One thing that makes PixARK stand apart from its predecessor, ARK: Survival Evolved, is the Magic Skill system. As fantastical as ARK is, it has always kept a sense of realism about it. However, this game throws that out the window in the hopes of having its own sense of identity.
Thankfully, the Magic system isn’t just shoehorned into the game to make it more interesting, but actually plays a rather integral role in the gameplay, especially as you begin to get into the mid-to-later levels. If you want to get the most out of your time in PixARK, you have to dip into the Magic Skill system at some point.
There’s a lot to understand about Magic in this game, so we’ll go over the basics first before diving into all the different things that you can do with it. Let’s get started!
The Basics of Magic in PixARK
There are two major components to Magic in this game: Magic Creatures and the Magic Skill Tree.
Magic Creatures specifically set themselves apart from Normal Creatures for a couple of reasons. For starters, they cannot be Knockout Tamed in the same way that other creatures can since they need Magic Sleepy Arrows before their Torpor will be affected. (For more on that, be sure to check out our Taming Guide.)
Additionally, Magic Creatures drop special items that you can’t get anywhere else. In particular, they drop Primary Magic Cores. If you’re lucky, they may even drop a variety of Magic Stones. When you face off against stronger Magic Creatures, you’ll even find that they won’t take damage from regular weapons or tools, and can only be hurt by magic. So as you can see, it’s important to make the distinction between Magical Creatures and regular ones when dealing with wildlife in PixARK.
The Magic Skill, on the other hand, is actually less of a skill and more of a crafting tree. There are several magical feats you can perform, but you’re going to need to craft the tools for them first. And for that, you’ll need the proper crafting stations and materials.
Of course you can’t just craft magical tools with any regular old materials. You need to venture out to magical lands such as the Magic Forest to gather things like Mageweave Bark or Magic Fiber, in addition to slaying Magic Creatures for their drops. Then you can use those materials in conjunction with a variety of magical crafting stations, such as the Magic Workbench, Alchemy Stove, Inscription Book, and Crucible, in order to craft all manner of magical items.
Making Magic with the Magic Workbench
The Magic Workbench is the main crafting station for the Magic Skill. With it, you can craft everything from saddles for Magic Creatures to magic building blocks and furniture to wands, magic combat gear, and magical base defense. While some of this stuff is self-explanatory, the wands, combat gear, and base defense are really unique and deserve a highlight.
Wands and the Alchemy Stove
Wands are interesting tools that can be used to accomplish a couple of different tasks. There are two different types of wands in this game: gathering wands and offensive wands.
Gathering wands like the Wood Wand, Shining Wand, and Bone Wand are capable of gathering resources like Elemental Magic Stones, while also housing the capability of basic ranged attacks. The Shining Wand and Bone Wand are even capable of collecting two Magic Stones per block, so they’re well worth having around even after you have a pick that can mine them.
Offensive wands like the Apprentice Wand and Master Wand, on the other hand, have the ability to cast Elemental Magic and unleash devastating attacks on unsuspecting enemies. However, in order to cast spells, they require ammunition in the form of Magic Stone Essence, which is created from Magic Stones using the Alchemy Stove.
Magic Combat Gear
The combat gear that you can craft from the Magic Skill is pretty unique and will prove useful throughout the rest of the game. Aside from the nice magic garbs you can craft, there’s a neat Ice Spear, a solid Ice Shield, and a plethora of Elemental Ammo types you can craft.
The Ice Spear is essentially just a spear that’s really powerful. The Ice Shield, on the other hand, has the ability to not only block normal attacks but also to protect against magic attacks, making it extremely useful whenever going up against creatures that cast spells.
There’s also all sorts of Elemental Ammo you can craft for your bows and rifles that grant all manner of elemental effects when fired. For example, Ice Ammo will slow targets down, and Fire Ammo will create miniature explosions for decent area of effect damage. They’re really useful and actually act as a decent alternative to wands.
Magical Base Defense
There are two kinds of base defense that come from the Magic Skill tree: the Elemental Magic Shield and the Thunder Totem.
The Elemental Magic Shield is a special barrier that, when active, prevents any and all destruction of blocks within the protected area — even from yourself. However, it requires rare Dark Magic Stones to keep active, so it’s a good idea to save the barrier for times of War.
The Thunder Totem, on the other hand, is a sort of magical turret. It hits enemies that enter its range with bolts of lightning, dealing moderate damage. They can be picked up and replaced without demolishing them, and several can even be put down around your base — given you have the materials to build them — but you need to be at least level 60 before the Engram even unlocks.
Summoning with the Inscription Book
The Inscription Book allows you to create pages that summon Magical Creatures like Skeletons and Zombies to defend you. They aren’t incredibly powerful, but you can summon as many creatures as you have pages. They mostly do their own thing and don’t respond to your command, but they’re unique and definitely worth having around for clutch situations.
Brewing Potions with the Crucible
A Magic Skill system simply wouldn’t be complete without potions, and the Crucible will help you with just that. There are a slew of different kinds of potions you can brew, from recovery potions to potions that grant insane player buffs.
There are Health and Vigor Potions that recover your Health and Stamina respectively. There are potions that temporarily buff the player’s stats, like Melee Damage, Max Carry Load, Item Crafting Speed and Efficiency, Swimming Ability and Oxygen Consumption, and even Movement Speed. There’s even a potion that will temporarily turn the player into a Werewolf, if that’s your style. Whether or not you’re actually into Magic, you can’t honestly deny how useful these potions are.
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And that about covers all of the unique things Magic in PixARK can accomplish. Keep in mind that everything listed here is based entirely on an early build of the game from around the time Early Access started, so this is all subject to change as the developers at Snail Games fine-tune the experience.
For more help with finding elusive resources, taming creatures, and using console commands, be sure to check out the rest of our PixARK guides.
- How to Tame Any Creature
- Easy Copper Mining
- How to Tame a Pegasus and a Fairy Dragon
- Console Commands Guide
