Base Stats (Wild Lv150)
| Stat | Base Value | Per Level (Wild) | Per Level (Tamed) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health | 950 | +190 | +5.4% |
| Stamina | 225 | +23 | +10% |
| Weight | 280 | +6 | +4% |
| Melee Damage | 100% | +5% | +1.7% |
Taming Guide
| Food | Amount (Lv150, 1x) | Time | Effectiveness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extraordinary Kibble | 11 | ~51min | 97.9% |
| Raw Mutton | 32 | ~1h 26min | 84.5% |
| Raw Prime Meat | 40 | ~1h 48min | 77.8% |
Special Abilities
Ok so the Griffin has two abilities that completely change how you play ARK and once you've used them you'll never look at any other flyer the same way.
First is the dive bomb. You activate it by looking down while sprint flying — the Griffin tucks its wings and plummets toward the ground at like three times normal flight speed. At the bottom of the dive you pull up to do a sweep attack that deals massive damage based on your momentum. The faster you're going the harder it hits. I've one shot Lv150 wild Rexes with a properly built Griffin dive bomb. Not even kidding. It's the most satisfying attack animation in the entire game.
After the dive sweep you maintain the momentum and can immediately climb back up at dive speed. That means you can chain dives together and basically never slow down. A skilled Griffin pilot can kill anything on the map that doesn't fly using nothing but repeated dive bomb passes — the creature being attacked can't do anything about it because you're moving too fast to get hit back. It's that simple.
Taming Strategy
The Griffin respect mechanic is the biggest gatekeeping factor in taming one and tbh it confused me for weeks when I first started playing ARK. Here's exactly how it works. You need to be at least level 85 to earn the respect of any Griffin, and for high level Griffins you need level 90 to 95 depending on the wild creature level. If you don't meet the level requirement the Griffin simply won't be tamable and it'll ignore your tranqs entirely. There's also a weird mechanic where if your character surname matches part of the Griffin's generated name you can tame it at level 40 plus, but that's so niche and random it's basically not worth relying on. Yeah I know.
Once you meet the level check you need to build a trap. Trying to tranq a Griffin in open air is a fast way to lose all your darts and probably your life. They fly in a wide circle when aggroed and their turning radius is awful — which is actually the key to trapping them. Build a standard 2 by 2 stone trap with doorframes and a dino gate. Aggro the Griffin from a Ptera, fly through the trap, the Griffin follows in its wide turn and gets stuck inside. Then land at the back, close the gate behind you, and it's trapped.
Knocking out a Griffin takes patience. They have a really high torpor drain rate — about 7.4 torpor per second, one of the fastest in the game. Once you start tranqing you need to keep the darts coming every 4 seconds max, or the torpor starts dropping faster than you can apply it and the tame turns into an infinite loop of wasted darts and frustration. I've died to this more times than I want to admit.
Use a longneck rifle with tranq darts, not a crossbow. The crossbow has the damage to straight up kill high level Griffins before they go down. For a Lv150 you need about 68 shocking tranq darts with a 100 percent longneck if you're hitting body shots. The head has a torpor multiplier so aim for the face and you'll use fewer darts. You'll need about 13 narcotics to keep it under during the tame. Doesn't sound like much, but the high torpor drain means you can't wait more than like 30 seconds between checking on it.
Best Uses
The Griffin is primarily a combat flyer and tbh it's the best in the game at the dive bomb playstyle. Nothing else comes close. The Wyvern has better base damage but its turn radius is a cargo ship and its breath attacks have cooldowns. The Griffin can dive bomb every 5 seconds and reposition instantly. The mobility advantage means you can engage and disengage on your terms every single time. Against wild creatures that can't fly, the Griffin is basically a free win — they can't hit you if you never stop moving. The dive bomb sweep connects during the half second window when you're closest to the ground, and then you're already 50 meters back up in the air before the creature can react.
For PVP the Griffin is the king of hit and run attacks. A max level Griffin with imprinting and a good melee stat can one-pass a player in flak armor with a dive sweep, then be out of turret range before the enemy can even render. There's basically no counterplay to this except having your own Griffin or a really good sniper. It's kind of unfair honestly.
The Griffin is also an incredible scout mount because of its raw speed. In a straight line it's faster than a Ptera, faster than a Tapejara — only a Wyvern with the speed boost from Crystal Isles can keep up. The Griffin's ability to climb after a dive means you can cover the entire map in minutes, spot high level tames or enemy bases from the air, and disengage before anything can react. The Griffin can also carry two passengers, which is rare for a flyer — only the Tapejara has more seats. Having a passenger with a rifle on the back of a Griffin doing dive bomb runs is genuinely terrifying in PVP. The passenger can fire weapons during the entire dive, and the combination of a dive sweep plus passenger gunfire deletes almost anything in one pass.
Oh and the Griffin doesn't need a saddle to ride, which saves engram points and resources. You can craft a lasso from its inventory that lets you drag small creatures and players around — niche but hilarious.
Here's a niche trick with the Griffin that not enough people know about. You can use weapons while riding a Griffin, same as the Equus. That means you can tranq other creatures from Griffin back while flying. This makes the Griffin the best taming companion in the game for anything that needs to be knocked out in the open. You can tranq a wild Quetzal from Griffin back while flying alongside it at matched speed — the Quetz can't outrun a Griffin in a straight line. I've tamed half my endgame creatures this way and it saves you from needing a Tapejara for solo Quetz taming, which is one of the most annoying things to set up.
Griffin vs Wyvern
The Griffin versus Wyvern debate has been going on forever and they serve different niches so it depends on what you're doing. The Wyvern has way more raw damage with breath attacks that hit multiple targets and way more base HP, so it's better for prolonged fights and siege situations. But the Griffin's mobility is so much better that in a 1v1, a good Griffin pilot beats an average Wyvern rider every time — the Wyvern can't hit what it can't catch, and the dive bomb out-damages any single Wyvern bite by a mile. The Wyvern is better for base defense and Broodmother boss fights where you need sustained DPS. The Griffin is better for open world PVP, scouting, solo taming, and transportation between maps because it crosses distances faster without burning stamina as quickly. If I could only have one flyer it would be a Griffin every time — the versatility is just unmatched.
Breeding Tips
Breeding Griffins is only available in ASA. If you're on ASE you're out of luck — and this is one of those features that makes ASA worth the upgrade. Bred Griffins with mutations are absolutely monstrous. A Griffin with imprint bonus plus a few melee mutations can one shot wild Gigas with a dive bomb. Sounds like an exaggeration but I've actually seen it happen, and the look on my tribemate's face was priceless.
The Griffin lays eggs like any other creature. Incubation is standard for a flyer — about 5 hours at around 26 to 30 Celsius ambient. The baby phase is around 9 hours with full maturation in about 3 days 20 hours, same cycle as most medium carnivores. Key stats to mutate are melee and stamina. The Griffin's base HP is fine for a mobility-based fighter. You want to maximize dive bomb damage (which scales with melee) and the ability to stay airborne longer (which scales with stamina). A 40 point melee mutation on a Griffin is genuinely game changing.
Pro Tips
First tip: practice the dive bomb in single player before you try it in PVP or even against wild creatures. The timing on the sweep at the bottom of the dive is tight. If you misjudge the distance you'll faceplant into the ground at full speed, which deals massive fall damage to the Griffin and usually kills it instantly. I've lost two max level Griffins this way — each time I just sat there staring at the death message for a solid minute. You need to pull up about 20 meters before the ground to get the sweep hitbox to connect. Pull up too early and you whiff the attack, the creature hits you with a revenge bite during your climb out. Terrible feeling.
Second tip: level stamina first on a fresh Griffin, not melee. 225 base stamina is low for a flyer and the dive bomb drains stamina fast. Run out of stamina mid-dive and you drop out of the sky like a rock — whatever you were diving on gets a free meal. The sweet spot is about 1500 stamina, which gives you enough for three consecutive dive bomb cycles before you need to land and regen.
Third tip: the Griffin can pick up small creatures during a flyby — shoulder pets, human players, you name it. Combine this with the dive bomb for a truly disgusting PVP combo. Dive bomb an enemy, pick them up mid-sweep, carry them into the sky, and drop them from altitude. The fall damage kills them before they can open a parachute. I've done this to griefers so many times and the rage in global chat afterwards is worth every minute I spent taming the Griffin.
Fourth tip and this is crucial for taming: never aggro a Griffin with a slow flier. They have a huge aggro range and will chase you across an entire biome. If you're on an Argy you're dead — the Argy can't outrun a Griffin in a straight line and the Griffin will peck you to death while you helplessly try to fly away. The correct approach is to use a Ptera or another Griffin to lure it into a trap. If you don't have either of those, just don't engage until you do. Simple as that.