Base Stats (Wild Lv150)
| Stat | Base Value | Per Level (Wild) | Per Level (Tamed) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health | 700 | +140 | +5.4% |
| Stamina | 175 | +17.5 | +10% |
| Weight | 250 | +5 | +4% |
| Melee Damage | 100% (50 base) | +5% | +1.7% |
Taming Guide
| Food | Amount (Lv150, 1x) | Time | Effectiveness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular Kibble | 13 | ~25min | +99% |
| Fresh Barley | 55 | ~40min | +85% |
| Mejoberry | 175 | ~1h 15min | +65% |
Resource Harvesting
Resource harvesting with the Anky is pretty much what it's built for and honestly the 75% weight reduction on metal is the main reason you tame one you know Metal is the Anky's primary purpose it hits metal nodes for 4-5x more metal than a player pick and I literally always pair mine with an Argentavis for transport because flying metal back without an Argy is just painful tbh you end up doing like 12 trips for what should take 2 it's just not efficient. Flint also gets 75% weight reduction and the Anky is excellent at harvesting flint from stone nodes great for sparkpowder and gunpowder production and I mean who doesn't need more gunpowder. Crystal same 75% weight reduction good crystal farmer though honestly not as efficient as dedicated crystal harvesters so your mileage may vary ngl but it'll get the job done when you're in a pinch. Obsidian same 75% reduction decent obsidian gatherer from obsidian nodes kind of middle of the pack really but it gets the job done and Oil same deal 75% weight reduction can harvest oil from oil nodes on maps like Scorched Earth which honestly came in clutch for me more times than I expected when I was setting up generators and stuff like that.
Farming Strategy
So here's how I actually farm with an Anky without losing my mind the Anky plus Argy combo is the gold standard carry the Anky with an Argentavis fly to metal-rich mountains harvest and fly back and this is the most efficient metal farming method in ARK 2 I've tried every alternative ngl nothing comes close this combo is literally the backbone of my entire base building operation and I'm not even exaggerating when I say it's the reason I have any metal structures at all. Melee damage is what you pump first each point increases harvest amount so a high-melee Anky pays for itself in time saved and I'm telling you the difference between a 200% melee and a 500% melee Anky is like playing two completely different games you go from getting 200 metal per run to getting 800 plus. Weight is your second priority level weight to carry more metal before needing to return to base though honestly with the 75% weight reduction you can carry a shocking amount even with base weight. The tail slam attack has wide AoE so position yourself in the middle of multiple metal nodes for maximum efficiency this is one of those things that's obvious once you notice it but I've been farming for years and I still sometimes mess up the positioning you know what I mean. Breeding a high-melee Anky line for farming is genuinely worth it the imprint bonus further increases damage and weight a 100% imprint farming Anky with good melee mutations will make you wonder why you ever used a wild tame you get the idea it's a whole different world of metal farming.
How to Tame an Anky Without Losing Your Mind
Ankies are slow like really slow and this makes them one of the easiest creatures to knockout tame because you can literally walk backwards and shoot them but that slowness also means the tame takes forever if you walk them back to base and they tend to wander into danger while unconscious which is honestly the most annoying part of taming these things ngl I've had like 3 Ankies wake up and get eaten because I wasn't watching the torpor close enough it's a painful lesson.
The basic method is absurdly simple. Honestly it really is. Find an Anky check that no predators are nearby because Ankies spawn in areas with raptors carnos and the occasional rex and start shooting a crossbow with tranq arrows works fine for most levels aim for the body since head shots on an Anky are tricky with that armored skull it has natural damage reduction on head hits not just physical damage but torpor application too and body shots actually work faster for knockouts counterintuitive as that sounds I've tested this multiple times ngl it's weird but it's true the body shots just work better on these guys.
For a level 150 you need about 16-20 tranq arrows to the body with a 100% crossbow and dart-wise maybe 10-12 they have decent torpor retention so narcotics aren't a huge concern 100 should cover you even with berries as food but here's the thing Ankies attract attention their unconscious body is a magnet for every carnivore in render distance so build a quick thatch or wood pen around it before you start feeding three foundations and four walls costs almost nothing saves you from having to defend the tame with a pike and tbh I've lost two Ankies because I skipped this step and a saber showed up out of nowhere literally 30 seconds before the tame finished.
IMO the best time to tame your first Anky is right after you get an Argy the Argy can carry a tamed Anky to metal mountains and back without an Argy you're walking the Anky everywhere and that's just painful given its movement speed so get the Argy first then the Anky falls into place naturally and your whole progression curve flattens out in a good way trust me on this sequencing it makes everything smoother.
Anky vs Doedicurus vs Mammoth - The Farming Trio Explained
New players often get confused about which farming dino to get and when and tbh I was one of them at first here's the simple version from someone who's done this way too many times.
The Ankylosaurus is for metal flint crystal obsidian and oil it's the most important farmer because metal is the backbone of progression you need it for tools weapons structures and ammo basically everything that matters in this game the Doedicurus is for stone it gathers stone from rocks at 4-5x player rate with that cute little roll attack and has 75% weight reduction on stone and honestly the roll attack is kind of adorable ngl the Mammoth is for wood with 75% weight reduction and a huge AoE stomp that clears forests in seconds which is honestly really satisfying to do I've literally spent entire sessions just stomping forests because it feels so good.
In order of importance it's Anky first then Doedicurus then Mammoth and here's why you can chop wood with a metal axe perfectly fine and gather stone with a pick but metal gathering without an Anky is miserable you get like 15-20 metal per rich node with a pick versus 80-100 with an Anky the gap is just too big to ignore and I literally can't play without an Anky anymore it's just part of how the game works for me. All three of these can be carried by an Argentavis which is why the Argy is the real MVP of any farming setup one Argy cycles through all three dropping them at resource nodes and ferrying the goods back this workflow basically defines the mid-game for me and probably most ARK players.
Breeding for Maximum Yield
Breeding Ankies is genuinely worth doing if you're at the industrial stage of the game the stat you're chasing is melee damage a 500% melee Anky with imprint brings back 2-3x more metal per swing than a wild-tame with 250% melee and over the course of thousands of metal runs a bred Anky saves you dozens of hours that's not even an exaggeration imo the time savings are very real and you'll notice the difference immediately when you switch.
Egg incubation is about 2 hours 30 minutes at 16-20C baby phase is roughly 4 hours 45 minutes total maturation around 2 days not as fast as a Ptera but not terrible either and tbh you can just set up the incubation and go do other stuff while waiting it's not a Giga where you're chained to the base for a week straight.
Mutation priorities melee first and almost exclusively weight mutations are nice but you can offset low weight by making more trips or using the Argy's weight pool one melee mutation on an Anky is worth more than three weight mutations in terms of time saved if you do get a weight mutation on your melee line keep it as a secondary but don't let it dilute the melee stack because once your mutation counter gets polluted it's kind of a pain to fix and stuff like that.
Common Mistakes
People love to set their Anky on wander and aggressive in a metal-rich area thinking it'll auto-farm for them it won't it'll wander in circles get stuck on a rock or aggro a Giga and die and honestly I've seen so many people lose good Ankies this way it's almost a rite of passage at this point just ride it yourself the Anky is not an automation tool.
Another mistake is not clearing the metal nodes around your Anky before dismounting to load the Argy sabertooths and scorpions love hiding behind those big rock formations and I've lost two good Ankies because I hopped off to transfer metal and a saber pounced from behind a node take 10 seconds to sweep the area and you'll save yourself so much pain trust me on this one. Also don't put points into health on a farming Anky it's tempting to make it tanky but an Anky with 5000 HP still dies to a mid-level rex its real protection is you scouting the area and keeping threats away every point in weight or melee returns value points in health don't and tbh I made this mistake on my first Anky and regretted every single health point I put into it.
Taming Strategy
So you found a high level Anky and you want it cool first thing build a trap you don't need anything crazy a 2x2 stone foundation with doorframes as walls and a wooden ramp on one side is pretty much the gold standard the Anky is so slow it basically walks itself into the trap just aggro it run up the ramp and jump out through the doorframes it's stuck done honestly this trap works for like 80% of the creatures in ARK it's kind of ridiculous how universal it is I've used this exact design for Ankies Doeds and even some medium carnivores.
For actually knocking it out a crossbow is fine for low levels but if you're going after a 130 or higher I've found that a longneck with tranq darts is worth the mats the Anky has this weird thing where its head has natural armor that reduces torpor I know it makes no sense but body shots actually apply more torpor than head shots on these guys so aim for the body and don't waste darts on the skull and honestly bring way more narcotics than you think you need their torpor drops kinda fast and there's nothing more tilting than a near-perfect 150 tame waking up because you ran out of narcos like 150 narcotics minimum for a max level on official settings check the torpor every 5 minutes and force feed narcotics whenever it dips below half oh and clear the area around your trap before you start sabertooths and raptors spawn in the same zones and they will absolutely wreck your unconscious Anky if you're not paying attention nothing hurts more than losing a max level tame to a random dire wolf that you didn't see coming trust me I know this pain intimately.
Best Uses in PvE and PvP
In PvE the Anky is basically your full time metal slave you'll use it every single day probably multiple times a day the classic setup is Anky plus Argy carry the Anky to a metal mountain harvest everything load the Argy with metal fly home it's boring but it's the most efficient way to get metal in the entire game and everybody does it the Anky is also great for flint farming if you're making lots of sparkpowder for gunpowder and it's decent for crystal and obsidian runs too basically if you're building anything in ARK you need an Anky no exceptions I've tried playing without one on a fresh server and it was genuinely painful like hitting rocks with a pick for 20 minutes just to make a handful of ingots.
In PvP the role is similar but you gotta be way more careful never leave your Anky outside ever it's a free kill keep it inside your base walls and only take it out when you're actively farming with an escort or at least a good escape plan some tribes keep multiple Ankys in different locations so they don't lose all their farming power if one base gets raided and honestly in PvP you might want to breed a disposable line of Ankys just decent enough to farm with but not something you'll cry about losing the purple OSD defense on Extinction is another niche PvP use Ankys can hold their own against corrupted creatures if leveled well and you need the metal from the drops anyway so it's kind of a two-birds-one-stone situation or whatever.
Anky vs the Competition
Okay so the existing section already covered Anky vs Doed vs Mammoth but there's more to the story once you hit mid to late game the Dunkleosteus is technically a better metal farmer if you're underwater since it has even higher weight reduction and harvests more per node but underwater metal nodes are way less common than mountain nodes so the Dunkleo is more of a niche pick not really a replacement and tbh I've tamed maybe two Dunkleos total in thousands of hours of gameplay so that tells you something about its practical usefulness.
The Magmasaur is the Anky's real competition it harvests metal at about the same rate but it also auto-smelts metal into ingots as it harvests that's a huge time saver the catch is that Magmasaurs are a pain to get you need to steal eggs from the volcano on Genesis or Lost Island and raising them requires special food for most players the Anky is just way more practical and then there's the Tek Stryder with the mining rig attachment which completely outclasses both but by the time you can afford a Tek Stryder you're probably done with the game anyway my take is Anky for early to mid game Magmasaur for late game if you're willing to put in the effort Tek Stryder for endgame flexing but honestly I've been playing for years and I still use my Anky more than either of the other two convenience beats efficiency sometimes you know the Anky is just always there always reliable never needs element or weird volcanic eggs or whatever.
Breeding Tips
Alright so the other breeding section covered the basics but let me give you some practical tips from someone who's bred way too many of these things incubation temperature is 28 to 32 Celsius that's warm but not crazy a few standing torches or a couple air conditioners will hit it easily if you're using an incubator just set it and forget it hatching takes about 2.5 hours and the baby phase is around 5 hours on official rates so it's not a weekend project like a Giga but you do need to be around to imprint and honestly I've done Anky breeding sessions while watching Netflix and it's totally manageable you just check in every 30 minutes or so.
Here's the thing about mutations that most guides don't tell you don't mix your mutation lines keep a clean female line with zero mutations and only breed your mutated males with the clean females this way your mutation counter doesn't get polluted and you can stack melee mutations basically forever target melee first and exclusively for your main line a weight mutation is nice to have but don't let it contaminate your melee stack start a separate weight line if you really want it and imprint your farming Anky seriously a 100% imprint is a flat 20% damage and damage resistance boost when the imprinter rides it which means 20% more metal per swing that's way bigger than it sounds over thousands of metal runs plus the imprint rider bonus gives you extra weight capacity too so it's literally a win-win-win situation imo there's no reason not to imprint your main farming Anky.
Pro Tips
Tip one always carry a cryopod with your Anky in it if a Giga or a pack of Allos shows up while you're farming you can pod your Anky in like 5 seconds and just dip out way better than trying to outrun anything on a creature that has the sprint speed of a particularly lazy caterpillar and even if you die your Anky is safe in the pod in your inventory that peace of mind is honestly priceless ngl I've lost count of how many times a cryopod saved my best Anky.
Tip two the Anky's tail attack has a huge arc that hits behind and to both sides position yourself in the crack between two or three metal nodes and you can hit all of them in one swing on some mountain spots like the blue obelisk on the Island or the volcano rim you can consistently hit 3 or 4 nodes per swing and it literally triples your farming output this is one of those things that's obvious once you notice it but a lot of players never do I was one of them for like my first 200 hours ngl.
Tip three don't sleep on the Anky's knockback if a raptor or a dilo pack jumps you the tail slam sends them flying and gives you a second to think it's not gonna save you from anything big but it handles annoying small stuff perfectly and tip four if you're farming on a map with corrupted or Tek creatures the Anky harvests metal from their corpses not as much as from nodes but it adds up over a long farming session and tip five level an Anky specifically for different jobs have a pure melee Anky for metal runs a weight Anky for carrying stuff around the base and maybe a balanced one for general use cryopods make it easy to carry a whole fleet of specialized Ankys and honestly it's one of the best quality of life upgrades you can make in ARK I literally have like 5 different Ankys in my cryofridge each one has a specific job and stuff like that.