Base Stats (Wild Lv150)
| Stat | Base Value | Per Level (Wild) | Per Level (Tamed) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health | 1,100 | +220 | +5.4% |
| Stamina | 420 | +42 | +10% |
| Oxygen | 150 | +15 | +10% |
| Food | 3,000 | +300 | +10% |
| Weight | 500 | +10 | +4% |
| Melee Damage | 100% (62 base) | +5% | +1.7% |
Taming Guide
| Food | Amount (Lv150, 1x) | Time | Effectiveness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exceptional Kibble | 18 | ~1h 10min | +99% |
| Raw Mutton | 36 | ~1h 30min | +88% |
| Raw Prime Meat | 45 | ~1h 50min | +80% |
| Raw Meat | 135 | ~4h 30min | +45% |
Knockout Guide
Okay so knocking out a Rex is honestly not as scary as it looks once you know the numbers for tranq darts with a 100 percent weapon you need about 85 body shots or around 40 head shots for a Lv150 and for tranq arrows with a crossbow you're looking at about 45 body shots or 20 head shots for a Lv150 because head shots deal 3 times the torpor and honestly if you're not aiming for the head you're basically wasting your time and resources and you need about 400 to 600 narcotics to keep the Rex unconscious during the tame which sounds like a lot but trust me you'll use every single one of them and probably wish you had more imo. So use a trap or a high rock to safely shoot down at the Rex and don't even think about doing this on foot because the Rex will close the distance faster than you think and then you're just dead honestly I've been there and it's not fun
Combat and Uses
The T-Rex is the standard boss army dino and honestly nothing else quite fills this role the same way for boss fights you breed a squad of 19 Rexes with 1 Yutyrannus for the courage roar buff and this has been the meta forever because it just works and you don't need to overthink it. The roar ability is actually underrated and a lot of people forget to use it but the T-Rex roar debuffs enemy damage output which stacks with the Yuty buff for an even bigger effective health advantage and you should pop it right before every boss encounter I've seen it save rexes that would have otherwise died to heavy hits. For base defense the Rex is an excellent guard dino just set it to aggressive plus wander in an enclosed perimeter and it'll shred anything that gets too close and honestly watching a Rex destroy a random raptor that wandered into your base is one of the simple pleasures of ARK. And for breeding the egg incubation is about 5 hours at 32 to 34 Celsius the baby phase is roughly 9 hours 15 minutes and full maturation takes about 3 days and 20 hours yeah it's a grind but the payoff is a boss killing machine that can handle anything the game throws at it you get the idea
Tek Rex Variant
So the Tek Rex is a rare spawn with like a 5 percent chance and it has a higher base level cap at 180 instead of the normal 150 which is honestly a big deal because those 30 extra levels mean 30 extra stat allocations and a 180 Tek Rex with good post-tame rolls can outclass a 150 regular Rex even before mutations which is kind of insane. The same taming method applies but it drops Tek components on death which is essential for Tek engram progression and honestly if you see a high level Tek Rex in the wild you should probably drop everything and tame it because it's that good. Also it looks sick which is obviously the most important factor
Building a Rex Trap
Taming a Rex without a trap is asking for trouble they're fast enough to catch you if you're on foot and their knockback bite can pin you against terrain and honestly it's just a bad time all around the standard trap is 4 stone gateways in a square shape and stone works fine for Rexes they can't damage it at all place three gates in a U shape with ramps leading into the open side aggro the Rex run up the ramps and drop inside the trap it follows falls in and can't get out because the ramps are one-way and it's actually kind of funny watching a giant apex predator that has no idea how ramps work.
If you don't have ramps yet you can do the door trick build the four gateways in a line put gates on both ends leave the far end open kite the Rex through and close the door behind it now circle around to the far side and shoot through the gaps between gateways the Rex can't fit through the gaps but your tranq darts can and it's honestly a solid backup method that's saved me when I was too lazy to farm ramp materials. For high level Rexes at 130 plus use shocking tranq darts if you can make them they apply torpor twice as fast and on a 4 hour raw meat tame every minute counts for your sanity a 150 Rex with an ascendant crossbow takes about 40 to 50 tranq arrows to the head with darts and a good longneck you're looking at 15 to 20 head shots way less stressful and you should bring 500 to 600 narcotics and err on the side of too many because running out when the Rex has 90 percent torpor and 10 percent tame progress is peak frustration and I've literally rage quit from this exact situation before.
Breeding the Ultimate Rex Army
Rex breeding is where the real game starts and honestly it's the most rewarding grind in ARK for boss fights like Broodmother Megapithecus and Dragon you need 19 high-stat Rexes and one Yutyrannus for the courage roar buff and wild-tame stats just don't cut it in boss arenas you have to breed mutations and there's no way around it. Start by taming 5 to 10 high-level Rexes and check their post-tame stats the only two stats you care about are health and melee damage everything else is irrelevant for boss fights find the best health male and best melee female breed them until you get a male and female with both high stats combined then breed those together for your base breeding pair.
Now the mutation grind stack 20 health mutations and 20 melee mutations into separate lines then merge them each health mutation adds 2 percent to base HP each melee mutation adds 2 percent to base damage on a Rex with 11 thousand base HP and 449 percent base melee after full mutation stacks you're looking at 15 thousand plus HP and near 900 plus percent melee level those babies to max and you've got boss-killing machines with 50 thousand plus HP and 1,500 plus percent damage and honestly watching a fully mutated rex line tear through an Alpha boss in half the expected time is maybe the most satisfying thing in the entire game. Incubation takes about 5 hours at 32 to 34 Celsius the baby phase is roughly 9 hours 15 minutes and juvenile to adult is just under 4 days full imprint gives a 20 percent stat boost which is absolutely crucial for boss fights do not skip imprinting the walk and cuddle requests can be annoying but the payoff is too big to ignore and I've ruined entire breeding lines by being lazy about imprinting and then having the rexes underperform in the boss arena and you don't want that believe me.
Rex vs Giga for Combat, Honest Breakdown
I see endless debates about Rex vs Giga and the answer depends entirely on what you're doing for boss arenas Rex wins every time Gigas can't even enter most arenas and even when they can the rage mechanic makes them unreliable in controlled fights a well-bred Rex army with a Yuty buff is the proven formula for clearing every boss on every difficulty it's not even a debate honestly. For open-world combat the Giga has higher raw damage but the Rex is way more forgiving no rage mechanic means you don't risk losing your tame to a bad situation Rexes can fit in some caves anyway Gigas generally can't and Rexes are also much easier to replace if one dies a full Giga tame is a multi-hour project and a Rex tame is an hour with kibble so it's not even a contest for general use imo. The roar ability on the Rex is underrated too it debuffs enemy damage output which stacks with the Yuty's courage buff for an even bigger effective health advantage and in a boss fight that lasts 20 minutes that damage reduction adds up to thousands of HP saved across your army and honestly it's one of those things where the numbers don't look that impressive on paper but in practice it makes a huge difference.
Pro Tips
First always carry a spare saddle Rex saddles break faster than you'd think in extended fights and being caught with a bareback Rex mid-boss is basically a death sentence and I've had this happen exactly once before I started bringing backups every time. Second don't sleep on the Tek Rex variant it spawns at level 180 cap instead of 150 which means 30 extra levels of stat allocation and a 180 Tek Rex with good post-tame rolls can outclass a 150 regular Rex even before mutations. Third if you're on a map with Titanosaurs don't fight them with Rexes the Titan's stomp has massive AoE knockback and a single hit can scatter your Rex line into terrain where they get stuck and it's not worth the risk I've lost an entire boss army this way and it still hurts to think about. Fourth the Rex is one of the few creatures where leveling speed is actually worth it with 20 points in speed a Rex outruns most wild threats and can chase down fleeing prey and honestly nothing is funnier than a sprinting Rex it looks so wrong but it works so well.
Taming Strategy
Alright so you want to tame a rex honestly it's not as hard as it looks you just need a plan before you start shooting the trap designs we covered above work great but there's some nuance to actually executing the tame that people don't talk about enough for weapons if you can craft tranq darts and a longneck rifle use those period the torpor-to-damage ratio is way better than arrows and you're way less likely to accidentally kill a high-level rex with a bad health roll crossbows with tranq arrows work fine too especially early game just check the rex's health with a magnifying glass after every few shots so you don't mess up and kill it by accident. Torpor management is the part most new players mess up IMO rexes drop torpor fast like really fast so you need way more narcotics than you think I usually bring at least 600 for a 150 and I starve-tame every time basically you don't put the food in until the rex is hungry enough to eat it all at once that way if something goes wrong and it wakes up you haven't wasted your kibble and I've learned this trick the hard way after losing way too much kibble to tames that woke up halfway through. And bring a spare weapon or at least extra ammo nothing worse than running out when the rex is at 90 percent torpor and watching it wake up while you frantically craft more darts also shocking tranq darts are absolutely worth the extra resources for a 150 tame they apply torpor so much faster that you'll spend way less time stressing about whether you brought enough narcotics and all that
Best Uses
So what do you actually DO with a tamed rex basically everything honestly in PvE the rex is your boss-fighting workhorse and nobody really debates that the meta for most bosses is 19 rexes and 1 yutyrannus all bred and imprinted and leveled hard into health and melee with a good saddle blueprint you can face-tank just about any boss on Gamma and Beta difficulty and with a few mutation stacks you can push into Alpha territory without too much stress. Outside of bosses rexes are my go-to for meat runs park one in the redwoods or near the snow biome and you'll fill a fridge in like ten minutes flat and they also make great guard dogs for your base just set them to neutral with aggressive follow distance and they'll shred anything that wanders too close. In PvP it's a different story kinda a freshly tamed rex without breeding is basically a bullet sponge against turrets you need mutations and a good saddle to make them viable against player-controlled tames and auto defenses but a well-bred rex line with 100 plus armor saddles that's a raid monster their knockback also makes them surprisingly decent for defending choke points and keeping soakers off your turret lines I've found they really shine in mid-game PvP before people have gigas and full tek gear online. And for resource gathering specifically rexes are actually underrated harvesters their bite hits in a wide arc so you can clear out large groups of smaller dinos for hide and raw meat way faster than most other carnivores it's not the main reason you tame one but it's a nice bonus ngl
Rex vs Similar Creatures
People always ask whether a rex is better than a spino a therizino or the other big carnivores and the giga comparison we already covered but here's the rest Rex vs Spino the Rex has higher base health and melee no question but spino gets that hydration buff that doubles its damage and speed when standing in water if you're fighting near rivers or swamps spino pulls ahead on dry land or in most boss arenas though rex wins every time IMO. Rex vs Therizino the theri is actually the dark horse here and a lot of experienced players prefer it for certain fights it does less damage per hit but attacks faster has natural armor penetration on its attacks and can heal itself with veggie cakes during boss fights which is kinda huge for the Dragon boss specifically theri is straight up better because carnivores take extra fire damage but for general use and bulk taming rex is way easier to tame and breed so it's still the king for most players. Rex vs Allosaurus allos have that pack bonus and the bleed attack which is honestly pretty nasty but they're way squishier and the pack leader mechanic means if your alpha allo dies the whole squad falls apart rex is just more reliable and you don't need to manage a pack. Rex vs Carcharodontosaurus the carcha is basically a rex with extra steps it gets a kill-streak buff that can push its damage really high but you have to maintain it constantly which is a pain in my experience for consistent performance without babysitting buffs rex is the better pick basically the rex sits in this perfect sweet spot between power and practicality that none of the alternatives quite nail and I've tried them all honestly
Breeding Tips
The breeding guide above covers the army-building path but there's some practical stuff I want to add that'll save you headaches first off incubation setup doesn't need to be fancy rex eggs need about 5 hours at 32 to 34 degrees Celsius a room with like 8 to 10 standing torches does the job fine early game or a handful of air conditioners if you have the resources you don't need some elaborate incubator room with dimetrodons and otters unless you're flexing. When you're checking stats on newborn babies always use a magnifying glass or the HUD overlay before you claim them if the baby didn't get the mutations or stat combination you wanted don't claim it just let it starve or kill it I know it sounds harsh but you're gonna be hatching hundreds of eggs and you can't raise every single one. For the mutation grind specifically only track health and melee mutations stamina oxygen food and weight mutations are completely wasted on a boss rex and they count toward the 20 mutation cap per side if you accidentally get a food mutation on your melee line that baby is trash for breeding purposes keep your clean females completely separate from your mutation stacking area so there's zero chance of accidental breeding and honestly the single best quality of life upgrade for breeding is the egg incubator from Genesis it tells you the exact stats and mutation count of every egg before you hatch it saves you from wasting hours on eggs that were never going to be good anyway and that's saved me literal days of playtime
More Pro Tips
Got a few more things worth knowing that didn't fit anywhere else if a rex gets stuck on a rock or tree while you're tranqing it don't get greedy and move in close that torpor will keep rising for a few seconds but the moment it breaks free you're in serious trouble wait for it to get properly wedged before you unload. Bring a daeodon for healing during boss fights if you can afford the extra slot in your army one daeodon with a ton of raw meat parked behind your rexes can keep your whole squad alive way longer just set it to passive and make sure it's got enough food to sustain the healing aura. High-level rex saddle blueprints are worth their weight in element check every deep sea crate and cave drop you come across a saddle with 80 plus armor is almost as important as good stats for boss fights I've beaten bosses with average rexes and great saddles that I couldn't beat with great rexes and primitive saddles it's that big of a difference and honestly most people don't realize how important saddles are until they lose a boss fight by a tiny margin. When you're out hunting for a high-level rex to tame kill every low-level one you see it forces new spawns and gives you more chances at a 130 or 150 popping up it's grindy but it works and the rex roar ability is easy to forget about in a fight but it applies a damage debuff to everything in range in my experience hitting the roar right before a boss fight kicks off can be the difference between losing a couple rexes and losing half your army it only takes a second to pop it and there's no cooldown long enough to justify skipping it etc you get the idea.