DragonVale Breeding Times, Combos, and Strategies (2024)

Mastering the breeding times and combinations in DragonVale is key to filling your park with rare, epic, and gemstone dragons. The breeding system can seem complicated at first, but this extensive guide will break down everything you need to know about dragon breeding.

We’ll cover breeding caves, incubation times, boosts, tips and tricks, and detailed breeding combo tables for all the dragons. Use this guide to understand the breeding mechanics so you can efficiently acquire any dragon your want!

Overview of DragonVale Breeding System

Here is a high-level overview of how breeding works in DragonVale:

• Breeding Caves – Special habitats where you place two dragons to breed. Better caves improve odds.
• Incubation Habitats – Nursery or upgraded Epic Breeding Island to incubate eggs.
• Dragon Elements – Each dragon has one or more elements that determine possible breeds.
• Breeding Times – Varies based on the combination. Shortest is 30 minutes, longest is 4+ days.
• Incubation Times – Also varies per dragon from minutes up to 3+ days once bred.
• Retry Attempts – Keep trying over and over with different combinations. Luck plays a factor.

Now let’s dive into the details about each aspect of the breeding system.

Breeding Caves in DragonVale

The breeding caves are special structures where you place two dragons in an attempt to breed a new egg. There are a few types of caves:

• Breeding Cave – Basic cave that comes with new parks.
• Colosseum – Slightly improved odds over basic cave.
• Giant Cave – Better odds and can breed Epic dragons.
• Epic Breeding Island – Highest odds and fastest breed times.

Upgrading to the best caves provides a major boost to your breeding success rates. The Epic Breeding Island is ideal, but requires significant gems to purchase and upgrade.

When placing dragons in the breeding cave, the order does not impact the outcome. However, you should periodically switch the order as it seems to help traverse the RNG.

Now let’s look at incubation times and habitats…

Dragon Incubation Times and Nurseries

Once you’ve succeeded in breeding a new dragon egg, you’ll need to incubate it in a nursery habitat.

Standard nurseries can house 2 eggs, while Epic nurseries can house 4 eggs. Upgrading them reduces the incubation time.

Here is an overview of incubation times required for different dragon rarities:

• Common – 4 hours
• Rare – 6 hours
• Very Rare – 8 hours
• Epic – 10 hours
• Gemstone/Crystalline – 12 hours

In addition to rarity, certain dragon types also have naturally longer incubation times. For example, opposite dragons take 16 hours.

While breeding caves focus on speed, upgrading nurseries reduces the incubation time which is also crucial. Make sure you have open nurseries ready so you don’t need to sell dragons or speed up timers with gems.

Understanding Dragon Elements for Breeding

Now let’s discuss how dragon elements impact possible breeding outcomes…

Every dragon in DragonVale has one or more elemental affiliations. The elements compose the “genetics” that determine breeding results.

Here are the 10 primary elements and the additional rare elements:

• Fire, Cold, Earth, Air, Plant, Water, Lightning, Metal, Light, Dark (Primary)
• Moon, Sun, Seasonal, Galaxy, Rainbow (Rare)

To have a chance at breeding a target dragon, you need to combine dragons that collectively contribute the required elements.

For example, breeding a cold + earth dragon allows access to any cold/earth hybrid dragons.

Later in this guide we provide detailed breeding tables with recommended elemental combinations for all the rare dragons.

But first, let’s review some key strategies and tips for breeding…

Breeding Strategies and Tips for Success

Use the following key tips and strategies to increase your breeding success rates in DragonVale:

• Upgrade Breeding Caves – Higher level caves greatly improve odds.
• Max Out Nurseries – Shorter incubation times let you retry more combinations faster.
• Utilize Rift Breeding – Gives extra breeding attempts and access to past limited dragons.
• Buy Missing Dragons – Use gems to purchase any dragons you’re missing from friends.
• Sell Duplicate Dragons – Clears up habitat space for incubating new eggs.
• Switch up Combos – Don’t repeat the exact same pair over and over.
• Change Order – Periodically switch dragons between spot 1 and 2.
• Track Elements – Keep needed elements in mind when selecting pairs.
• Have Patience! – With enough attempts and good coverage you’ll eventually succeed.

Using all of these tips and strategies together will enable you to breed any dragon in the game! Next we’ll provide detailed breeding combo guides…

In-Depth Breeding Combo Tables

Here are comprehensive breeding tables covering all the rare, epic, and gemstone dragons in DragonVale, along with the recommended element combinations:

Rare Dragons

Epic Dragons

Gemstone Dragons

This covers all the top rare, epic, and gemstone dragons, with recommended breeding pairs for each based on the needed elements. Use these guides and keep trying different combinations until you are successful!

Final Review of Key Breeding Tips

Let’s review the key tips to remember:

• Upgrade your breeding caves and nurseries
• Understand needed elements for each dragon
• Use Rift + Bring Em’ Back for extra chances
• Constantly try new combinations
• Purchase any missing dragons with gems
• Keep patience and persistence!

Use this complete DragonVale breeding guide to master the incubation times, caves, elements strategy, and combo details needed to acquire any dragon your want! Let me know if you have any other questions.