Abilities

**Abilities** are traits or attacks that players equip to adjust their dinosaur to their playstyle. Abilities need to be unlocked during gameplay with Marks. Abilities can be purchased at any time, however equipping abilities requires the user to be in a  **Home Cave**. Players can edit their abilities, view unlockable abilities, and equip abilities from the Ability menu. The ability menu is found under the Character Tab when the player opens chat, and is shown in the tutorial when creating a new character.

## Ability Slots

Every playable has access to a number of **Ability Slots** used to equip abilities. In servers with Growth enabled, the player begins with only a few slots available. Growing into later stages will unlock more slots for use. If the player dies as an adult, any abilities equipped into slots that require Adult to edit can still be used, however they can not be changed until the player reaches adult again.

There are 9 ability slots that can be used: Head, Senses, Arm, Front Limb, Metabolism, Back Limb, Leg, Tail, and Voice. The total slots available to a player depend on the dinosaur they are playing. Some dinosaurs like *Daspletosaurus* have 2 slots of a type, giving an extra slot to equip abilities of that slot into.

### Equipping Abilities

To equip abilities a player must be inside of a Home Cave and be sleeping. Community servers have the option to disable the requirement to be in a home cave. The player must have the ability they wish to equip purchased and have progressed enough to have the required slot available. To purchase an ability, a player needs to select the slot the desired ability is in, select it, and select Purchase. From there the ability can be equipped by selecting it and pressing Equip. Active abilities need to be further equipped into the ability bar at the bottom of the Ability menu by selecting the spot the player wants to bind the ability to, and choosing the ability.

## Ability Types

Abilities are divided into two types, **Active** and **Passive**. **Active** abilities need to be equipped into the ability bar and be activated to have an affect. **Passive** abilities only need to be equipped in an ability slot and always provide an affect.

### Active Abilities

**Active Abilities** include both attacks like Bite, and calls like Bark. Active abilities need to be equipped into the ability bar in order for them to be used, then the keybind for the slot needs to be pressed. Attacks will play an animation and afflict targets that they hit. The majority of attacks only deal damage, but others deal **Status Effects**; for instance, Venom Bite deals venom on hit and Crushing Bite deals Bone Break. All active abilities have a cooldown before they can be used again, typically shorter on a playable's main attack and longer on abilities that deal status effects or provide  **Buffs**. Abilities that deal buffs like Healing Call only effect players within a specific radius. All current calls require any intended targets to also be in the user's **Group**. The buffs from calls lasts for a set duration, but may be extended if another player with the call in the group uses their ability. Calls like Bark and Tyrant Roar have small effects that can be stacked if multiple users activate it.

### Passive Abilities

**Passive Abilities** include Metabolism and Hide abilities, and stat changing abilities like Paddle. Passive abilities modify the players stats at all times (while equipped) and only need to be equipped in an ability slot. Most current Passive abilities are in the slots that only have passive abilities, like Metabolism and Hide. Some playables have optional passive abilities in the same slot as an active ability, such as *Albertaceratops* having both Stomp and Balanced.