Grounded 1.4: Best Mutation Tier List

Mutations are special perks players can earn by completing various challenges throughout the world in 1.4 Update of Grounded. Some Mutations can be upgraded by performing specific gameplay tasks multiple times to unlock new abilities or advance to the next phase. They all provide different effects and some are generally better than the others. So, you’d want to make sure that you utilize the best of the best and you make good use of your limited slots!

Best Mutation Tier List

There’s a total of 41 Mutations that you can use in Grounded Update 1.4 – However, you’re only allowed to use 5 perks. That said, you’d want to make sure that you use the best effects and make good use of your slots.

I’ll be ranking all 41 mutations from worst to best (S tier to D tier) through the tier below. The deciding factors are stuff like obtainment method (how difficult it is for its effect), overall effectiveness, cost, general usefulness and more!

S Tier

• Antbassador – Phase one makes you friendly to red ants, phase two includes black ants, and phase three adds fire ants. This mutation is now a staple in my loadout, especially for navigating the upper yard without constantly being attacked by fire ants. For its utility and ease of movement, I’m placing it in S tier.
• Dissection Expert – Increasing loot drop chance by 10%, Dissection Expert is a must-have for farming resources. It goes straight to S tier.
• Cardio Fan – Cardio Fan boosts stamina regen and reduces exhaustion time. This is an essential stamina mutation and always equipped for me, earning it an S tier rating.
• Chopper – Chopper reduces enemy resistance to certain damage types with axes. Given its utility and the power of axes in the game, it easily earns an S tier spot.
• Guard Dog – Guard Dog increases damage during factional raids. It’s indispensable for JavaMatic and mixers, making it an S tier mutation.
• Natural Explorer – Natural Explorer is an excellent mutation for enhancing your movement speed, making it easier to traverse the game’s large world. It’s particularly valuable in the early and mid-game stages when you’re still uncovering new areas.
• Reliable Friend – Reliable Friend is incredibly useful in multiplayer scenarios, making it a must-have for teams that frequently face challenging content together. If you’re playing in a dedicated group, especially on higher difficulties where downed teammates are common, this mutation can be a lifesaver and deserves a solid S-Tier placement.
• Spicy Safety – Moving on to Spicy Safety, which reduces damage taken from smashing and stabbing attacks by 50%. This is S tier. It’s a really good mutation in New Game Plus because the percentage reduction is insanely helpful.
  • Enemies deal so much damage in New Game Plus and reducing it by 50% is significant. It only works against smashing and stabbing attack types, but many enemies use these types, making it very useful. For that reason, it’s an S-tier mutation.

A Tier

• Ant-nihilator – At phase three, it increases your damage to black and red ants by 25% and boosts your resistance to them by 10%. This mutation is a must-have for tackling red ant nests and orc fire ants during the JavaMatic defense. I’ll place this in A tier because it’s highly situational but invaluable when fighting ants.
• Bardic Inspiration – Bardic Inspiration gives bow and crossbow attacks a chance to play a buffing melody. This mutation is fantastic in multiplayer, boosting crit chance, attack damage, and reducing damage taken. However, it’s cumbersome in single-player, so it lands in A tier.
• Blademaster – Blade Master reduces enemy attack damage and your exhaustion recovery time with sword attacks. Its utility in reducing damage makes it an A tier mutation, though limited to sword users.
• Corporate Kickback – This mutation gives a chance to heal based on damage dealt when you block an attack. It’s particularly useful in boss fights where you parry often, so it lands in A tier.
• Coup de Grass – Increasing crit hit chance by 5%, Coup de Grass is vital for maximizing damage, especially in boss fights. It earns a spot in A tier.
• Javelineer – This mutation enhances spear attacks, reflecting damage, and increasing throwing and charged attack damage. The throwing boost makes it a solid A tier.
• Parry Master – Parry Master is an excellent mutation for players who are skilled at blocking and prefer a melee-focused playstyle. The enhanced stamina recovery can make a significant difference in prolonged fights, allowing you to maintain pressure on enemies. However, its reliance on perfect blocks and limited use for ranged combatants prevent it from reaching S Tier.
• Sharpshooter – Increases your crit chance by 20% when you land an attack with your bow or crossbow. Additionally, candy arrows gain special effects: mint arrows slow down your targets, sour arrows deal additional stun, and spicy arrows inflict burn damage, dealing 50 damage over 5 seconds. These effects are all very useful, but the main benefit here is the 20% crit chance. I’m going to place this in A tier.
  • It’s insanely good if you’re using a bow or crossbow. While I don’t use them often, if you have that specific build, it is very powerful. The crits are especially potent when paired with Coup de Grass and Trapper Peeper, allowing you to do significant damage regularly. For that reason, it is absolutely an A-tier mutation.
• Trapper PEEP.R – Boosts your crit damage by 60% in its third stage. This is a solid A-tier mutation, especially in New Game Plus. It significantly increases your crit damage, making it very powerful. It is difficult to get because of the gold cards required, but in New Game Plus, gold cards become much easier to obtain. For that reason, it’s an A-tier mutation.
• Whittle Wizard – Mint attacks reduce enemy movement speed by 30% for 5 seconds (useless), sour attacks deal 6 extra stun (not great), and spicy attacks deal 75 damage every 5 seconds. This mutation also makes staff attacks apply a buff reducing their stamina cost by 50%.
  • This is tricky because with the Mint Staff, it’s rubbish; with the Sour Staff, it’s rubbish; but with the Spicy Staff, it’s amazing. It’s particularly useful against the Wasp Queen.
  • I’ll place this in A tier because it’s really useful for that fight and good for a spicy staff build in multiplayer. The damage and stamina reduction make it worth it.

B Tier

• Apex Predator – Apex Predator has different effects based on the weapon used. The Scythe of Blossoms’ attack speed increase and the Blaster of the Moldy Matriarch’s puddle spawn are standout effects, but others aren’t as impactful. Since it doesn’t work on infused weapons, I’ll rank it B tier. It has specific uses but isn’t universally great.
• Barbarian – Barbarian boosts club attack damage by 25% and regens one health per second but makes parrying harder. It’s useful against specific bosses like the Wasp Queen or Mantis but less so against regular enemies. I’ll place it in B tier due to its situational utility.
• Battle Buddies – Battle Buddies reduces damage dealt and taken from other players by 75%. This mutation is useful in multiplayer to avoid friendly fire, especially in higher difficulty levels. It earns a solid B tier.
• Fresh Defense – Fresh Defense reduces damage from gas and burning and has a significant effect on sizzle. It’s situational but useful, earning a B tier placement.
• Grass Master – Grass Master boosts chopping efficiency and stamina return when harvesting grass. It’s practical but not versatile, so it goes in B tier.
• Hauling Hero – Boosting your hauling strength by 15, Hauling Hero is useful pre-New Game Plus. However, it’s less critical once you have the Handy Nat. It goes in B tier.
• Mansterious Stranger – Mansterious Stranger is a solid choice for players who appreciate a bit of randomness and enjoy the occasional high-damage boost during combat. While its inconsistent activation and lack of control prevent it from being a top-tier mutation, its potential to deal significant damage makes it a valuable addition to many builds.
• Merteen – In general a useful mutation to have in exploration.
• Shocking Dismissal – When you block an attack, you have a 20% chance to trigger an effect that turns your next melee attack into an electric AOE, dealing 75 shock damage and 40 stun. This is a lot of stun, and 75 shock damage is also decent. Shock damage doesn’t work on robots as they’re immune, but this is a solid effect overall.
  • However, the 75 damage can be limiting in higher New Game Plus stages. I’ll put this in B tier. I like using this in certain fights, but it damages your teammates in multiplayer, making it impractical in that mode.
  • In single-player, though, it can be very useful. It deals a good amount of damage, especially pre-New Game Plus. In the higher stages, it’s less effective because there are better options.

C Tier

• Assassin – The Assassin mutation adds bleed damage over time when using daggers. However, the static damage doesn’t scale well in high New Game Plus levels, making it less effective as enemy health increases. Therefore, it goes in C tier.
• Buff Lungs & Meat Shield – These mutations increase stamina and health by 50, respectively. However, they become obsolete in high New Game Plus levels due to their static boosts. Both go in C tier for being useful only pre-New Game Plus.
• Mithritadism – Overall, a useful mutation but it only applies to situations where you go against Poison effects.
• Mom Genes – This mutation is a solid C-tier option, and I wouldn’t really recommend using it in most situations. Even with a summoner build, it falls short because the Thorns effect doesn’t deal enough damage due to its low health pool.
  • To obtain the mutation, you have to defeat the Broodmother, and even then, its utility is limited. The only real benefit it offers is distracting enemies to buy yourself some time to heal, but beyond that, it’s not very effective.
• Juicy – Juicy reduces thirst depletion by 50%. It’s largely unnecessary, earning it a C tier.
• Rascal Rogue – First off, this mutation only works with melee attacks and won’t benefit you with ranged weapons. It allows you to steal one item per enemy, which can be useful in very specific situations but doesn’t have a broad application.
  • Personally, the only times I’d consider using Rascal Rogue are when I’m after unique trinkets like the Speed Droplet or Giddy Goop, or if I’m trying to farm specific resources like T-Ling Shells or Black Ox Horns. Even then, the effectiveness of the loot you gain isn’t substantial.
• Smasher – This mutation slows target attack speed by 30% for 10 seconds and gives hammer attacks 50% more stun. The effect is amazing but was useless because all hammers were terrible. However, in 1.4, they added the Salt Chipper, a tier-three salty hammer that is very powerful. You should definitely run Smasher with the Salt Chipper. Outside of this specific weapon, I wouldn’t use it, so it goes in C tier because it’s useful on one weapon.
• Truffle Tussle – When you hit an enemy with your fists, you have a 10% chance to create an explosion that deals 75 damage. This is C tier. I hate using fists and would never use this against enemies. The only reason it’s C tier is that if I forget a bomb, I can punch a cracked rock with this mutation equipped to explode it. It has a small utility use outside its intended effect.

D Tier

• Daredevil – Daredevil reduces fall damage by 50%, but it’s largely useless compared to the fall defense trinket. This one goes in D tier.
• Lil Fist – Lil Fist is difficult to obtain and not very effective, making it a D tier mutation.
• Rock Cracker – Increases your busting efficiency by 100%. However, this mutation is pretty useless, so it’s going in D tier. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend using it at all. The only time I might use it is to harvest clay with a shovel, but even then, it’s not very useful. In my opinion, it’s a D-tier mutation.
• Sour Sensation – This mutation reflects 150% of the damage you take back at the attacker. I don’t like taking damage to deal damage, so I consider this a terrible mutation.
• Spore Lord – When you deal explosive damage, you have a chance to apply buffs to yourself: 1% resistance to all explosive damage, 1% increase in movement speed, 0.5 health regen every 3 seconds, and a 1% increase in explosive damage.
  • These bonuses are tiny, so this goes in D tier. You’d need to be in a long fight for this to be useful, and there aren’t many of those. The bonuses are so small that it’s not worth it at all.

And that’s all the 41 Mutations in Grounded ranked from best to worst. If you have questions or concerns, feel free to leave them in the comments section below. We’ll try to get back to them as soon as we can. Up next, why not check our tier list for the Tier 4 weapons in Grounded 1.4 as well? If you liked this one, I’m sure you’ll also like the tier list I recommend!