Taming a Crystal Wyvern and harvesting primal crystal is endgame content for experienced players who have the weapons, armor, and building skills to complete the task. However, it’s also a lot of fun to prepare for!
If you want to go wyvern hunting and are hoping to tame a crystal wyvern of your own, make sure you’re ready to tangle with such a fierce creature before you engage.
About Primal Crystal
Primal crystal is a resource that you can only get on the Crystal Isles map. It doesn’t spawn on other maps. Also, it degrades over time and doesn’t keep the primal status forever, so it’s something you want to get when you have a use for it.
Primal crystal is difficult to obtain because it can only be harvested from an unconscious or dead crystal wyvern. Since you might need a great deal of it, the best way to get primal crystal is to create a trap where you can have the upper hand over the dangerous wyverns.
How to Get Primal Crystal
You have to harvest a primal crystal from a dead alpha wyvern or take it out from the inventory of an unconscious wyvern. One of the best ways to do this without dying is to create a trap to lure a crystal wyvern into. Once they’re in the trap, you can stand above them and tranquilize or kill them as needed to get the crystal.
- Scout a location close enough to crystal wyvern dens that you can lure them to the trap. However, you also want it to be far enough away that constant wyvern attacks don’t hinder construction and other activities.
- Build a trap. I recommend using the behemoth gate so that the large wyverns fit in and can’t massively damage it. Start by laying down foundations in at least a shape at least ten foundations across.
It sounds like a lot, but you want the space to lure the beast inside. The gate and the archway take up 12 foundations of space, but the archway doesn’t have to be placed on a foundation. - Place the gateway down on the front foundations.
- Place the gate down inside the gateway.
- Place a small doorway on the back of the pen. Consider using metal for this.
- Place a matching door in the doorway. Leave it open so that you can escape the trap without having to interact with a door.
- Build walls all around the trap. The gateway is 12 walls high, so plan to go up at least that high.
- Place a roof on the trap. Build a trapdoor into the ceiling to easily access the pen to tranq or kill the crystal wyvern.
- Close the trap when you’re done.
- Go near enough to a wyvern to bait it to follow you. Plan to have a fast mount or way to get away from the wyvern because otherwise, it will kill you before you both reach the pen.
- Enter the pen with the wyvern behind you. Look to ensure that it followed you in.
- Either close the gate when you go in – and risk death – or have a friend hiding nearby close it once the wyvern is inside.
- Run to the back door and exit it. Close it behind you.
- Ascend to the roof. When my tribe did this, we used to climb the wall with a grappling hook and descend with a parachute.
However, you can use a jetpack or build a staircase or ladder up the side. Do what works best for you. - Open the trapdoor. Use a tranq gun and darts to tranquilize the wyvern until it’s unconscious.
- Go to the bottom of the trap and approach the wyvern. Click to get your primal crystal.
- Open the behemoth gate so that the wyvern can exit when it wakes. Be wary, though, because it might aggro on you again as it leaves. You can also leave it trapped until crystal spawns in its inventory and repeat the process.
You can also kill the alpha crystal wyverns and harvest their bodies to get the primal crystal.
If you aren’t sure where to build your trap, explore the map and find where the crystal wyverns live. Patrol the area for a while and watch where they travel. Once you find a space that you think might work, think about constructing a small base where you can rest, get warm, refresh your needs, and craft new weapons and armor if needed.
Make the trap near the base but far enough away that the wyvern you lure in won’t damage your building when you lure it in. I speak from experience when I say that you can lose hours of work very quickly if multiple wyverns get grumpy around your base.
Uses for Primal Crystal
There are a few different things you can do with primal crystal, the most common of which have to do with taming wyverns.
- When they come out of their eggs, you use primal crystal to feed baby crustal wyverns.
- Baby wyverns continue to eat primal crystals until they’re fully mature, and if they aren’t fed, they can die.
- Use primal crystal as the passive taming food to tame adult crystal wyverns.
- If you want to fight the Crystal Wyvern Queen, primal crystals are one of the items you need to summon her.
- Primal crystals lose health over time and become standard crystals. Crystal isn’t a difficult resource to obtain, so don’t do this on purpose.
How to Tame a Crystal Wyvern in ARK
While you can steal an egg and hatch a crystal wyvern as a baby, you can tame these majestic creatures as adults. Unlike some other wyverns, they are tamable.
About Crystal Wyverns
There are three kinds of crystal wyverns.
- Blood crystal wyverns use blood to attack. The attack continues to do damage over time and returns health to the wyvern as it disappears from its targets.
- Tropical crystal wyverns use water instead of fire to attack enemies. It knocks enemies back and drains your health and stamina.
- Ember crystal wyverns have a long and fierce breath attack. While it doesn’t sweep quite as wide as the other wyvern variants, it does start to do more damage over time as you continue to use the fire breath.
You may want to decide which you want first before taming one since the process can take a while. Other crystal wyverns take more damage from a tamed wyvern who matches their subtype.
Also, it’s important to remember that crystal wyverns aren’t aggressive until you attack them. Once attacked, though, they become fierce foes.
Taming a Crystal Wyvern
One of the exciting things about taming a crystal wyvern is that it’s a passive tame. You don’t have to knock it out or fight with it to tame it. The hard part is getting the primal crystal you need to befriend it.
Your character must also be a level 65 to passive tame a crystal wyvern. If you’re a lower level, the option to feed it won’t appear even if you have plenty of primal crystal in your inventory.
- Place the primal crystal in your last inventory slot.
- Walk up to the crystal wyvern.
- Press the button that the screen indicates to feed it.
- Follow it and wait for it to get hungry again.
- Feed it more primal crystal when prompted.
- Repeat this until the wyvern is tamed.
This works for all varieties of basic crystal wyvern. You cannot tame the heirs, though you can steal their eggs, hatch a baby crystal wyvern, and feed it primal crystal until it’s mature.
The hardest part of this is being able to tame a flying creature that is fast and active. Some people attempt to approach it when it’s blocked in the front by an environmental hazard. Others move a giant, tame dino set to passive in front of it to stop it from flying right away. The player taming the crystal wyvern can stand on it as long as they stay still and only click the key to feed.
Other people use a grappling hook to cling to the crystal wyvern. They pull themselves up as close to it as they can to feed it when the option appears. Keep medical brew on your hotbar to ensure environmental damage doesn’t kill you as the wyvern flies around.
If you do one of these methods, slot your parachute or another device that will help you make it from the sky to the ground without damage. You may find yourself abruptly launched into the air.
At the end of the day, taming a crystal wyvern isn’t hard as long as you’re willing to take the time to make a trap so that you have a source of primal crystal. Once you do, you have a strong and valuable tame who can move you quickly across the map or help you defeat large and scary enemies.
