A short overview of every new aberration dino with pictures.
Contents
Light Pets (Bulbdog, Featherlight, Glowtail, Shinehorn)
All credit goes to EnragedIsosceles!
All light pets are mostly the same, differing only in 4 categories: stats, charge capacity, charge radius, and recharge speed. For this reason they have been grouped together. They share the same base traits:
- They are passive, and have low HP and damage output. Thus they should not be forced into a fight with Nameless.
- You can pet them (or use the light emote while they are on your shoulder) to turn their lights on or off. The light drains charge when in use, and regenerates when not in use. The charge capacity and regeneration speed can be levelled.
- Having lights on increases the aggro range of certain enemies, especially seekers, but the light usually prevents Nameless attacks.
- The light light pets provide burns Nameless, and weakens them severely.
- Light pets are tamed passively – they all take 2-10 minutes to tame with plant species Z seeds, and 6-30 minutes with mushrooms. Each has a type of mushroom they prefer.
- Light pets can detect nearby enemies, as well as find the highest level of dinos nearby.
- Light pets can wear hats.
Bulbdog
The iconic light pet of Aberration. First seen in the Aberration trailer, this shoulder pet can be found in the upper levels of the caves – Around the fertile lake and mushroom forest.
Bulb dogs prefer aquatic mushrooms, and are a relatively easy tame. They won’t run from you during the tame, and are fairly slow when they shuffle about.
Of all light pets, bulb dogs have the highest charge capacity but the lowest recharge speed.
They can also be used to make fertilizer, as they poop very frequently.
Featherlight
The cute, glowing bird of the underworld, the Featherlight can be found in the Elemental chamber – the deepest part of the caverns.
The featherlight prefers Auric Mushrooms. Like the vulture, the featherlight is constantly flying (though it won’t necessarily flee you), and considering the places it frequents taming it will be difficult. That said, a taming trap might be useful.
The featherlight has a greater light range, though its other stats are lower than most.
Glowtail
The glowtail is the chill lizard pet of the caves, being found almost exclusively in artifact caves. It also spawns in the rock drake trench.
The glowtail prefers Ascerbic mushrooms, and is tamed by them about as quickly as it is by species Z seeds.
The glowtail has the quickest recharge speed of all light pets.
Shinehorn
Goat thing of the woods, the shinehorn can be found in the bioluminescent areas, especially near the overlook.
The shinehorn likes Aggeravic mushrooms and is a relatively easy tame, assuming it doesn’t wander into freezing spores or off the tree branches it lives on.
The shinehorn has a slightly higher regen rate than the bulb dog and is all around the average one. Good as a general light pet.
Glow Bugs
There are four untameable Aberration dinos, starting with the glow bug.
The glow bug can be found all over the map, and is useful all over the map.
Its main ability is to provide charge light. Simply press E on it with an empty hand, and the 500 light from the glow bug will recharge a shoulder pet or charge battery on your person. After that, the glow bug will try to fly away.
As it is a bug, the glow bug can also be a good source of chitin and meat for early players, since it can be found anywhere and won’t fight back. It is bola-able.
if you don’t harvest the glow bug for light, it will fly around, passively producing charge light. If you lack a light source it could also be good help against Nameless in a pinch.
Lamprey
The (relatively) harmless leech of Aberration, Lampreys can be found at the bottom of the bioluminescent swamp, in the swamp cave, and rarely in elemental chamber pools.
Lampreys latch on to you and do two things: Suck your blood (Your health drains very slowly and you cannot heal), and poison you. Poison reduces all of your stats by about 5%.
Both effects last about 600 seconds – poison can be removed with an antidote before that, lampreys sucking your blood can be removed through fire. Either stand in a campfire or have a friend hit it with a torch. Up to 3 lampreys can attach to you at a time.
Lampreys can also be stored in a fish basket to be released later, though they are otherwise untameable.
Nameless
The classic murder demons of Aberration, the Nameless will ambush you in the upper caves during ‘night’ or anywhere in the deeper caves – unless you’re surrounded by charge light.
Nameless usually form packs – An Alpha Nameless (above) is a normal one promoted as the highest level Nameless in the area. They glow orange and are slightly larger/stronger. Alphas can howl, which summons more Nameless, and in the deeper caverns summons a Reaper Queen after about 15 howls.
Nameless don’t deal much damage, but they tend to group up and can be hard to kill normally. Luckily, they are weak to charge light, and just being in its presence will cause them to burn. If a Nameless is killed while under the effects of charge light, the pack will flee.
Nameless will ambush you at night or in deeper caves if you do not have charge light, as previously mentioned. A glow stick or light pet can usually prevent this, but the Nameless are a threat at any level.
Seekers
The Nameless can ambush you if you don’t have charge light, so its usually best to keep a light on at all times. The Seeker, on the other hand, is attracted to charge light and grows stronger in its presence.
It lives in the deepest parts of the map and may attack you regardless of light, but without charge light nearby it will have a lower aggro range and will be weaker – it might even avoid conflict entirely or flee! Thus it is usually best to be aware of your surroundings when traversing the depths and choose appropriate light sources.
Seekers are untameable.
Basilisk
The basilisk, a hostile predator found in the deepest parts of the map, is a huge snake. Not even this picture, meant to show how enormous this thing is, does its size justice.
Moving on, the basilisk is a dangerous predator because of its ability to bury itself in the ground, the fact that it’s faster than a human, and its many high damage/special effect attacks. It has a regular bite attack that can drain stamina, a projectile attack that deals damage over a short period of time in addition to normal damage, and the ability to burrow.
Burrowing drains the basilisk’s stamina and your oxygen, so watch out. While burrowed and moving, you will make dust clouds. While burrowed and still, the basilisk’s signature fork tail sticks out of the ground like so.
The basilisk is tamed much like the titanboa – drop eggs on the ground for it to eat.
Hot Egg Tips
- Fertilized eggs are worth more tame %, and the eggs of more powerful dinos are worth more. The level of the egg’s parents doesn’t seem to effect value.
- The basilisk prefers eggs over you as far as food goes, and will target eggs first.
- As the basilisk will attempt to kill you, bug repellant or ghillie may be smart if you want to safely drop eggs.
- Make sure you drop the eggs from your own inventory. If dropping them from a dino’s inventory, it won’t count as you taming the basilisk.
- Basilisks have absurdly high feeding intervals, so it will be a while between eggs.
- Fertilized Rock Drake eggs appear to be the standard, though other eggs may work.
The basilisk’s saddle is a level 85 engram.
Side note: The ARK wiki gives times for things like mutton and meats, but it is yet unknown if basilisks will accept those for taming. Stick to eggs.
Karkinos
A Karkinos using its grab ability.
The Karkinos is the terrifying crab monster seen in the Aberration trailer. It can be found wherever water can be found, be that the swamps or the rivers. It’s even found in artifact caves!
Karkinos can breathe underwater, jump both high and far, grab you, and use powerful smash attacks. With high stats in most areas, Karkinos are the apex predators of the water. That said, they still lack some mobility and can be easily outrun – on land.
Note that the shell is armored, and blows to the shell will deal less damage, so go for the legs and claws.
Karkinos can use smash attacks – each mouse button controls a claw. Both buttons performs a double clawed smash attack. A one clawed attack can be helpful if one hand is full and you want to fight, but also to finish off a held enemy.
The grab is the signature move of the Karkinos – press both C and a mouse button to pull off a grab. The claw used should rotate like a drill and reach out. Karkinos can grab most medium size creatures. Once held, you can throw them by holding the C key to aim and releasing to fire. Similar aim and fire mechanics can be used to jump. While jumping, unfortunately, Karkinos cannot attack or grab.
Karkinos is a knockout tame, but rather than traditional knockout methods you must use cannons and/or catapults like on the rock golem. Aim at the shell rather than the limbs to avoid injuring it. One cannon shot to the shell usually works. After the knockout, it is a normal tame.
The saddle requires level 65 to craft.
Side note: It is recommended to try a grab when stamina is full. It may not work otherwise.
Ravager
The zipline climbing, bleed inducing direwolf of the underground, the Ravager is a wholly useful friend and a terrifying enemy. It can be found in the fertile areas, and rarely in the bioluminescent zones.
Ravagers are hostile, and usually spawn in packs. They have a pack alpha similar to Direwolves. Unlike wolves however, they don’t gain a bonus from being near others. Rather, their pack bonus allows them to inflict bite with their bleed attacks. If faced with ravagers, try to bola them and then flee.
While their bleed allows them to deal significant damage at any level, Ravagers are very useful dinos to own for multiple reasons:
- They can climb ziplines and vines, making them good travel mounts.
- They have weight reduction on some raw materials, so 1 pound of metal is 0.5 in a ravager’s inventory.
- If you have more than one ravager near each other, you inflict bleed on a normal attack.
To use a Ravager’s zipline skills, simply look at the zipline/vine. It will show a crossbar, and you can jump to jump onto the vine. Press C while climbing to flip upside down, and the S key to reverse direction.
Ravagers are normal tames, but need to be seperated from their pack in order to tame. Ravager saddles are level 47 engrams.
Reaper
Most of the enemy dinos in Aberration have weaknesses (Will eat eggs over you, weak to light, can be outrun, can be bola’ed, etc). Not the Reaper. The reaper is a terrifying death beast, and the closest thing Aberration has to a giga.
The Reaper has gendered variants: The Reaper Queen and Reaper King. The queen can be summoned by Nameless or found on the surface, and is the only one that can give the player a chest burster (more on that later). The king is much the same, but rarer and cannot ‘reproduce’. The king may flee if injured.
Reapers regenerate health quickly, so you’ll want to concentrate damage on the Reaper if one is attacking you. It may also be wise to try trapping it (Reapers are large and get stuck easily), or just fleeing if you have a mount (Reapers outspeed most players). Reapers are weak to charge light like the Nameless.
Reapers have four abilities:
- The basic bite, which deals normal damage (but a lot of it).
- A three way acid shot, which knocks flyers out of the air and inflicts torpor.
- A tail whip, which knocks enemies back and has a chance to impregnate a player if the Reaper Queen is at low health.
- Burying oneself in the ground, which makes the Reaper mostly immune to damage. Tamed ones cannot move in this state.
Reapers can not be tamed through conventional methods. Rather, the player must become ‘pregnant’ with a chest burster child. At very low health, the tail whip attack from a Reaper Queen has a chance to impregnate a player effected. The Queen will then flee.
Once that has happened, there is a 2 hour gestation period. Dying will not kill the reaper baby, but it will reset the period. During that period:
- Radiation will kill the baby.
- XP the player earns instead increases the stats of the baby, to a maximum of 52,500 XP.
- The player’s lower body will distort, similar to that of a pregnant dino.
At the end of that period the baby will forcefully eject from the player, killing them unless they are using a Reaper Pheremone gland. Pheremone glands can be obtained from dead Reaper Queens.
Reaper babies will be hostile towards everyone not affected by pheremone glands. They also need to be imprinted (the process needs to at least start), or they may attack anyway. This stops once they hit Juvenile phase.
The Reaper is most likely the ‘Nameless Queen’ referred to by Ark devs.
Rock Drake
The Rock Drake is the closest thing to a Wyvern you’ll find in Aberration, although without its flight it’s less of a threat. The Rock Drake can be found anywhere past the overlook – mostly in the Rock Drake ravine, but also in the bioluminescent areas.
Wild Rock Drakes have a relatively low aggro range, so once you know how to spot them from a distance it’s best to avoid them. Even while cloaking, Rock Drakes have a fairly obvious outline that usually gives them away.
Can you find the drake?
Rock Drakes have four abilities: Their normal bite, the ability to toggle climbing, their gliding, and their cloaking.
To toggle cloaking, simply press C. Be aware that this drains stamina.
To toggle climbing, press the right mouse button. An icon will appear with a picture of a foot that shows whether or not you are climbing. While climbing you sprint slightly slower than usual and cannot regenerate stamina, but you can go up walls as if they were ground.
Often, the Rock Drake will move differently from how you want it to move (e.g. going in a circle instead of straight up). If that is the case, you can use first person mode to steer the Rock Drake more accurately, but steering yourself up cliffs and the like may take some getting used to.
To glide, jump while holding the shift key, or start holding it down post jump. You can glide in short bursts from the ground, or in an amount proportionate to your height if on a wall. This is very similar to wingsut flight and somewhat similar to griffin flight. Aim up or down to adjust pitch, but be warned that if you lose momentum entirely you will fall. You can also stop pressing the shift key while facing sort of up for a controlled fall.
It is recommended that you practice Drake flight in singleplayer mode to get a feel for the controls before risking the loss of your drake on a server.
Taming a Drake, like a wyvern, requires you to steal an egg from the Rock Drake canyon. To actually get there you will need a wingsuit and many picks, considering the height of the shaft leading into the canyon. It’s best to avoid the hordes Rock Drakes lining the walls by stealing the eggs from a nest high up and near the canyon entrance, then gliding away before you get caught.
Rock Drake babies require Nameless Venom – acquired from dead Nameless – instead of meat, but adult Drakes eat meat. The saddle is a level 75 engram.
Roll Rat
Roll Rat in motion.
Wondering what that ugly rat thing is? Wonder no further – it’s a Roll Rat! This play on words is at first a slow moving, passive herbivore, but its ability to roll is unmatched.
Roll Rats spawn frequently in the mushroom forests and fertile lake, and somewhat rarely in the bioluminescent bits. Wild ones will occasionally dig up gems, but will attack you if you pick them up.
Roll Rats have a default attack – incredible for collecting fungal wood and berries, but it fails in the mushroom department. More importantly, though, they can roll. This ability costs stamina, but deals damage to anything it hits, is fast, and makes the rider invulnerable during the roll. Up to 3 people can benefit from this.
Be aware that Roll Rat Saddles (Engram Level 58) have durability and take damage on rolls, so roll with care.
Be the first to comment