DragonVale World Breeding
Dragons guides

DragonVale World Breeding

Dragonvale World has a relatively simple breeding system, but much of that system is not well understood yet. This has lead to a lot of confusion about what is going on under the hood, as well as what combos are best to use to breed a given dragon. This guide is to help clarify what is known about the Dragonvale World breeding system, and to bring to light some previously unknown aspects of it.

How Traits Work?

Each non-Enchanted dragon has a set of traits that are required to be present in the breeding combo for that dragon to be a possible result. Most dragons’ required traits are their own traits. We can call these direct traits.

Dragons with the Ancient, Rainbow, Sunken, and Treat traits have a specified set of traits other than their own trait though. They also add a specific set of traits other than their own. These are indirect traits. The Ancient, Rainbow, Sunken, and Treat traits do not get used directly in the breeding system.

When you select 2 parents, their traits (whether direct or indirect) are combined to form a set of traits in the combo. The order of the traits or which come from which parent does not appear to be important. Whether or not there are 1 or 2 of a trait in a combo doesn’t seem to matter either.

Once the combo’s traits are set, then the game can select a dragon that requires a subset (or the entire set of) the traits in the combo. Only dragons who’s required traits are in the combo can be bred from that combo.

How to Breed Enchanted Dragons?

Enchanted dragons have a chance to be bred anytime the regular version of the dragon is one of the parents. It is a long-shot, so don’t expect a lot of Enchanted dragons to just fall in your lap!

Are Combos with the Same Traits the Same?

Combos with the same traits are largely the same, the main difference being which Enchanted dragons are possibilities. The same dragons on different sides appears to be exactly the same.

Since using different dragons means that there are different Enchanted dragons that are possible from the combo, the combos also have slightly different expected breeding times for misses. Some Enchanted dragons have longer breeding times than others. If you were to get one of the Enchanted dragons as a result, that would affect the amount of time you would spend breeding to get whatever your target dragon is.

Our Breeding Calculator and How to Breed sections of the Dragon info pages take this into account to help differentiate between combos with the same traits.

And of course if you want a specific Enchanted dragon, it may not be a “miss” even when you are trying for a different dragon. In that case, it may be best to use the normal version of the one(s) you want to get an Enchanted of. If you already have the Enchanted version of a dragon, you may want to avoid using it or it’s normal version in any combos, even if they are the “best” dragons to use in other regards.

Do Levels Matter?

Short answer: most likely they do, at least in some cases.

This is one of the most common questions/debates in any of the breeding games out there. In some games the levels definitely do matter, in others they definitely do not. For most games the question can’t be answered definitely with the information that is available publicly, but may be able to be answered with some level of confidence. That confidence can be derived from extensive testing or clues in the game or game data itself.

DragonVale World is currently one of those games where the answer is not definitive. There hasn’t been enough time for extensive testing, but there are clues in the game data. So it is likely that the level of parents does have an effect in some cases.

The reason for this is there are some dragons which have data associated with them that appear to be modifiers to their chance to be bred based on level. This data is currently only available for breedable “special” dragons such as Kraken, Enchanted KrakenFestiveEnchanted FestiveEnchanted NorthEnchanted SouthEnchanted EastEnchanted West, and the soon to be released Eve and Enchanted Eve dragons.

For example, the Festive dragon has a modifier of 0.009 at level 10, which becomes 0.09 at level 20. Presumably this level is the lowest level parent in the combo, but that isn’t for sure. It could be an average of the two parents. Given what we know though, if trying for Festive (or any of the other dragons listed above) you are probably better off using level 20 parents whenever possible. That is a 10x change in modifier, though whether or not that translates to a 10x change in overall chance, or even if it is definitely used, is still unknown.

While not definitive, this data does give us clues that the level of parents likely does matter … at least in some cases. Whether or not there are modifiers for other dragons is unknown. It’s possible they are weighted by common factors (star rating or something else) and so don’t need individual weighting the way that special dragons do.

The Breeding Calculator and How to Breed sections do not currently take the level of parents into account.

Are Dragons Weighted Differently?

While the exact weightings for dragons isn’t known, breeding tests show rather conclusively that there are differences in how some types of dragons are weighted. Also the data on level modifiers suggests that the system is set up to apply modifiers on a dragon by dragon basis. Other data associated with various dragons suggests that there is a weighting system.

Anyone who has done extensive breeding will have noticed that Enchanted versions are much tougher to get than regular versions. It appears that Enchanted dragons that are possible in a combo have roughly a 1% to 2% chance of being bred. Interestingly, Enchanted dragons do not have individual weightings, so it is likely that Enchanted dragons are weighted as a group.

Also readily apparent is that the basic single trait dragons like Air, Earth, Fire, and such are rather rare when there are any other non-Enchanted possibilities. If you are breeding Earth + Earth, you will either be getting Earth or Enchanted Earth … but if it’s Earth + Fire you will find that getting Earth or Fire is very tough indeed. Again, the chance appears to get a basic single trait dragon from a combo with other possibilities is very low, around 1% to 2%. All basic single trait dragons have an individual weighting, but it is the same in all cases. So it would be indistinguishable from a weighting of those dragons as a group.

It is unclear whether or not other categories of dragons have their own weightings, or if they solely rely on the individual weightings. In either case, it appears in testing that there is not a significant difference in weighting between most normal 2 or 3 trait dragons.

What Does it all Mean?

The end result of all the information available about the breeding system paints a pretty straightforward path to breeding the dragon you want. Here are some straightforward tips:

  • Use the minimum number of required traits.
  • Use high level parents when possible.
  • Use parents you would like to have Enchanted versions of.
  • Use combos with the lowest breeding times of “misses”.

You can test out any combo in our Breeding Calculator, and if you want to quickly and easily find a list of combos that will give you the best chances and lowest expected waiting time … use the Dragon pages here at DragonVale World Guide. Just select the dragon you want to breed and it will show you the top 10 combos!

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