🦈 Megalodon

ARK 2 Megalodon, Ocean Predator Pack Guide

The iconic ocean predator of ARK 2 and honestly I slept on these things for way too long thinking they were just basic sharks but ngl when you get a pack of them going they're actually terrifying, individually weaker than deep-sea apexes sure but a pack of Megalodons with the pack boost mechanic becomes a deadly force and your first real ocean combat mount, I remember my first time taking a pack into the deep ocean and it completely changed how I played the game because suddenly you're not scared of every shadow in the water and you can actually explore and stuff like that.

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Species
Carcharodon Ultramarinus
πŸ–
Diet
Carnivore
πŸ’‰
Tame Method
Underwater Knockout
πŸ‡
Saddle Level
47

Base Stats (Wild Lv150)

StatBase ValuePer Level (Wild)Per Level (Tamed)
Health600+120+5.4%
Stamina320+32+10%
OxygenN/A (Aquatic)N/AN/A
Weight250+5+4%
Melee Damage100% (40 base)+5%+1.7%

Taming Guide

FoodAmount (Lv150, 1x)TimeEffectiveness
Superior Kibble10~20min+99%
Raw Mutton20~30min+88%
Raw Prime Meat25~38min+80%

Pack Boost Mechanic

The pack boost is what makes Megalodons go from kind of meh to actually terrifying and here's how it works, you need 2 or more Megalodons in close proximity within about 20 foundations of each other and the highest level Megalodon automatically becomes the pack alpha with this cool glowing aura that honestly looks pretty awesome, the damage bonus is +1 base damage per pack member up to a max of +8 with 8 Megalodons and the alpha gets an additional +50% damage on top of that which is kind of insane, also pack members take 15% less damage across the board so the whole group gets tankier and I've seen a full pack of 8 just shred through things that would normally stomp a solo mega, the real strategy here is to breed 6 to 8 Megalodons and hunt as a pack because a full pack with 100% imprint bonus can take on Alpha Mosas and Tusoteuthis which is honestly wild considering these are supposed to be mid tier ocean creatures, anyway the pack boost is the entire reason you want multiple megalodons and not just one big one so don't sleep on it.

Taming Strategy

So Megalodons spawn literally everywhere in the ocean which is both convenient and annoying because they're most common near shorelines and reefs but you absolutely want to avoid deep ocean until you have a mount and I made this mistake obviously and got eaten like 3 times before I learned, for early game taming you just craft a crossbow and some tranq arrows then find a lone Megalodon in shallow water and shoot from a raft or a rock, never ever swim because they'll aggro on you and you can't outswim them I promise you I've tried it doesn't work, for torpor you need about 25 tranq arrows to the head for a Lv150 and the good news is Megalodon torpor drains really slowly so 100 to 150 narcotics is plenty to keep it down while it tames which is honestly a relief compared to some other creatures that drain torpor like crazy, the biggest danger is other Megalodons nearby because they swarm when one of them gets attacked and you do not want to get swarmed by 4 megalodons while trying to tame one so clear the area first or lure your target away from the pack and this saved me so many times, I lost my first tame attempt because I didn't clear the area and got swarmed and died and the megalodon I was taming woke up and swam away so learn from my pain.

Combat & Uses

The Megalodon is typically your first ocean predator because the saddle unlocks at level 47 which is way earlier than the Mosa or Tuso saddles and it honestly opens up the entire ocean for exploration, use them to safely farm oil and silica pearls from underwater resource nodes and they handle Piranhas and Anglers and even jellyfish if you're careful about not getting stung, the bleed attack is actually really strong because the Megalodon bite applies a bleed DoT that does 2% of the target's max HP over 5 seconds and this stacks with the pack damage bonus so a pack of 4 or more is doing crazy bleed damage to anything they fight and you can melt alpha creatures way faster than you'd expect. But they do get outclassed eventually by Tuso and Mosa and Plesiosaur in the deep ocean and the low weight capacity compared to larger aquatics is kind of annoying for farming runs, honestly they're best used in packs not solo and if you're running a single megalodon you're doing it wrong imo because the pack boost is literally the whole point, anyway for mid game ocean content the Megalodon pack is one of the most fun and effective setups in the game and I stand by that.

Data sources: Studio Wildcard press materials and ARK community taming calculators and theorycrafting.