Mod guide

ARK DESCENDED:
HOW IT WORKS

A short overview of the Ark Descended mod for CHILL players:
how progression works, what to do first and what awaits you in each of the ten tiers.

The main idea

Descended replaces familiar creatures with much stronger versions and builds the game around ten tiers. Each tier gives you new creatures, armor and resources, and its bosses unlock the next tier.
Creatures from a lower tier usually cannot even hurt enemies from a higher one, so you progress step by step instead of skipping ahead.

Key structures and resources

  • Descend Smithy — the main crafting station of the mod: tools, armor, boss summons and special items.
  • War Generator — summons bosses, from the Mek and the Ancients to Warchiefs and Wardens.
  • Essences, souls and tributes — the main currency of progression. They drop from bosses and are produced by your creatures.
  • Kibble for every tier — each new tier has its own kibble, and you unlock it by beating the previous bosses.

First steps

  • Build the Descend Smithy first and craft Descended tools — they gather many times faster.
  • Tame helpers: a Miner Anky for metal, a Logger Castoroides for wood and a Descended Pelagornis for polymer.
  • Set up crop plots early — vegetables and kibble ingredients are needed throughout the game.
  • Keep Descended creatures at your base: they passively produce Descended Essence. The Descended Dodo and Phiomia are good starters.
  • A Descended light pet on your shoulder gives your mount a permanent bonus to damage and resistance.
  • Gather an army of Ordinary and Descended creatures for your first boss — the Excellent Dodo.

Ten tiers of progression

In short, the path looks like this. Each card is a separate stage with its own bosses and rewards.

T1 · Ordinary and Descended

The start. Ordinary creatures are twice as strong as vanilla ones and tame with normal food and kibble. Build farms, stock potions and gather an army for the first boss.

T2 · Excellent

Excellent creatures and bosses, the War Generator, Combat Bosses (Spider, Gorilla, Dragon), the Unreal tier and the three Sins. The tier ends with the Oracle, which unlocks T3 kibble.

T3 · Divine and Devilish

Two parallel paths. Farm Divine and Devilish souls, defeat the Guardians and get the armor without which T3 creatures cannot hurt the next tier.

T4 · Celestial and Abyssal

Hunt Celestial and Abyssal creatures, beat seven bosses on each side and then the Element bosses. The reward is shields, and you can't survive T5 without them.

T5 · Warchiefs

Bosses of Order and Chaos with tameable Scions, the Reactor Core, and Havoc and Spectral creatures that grow into an ultimate form.

T6 · Bionic

Mechanical bosses. Their essences go into the Bionic Factory, which builds tamed Bionic creatures from them.

T7 · Wardens

Warden bosses and Supreme Wardens. Their essences and legacy items evolve your strongest creatures into Warden forms.

T8 · God Trials

The gods of Ascension and Descension. You fight clones of your own Warchief, and the reward lets your Warchiefs Ascend or Descend.

T9 · Dark Seals

Three seal bosses, the Dark Altar ritual and the Beasts that can only be hurt at night.

T10 · Dream

The final boss: waves of corruption, clones of your creatures and two attacks that wipe out the whole area.

Useful systems

Passive production

Many creatures produce resources on their own: essences, pearls, milk, honey and more. A good set of producers saves hours of farming.

Supply drops

Craftable defense events with five waves. Hold the beacon and get saddles, tokens and resources for your tier.

Loot and resource bosses

Dedicated bosses for artifacts, blueprints, Element, gems and desert resources. Handy when you are short on materials.

Evolution lines

Reapers, Ice Titans, Managarmrs, the legendary DodoRex line, the infected and ancient lines — creatures that grow with you from tier to tier.

Tips

  • Descended Milk helps against damage over time and debuffs — always carry some.
  • Alternate health potions between your hotbar and your creature's inventory — this way you get around the cooldown.
  • Watch for warnings about dangerous attacks and back off — many bosses can wipe out a whole team in one hit.
  • Breed your best creatures before risky evolutions so you don't lose the originals.
  • Don't put a buffed creature into a cryopod: some bonuses disappear.

We wrote this overview in our own words. A detailed step-by-step guide in English, with tactics for every boss, was made by RokiArkNet.

Full guide by RokiArkNet ↗

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