Taming Methods Comparison
Four main ways to tame stuff in ARK 2 and honestly which one you use depends on what you're trying to tame and how much patience you have and whether you've got the right gear for the job, I'll break down when to use each one and what creatures they work on and the common mistakes that will get you killed if you're not paying attention. Trust me on this.
So here's the deal with knockout taming: shoot tranq arrows or darts at the thing until it falls asleep then stuff food in its inventory and wait for it to wake up tamed which sounds simple enough. But you gotta manage torpor so it doesn't wake up mid tame and protect it from other predators that love to snack on unconscious dinos. And pretty much the standard method for most carnivores and big dinos and it's the one you'll use like 80% of the time in the game, not too hard once you get the hang of it but the first few times are definitely nerve wracking especially with high value tames you've been searching for for hours and don't want to mess up.
Sneak up behind the creature without it noticing you which is way harder than it sounds tbh especially with skittish tames that bolt the second they see you or aggressive ones that'll turn around and murder you before you even get close, then feed it from your hotbar without triggering combat using ghillie suits and fish baskets to stay hidden, the whole thing takes patience and a steady hand and one wrong move means you have to start the entire process over from scratch. So annoying. Definitely the most nerve-wracking method imo because there's no safety net like with KO taming where at least the creature is unconscious while you feed it and can't decide to just walk away mid tame.
Some creatures need specific items or environmental conditions or weird rituals to tame and there's no universal method here like each one has its own bizarre unique process and you basically have to look up the specific creature guide or you'll waste hours doing the wrong thing and have nothing to show for it, the difficulty on these ranges from kinda tricky to why did the devs make this so complicated and you get the idea. But honestly these are the most rewarding tames when you finally pull them off but also the most frustrating when they don't work and you've been at it for like an hour with nothing to show for it.
Steal an egg from a nest without getting immediately murdered by the parents which is honestly the hardest part of this whole method because wyverns and rock drakes don't mess around when you touch their eggs, then incubate the egg at the right temperature and raise the hatchling from a helpless baby through multiple growth stages with imprinting and feeding and all that parenting stuff, no knockout or passive taming needed which is nice but you do have to keep the baby alive which takes forever and the imprint bonus is so worth the effort that it's basically mandatory for getting max stat creatures. Not optional.
Taming Calculator — Narcotics per Creature
These are estimated tranq requirements for common creatures at max wild level 150 but honestly actual numbers can vary a bit depending on server settings and where you hit them and whether you're using darts or arrows and if you're landing headshots or body shots and stuff like that. Always bring extras. Treat these as rough guidelines not exact science and always bring extra because running out mid tame is one of the most painful feelings in the entire game when you're sitting there watching the torpor bar tick down.
| Creature | Tranq Type | Body Shots (Lv150) | Head Shots (Lv150) | Torpidity Drain |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T-Rex | Tranq Dart / Arrow | ~85 darts | ~40 darts | Medium |
| Giganotosaurus | Tranq Dart / Arrow | ~400 darts | ~150 darts | Very Fast |
| Spinosaurus | Tranq Dart / Arrow | ~120 darts | ~55 darts | Fast |
| Brontosaurus | Tranq Dart / Arrow | ~180 darts | ~75 darts | Slow |
| Pteranodon | Tranq Dart / Arrow | ~8 darts | ~3 darts | Very Slow |
| Therizinosaurus | Tranq Dart / Arrow | ~200 darts | ~80 darts | Fast |
Preferred Food by Tier
Kibble tiers from S down to D basically determine how fast your tame goes and how good the final stats turn out and higher tier means faster tame and better effectiveness, honestly using the wrong tier is just wasting your own time and resources because you'll get a worse creature that took longer to tame, here's the full breakdown of what goes where and what you need to make each one. Use the right tier. It matters more than you think.
So tier S gives you 5x taming speed with 99.9% effectiveness which is basically perfect and you use this for Griffins and Phoenixes and other special tames that need top-tier food to even consider looking at you, requires special eggs plus Lazarus Chowder so it's not exactly cheap to make or something you'll be mass producing but absolutely worth it for the creatures that demand it because there's literally no substitute that works at all and trying to use lower tier kibble just results in them ignoring you completely.
4x taming speed with 99.9% effectiveness and this is your workhorse tier for the big predators like T-Rex and Giganotosaurus and Spinosaurus and Therizinosaurus and basically anything scary that you want to put a saddle on, requires Rex eggs which are honestly pretty easy to get once you have a female Rex producing them regularly. This one's the MVP. This is the tier I use the most by far and if you're only going to focus on making one type of kibble make it this one because it covers so many of the best creatures in the game.
3x taming speed with 99.9% effectiveness for creatures like Argentavis and Mammoth and Sabertooth and Castoroides and a bunch of other solid mid-tier utility tames, requires Argentavis eggs and those are super easy to farm once you have a couple of Argys laying eggs in your base on a regular schedule, a solid midgame option that you'll use a lot when you're building up your creature collection and need reliable flyers and haulers and stuff like that for moving resources around the map efficiently.
2x taming speed with 99.9% effectiveness used on Ankylosaurus and Pteranodon and Stegosaurus and Raptor and other early to midgame creatures that you'll tame a bunch of, requires Turtle eggs and turtles are slow to lay eggs ngl so you might need a few of them in a pen to keep a steady supply going. Worth the effort though. Still way better than using raw meat or berries and the effectiveness boost is absolutely worth the extra effort of setting up the egg farm.
1.5x taming speed with 90%+ effectiveness for Dodos and Parasaurs and other early-game tames that you probably won't need kibble for anyway tbh since they tame fast enough with berries, requires Dodo eggs and Dodos lay eggs like crazy so you'll have more than you know what to do with within like an hour of taming a few females, honestly this tier is kinda whatever because by the time you need to mass tame anything better you'll have moved on to higher tier kibble already.
Taming Effectiveness — How to Get Perfect Tames
Five things you absolutely need to get right if you want max bonus levels on every single tame you do, I've messed up every single one of these at some point and learned the hard way so you don't have to repeat my stupid mistakes, getting perfect effectiveness is the difference between a tame that's decent and one that's an absolute monster that carries you through the whole game. So pay attention. These aren't optional if you want the best creatures possible.
Kibble always gives higher effectiveness and faster taming compared to raw meat or crops which incur a penalty and make your tame weaker in the end which is basically throwing away free levels, always match the kibble tier to the creature you're taming because using the wrong tier is just wasting bonus levels for no reason and I've done that so many times it physically hurts to think about all those tames that could have been so much better if I had just made the right kibble beforehand instead of being lazy and using raw meat.
Any hit the creature takes after it's knocked out reduces taming effectiveness and can even kill it before the tame completes because predators don't care that you're trying to tame something, build spike walls or a proper taming pen around the unconscious creature before you start feeding it because some random dilo or raptor or saber WILL show up and ruin everything that's just how ARK works you know and it happens at the worst possible moments every single time like clockwork.
Let the creature's food stat drop all the way to zero before you feed it any kibble then dump everything in at once and it eats way faster because it's starving and you end up with higher effectiveness because less food gets wasted during the tame. It's literally that simple. This trick alone has saved me hours of waiting around and boosted my post-tame stats more times than I can count and I honestly don't know why more people don't do this.
Use narcoberries for herbivores because their torpor drains slower and narcotics for carnivores since their drain is faster, don't waste your good narcotics on creatures with low torpor drain rates because that's just inefficient and narcotics take time to craft, also keep an eye on the torpor bar constantly because waking up mid-tame is literally the worst thing that can happen and you'll lose all your kibble and have to start over from the beginning. I've had this happen. With a level 150 Rex. Almost uninstalled on the spot no joke.
50% of your taming effectiveness converts directly into bonus levels so 99.9% effectiveness equals about 49 bonus levels which is absolutely massive and can turn a mediocre wild creature into an absolute beast, at official rates with perfect kibble you can get up to 74 bonus levels total and that's the difference between a tame you'll replace in a week and one that will carry you through the entire game from mid-game to end-game bosses and everything in between, so yeah kibble matters a lot more than most new players realize when they're first starting out.
Taming FAQ
Questions I get constantly about taming from new players and even some experienced ones who should know better tbh, answered from actual thousands of hours of experience not just wiki copypasta that anyone could find with a google search in five seconds.