ARK recently released Update 253. And the newest patch in the never-ending string of patches of this perpetually-early access dino simulator brings out five new creatures for your tribe to face off against — and in some cases even tame and ride.
The first of these new creatures is an aquatic menace who can really ruin your day if thought you’d figured out how to survive underwater. The cnidaria may seem passive and harmless, but a school of them is a danger easily the equal of any gigantic carnivorous dinosaur.
Sadly you can’t actually tame these mindless sea creatures at this point in time, but they do serve as a useful underwater deterrent if you build your base nearby. Even more importantly, you can harvest a powerful and very useful biotoxin from their corpses to make potent torpor darts for knocking out or taming other creatures. That’s a pretty solid reason right there to brave the waves and try harvesting some cnidaria.
Oooh… pretty!
Cnidaria Dangers
First and foremost, don’t even try to take on cnidaria — whether singly or in groups — with a melee weapon of any kind. When they get close, cnidaria unleash a powerful electric shock.
If you are mounted, the first shock will knock you off most creatures. The second shock after being dismounted will fully paralyze you as though you’d taken a large amount of torpor damage immediately.
While it’s possible to escape a single cnidaria after being paralyzed if you are fast and lucky, getting surrounded by a school of these evil jellyfish is pretty much a death sentence. If you are taking them on underwater, it’s best to go one by one and not tangle with multiple cnidaria simultaneously.
If you let one get this close, you are in for a shocking surprise…
Cnidaria Harvesting Strategies
There are two basic strategies for quickly killing and harvest cnidaria depending on what engrams you have and what creatures you’ve tamed up till now.
The first is an aerial strategy that has you dive bomb your jellyfish nemesis from above while on a flying mount when the cnidaria rise to the water’s surface. There’s some risk involved here, since they can still knock you off your mount and stun you, but it’s a better idea than facing them head on under the water with a standard melee weapon.
The second (and all around better) option is to work smarter rather than harder: simply build a raft and bring a ranged weapon like a crossbow to shoot the jellyfish from above. You can pick them off with impunity from the safety of your raft, where the Cnidaria can’t knock you off like with a tamed mount. This method can take longer than a head-on underwater confrontation, but its the overall easiest and safest method of harvesting Cnidaria.
If you find a location with a large school of jellyfish that will all follow you up to the surface (where you can get on the safety of a raft), harvesting large numbers of cnidaria becomes quite simple and you’ll have a stockpile of electric knockout darts in no time.
What’s Next In ARK?
Now that you’ve figured out how to take on the rampant jellyfish menace facing the world of ARK with patch 253, you might still need help with a few other aspects of this ever-growing game. Stay tuned for our next article covering the other four creatures in this patch, and be sure to also check out:
- How to survive the first few hours of Ark
- Best Ark weapons for beginners
- Best mounts in Ark: Survival Evolved
- Why you should try Ark with an Extinction server
- Most terrifying Ark dinos
- How to build new tribes
- Stealing and hatching wyvern eggs
- Mods to spice up your Ark experience
Published: Jan 16, 2017 11:16 am