This page details our top 5 recommended Mutations in Grounded. We’ll cover the reasons for recommended them, but also include some potential alternatives which might be more suited to your playstyle.

Best 5 Mutations In Grounded¶

The first thing you should understand about mutations is that most of them are acquired by performing specific actions in the yard. There are three which can be purchased from an ASL Terminal after speaking with the friendly robot BURG.L, but you’ll need to bring him specific chips before they’ll show up in the shop. See our page on All Mutations Effects for a full list of all the mutations available to you, and what you need to do to obtain them.

At the beginning of the game you’ll be able to use 2 mutations by default, but you won’t have any mutations available until you earn them or purchase them from an ASL Terminal. For this reason you don’t need to worry about increasing your maximum number of usable mutations to 5, which can be done by busting open Milk Molars and choosing the upgrade to increase your maximum number of mutations. If you’re at a stage in the game where you have more than 2 mutations available to you and you want to add more, see our interactive map here to find the locations of Milk Molars.

The below recommendations are based only on our opinion of what works for us, and what we’ve found useful based on our playstyles. You may find that you begin to prefer different mutations as you progress through the game, but the mutations noted below are intended to make your experience of the early game slightly easier by buffing you in various ways. We’ve only included mutations which are reasonably easy to obtain fairly early on, and we’d recommend using at least some of these if you find yourself struggling against the numerous nasty bugs in the yard…

Meat Shield¶

The Meat Shield mutation is likely to be one of the first that you’re able to obtain, since you only need 3000 Raw Science to purchase it from an ASL Terminal after speaking with BURG.L in the Oak Lab. You can earn Raw Science by completing quests, but you’ll also find it in various places throughout the yard, so be sure to check our interactive map for specific locations.

The maximum health increase of 30 may not seem like much at first, but you’ll quickly find that this amount of health can make all the difference when it comes to whether you survive a tough fight or not. There will be times when you’re so close to killing off a single powerful bug, or a group of lesser ones, and you aren’t quite able to kill them off before dying yourself. This mutation will give you that extra bit of health which can see you through the closest of battles. You’ll also find that many bugs inflict gas, burning, or poison over time debuffs. A larger health pool is always useful to outlast these debuffs.

Buff Lungs¶

The Buff Lungs mutation is useful for similar reasons to Meat Shield: it substantially increases one of the core stats that you’ll be making use of throughout the game. You’ll find that there are countless times when you run out of stamina as you’re fighting off multiple bugs, or trying to finish off a more powerful one on its own. You can learn to control your stamina usage so that the times when you find yourself completely drained of stamina are rarer, but there will almost certainly be scenarios where you just can’t avoid it. The extra stamina from Buff Lungs will ensure that you can keep fighting for long enough to finish off enemies by landing those last few extra hits before they catch you off guard without the ability to defend yourself or run away.

Aside from all of the above, one of the main reasons why this mutation is listed in our top 5 is that you can get it fairly early on without much grinding, since it’s one of the mutations that you can purchase from an ASL Terminal. However, keep in mind that you’ll need the Red Anthill BURG.L Chip before it will become available in the shop.

Parry Master¶

The Parry Master mutation is most useful for those who are confident with their parry timings. If you find that you’re able to perform perfect blocks more often than not, the buff from Parry Master will make you feel like a god at times. It essentially removes the possibility of running out of stamina during a fight, at least once you reach Phase 2 or Phase 3. But there’s the catch: you will need to block 20 times to unlock Phase 1 of the mutation, which replenishes a small amount of stamina with each perfect block, 60 times for Phase 2 which replenishes a moderate amount, and 100 times for Phase 3, which replenishes a significant amount. If you get used to blocking early on in the game, you should soon get the hang of performing perfect blocks and make good use of them as one of your primary defences against more powerful bugs such as Wolf Spiders. This is particularly important because defeating Wolf Spiders early on is necessary to unlock another powerful mutation, covered below.

Mithridatism¶

The Mithridatism mutation is arguably one of the most useful that you’ll want to keep with you for most of the game. There are many bugs in the yard which inflict poison damage, so reducing it as much as possible should be high on your list of priorities. This is particularly important as you’ll be fighting a considerable amount of Stinkbugs in the early game, which tend to use a lot of poison attacks by emitting a cloud of it in a wide radius. One of the best things about this mutation is that you don’t need to kill too many Wolf Spiders to unlock all of its phases. However, Wolf Spiders are among the toughest bugs in the yard during the early game, so you’d do well to equip yourself with decent armor and ideally with the Meat Shield, Buff Lungs, and Parry Master mutations before you take them on properly.

With that said, it is possible to defeat the Wolf Spiders without the above mutations, especially once you start using a bow. If you’re playing with friends you’ll find it even easier, since one friend can kite the spider and occasionally hit it with melee attacks, while the other constantly shoots it from afar. This is a tried and tested method of defeating Wolf Spiders early on, but you can also try mastering perfect blocks to make things easier, though this is generally more risky if you’re inexperienced.

Sharpshooter¶

The final recommended mutation that we’ll cover is Sharpshooter. This is entirely based on the premise that the bow is often the most reliable way to kill tough bugs early in the game without exposing yourself too much to their attacks. There are exceptions to this, such as with bombardier beetles which tend to be easier to kill in melee as you outflank them and aim for their weak spots on their backside, while avoiding their ranged attacks whenever you see the preceding animation. However, in general you’ll find that Stinkbugs, Wolf Spiders, and other tough bugs are much easier to kill with a bow than with a melee weapon during the early game.

The reason why this mutation is useful is that it makes that process all the more efficient; you’ll have a decent chance of temporarily rooting an enemy in place when you shoot at them, and this triggers more often than you might expect. Rooting a tough enemy such as a Wolf Spider can be invaluable when you need to recover some health by using a Fiber Bandage. This mutation will take a bit longer to acquire than some of the others, since you need to kill a lot of bugs with your bow to earn it. You should also keep in mind that the kill will only count as yours if you inflict the killing blow. However, if you start using a bow as soon as possible it won’t be long until you unlock the first phase of the mutation.