Complete Phiomia Ark Guide - Ready Games Survive

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Emily is a gaming aficionado who has written for The Gamer, Gamerant, GamerBolt, and Valnet, but she has found a home here at Ready Game Survive. She adores writing about Ark: Survival Evolved among other great survival titles, and outside of traditional survival, she loves Legend of Zelda, League of Legends and Fable.

What Is A Phiomia In Ark: Survival Evolved?

Base Health: 300
Base Stamina: 300
Base Oxygen: 150
Base Food: 3000
Base Weight: 200
Base Melee Damage: 10
Base Movement Speed: 100%
Base Torpidity: 240

The Phiomia is a pig-elephant creature. It is similar to a hog but has a small trunk and husks like an elephant. This creature is often compared to a tapir. While it isn’t a great fighter, the Phiomia is a decent early game creature, and it turns out feces like it is getting paid to do so.

As you can see, the Phiomia does not have impressive stats, aside from food. While its health, stamina, and other stats are less than mediocre, the Phiomia’s food stat is incredible compared to its other stats. To give a better perspective of how amazing the food stat is, let me tell you that the Rex (known for its great stats) has the same base food stat as the Phiomia. Now, I can’t say that this stat is the reason to tame the Phiomia, but it does take part in its utilization.

What To Know Before You Encounter A Phiomia

The Phiomia is a very skittish creature. It doesn’t take much to scare it off, so if you plan on killing one, you may need to sneak up on it. The Phiomia will not attack you, no matter how much you damage it. So you don’t have to worry about getting killed by one. They run like the wind the second they are confronted. This can make taking them down feel even less humane. But there are reasons to do so.

If you don’t plan on taming a Phiomia, then you can kill one for the resources it gives you. Phiomias provide the most meat and hideout of all of the small dinos. This is your best bet if you want to farm these and can keep up with the Phiomia. This small dino gives an insane amount of hiding and meat. But if you can’t keep up with it, the Dodo and the Lystro are easier early game.

Where To Find Phiomias In Ark

The Phiomia is a common creature on most maps. They spawn in most biomes, with The Swamp being their favored habitat. But if you’re like me, the second you start looking for something, it is nowhere to be found. It’s helpful to have a location reference on standby for these moments.

The Island

The Phiomia is found anywhere grass grows on The Island. This means The Swamp, The Jungle, The Plains, and The Islets. It should be easy to find a Phiomia on The Island, but if you’re struggling, The Swamp spawns them slightly more often than anywhere else.

The Center

All of the islands on The Center spawn Phiomia. But I’ve had the most luck in The Swamp. I believe that since the earlier maps had fewer creatures, the original creatures that did spawn – like the Phiomia – still spawn in significant numbers in their primary biome.

Ragnarok

This is when it starts getting more challenging to find Phiomia. The creatures occasionally spawn through the center and the northwest area of the map, but they often spawn throughout The Swamp on the west side of the map.

Extinction

You can find Phiomia in the Sanctuary, but you need to visit the crater in the northwest corner of the map if you don’t have any luck there. This is where you can find the underground forest, which spawns Phiomia.

Valguero

The forests and jungles throughout the center and east-central regions of the map spawn Phiomia. Their spawning seems more erratic than in other maps, but I have found the most Phiomia in Boreal Forest.

Genesis: Part 1

The only place to find Phiomia in Genesis: Part 1 is The Swamp. The Swamp can be found in the southeastern block of this map. Unlike other maps, there is no overlap of biomes.

Crystal Isles

The Great Valley has a few Phiomia, but the area just north of it spawns even more. However, my favorite spot for Phiomia on Crystal Isles is the Wetlands, a small area between the Savannah and Bloodfall’s Hallow.

Genesis: Part 2

Phiomia do spawn in S.U.M.P, but they are much more common in the southeast block, where the marshes are located. It should be easy to spot one here but be on the lookout for dangers.

Lost Island

Ark’s newest map has almost as many Phiomia as The Island. You can find Phiomia anywhere on this map aside from the snowy mountains, Zaunaloa, the meadows, and Darkfern Forest.

Recommended Tames Before A Phiomia

There are a few dinos that useful tames long before you tame a Phiomia. Though this is all still in the early game, it is good to take each phase within a phase seriously. I would mention creatures like the Argentavis (which can carry the Phiomia) or a Raptor (which can protect you), but these are much more difficult to tame. So it is likely that you will be able to tame the Phiomia earlier.

Lystrosaurus

The Lystro is one of the easiest tames in Ark: Survival Evolved because it is handfed, and it doesn’t run when you approach it. While you can’t ride it, it does give you an experience boost if you pet it. This makes leveling early easier. The higher level you are, the easier it is to tame dinos.

Moschops

The Moschops is my favorite first tame. However, it does take some luck to tame as it is a handfed creature with a random rotation on what it wants to eat. It may only want mejoberries, but it also may wish to rare flowers, which you probably won’t have on you that early. I find it useful to tame the Moschops before the Phiomia because it is relatively fast and gathers many berries for its class. So you won’t have to handpick every single berry to feed the Phiomia.

Dodo

I always end up taking a Dodo very early on. They take next to nothing to knock out and eat very little. I tame them before I tame other things because they lay eggs needed to make Basic Kibble. This is the kibble you will use to feed the Phiomia if you prefer kibble over berries.

How To Tame A Phiomia

While taming a Phiomia is more manageable than taming most large creatures, it is one of the more challenging small creatures to tame. The food it easts is easy to find, but it does eat a lot for a small creature.

Bola The Phiomia

The Phiomia should be easy to bola. So keep a bola on your hotbar and aim for the legs. It is as simple as that. Since the Phiomia doesn’t flee until hit, it is easy to bola. Get as close as you need to get. There’s no need to build a pen to tame it, but if you want to, then it will leave room for mistakes.

Knock It Out

While I recommend a crossbow with tranq arrows for a max-level Phiomia, lower-level ones will knock out quickly with a club. You can even try a club on a max level one, but it may take forever, depending on your melee and the server settings.

Feed It

Basic Kibble
Berries (Mejo best)

After the Phiomia is knocked out, stop attacking it. Switch to feeding it as soon as you can. Though not usually necessary, adding a few narcoberries before adding the food never hurts. Mejoberries are the best wild food. But if you can make kibble, all you need is a handful of Basic Kibble.

Using A Phiomia After Taming It

The Phiomia is one of the first creatures I tame after I set up my farm. While you have to be careful with PvP servers, you can create a gorgeous ranch in PvE servers. I recommend waiting until you can make metal walls or place a strong gate in a cave entrance. Otherwise, your hard work will have been for naught when you get invaded.

Setting Up A Pen

You can start building a pen after you have your Phiomia at your base. I find the actual fences to be glitchy, but you can always try them out. Instead, I either place walls and a gate or stack up multiple fences. Alternatively, a barn is perfect. But that does take quite a bit of materials. I always build one eventually, but I usually start with a fence and work my way up to a gorgeous barn with attached Equus stables.

Collecting Feces With Dung Beetle

This is optional as Dung Beetles aren’t exactly common on every map. However, this method can get fertilizer going efficiently. After you have your Phiomia inside of a pen, then you can get a Dung Beetle and get to work.

Place Dung Beetle Near Phiomia – put them both in the same pen with plenty of room to roam.
Put Both On Wandering – ensure that the creatures are on wandering
Forcefeed Phiomia Stimberries – this optional step will ensure that the Phiomia poops as much as possible
Wait – now all you have to do is wait until the feces drops and the Dung Beetle picks it up. The Dung Beetle will turn the manure into fertilizer, which can be used to garden.

Garden

After you have a bit of fertilizer ready, you can begin gardening. The Dung Beetle will create fertilizer faster than you need it, so you don’t have to worry about running out after you have it started. Gardening is a fantastic way to get crops, which work better than berries almost all of the time. They are also needed to tame particular creatures, such as the Equus.

FAQs

Question: Does A Phiomia Need A Saddle?

Answer: the Phiomia doesn’t need a saddle to defecate. It does need a saddle to ride. You can unlock the saddle at level five, and it only requires six engram points. However, you may never ride it anyway.

Question: Are Phiomia Good For Gardening In Ark?

Answer: Yes. The Phiomia can ensure that you always have fertilizer ready. You don’t even need a Dung Beetle if you manually use the compost bin to create the fertilizer instead.

Question: How Do I Make The Phiomia Poop More?

Answer: if you feed the Phiomia stimberries, it will poop quickly. It will also lower the Phiomia’s food level, so it will be hungry soon and eat more. This is an endless cycle as long as you have the berries and food.

Question: What Does The Phiomia Gather?

Answer: the Phiomia cannot gather berries, but it does make a decent early game thatch and wood gatherer. So if you have one, go ahead and build a saddle and take it out for a spin every once in a while.

Phiomia Takeaway

Since the Phiomia in Ark: Survival Evolved is so easy to tame, there are only benefits from having one around. After I have my Dung Beetle and Phiomia ready, I always get a Gigantopithecus who can tend to the garden while I am away. All you need are these three dinos, and you can have an automated garden. Just don’t forget to place a feeding trough nearby filled with plenty of food for everyone.

If you want to find a reason to get a Phiomia but you don’t want to garden, then stop right there. As useful as gardening is, I understand not doing it because it takes a lot of time or because you’re on a PvP server. So, if you want a Phiomia because you like the way they operate or even for the laughs, that’s more than enough. Tame that Phiomia today.