloceratops is a much bulkier version of the Maiasaura, with added attack, t’s easily the most offence-heathy of the tier 3 herbivores, able to hold its own in fights and even deadlier in groups. However Diabloceratops is certainly a defensive dinosaur, it’s not going to go around chasing others around, as it has very low speed and very distinct footsteps.

With Diabloceratops, under the right circumstance you can break the first rule; you can be loud in a group, especially when there are mid-tier predators on the server or near-by, as noise is one of Diabloceratops’ intimidation factors. It’s so loud that no one really wants to put up with the noise it makes to save their ears.

This noise-making tactic is only really viable in a group of four+, as you can switch out the noise-makers and the ones who don’t F-call or broadcast to help defend yourselves.
If confronted by a Utahraptor, a single Diabloceratops can defend themselves as it only takes two shots to kill a Utahraptor, and with more numbers, Diabloceratops can even take on a Carnotaurus if need-be and even an Allosaurus if an absolute must.

A good tactic for a lone Diabloceratops is to simply ignore the (manageable) threat for as long as possible, with your camera trained on them and at the last minute turn around and strike. If you come into a stalemate with another dinosaur, mock-charges work wonders as it’ll put your opponent off-guard

Diabloceratops do best in wooded areas, with places to hide as well as trees to have their back to so they can easily defend themselves from would-be attackers. And like Maiasaura, it has enough food and water to travel if you need too.

Pachycephalosaurus

Pachycephalosaurus

(Pachy. Requires 25 progression points)

Regarded as one of the worst T3 herbivores to play as, Pachycephalosaurus does in fact have some worth to it.

It’s lighter footsteps means that it’s harder to hear by others, making it easy to sneak past predators and potential threats when the need arises. It can also fight back to a certain extent, using its hard head it’s able to break bones, although at a lesser extent than a Maiasaura can. You can use this low bone break percentage to your advantage, as if you get it- you’ll be able to run off and recover while leaving the predator behind wondering where you’ve gone.

However, you should only be defending yourself against Austroraptor, Herrerasaurus and Utahraptor, as any larger would be certain death.

The best place for a Pachycephalosaurus is in a very dense woodland with plenty of places to hide and plenty of plants to eat, as it’s one of the creatures that can’t travel easily due to starvation. Like the Dryosaurus, its best that you don’t use more than half your stamina when traveling, as you may need that other half if you are spotted traveling in open areas and need a faster way to escape. Being one of the slower herbivores, you can use hills to your advantage but crossing over one or two depending the distance between you and your pursuer, and changing directions so you loop around and confuse them.

Shantungosaurus

Shantungosaurus

(Shant/Shantu. Requires 180 progression points)

At this moment in time, Shantungosaurus is one of the most hated and controversial dinosaurs on the Isle. It’s the size of a small sauropod and has a very high amount of health, attack and food value, making it high-risk, high-reward to hunt normally. But recently even with the boost in progression points needed, they are still used by groups or singular KOS players who rush to Shantungosaurus and sweep entire mega packs. This alone has put a target on their head and any Shantungosaurus will surely be targeted by Mega packs or even loners who wish to rid the game of ‘evil’ Shantungosauruses.

One way to make yourself known as a non-KOS Shantungosaurus is to trot and use your calls to indicate that you don’t appreciate anyone getting near you. If they continue to near you, threaten them with your secondary attack- in no circumstances should you use your primary attack unless it’s absolutely vital.

The fourth rule is paramount here, as you will be less targeted in less trafficked areas and will draw less attention to yourself in the long run.
Shantungosaurus starts with half hunger and half thirst and will take a long time to fill up on food, but once done you won’t need to eat for about four hours, making it a worthwhile thing to doing the long run, as food will be less necessary and you can travel with almost no limitations.

Shantungosaurus can go almost anywhere but it’s very hard to see and navigate in and around small trees, so forests and the swamp are off-limits unless you’re confident about the area you’re in. Wide open spaces with plenty of visibility works best of Shantungosaurus, but the redwoods works just as well as you won’t be limited to low trees and can use the redwood trees to your advantage when defending yourselves against predators.

Therizinosaurus

Therizinosaurus

(Theri/Turkey/Dangerfloof. Requires 45 progression points)

Therizinosaurus is the fastest of the T4 herbivores, so you can use that to your advantage as your health pool is the lowest of T4 herbivores. Therizinosaurus is a glass cannon when it comes to fighting and defending itself. It has a huge potential for attack, dealing a number on predators with its three-swipe attack, but it doesn’t have too, it can simply run. It can’t outrun something like Carnotaurus, but if the Therizinosaurus is lucky, it can simply land three hits on the Carnotaurus and that’ll teach it a worth-while lesson.

Its threatening roar is short and to the point, so you can use it when swiping to emphasize your point of “stay away from me” when the time needs it.

Its food is good enough that you don’t have to continuously eat, but it’s not the best and you will need to eat in order to maintain it, but with your speed, you’ll be able to travel longer distances quicker, getting to places with relative ease. However, at this current time, their food is bugged and you’ll have to look straight up or straight down while eating, giving you a much larger disadvantage when eating as you won’t be able to see danger, only hear it, as well as disorienting yourself when eating which could get you lost or lead you towards the danger instead of away.

The best place for a There is in the redwoods or out in the open, as with such a large creature it’s difficult to see when passing through the forests.

Triceratops

Triceratops

(Trike/Danger Potato. Requires 50 progression points)

Triceratops is one of the most battle-ready herbivores. It’s too slow to run from most things, and has massive damage and bleed that very few are willing to tackle it alone or even in a group, especially knowing that one hit is enough to leave a dinosaur massively bleeding and out of a fight as well as very vulnerable.

With this much risk involved Triceratops doesn’t need to fight very much, it only needs to posture and threaten. Its roars are too long and low to be used effectively, so simply secondary-attacking and mock-charging are all that it takes. Triceratops can last a long time without food and water, so you can simply out-wait the predators if the need arise. You can also use the same tactic with Triceratops as you have done with Diabloceratops, wait until the last moment before turning around and attacking.

Triceratops’ decent hunger and thirst make it great for walking around the map to eat and drink. The best place for it to reside in are places with lots of trees or redwoods, but it does just as well in open areas where it can face its attacker.

With their bleed and high damage it’s risky to herd up with smaller creatures in case you hit them, as anything smaller than a Trike will most likely die instantly or die of bleed.

Ankylosaurus

Ankylosaurus

(Anky/Honk Honk/Rock Turtle/Rock Puppy. Requires 50 progression points)

Ankylosaurus is one of the slowest dinosaur in-game currently, but it makes up for that with a decent amount of health and a bone-breaking, high-damage clubbed tail that it can swing either left or right.

The high chance of bone-break makes Ankylosaurus a formidable foe and its high damage can easily put a T.rex out of commission with just one swing.

One tactic that can be utilized is the same as Psittacosaurus’. Find a tree and bury your head into it, while swinging your tail wildly, any carnivore won’t be able to get anywhere near to attack you, especially if you have a small herd of other Ankylosaurus with you.

Its best tactic for survival is actually hiding. It’s low to the ground so it can easily slip away into a bush and hide. Its tail may stick out a bit, but it’s easy to cover-up.

As it’s low to the ground and easy to hide, the best place to be is somewhere with dense foliage, like Swamp, Redwoods or somewhere with lots of bushes and trees.

The one downside of Ankylosaurus is the same as Shantungosaurus’; they start with half hunger and half water, and it takes a very long time to fill your hunger up as an Ankylosaurus, roughly an hour of constant eating with one break for water. But it’s worth it once done as you’ll be able to survive five hours without needing to eat, allowing the slow moving animal to travel across anywhere on the map it needs to be on.

Stegosaurus

Stegosaurus

(Stego. Requires 50 progression points)

Stegosaurus has fallen in its prime recently with lower health, bleed and damage than Triceratops and less bleed resistance. To see a Stegosaurus is a rarity.

Stegosaurus’ tactics regarding combat is similar to Ankylosaurus’, except that Stegosaurus does bleed and not bone break, so it can be harder to escape at times when you’re facing a predator who can resist the bleed your piling onto it.

When facing multiple threats such as Allosaurus or Utahraptor, it’s best to simply turn in a circle, not even alt-turn. One whack from your thagomizer can down a Utahraptor and two can down an Allosaurus, so use that to your advantage when faced with more than one creature. You can bleed them out if you hit them too many times and they know that, they want to avoid that as much as possible.

When chased there’s little point running run unless your predator is slower than you, as Stegosaurus isn’t very fast at all. Keep your predator behind you and they will rarely touch you.

Holding a lot of food, but not nearly as much as Shantungosaurus and Ankylosaurus, Stegosaurus can roam the map with little care, it can’t hide very well due to the plates on its back, so can do well out in the open. The camera may prove challenging in thick forests, so avoid them if you can.

Puetasaurus

Puetasaurus

(landwhale/Not-a-Bronto)

You don't play as this creature. You suffer.

Conclusion

I hope you've enjoyed my guide and that it has been very helpful to you.

And I hope I've shed some light onto the survivability and viability of the T3 and T2 herbivores, as they can be just as fun, if not more fun to play as than the big-guys, simply because you have more to be worried about! whats the point of playing an invulnrable creature with nothing to do but eat when you can play something that actually needs to run and hide to survive?

[A Fat Chook]

This ain't even the isle

[Gits & Shiggles]

when you said diablo cant 1v1 an allo, i looked at how old this guide is

[I am a Stick]

No para guide?

[🦴eivol🦴]

Will there be one for carnivores?

[Bean0914]

This was EXTREMELY helpful for me in the long run on a realism server. Though for dryos i prefer to use the gazelle tactic to escape predators. The tactic utilizes the dryos quick turn radius and lets you zig-zag to escape predators like austros, velocis, and herreras.

[MediScout]

This was very helpful for me, due to the fact that i usually play as galli or mia... I am a little upset with the galli's new stam but its all good. But anyway thanks for the herbivore guide :D

[DodoNation]

Pue is fixed in dev branch, it can eat now and not starve

[hilla007]

The very last paragraph seems to be somewhat biased for a guide to help people play . The top tier herbivores are not invulnerable, just extremely dangerous. They can indeed be killed people just kinda need to buck up and actually try.

[hilla007]

It's also spelled : "Puertasaurus"

[hilla007]

That puerta section disappoints me ...........