Desert Titan


 * For spawn information, see Desert Cave (Extinction).

The Desert Titan is one of the Creatures and one of four Titans in the Extinction DLC of ARK: Survival Evolved.

Behavior
The Desert Titan, a.k.a the Sky titan, is an aggressive creature. It has small but powerful minions called the flock, that follow it and attack to protect the Desert Titan. The Desert Titan can also summon lightning strikes from the sky.

Appearance
The Desert Titan bears a resemblance to a hellish manta ray with blue coloring, razor sharp teeth, piercing eyes, gills, multiple fins on its underside, a large paddle like tail, barnacles growing on its wings and an eerie purple glow.

It is approximately 131 meters long, 126.2 meters wide [in wingspan] and weighs 38,773 metric tonnes.

Alias


 * Lord of Sand and Sky
 * Lord of the Desert
 * Lord of the Skies
 * Lord of the Sand and Skies
 * Sky Titan

Desert Titan Flock (Minion)
The Desert Titan Flock is a minion of the Desert Titan. The Desert Titan Flock is summoned by the Desert Titan and has the appearance of a swarm of bright red alien fish with no distinguishable mouth.

Drops

 * Harvest


 * Loot

Unlocks

 * Tekgrams

Base Stats and Growth
Desert Titan =
 * NOTE that the Desert Titan always spawns at level 1500 and that the stats below are for it's 1500 stats not level 1 stats.

Desert Titan Flock =

Combat
This section describes how to fight and kill the Desert Titan.

General
The Desert Titan is a large hovering creature that has its own minions, the Desert Titan Flock. The Desert Titan's primary attack is to strike the ground with the lightning bolts that it generates. The battle begins when the Titan summons its Desert Titan Flock and marks a player with its lightning bolts.

Strategy
Due to its ability to fly, the average strategies for the other titans are rendered for the most part useless. This means you can't utilize powerful land mounts such as Rexes or Gigas to brute force your way into killing it. However the general static behavior of the Desert Titan leaves it open to several strategies:


 * There are some land areas that allow you to be close enough to shoot the Desert Titan with fabricated weapons. This is a slow and tedious procedure but as long as you dodge the lightning fields generated upon your area and move around as needed, this is a relatively safe way to take down the titan.
 * If you are able to move one around well enough, a Mek with the M.S.C.M. can deal damage from afar, but this is quite expensive.
 * A large flock of Argentavis can also be used to damage the Desert Titan and absorb potential marks for lightning, but expect some deaths in the process.
 * A Quetzal with a platform saddle containing a structure that encases the rider will make them mostly immune to being dismounted by the flock. From here you can dodge the lightning fields and slowly and safely bite the Desert Titan to death. It would be advised that multiple players and Quetzals do this as it will otherwise be extremely slow and tedious. Alternatively, a square constructed out of Metal Dinosaur Gateways can be built on the back of a Quetzal platform saddle to contain a high damage creature such as a Giganotosaurus. Players can then set the Giga to aggressive and fly it up to the Titan from behind to deal massive damage if the Giga is properly leveled and imprinted.
 * Lightning Wyverns brought over from Scorched Earth or Ragnarok can devastate the Desert Titan fairly swiftly. They can outrun the flocks with ease and deal great damage with the lightning breath. Just be mindful of the stamina!
 * The Astrocetus alongside the use of its Tek saddle will allow you to hover over the Desert Titan and drop bombs on it. If you have additional players they can ride in the turrets to deal even more damage. However, all players intending to use offensive functions of the tek saddle must have the tekgram for it, and the Astrocetus's large size and slow speed make it vulnerable to the flocks and lightning fields that the Desert Titan will summon.
 * On unofficial servers that allow turrets to be placed on platform saddles, you can use a Quetzal armed with several auto turrets. This makes the fight trivial, but obviously doesn't work on official servers or servers that do not allow this. Note that the Desert Titan takes reduce bullet damage.

Dangers
Lightning:

The lightning attack starts with marking targets, targeted players or creatures will be given a Marked for Lightning status effect. After this status effect expires (4.5s), the area around the player or creature is lit up with lightning, which doesn't do damage immediately, but indicates the area will be struck by lightning within a few seconds. The lightning attack can deal tremendous damage, enough to one-shot even heavily armored players (one lightning bolt was enough to kill a character with almost 3250 armor and 500 health (tested on Singleplayer)), but is avoidable due to the long charge-up period. If you hear a noise that sounds like a crackling fire, it means you're too close!

Flock:

The flocks act as a close range guardian for the desert titan, attacking players and mounts that get too close to the desert titan, a message will appear when you are targeted by a flock, the flock can also deal heavy damage and is more than capable of killing under armored players in 1-2 strikes. As of update v287.110, Flocks will also dismount players hit.To take down the flock, shoot them with a high-tier fabricated weapon or Tek Rifle while they are flying away from you. Shooting at their sides or heads will yield no damage and if they've targeted you, it would be much easier to shoot them from behind. If flocks are killed the Desert Titan will respawn them, but while they are down this leaves the Desert Titan a bit more vulnerable.

Tail Slap:

These attacks are focused on players and creatures that manage to board the desert titan's back. You can predict this attack by keeping a careful eye on the Titan's tail, which will begin to lift when it's about to perform a Tail Slap. It will not use this attack initially but once it suffers some damage or when one of its corruption nodes is destroyed, it becomes a common attack if you are above it.

Weakness
The Desert Titan, other than its constant swing and tail strike, is at its weakest when attacking close by; it has several blind spots that it can't defend against without the flocks. Be mindful of the flocks and lightning it gives and this weakness can be exploited.

Taming
The Desert Titan is tamed by attacking the corruption nodes on its back while dealing as little damage as possible to the Titan itself, as the amount of damage you do will affect its HP after the tame is complete. These nodes will only spawn after they have been struck by a Lightning Strike from the Desert Titan. The tail node can not be made vulnerable to lightning strikes until the wings have been cleansed. After the destruction of the first corruption node, the Desert Titan will start performing tail slaps, which happen erratically and deal heavy damage. It will always strike its left or right wing, as well as a section near the base of the tail.

One strategy to employ for taming the Desert Titan is to use a Quetzal with a platform saddle that has the rider enclosed in a structure. This keeps the flocks from dismounting you nearly all the time. From there you can fly to its corruption nodes when you become marked with lightning, then when the corruption node is struck and vulnerable, chip away at it with constant attacks. If you see damage numbers greater than 1, reposition as high as possible to make sure you're only hitting the node. The Quetzal should be leveled up in health, melee, and some stamina to maximize longevity and damage output. (Despite damage numbers showing for 1 when hitting corruption nodes, damage DOES matter.) Do NOT land on the Desert Titan with the Quetzal as it will likely bug out and be stuck in a landed animation, making it vulnerable to being marked for lightning. If it gets stuck in this animation, dismount as soon as possible, preferably not when lightning is about to strike. Having a way to mitigate fall damage such as Tek Boots or a Glider Suit, will save you a lot of hassle.

Another strategy, likely the more intended method, is to use a Tek suit to fly around, bait the lightning strikes to attack the nodes, then using an accurate weapon such as the Fabricated Sniper Rifle or Tek Railgun to do damage from afar, avoiding the flocks if they target you. If you're feeling more daring and have a high armor value and additional armor sets, you can land on its back after a corruption node is exposed and hit it with a sword. The flocks will deal a lot of damage so having medical brews helps a lot.

The easiest strategy by far will involve the same Quetzal as the first strategy but you don't even have to attack! Make the Desert Titan use the lightning strikes to reveal the nodes and keep just beneath the corruption nodes to keep striking them with lightning. This does a lot of damage to only the corruption nodes and since you are beneath the titan it is a bit easier to avoid any damage with the Quetzal. (As you won't have to attack you can invest more levels into health and stamina.) It is worth noting that besides the node becoming exposed, there is no feedback from the titan if the lightning strike was successful, except that the node's exposed duration will refresh. If it stays open for a long time, you're hitting it!

After all the corruption nodes have been destroyed, the Desert Titan will stop moving and become claimable. After claiming it, it will come pre-equipped with a special and can be controlled via a special cockpit area on the saddle. After claiming it but before renaming it, you can see if it was an alpha, beta, or gamma version.

It is important to note that the more damage done to the Desert Titan during the taming process will reflect on the amount of damage done by the Desert Titan after it has been tamed. Also, the Desert Titan can't be fed and will starve to death in about 24 hours. As of now there is no way of stopping any of the from starving to death on single player and adjusting the Raid Creature setting. This is likely a bug. On unofficial servers, setting the following .ini in the gameusersettings will keep the titans from losing food: RaidDinoCharacterFoodDrainMultiplier=0.000001 (Setting it to 0 does not work, but setting it to an extremely low number does, as tested. Results for singleplayer doing this have yet to be determined.)

Tribute Requirements
The following items are needed to open the Desert Titan Portal:

Tribute Spawn Commands
Uses these commands to give yourself all the items needed for tribute:

Roles
Even though the Desert Titan is the weakest in both offensive and defensive abilities, the titan is rather flexible in its roles depending on what is built on its platform saddle.

Mobile base: Due to all of them having a platform saddle, this role is also for the other two Titans. Still, the best option for this role is the Desert Titan. Although you can’t improve its speed, it has the ability to fly. Its turning radius is very large compared to most adept flyers, but it can maneuver in all three dimensions. It also has the biggest platform to build on with 62 structure limit. Its Desert Titan gravity buff can make players put as many items as they want without repercussions to its own carrying capacity.

Pack Mule: While its own weight isn't phenomenal (and cannot be improved): the weight of creatures, players and structures on its back is not added to its own weight. In addition, the 'Desert Titan Gravity' buff you get while standing on top of the titan allows you to move regardless of how much you're carrying (albeit at the encumbered movement speed). This buff lasts for a few seconds after getting off the titan. Paired with the gasbags relatively high carry weight, the desert titan can carry an infinite number of encumbered gasbags back to base, giving players the potential to quickly amass resources for building their projects and bases. The titan can also be paired with Tek hover skiffs as a medium in carrying the gasbags all the way up to the titan. If both gasbags and tek hover skiffs aren't available, a player can use an argentavis that can fulfill both roles at once. All three creatures and items mentioned can greatly increase resource transport to the titan. On top of that, players are able to bring creatures that are specialized in gathering a certain resource in cryopods. This can allow a player or a tribe to remain in a resource rich area for prolonged periods of time, no matter how dangerous an area can potentially be.

Crowd Control: The Desert Titan's flocks and lightning strikes allow it to be effective at controlling areas of the battlefield and deal considerable damage while not being directly involved in a fight itself. This in turn does make it useful for defending Orbital Supply Drops. Desert Titan flock deal increased damage to corrupted creatures. One flock can deal around 8,700 damage to a single corrupted creature. If both flocks target the same creature, they can deal a total of around 17,400 damage. On top of that, the desert titan flock can act as both damage and a distraction against corrupted creatures. When using both flocks, the left flock can be set to attack a target with the LT control on the Xbox One, L2 control on the Playstation 4, and right clicker of the mouse for PC and the right flock can be set to attack a target with the RT control on the Xbox One, R2 control on the Playstation 4, and left click for PC.

Flying Aircraft Carrier: Since it has the largest platform, the desert titan can be a mobile and airborne landing zone for other flyers so flyers don't have to land on the ground to regain stamina and removes the flyer's risk of attack from land creatures. Pairing the titan with many fliers can create an aerial force that many will fear to face.


 * Carpet Bomber
 * If players are willing to invest time on building structures on the titan, players can even build structures below it, allowing them to put normal turrets below and above the titan. This allows the titan to have 360 degree defense against flyers and a way to carpet bomb enemy ground creatures with turrets from above.  If the turrets are set to target players, this will leave their tames defenseless if they are on passive behavior.

The Desert Titan can also be tamed to help defeat the.

Notes/Trivia

 * The Desert Titan is the 7th largest creature in the game (the largest being, second being , the third being , followed by / as 4th, the as 5th and finally the  as 6th).
 * The Desert Titan is however the largest flying creature in the game surpassing both the and.
 * The Desert Titan Flock is the first "creature" that consists of multiple creatures with the 2nd being the (Megachelon's bird flock doesn't count)
 * The relationship between the Desert Titan and the Desert Titan Flock is unknown however it's likely a form of symbiosis where the Flock help defend the Desert Titan and in return the Flock can live inside the barnacles on the Desert Titan.
 * If you attempt to taxidermy a Desert Titan Flock then it will show a Dimorphodon instead of the flock.
 * The Desert Titan can swim underwater without kicking the player off of the saddle.
 * The Desert Titan Terminal can be found at 97.1, 90.1.
 * The Desert Titan's internal name, DesertKaiju, is a reference to Godzilla and other kaiju. It also says "Claim DesertKaiju" when all nodes are destroyed.
 * The Desert Titan is immune to many debuffs, namely Gnashed and Enflamed. This makes the encounter uncheeseable with effects that drain health
 * The Corruption Nodes on the Desert Titan seem to be immune to the elemental attacks of, they still damage the titan even if it is aimed directly at the node.
 * Prior to Patch 287.110, Titans were able to be fed with Kibble to prevent them from starving to death.
 * When taming, the corruption on its body will have a purple hit marker, opposed to a red hit marker when the titan itself is hit. This can he helpful when taming the titan on official, where you cannot have floating damage text.
 * When going near the jet cavities that are on the posterior side of the Desert Titan's wings, there is a space shuttle like engine sound that can easily mistake a player into thinking an orbital supply drop is falling down far from the Desert Titan's position.
 * The Ice and Desert titans have a limit to how much damage they can take per second, so it is impossible to one shot them. (Tested with 1 quadrillion damage giga and /kill)
 * However, if one has creative mode, they can use the admin blink rifle on the destroy setting.

Changelog
Note: For changelog on all titans in general, go to