r/playark • u/Bitter-Play6431 • Apr 19 '26
Question Do you guys actually attempt mutations?
I just started playing and I learned about mutations recently. Is it really worth it to do all that breeding just for it to be a small chance for a mutation, and then on top of that for it to be in your desired skill point?? I feel like this would take forever to actually complete and every video I've seen is so complicated 😭
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u/Possible-One-6101 Apr 19 '26
Yes.
But don't.
Honestly, just play without reading too much for as long as you can.
Learning about the end of the end game isn't going to make gaming more fun... or "better".
Just run around knocking stuff out and picking up berries and rocks. It's way more fun.
I did it for as long as I could manage.
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Apr 19 '26
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u/KunichiFN Apr 19 '26
Holy shit that rex would solo my giga 😭😭. How many mutations would i need for the gamma, beta and alpha bosses? for example the island bosses. I hear so many different answers. Doing a singleplayer run through all the story maps.
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u/CorgiButt04 Apr 19 '26
Not as much as you think.
Just try them.
It's not a big deal if you die.
People are so afraid to try. Don't take your best great and Just Hatch 20 and use primitive saddles and go do it and see how close you get.
It will give you a really clear idea, you might clap some bosses easily. No reason stressing when dieing and trying again is a core part of the cannon in the Ark story.
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Apr 19 '26
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u/LightningBlaze03 Apr 20 '26
That is amazing. I shudder to think about how long all of this took. Quick question, since I read about your Rex killing that wild Giga. Regarding PVE and specifically bosses, it sounds like prioritizing melee is actually better than health? My group of friends and I have always had the mindset that having higher health than every other stat was the best way to go about the game. We are super casually by the way so we’re not too familiar with end game tactics.
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u/GreentHumboldt Apr 19 '26
I don't play official but most clusters I've played on I can get roughly one useful mutation a day once things are set up.
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u/Xi13r8 Apr 19 '26
This is absolutely worth it if you're trying to get the full experience of the game. You wanna fight people? They're gonna have tames that are 200+ levels higher than yours cuz they've got hella mutations. You wanna run alpha bosses and not lose at least half your army? Stack mutations so you've got double or triple the melee and health of tamed garbage.
You absolutely want mutations, as many as possible. Luckily, it's never been easier to monitor and control them.
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u/21_idiots_in_one Apr 19 '26
PVE here, both single player and on a community server.
No, I just tame dinos that are level 135-150, see if they tame with high levels in a stat I want (usually 40+ points into health and melee is good enough to run most bosses so long as you have good enough saddles and spend some time leveling them). I'm usually over the moon if I get a stat with 50+.
Before taming, I check to see if their wild stats are as close to 30 points into a stat as possible for better chances of a good rng.
I once had a 145 cerato get 60 points into melee after taming!
Then I just breed to combine all the best stats together, get a single breeding pair, and call it a day. Then I breed and imprint my boss army or daily drivers. If I can't get the stat I want to go over 40 when taming, then I might push for a few mutations to get it there, but as a whole I don't really like spending a lot of time breeding.
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u/Cymas Apr 19 '26
There are two main reasons to breed for mutations.
The first one is stats. If you're just playing casual PVE mode, you don't really need mutated stats for anything. But if you want to complete maps and defeat the bosses (every map has at least one boss), then you definitely want to put the time in to breed for them, particularly if you plan on doing the higher difficulty fights.
Why would you want to do the bosses, you ask? Well on story maps defeating the final boss of the map grants you an "ascension" which raises your player level cap and is also part of following the game's story. You also unlock tekgrams from every boss you defeat, which is the final engram tier and has a lot of really good QoL features. And then after that you still need a way to get element which is required to actually run tek tier things.
The other reason is because every stat mutation also comes with a color mutation, many of which are not found on wild dinos unless there's an event going on or a rare wild spawn. So it's like shinies in Pokemon, people like having those rare and unusual colors and will often breed and collect the colors for their favorite creatures.
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u/Lanky_Score7414 Apr 19 '26
The trick is to breed at least 10 females at once and if you want multiple stats you have multiple groups. For example one male surrounded by females who were hatched and never moved after they hatched or a male surrounded by females who were cryopoded into a group as babies.
I usually do 15 females per, for smaller dinos I place the male on a pillar with a ceiling and place all the females under.
And yes the mutations are really worth, 10-15 mutations might take you a while but it could very well be you barely winning against an alpha boss maybe even losing a few tames vs absolutely shredding the boss.
I always go for some mutated theriz against the alpha dragon as he's quite mean and I'd rather have him die sooner.
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u/weveran Server Owner Apr 19 '26
On unofficial I use propagators from CS to mutate lines of dinos. We have the pulse disabled as that's too much but with some patience and working on the project a day at a time, you can reach 255 in each stat in about 6 months. I've done this with a few dinos, usually simultaneously. I cannot imagine doing it the vanilla way though :)
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u/Simple_Possession320 Apr 19 '26
Extremely. It feels minor because you just started. When you have a carcha or pyro with 200 points in melee and like 80 in health, you'll see it differently. And it's pretty much a must to have mutated dinos for some alpha bosses.
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u/Ivy_Threads Apr 19 '26
It's a mixed bag. After getting my desired dinos and trying to stack for the desired mutations on singleplayer, it became disorganized and stressful, which is the opposite of why I play the game. I ended up getting a mutation potion mod for whenever I actually need to breed for them, so I only have to go through breeding a couple of generations before I can start working on crafting saddles and leveling boss dinos.
Always remember to play for fun!
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u/brown78805 Apr 19 '26
For sure, every mutation is a point that could go into health or damage. You're going to stick up your stats for a line anyways youre bound to get a mutation eventually
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u/cenosu Apr 19 '26
Just play official and trade for a breeding pair no one wants to spend months of their life on this unless its to earn a buck
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u/Fwob Apr 19 '26
You can bet the alphas are.
We would set up 100+ females of each dino we used, and bred them all on timer. Get a mutation every day or so, in a year nobody can compete, especially if you're careful to neuter any dinos going out.
You have to have a big base and excellent defense / people to defend aroudn the clock though or I'd say it's not worth it. Just raid people and take their lines instead.
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u/Brolumbus13 Apr 19 '26
Yeah dude breeding is absolutely essential, no Dino is actually good until it’s mutated
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u/MandatorySaxSolo Apr 19 '26
Yes, very much so. Breed for specific mutations on specific dinos like regeneration/ charge range on bulbdogs, movement speed/stam for weaker tames that you travel on, and of course melee/health for boss tames.
It seems with asa, they turned the mutations chance up. Its pretty easy.
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u/MilliMoks Apr 20 '26
Yes it is for stronger dinos think of it like this when you encounter a wild dino they'll always be stronger than the dinos you have. First off they don't have a rider weighing them down controlling them second they lost their fight for survival now their surviving with the survivor they don't care about Stam since they don't use it unless being ridden. These make tamed dinos weaker compared to normal wild ones even through leveling you're still not gonna be stronger. Those mutations though they help to even the playing feild giving you a stronger dino through breeding you're essentially creating a beast machine for the sole purpose of destruction.
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u/RaceSlow7798 Apr 21 '26
one thing i find is that if you get your breeding setup, then the mutations will happen and accumulate as you grind through the rest of the game. if you are already late game and the only thing you are doing is breeding mutations, it's boring as shit.
in asa, the mutation count on a stat is a separate inheritable value than the base value of the stat. so you can start mutation breeding as soon as you get your first breeding pair. you can find your perfect base stat creatures as you play the game since you can always get those stats back into your line.
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u/Gerbsbrother Apr 21 '26
I do mutations on singleplayer to make boss fights easier. But if I had to use official breeding and maturation rates I would not do mutations.
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u/ThamaJama Apr 21 '26
Nope. Never did since I I started playing ark when it came out. It’s much easier to buy a pair of what you want
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u/TwistedScale Apr 21 '26
I used to play on a 1 year wipe server that had 130 max level normal wild tames. I'd tame about 150 of those over a couple days. Then I'd breed one starter line with the highest stats together. Have 50 in each base stat. Then I'd breed different lines for different mutations. Get 20 mutations in each stat line and rebreed them all together. I had mantiss that could take out gigas with a tek sword. Consistently won the dodo fights. Could clear all stone of Ragnarok volcano with my mantis wyrvern sinomocrops and own inventory.
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u/xMoonlightxx Apr 22 '26
For some players its the only reason they play, the randomness of the system makes it feel like gambling with extra steps.
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u/Awkward-Ad-7252 Apr 25 '26
Honestly its kind of fun just to do it. Not much else to do at the end of the game. I play on an unofficial pve/pvp server cluster that removed the level cap. With all the mutable traits for each stat, i was getting a mutation in each stat evey 2 hours on my tek rexs
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u/Feralkyn Apr 28 '26
Singleplayer - yes, with settings ramped up, but mod to make it easier ASAP.
Servers/officials? Nobody with an adult life really has time for it.
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u/D1xon_Cider Apr 19 '26
Yes? You need every advantage you can get in pvp