If you’ve ever wandered Ark’s dark redwood forests after dark and woken up naked with all your gear stolen, you’ve probably crossed paths with a troodon. These tiny, sly dinos are often written off as a nuisance by new players, but they’re one of the most underrated utility dinos in the game once tamed. Today we’re breaking down how 2 tame a troodon in Ark, with tested methods that work for both solo new players and veteran clan members alike. I used to kill every troodon I saw on sight until a clan mate showed me how useful they are for base defense and easy low-level taming, so I spent a week testing different approaches to find the lowest-effort method that works across all maps.
How 2 Tame a Troodon in Ark: Pre-Tame Prep You Can’t Skip
Unlike most dinos in Ark, troodons can’t be tamed by knocking them out and feeding them. They’re carnivorous predators that gain taming progress only when they get a killing blow on one of your tamed creatures, so you’ll need to come prepared with the right supplies before you start hunting for one. I recommend gathering all these items before you head out at night, because troodons despawn as soon as dawn hits, and you don’t want to waste a night of hunting because you forgot a key supply. Here’s everything you’ll need to bring:
- Low to mid level tamed dinos (dodos, lystrosaurus, or compys work best for low level troodons, higher level troodons need higher level sacrifices for faster taming)
- A full set of cloth or hide armor (you don't want to get one-shot if they aggro you by mistake)
- A taming pen made of stone or metal (wood will get broken by packs of troodons if you're not careful)
- A torch or glow pet to spot troodons in dark forest or cave spawn points
A lot of new players make the mistake of bringing wild knocked-out dinos to feed to troodons, but that doesn’t work. The kill has to be on a dino that’s officially tamed to you, even if it’s a level 1 dodo you tamed 5 minutes earlier. Never try to tame a troodon during the day, because their taming effectiveness drops by 60% when the sun is out, and they’re far less active so they’ll often ignore the sacrifices you leave for them. Don’t use your high level favorite dino as a sacrifice obviously, but don’t waste high level tames either—low level dodos or lystrosaurus give more than enough progress for troodons under level 50.
Best Locations to Find Wild Troodons for Taming
Troodons spawn in dark, covered areas across almost every Ark map, so you don’t have to travel to a far corner of the map to find one if you know where to look. On The Island, the most consistent spawn spots are the redwood forests after dark, the entrance to the Lower South Cave, and the edge of the swamp where trees block most sunlight. On Fjordur, you can find them spawning in the Asgard forest biomes and the small dark caves near the green obelisk, while Scorched Earth players can find them in the shadowed canyons after sunset.
Always check spawn points 10 minutes after in-game night starts, because troodons take a few minutes to spawn once the sun goes down, and they’ll despawn almost immediately when dawn breaks. You’ll also want to avoid spawn areas that have large predator spawns like rexes or spinos, because those will often kill troodons before you can get to them to start taming. I usually set up a small stone taming pen right outside the Lower South Cave on The Island for new players, because the troodons there are between level 10 and 30, and there are no large predators that wander into the area after dark.
Step-by-Step Taming Process to Avoid Common Mistakes
Once you’ve gathered your supplies and found a troodon of the level you want, the taming process itself is pretty straightforward as long as you don’t rush. First, lead the troodon into your sealed taming pen—you can run in front of it to get its attention, just make sure you have enough armor to take a couple of bites if it catches up to you. Once it’s inside the pen, seal the gate completely so no other wild dinos can get in and attack it, and so it can’t escape. Next, take your first sacrifice dino, set it to passive and disable wandering, then lead it into the pen with the troodon, and exit the pen as fast as you can to avoid getting attacked.
The troodon will immediately aggro on the sacrifice dino, and once it gets the killing blow, you’ll see the taming bar go up. Don’t attack the troodon at any point during the taming process, because even one small punch or tranq arrow hit will reset the entire taming bar, and the troodon will stay aggressive towards you permanently. Wait for the troodon to calm down between sacrifices if you’re using multiple small dinos, because if it’s still aggroed after killing one, it might try to attack you through the pen walls when you open the gate to add another. I made this mistake once when I was first testing taming methods: I added three dodos at once to speed up the process, the troodon killed all three in 10 seconds, but I only got taming progress for one kill, so it’s always better to go slow and add one sacrifice at a time.
What to Do With Your Tamed Troodon Post-Taming
Once your troodon is tamed, you’ll quickly see why so many veteran players keep at least one in their dino roster. The biggest benefit of a tamed troodon is its night buff: after dark, it gets 3x damage, 2x movement speed, and the ability to detect hidden enemies, stealthed players, and even nearby dinos through walls, making it one of the best early PvP base defense dinos in the game. It also has a venomous bite that builds up torpor extremely fast, so you can use it to knock out small to mid level dinos like lystrosaurus, compys, and even low level raptors without wasting tranq arrows or darts.
For PvE players, troodons are perfect for exploring dark caves, because they’ll spot hidden traps and aggressive cave dinos before you can see them, even if you don’t have a glow pet with you. Level up melee damage and speed first for your troodon, because its torpor buildup scales directly with melee damage, so higher melee means you can knock out dinos faster, and extra speed helps it keep up with fast moving prey or raiders. If you play on a PvP server, I recommend keeping two troodons set to patrol around your base entrance at night, they’ll alert you to any sneaking raiders long before your other defenses pick them up. I’ve had three solo raiders get caught by my troodons in the last month that would have slipped past my turret gaps completely, so they’re well worth the small effort to tame.
Troodons might be annoying when you’re first starting out and they keep knocking you out while you’re gathering wood at night, but they’re one of the most underrated utility dinos in the entire game. Now that you know how 2 tame a troodon in Ark, you can skip the frustration of fighting them and start using them to make your gameplay easier, whether you’re a PvE player looking for an easy cave companion or a PvP player needing extra base defense. Next time you see a troodon wandering the forests after dark, don’t pull out your spear to kill it—grab a couple of spare dodos and try taming it, you might be shocked how much use you get out of it.