Wyvern

The Wyvern (WAI-vrn) is one of the Creatures in ARK: Survival Evolved. This creature can be found on Scorched Earth in The World Scar, on Ragnarok in the Dragonmalte Trench and Wyvern Cave, and on Valguero in The Great Trench. Wyverns can be found in five variations:, , , (only on Ragnarok and Valguero), and  (only on Extinction).

A weaker variant of Poison, Lightning and Fire can spawn after wave 2 in the Gauntlet Missions "Bog Beatdown", "TEKnological Terror" and "Magma Medley Melee" respectively.

Behavior
Extremely aggressive, often found flying around mountainous areas, or the dragon trenches looking for a fight. The only exception is Forest Wyvern, which does not attack at all.

With no rivalry from the Rock Elemental and no natural predators, the Wyverns are considered to be the apex predators of Scorched Earth for their surprising speed and devastating elemental attacks.

Appearance
Wyverns appear very similar to what one would assume to be a stereotypical dragon. There are five different types of wyverns, each with small but distinguishable variations in size, shape and color.

Poison Wyverns generally appear in some hue of green or green-grey, while some cases have them appear in black or purple shades and hues. They have frills on the sides of their face, much like a Dilophosaur. Their head is flatter and wider than the other Wyverns, seeming more Serpent-like. A ragged strip of webbed spines runs down their back. They also possess a snake-like tongue.

Fire Wyverns usually appear in shades of reddish-brown, red, orange, orange-brown, or even just brown. Their wing membrane can often sport a burnished gold color. Their head is probably the most stereo typically dragon-like of all the Wyverns. A row of sharp spines run down their back. A ridge of spikes protrudes like an eyebrow above their eyes. A frill of horns adorn their skull, and they have a cluster of small spikes by their jaw muscle. The tip of their snout hooks like a bird of prey, and they are the only Wyvern that has an Alpha, Forest, and Corrupted form.

Lightning Wyverns can appear in almost any shade of blue or purple. Their wing membrane is either a dark grey/black with paler lightning-shaped streaks or blinding white. They have a very narrow, triangular face and large eyes. Its eyes are set back and it has three pairs of small fins on the side of its face behind the eyes. It also has a central fin rising from the top of its head giving it an Aquatic look. A ragged ribbon of flesh runs down its back.

Ice Wyverns can be light blue/white with the rare possibility of being green and/or black/grey. Their wing membrane is either the same color as the body/its highlights. They somewhat resemble Fire Wyverns but they have a more triangular, beak-like upper jaw and a slightly wider, spiked lower jaw. They are the most birdlike of the Wyverns, possessing a thin snout akin to a beak. They have a pronounced brow with a spike akin to eyebrows over each beady eye along with additional spikes on their heads akin to hair. Ice Wyverns' bodies are covered with spikes, which start on their shoulders, run down the spine, and end at the tail. Ice Wyvern eggs can only be found on Ragnarok and Valguero.

Forest Wyverns appears only in one color: bright red. Much of their appearance evolves from the Fire Wyvern, but are uncharacteristic in that they are both smaller and sport yellow, striking veins which protrude from their yellowish gradient wing membranes.

Drops
Wyvern=


 * Guaranteed Special Loot
 * Wyvern Talon (Scorched Earth):
 * - Dropped by Fire and Corrupted Wyverns
 * - Dropped by Lightning Wyverns
 * - Dropped by Poison Wyverns
 * - Dropped by unconscious female Wyverns (or found in its inventory after rendering unconscious for first time)1 or dead Alpha Wyverns only

1 Milk will vanish from its inventory if not picked up in time before it wakes up, either from inventory or killing it. Corrupted Wyvern=


 * Guaranteed Special Loot


 * Random Special Loot

Base Stats and Growth
Wyvern =

Corrupted Wyvern =

General
The Wyvern, for all intents and purposes, is the quintessential flying dragon. Wyverns have massive wings with the same design mechanisms as bats but the grace and strength of the Condor. However, they also have a very long tail with a nob or fin depending on the Wyvern type; on all the tail acts as ballast and makes them highly maneuverable. The Wyvern in the wild is highly territorial and fierce in defending its perceived territory and its nest. It also has a notably powerful bite; combat with a Wyvern is, quite possibly, the most dangerous challenge you can face short of a boss-level creature. Fighting one is definitely not for the faint of heart and flying a Wyvern is a thrill beyond comparison.

Strategy
Wyverns are extremely difficult to fight due to their mobility and devastating attacks.

Nape of Neck Strategy: You will need a flying mount with decent health and pumped stamina, and melee damage. Focus on the nape of the Wyvern's neck and attack there. When it tries to turn, you turn as well, so it cannot turn around enough to attack you. This is very dangerous due to the high damage output of the Wyvern, but when executed correctly, it is surprisingly effective. A variation of this strategy is to attack its feet from below. This strategy should only be attempted against a single Wyvern at a time!

Chain Bola: Get a with a Platform Saddle and build a Ballista on top, bait a Wyvern with any flying mount to the  and chain it down with the chain bola. Then you can attack it with any Dino so it is easy to kill.

Grappling Hook: Using a grappling hook to latch onto a Wyvern can make a difficult fight much simpler. Once attached, one can either melee the Wyvern with a sword or club/boomerang depending on whether your aim is to kill or knock out or shoot at it with any firearm. A word of warning, though, depending on where you attach, the Wyvern may still be able to attack you with its melee. Also note that other Wyverns can attack you with relative ease, so never adopt this tactic when fighting groups.

Wyverns can also be baited over turrets set to attack wild dinos. This is quite effective as Wyverns are susceptible to same ranged damage modifiers as all other flying dinos.

Wyverns are often be outmatched by their tame counterparts, so fighting fire with fire is never a bad idea, even though two Wyverns of the same type can't damage each other with their special 'breath' attacks.*

* While a Poison Wyvern cannot kill another Poison Wyvern with its poison projectile, it CAN still kill another Poison Wyvern's rider.

Weaponry
The homing missile can lock on to both normal Wyverns and Alpha Wyverns. Also, a Paraceratherium with Chain Bolas and a Ballista can get it on the ground for you to use your firearms, using a guided or normal rocket launcher can be sufficient when you chain bola it.

Dangers
All Wyverns have a different breath attack as follows:

Fire Wyverns use a short-range fire breath which does the most overall damage per attack due to it leaving a DoT effect on whatever the attack hits. This fire has a rather large spread, making it harder to avoid.

Lightning Wyverns have a lightning breath that travels instantly, does an incredible amount of DPS, and hits at a decent range and makes melee attacks nearly impossible as the entire body is affected by this attack (tested by dismounting during the breath attack), making them quite dangerous to fight however in exchange for power it has the smallest spread of the 4 wyverns. Dismounting your lightning wyvern while it is still shooting out its lightning breath can easily kill you.

Poison Wyverns shoot a projectile that leaves a toxic gas cloud which ignores armor (tested on Flak Armor), while extremely dangerous it does not move unlike the other 4 Wyverns but instead could be used as a area control attack limiting safe zones. If the poison projectile explodes too close to the rider, the splash damage can easily kill the rider if the wyvern has most of its points into melee.

Ice Wyverns uses a short-range ice breath attack which deals some damage and also slows whatever it hits. The slowed status effect will last a few seconds - this gives the Ice Wyvern enough time to use the attack again, though Pteranodons might escape by barrel-rolling away. Like that of the Fire Wyvern, the Ice Wyvern's breath has a large spread making it difficult to avoid.

Weakness
Using a, a Wyvern can be immobilized by hitting it with a. Wyverns are also susceptible to the x2.2 Auto Turret damage to dinos modifier, so placing turrets is an effective way to kill groups of Wyverns. When using tamed creatures in combat, one can use the Wyvern's large turn radius as an advantage to avoid its attacks while targeting its wings and lower body. A Wyvern can also be easily killed by a, as they're immune to breath attacks and take reduced damage from physical attacks.

Taming/Raising
NOTE - Knockout data is given only for milk gathering reasons.

Adult Fire, Lightning, Poison and Ice Wyverns cannot be tamed. To acquire a tamed Wyvern, the player must hatch a Fertilized Wyvern Egg. These eggs can be acquired by breeding tamed Wyverns of the same type, or stolen from the nests of wild Wyverns. Unlike most eggs, Wyvern eggs require a lot of heat to incubate properly. Placing down any heat-emitting object such as or  will work, or you could use 12-14.

There are four Wyvern Egg variants,, , , and.

A Wyvern Egg has a five hour incubation period. An additional 93 hours are needed for the baby to become fully grown.

Baby wyverns cannot be fed like most other carnivores. Though their food drops slowly, they will only consume and may ask for it when imprinting. Wyvern Milk gives 1200 food to the baby Wyvern. A growing baby Wyvern will consume approximately 1 unit of food every 10 seconds, or 360 units of food an hour. This means that one feeding of Wyvern Milk will sustain a baby Wyvern for about 3 hours and 20 minutes.

Wyvern Milk is obtained by knocking out a female Wyvern - you can take the milk from the Wyvern's inventory. Each female Wyvern will have exactly 5 milk in its inventory, and 50 Wyvern Milk can also be obtained by killing an Alpha Wyvern, regardless of its gender.

It's possible to build cages in which to trap female Wyverns to make milking them easier. Be aware that re-knocking out a trapped female Wyvern does not give any more milk immediately. Female Wyverns regenerate five Wyvern Milk every hour.

An important detail about newly hatched Wyverns (especially at lower levels) is that even though the maximum food stated in the creature's statistics might be several thousand, the maximum food the baby can actually hold might be less than 1200 (the amount of food one delivers). This means that lower level baby Wyverns will never eat milk on their own, and will have to be force fed until they can actually hold more than 1200 food. It is advisable to get the highest possible level for an egg which is 190 on official servers. Wyvern eggs are NOT spawned randomly: the Wyverns will actually place the eggs as the egg level always corresponds to one of the Wyverns nearby. However, it is still uncertain if the eggs spawn together with the Wyvern or if it is the Wyvern that places the egg sometime later.

Strategy without Wyvern Milk
It's actually possible to raise a baby Wyvern without providing Wyvern Milk unless you want to imprint a baby wyvern. Let the Food value drop to zero. At this time, the value for Health will fall and the Torpor will raise. To lower the Torpor, force-feed or. Place a nearby and set it to Passive Healing. This keeps the Health of the baby Wyvern up (or restores it) at the cost of providing the Daeodon with food, as healing makes it very hungry. As an alternative to feeding the Daeodon tons of or Prime Meat that will spoil over time, you can produce a lot of cheap Kibble, such as  made of Dodo eggs, which will provide 90 food and only spoils after 3 days. provides 120. This strategy is more effective when used with high-level Wyverns and Daeodons because they have higher starting values for Food and Health, thus more reserves before they run out.

Another strategy is to use a Snow Owl’s healing ability. This won’t require gathering meat for a Daeodon.

Extinction
The spawns during the  fight. Occasionally they land, which allows survivors to ride on them as if it is their own Wyvern with near unlimited stamina. However, these will constantly take damage even when they are not attacking it and too far from where it was spawned from and will either eventually die, or despawn.

Also, unlike the regular, the have a limited flame breath, as located in the middle of the Hotbar UI. Once used completely, that Wyvern cannot breathe fire again and will automatically attempt to land or make a landing animation, forcing the survivor to dismount and the Forest Wyvern disappears on its own.

Roles
Wood/Thatch/Cactus Sap Collector: They can collect wood, thatch, and cactus sap when landed by pressing. They will collect thatch and cactus sap much more efficiently than wood.

War Mount: They are fast, with low stamina-drain comparable to that of an. They are moderately maneuverable, but their breath weapons are devastating. They can also use all their attacks on the ground, as well as being able to sprint while landed. Pressing C while landed performs a knockback that can provide an escape from enemies. For a strong Wyvern with powerful bites and ranged go for Stamina, Melee Damage, Health.

Travel: Wyverns are faster than other Scorched Earth flyers and can go farther on their stamina. Beware their large turn radius, however, as they can be difficult to steer until you've had some practice. Also note that a Wyvern on follow and flying does not come low enough to mount, and does not land even when whistled not to follow, so it can be difficult to get one back under control.

Hunting Tool: With a bite as strong as a Plesiosaur, powerful special attacks, high meat gathering efficiency and the ability to fly at speeds unmatched by any other flying creature, Wyverns are among the best ways to quickly gather large amounts of,  and a wide variety of Tributes; Wyverns are also the only flying creatures treated as large carnivores, meaning that most of the small and medium-sized aggressive wildlife is prone to ignore them and their riders unless provoked, greatly reducing the nuisance while traveling.

Giga counter: While fighting a giga with one wyvern is dangerous, you can bring friends and lots of wyverns (lightning is recommended but poison can work just not fire and ice) to enrage the giga with the breath attacks.

Titan Hunter- Because of their speed and damage, a wyvern can quickly dodge a titan's attacks. Lightning and Poison Wyverns are best used against the Desert titan since it uses only flocks for damage and its lightning is only used against surfaces. The wyvern can make bombing runs across the titan in any direction.

Damage: Wyverns deal large amounts of damage with their bite and breath attacks; they're some of the most powerful flying creatures in the game. While they may not match a for sheer damage output, a Wyvern can be flown across the map and is extremely maneuverable.

Transport: Wyverns can carry a decent amount of weight and are quite quick. Using a Wyvern, one might safely and quickly transport people or materials across an Ark.

Guardian:

Combatant:

Defender:

Aerial Attack: Level mainly melee some health and stamina. They are usually are stronger and deal more damage than other flying mounts. Watch out for people on tapajars or holding people on argents with homing rocket launchers. They are great for destroying convoys of quetzals due to the debuffing of minigun turrets. All you need to do is get out of the range of auto turrets if they have them and start blasting. You should usually use a lightning wyvern.

Collectibles
Three elemental claws are harvest-able from the Wyvern: the, , and the , from their respective counterparts. Several of each talon plus the three Artifacts of Scorched Earth are used at an obelisk or beacon to summon the Manticore. You'll need 2 for Easy (Gamma), 10 for Medium (Beta), and 20 for Hard (Alpha).

Flight
Flying a Wyvern uses similar controls to movement on ground level with a few exceptions. Quirks :
 * 1) Will only move forward upon command. With no forward command issued they will eventually stall to a halt and hover in mid-air. Even while not moving Wyvern lose a small bit of stamina just to stay aloft.
 * 2) Feeding  or  to a Wyvern in-flight can allow you to fly for longer periods, but the stamina gain is minor at best and very inefficient. However, if you have a good berry collecting dino you can collect Stimberries in bulk then feed it a lot at a time. You can also use a Custom Consumable recipe made with a high crafting effectiveness to make a Stimberry cake that will prove much more effective.
 * 3) Landing is accomplished by pressing the jump-key, causing the mount to move to the ground and land, where your Wyvern folds its wings. Now you can dismount by pressing use  as with any other mount or walk on the ground. To start off again, press the jump-key.
 * 4) Since v256.0, Wyvern's stamina does not recharge in flight while in midair, even when dismounted.

Note: Tamed and unridden Wyverns do not lose stamina while sprinting to keep up with a player running or riding another creature. You can use this quirk to carry large amounts of weight quickly with a Wyvern set to follow. See the above warning about difficulties getting a following Wyvern to land.

Carrying
A Wyvern is capable of carrying smaller creatures. This is done by using the crouch button while flying or hovering over the creature. The Wyvern will swing its legs forward. If the grab was successful, you will be able to see the creature being pulled behind the Wyvern. The creature being carried usually cannot attack the Wyvern while it is being carried, but can land a hit when it is picked up or dropped.

The Wyvern cannot use its grab or any of its other attacks while it is using a breath attack.

Currently, on official, and most unofficial, PVE servers, wild animals may not be picked up to prevent griefing.

Carry-able Creatures
The Wyvern is capable of carrying the following creatures:

Lore

 * Interestingly enough, in one of his explorer notes, Dahkeya reports that the Wyverns just seemed to appear out of nowhere.
 * From his account and what Helena had discovered about the ARKs on Extinction, one can come to the conclusion that the Wyverns are not a natural species and were originally not even meant to be on the ARKs. As Helena stated, the Overseers of the ARK try to "punish" or "reset" the survivors - considered 'subjects' by Overseers - if they did not do as expected, which is most likely: defeat the Guardian(s) (and challenge the Overseer if necessary), thereby progressing to the next ARK. If this is not done (or if the survivors act out of line like they did on Aberration), the Overseers seem to enact a sort of reset or punishment protocol to wipe out the existing survivors.
 * From what can be gathered, Mantis are likely to have been this original protocol to wipe the city of Nosti and its inhabitants due to how much of a problem their idle behavior was, but when Dahkeya killed all the Mantis by detonating a bomb in their sulfur-filled den, the Overseer likely enforced a stronger protocol or judgement. It was shortly after the Mantis were killed that the very first Wyvern was sighted - a Fire Wyvern. Soon after, the Lightning and Poison varieties also appeared and started leading coordinated attacks on Nosti's citizens. When the Overseer then used its control of the ARK to quite literally swallow the entire city whole in the sand, Wyverns were sent after the only two survivors - Dahkeya and Raia - hounding them consistently and never letting up until Dahkeya sacrificed himself for a distraction so Raia could flee.
 * Strangely, despite being made to kill or punish humans, the Overseer also made them an ideal mount. Perhaps it viewed any survivors who could tame these creatures designed to kill them as 'worthy subjects', but one can only guess.
 * In the Extinction DLC, the reason the ARK either punishes or resets survivors is to preserve its resources when the ARK comes down from orbit. But when Element was at a toxicity level that the ARK can't handle, the ARK remains in orbit and destroys settlements to further preserve its resources for an extended amount of time. The wyverns, and the other fantasy creatures such as the Rock Elementals and Reapers, act as a heavy duty deterrent to prevent any survivor or groups of survivors from consuming too much of the ARK's resources.
 * Strangely, Raia was the first survivor on Scorched Earth to tame and raise wyverns. Based on Helena's and her explorer notes, she raised and tamed 3 wyverns, one of each elemental breath attack (lightning, fire, and poison).
 * Raia notes of it with her own experience when after the destruction of the mantis nest, and when she and the village of Nosti were celebrating so much due to the surplus oil and other materials that the obelisks began to act strange as they were shining abnormally.
 * The wyvern's elemental breath don't do any damage to a Rock Elemental even though Helena's Scorched Earth note #8 describes Raia's lightning wyvern easily tearing through a golem.
 * Using the wyvern's elemental attack along with making a strafe run has devastating effects, but it is difficult to use.
 * In Helena Scorched Earth Explorer Note #16, Helena described how Wali al Aswad (Raia) and her wyverns made a single strafe run that decimated an entire swarm of mantis.

Changelog
Note: For the changelog exclusive to Crystal Wyverns, go to