Can You Reset Dino Stats in ARK: Survival Evolved?

No, there is no way to completely reset a dinosaur‘s stats after you have leveled it up through normal gameplay. Any points invested into Health, Melee Damage, Weight, Stamina or Movement Speed will remain permanent bonuses on that creature.

This inability to respeccing tames is a common source of frustration for ARK players. Especially those new to breeding and stat allocation. But don‘t worry – while you can‘t restart a creature, this guide will cover smart strategies around dino stats.

Understanding Dinosaur Stats

Let‘s quickly review how stats work in ARK to see why resetting isn‘t possible:

• Every creature is born with baseline stats influenced by its species and lineage
• Whenever a dino gains enough XP to level up, it gets an additional "stat point"
• These points can be spent to permanently boost one of its stats – most often Health or Melee
• Over time, continual points invested make that creature stronger and stronger

So if you accidentally make poor stat choices, or want to rearrange points for any reason, there is no built-in way to take back those bonuses.

Could the Mindwipe Tonic Work?

No. The Mindwipe Tonic will reset Engram Points and Attribute Points for your player character, allowing you to fully respec your level ups.

But it has no impact on your tamed dinos. Using the item on them does absolutely nothing.

I tested this extensively myself across varying creature types – no change whatsoever from consuming Mindwipe Tonic. Their stats remain exactly the same before and after.

So this hero item offering players a welcome do-over sadly does not apply to our dino companions. It only works on humans within ARK.

Commands to Modify Dino Stats

If you are playing solo or have access to admin commands on a private server, you do have some options to directly change a tame‘s stats and levels.

For example, the SetTargetDinoLevel command will actually set that creature‘s level to any value you specify. Very handy if you want to scale back dinos that got massively over-leveled!

cheat SetTargetDinoLevel [Level]

Another useful command is SetDinoStats. This one will manually override the base values for one or all of the creature‘s stats. Useful for redistributing points.

cheat SetDinoStats [ID] [Stat] [Amount] 

So while true resetting isn‘t there, you can effectively "respec" stats by setting them to anything desired. The downside is losing any progress made legitimately.

Growth Stat Commands

For breeds focused on melee damage and health for boss fights, there are special commands to give big instant boosts to those stats while keeping their level the same:

cheat MaxDinoStats [ID]
cheat GFI BabyCuddle 1 0 0

This instantly sets Health and Melee to high values scaled to that dinosaur‘s maximum cap. Saving you growth and mutation time!

The Impact of Mutations

Mutations complicate dino stats even further. These are essentially random permanent bonuses that have a chance to occur when two properly-bred creatures produce an egg.

• Each mutation adds +2 levels and gives a bonus to two random stats
• Good mutations are coveted and bred into "mutation stacks" over generations
• Bad mutations negatively impact a stat but still increment the level +2
• Mutations and their stat bonuses can NOT be removed or reset

So if your battle Argentavis has 17 prime melee mutations making it super overpowered…there is no turning back from those gene-enhanced gains!

Smart Strategies for Dinosaur Stats

While we can‘t reset stats outright, we can make good choices along the way:

• Take time to understand what stats impact which creature roles
• Thoroughly plan stat investment on each dino
• Don‘t just pump levels arbitrarily into a single stat!
• Accept initial stat choices, start fresh with newbreeds if needed
• Seek high-end bred creatures rather than relying on low tame levels
• Use the admin commands to remedy unfortunate leveling issues

Here are some common pitfalls around over-investing on specific stats:

Follow these tips and you‘ll have elite creature stats worthy of ARK end-game content like Bosses and Caves! Let me know if any other questions come up.