Beginner's Guide to Taming v2.0 for Release 70

Hello again, Tamers! The original version of this guide has gotten a bit long in the tooth, and instead of edit it I decided to leave the original as a monument to Taming as it was in Release 40 and write a version 2.0 for Release 70. Ten years from now when Portalarium reissues SotA Classic there may be need for the original again.

Getting started in Taming can be a daunting task: an entire skill tree, fifteen skills, a specialization, and a vast continent full of wild, magical creatures waiting for you to slip a collar around their neck. Fortunately, you have me as your guide on your foray into the wonderful world of Taming!

First, a brief overview of the Taming Skill Tree. All skills in the Taming tree are 1x, meaning they take about 1.21 gigawatts…sorry, 1.21 million XP to GM; and Taming Specialization, like many (all?) others is 20x, meaning it will take about 24.2 million XP to GM. If you don’t know what any of that means yet, don’t worry, you'll have plenty of time to think about it while you are mining silver. The skills are as follows:

• Tame Creature: Arguably the most worthless skill in the game, yet obviously necessary for a Tamer. This skill does absolutely nothing for you once you have tamed a pet (or acquired an already tamed pet from another tamer).
  
• Heal Creature: Does exactly what it says on the tin.
• Summoning: This is the meat of the Taming tree. Summoning is how you call your pet, it affects the level of pet you are able to summon, and it can ‘gate’ the level of the pet once it is summoned. More on this shortly.
  
• Obedience: Controls how low in health your pet can get before it runs away in terror. This skill is still broken as of Release 70 (tamed pets don’t run). I find 40 to be more than enough, even at well above GM Taming levels.
  
• Collar Recovery: Another completely worthless (but necessary) skill. Affects your chance to not lose a collar on a failed taming attempt. Like Tame Creature, it is wasted skill points once you have tamed your pet. More on this skill in a bit.
  
• Resurrect Creature: Again, the title says it all. 100% effective at Level 40, take this one up at least that far, farther for a better fizzle / reagent use chance.
• Frenzy: Sends your pet into a ‘Frenzy’. Increases your pets Strength, Attack Speed, and Combat Health Regen at the cost of Damage Resistance.
  
• Combat Training: Adds to your pet’s Level. More on this below.
• Pet Speed Training: Increases your pet’s movement speed. Not enough to actually keep up with you, but anything is something in this department.
• Pet Strength Training: Increases your pet’s Strength. Nice.
  
• Concentration: Combat Pets have an associated Focus Cost. This skill reduces that cost.
  
• Refresh: Reduces the Summon Tamed Debuff timer. This has become much more useful with the release of the new tamables. More below.
• Pet Taunting Training: Increases threat generated by pets. If you want your pet to tank for you, this is your go to.
• Pet Attack Precision Training: Increases your pet’s critical hit damage. Good stuff.
• Pet Hide Toughness Training: Physical and Magical Resists. Get some.
• Taming Specialization: Choosing this as one of your two allowed Specializations makes you a Tamer…and passing on it means you will never be able to tame or use pets at their highest levels. Twenty times harder to level up than any other skill in the tree…and worth every bit of it. Makes it possible to tame the fearsome Destroyer, then makes it harder, better, faster, and stronger.

Lesson 1 (So you want to be a Tamer…)

You begin the game with 1 point each in Tame Creature and Summoning. You can now…do absolutely nothing! Taming requires materials, Taming Collars and Taming Whistles. You can buy a Wooden Taming Whistle from the Crafting Materials Vendor in the Outskirts areas, but don’t bother. It costs 250g, it has a bunch of debuffs that a brand-new Tamer really doesn’t need, and you can’t buy taming collars, so again, don’t bother.

If you have a Founder Royal Artisan (or higher) account (or you know someone who does), you should have a “Founder Royal Artisan Taming Creature Call (Chest Mimic)” as a reward. This pet is good for…well, nothing really, but it will let you test out your Summoning skill and give you a taste of fighting with a pet. It doesn’t do much damage, and it is probably going to die a lot, but don’t worry, it doesn’t need to be resurrected, it returns itself to the collar automagically when it dies. Other pets don’t do this, you will lose them if they die and you can’t resurrect them before the Resurrection timer expires. More on this in a bit.

Once you are sick of the Chest Mimic (it won’t take long) or if you don’t have one, you can beg / borrow / buy a Summoning Whistle with a pet on it from a more experienced tamer. Some of the better combat pets available at this level (and their special abilities) are the:

• Small Corpion (Poison)
  
• Large Grey Wolf (Double Attack)
• Small Crocodile (Knockdown)
• Wolf / Small Brown Spider (Web & Poison)
• Large Brown Bear (Knockback)
  
• Small Wild Boar (Charge / Stun)

I (try to) keep all of these in stock on my vendor for 400g each. (That is the cost of the ingots in the whistle. I would love to put them out cheaper, but I know what will happen if I try to sell them under cost. If you are a new player and can catch me online I will give you your pick of critters and some Taming Collars, free. My avatar's name is the same as my forum name.) My vendor is in Northwood, north of Britanny on Spindrift Bay. Upon entering town, run south until you get to the river, then follow the river west to the last water lot.

All of these pets have no minimum Summoning skill, so anyone can test them out. Now, off to the Swamp / Forest / Shardfall with you. Let’s give this Taming thing a try…

Your First Pet Battle:

Don’t Panic, it’s going to be alright. No matter how awesome you are at [Tamagotchi / Pokémon / Hello Kitty: Island Adventure] your pet is going to die and you can’t resurrect it yet. A little piece of your soul will probably die right along with it, every time. No worries, you are a tamer now, you can fix your newly empty necklace. Alas, your poor pet may have lived a bit longer if you had known that all of the pet commands are defaulted to the Keypad (NumPad).

• NumPad 1 sets your pet to Passive Mode, where it will gleefully sit and watch you die. (Bad spider. Go to your web.)
• NumPad 2 sets your pet to Defensive Mode, where it will attack anything that attacks you. (Who’s a good bug? You are, yes you are!)
• NumPad 3 sets your pet to Aggressive Mode, where it will attack anything that enters its aggro radius, much like the default behavior for wild mobs (Webster! You get back here right this second! Put that Kobold down!)
• NumPad 4 orders your pet to Stay. Has varying degrees of effectiveness, depending on its mood setting (Passive / Defensive / Aggressive).
• NumPad 5 orders your pet to Follow. Most combat pets are painfully slow, so this is really more of a suggestion than an order.
• NumPad 6 orders your pet to Attack your current target. This is what we’re here for; learn it, use it, love it.
• NumPad 7 does nothing. If this bothers you it could be set to Pet Dismiss or Pet Patrol, but if set to Pet Dismiss a missed button in the heat of battle could be a problem.
• NumPad 8 Teleports your pet to you. Tamed pets are slow, you will be using this a lot. You should probably get used to using it with NumPad 9 or you will be chasing your pet back to wherever it just teleported from.
• NumPad 9 orders your pet to Stop Attacking. Useful if something aggros your pet and it keeps trying to run off and scrap or it tries to eat the neighbor’s blood squirrel (again).

Levels 1 - 20 (OK, you talked me into it. How do I start?)

The first step is to raise your Tame Creature and the Tier 2 skills (Heal Creature, Summoning, Obedience, and Collar Recovery) to 20. This will require 2,480 Adventurer XP, enough silver to pave Brittany 4” deep, the patience of a chopping block, and the following knowledge and materials:

You will need a lot of silver ore / ingots. However many you think you need, you will need more. This is true for every skill that uses silver. Fortunately for you, there is a silver mine near the starting areas, and it is Tier 2 (low level). Once you have finished your starting quests and are running around free on the world map, you can enter the Lost Whiteguard Silver Mine (west of Solace Bridge in the Whiteguard Hills area). You are going die a lot, but you may as well start getting used to that. Leveling as a Tamer is…interesting. You should also know that calling Lost Whiteguard a ‘silver mine’ is…euphemistic. It is a bit like saying that there is xenon in tap water. It is technically true, but it is difficult to extract and there are better ways to get it. However, if it is your only option, it can be done, even at low levels. There are better silver mines at higher levels, but you are going to need help. Elysium is the best choice for silver, but it is a Tier 5 Area.

It takes 4 Silver Ore (or 2 Silver Ore and 12 Silver Scraps come Release 71) to make 1 Silver Ingot

Each Taming Collar takes 1 Silver Ingot, 2 Straps, and 1 Binding; and each Summoning Whistle takes 2 Silver Ingots and an Animal Whistle (1 Wooden Pole and a Wood Rasp). You can buy these recipes at the Crafting Vendors in the Outskirts areas or at Pet Vendors in Player-Owned Towns.

On the bright side, you really only need one (probably 2 or 3) Summoning Whistles as they are reusable. If a pet dies, the empty whistle can be reused. If you are just out to work on taming, you can keep taming pets onto the same whistle. If you have 2 (or more) you can keep several pets handy in case you lose one, or you can keep your combat pet on one and use the other to practice taming.

On the not-so-bright side, you are going to need Taming Collars. A lot of them. Every successful tame consumes a collar. Every failed tame attempt has a chance of consuming a collar. A stiff breeze consumes a collar. Of course, again I jest…any breeze can burn a collar, or so it will begin to seem. Stay the course, soon you will be able to tame the fearsome Sheep!

If possible, group up with a Grandmaster Tamer. This will give you the Apprentice buff, which will accelerate your skill-ups and reduce the amount of silver (and other materials) needed. The Grandmaster will also have helpful tips and tricks picked up over countless hours of taming, know the primo taming spots, and will ensure someone is always on hand to Resurrect you when you die. (Of course, by 'Resurrect' I mean 'laugh at'.)

Stick to Tier 3 zones at this level if you can, pretty much try to tame everything that doesn’t kill you in the process (I don’t care what they say, that which kills you in Shroud does not make you stronger, it only makes you hike back to the ankh…again).

Reducing a tamable to one-quarter HP grants a large (23%) bonus to your tame chance on a linear scale i.e. reducing it to three-quarters HP gives about a 7% bonus. It isn’t necessary, but it is useful to optimize your taming chances.

Pro tip: If you want to make certain that you don’t accidentally tame over a preferred pet you can lock it to your inventory by placing the necklace in your bag, right-clicking it, and selecting ‘Lock To Inventory’ from the context menu. Once locked, a necklace cannot be sold, traded, or used for taming (though you can still wear it and summon its associated pet). The pet can still die, however, and if this happens, make sure to unlock the necklace so you can tame a new pet onto it.

· OK, enough talky, let’s do this.

If you haven’t yet, talk to an Adventure Trainer and open up the remaining Tier 2 Taming Skills (Heal Creature, Obedience, and Collar Recovery). Add the Tame Creature skill to a combat deck or action bar (however you do). Equip an unlocked Summoning Whistle in your necklace slot (try to make sure it isn’t the one that has your combat pet on it, but trust me, you are going to tame something over your combat pet eventually). Make sure you have Taming Collars in your bag. Target, then pick a fight with a tamable mob (see above for ideas) and gently shoot / stab / beat the tar out of it until it is below one-quarter HP. Make sure it has a clear path to you i.e. don’t think you can put a cliff / rock / river between you and the mob you are trying to tame, it has to have a clear shot to kill you while you attempt to tame it. If you fail, try to tame it again. If you die, rez, then try again. If you succeed, move on to the next mob. Repeat as necessary.

I could stop the guide here. That is really all you need to know to GM Taming. Read on for some tips to make the journey a bit less painful.

If you find yourself spending a lot of time mapping ankhs, you can always practice on some Non-Combat Tamables. These mobs only have 2 HP, so they cannot be quarter-lifed. They are found in many lower level zones / towns and include (in order of increasing difficulty):

• Chickens
  
• Rabbits
• Bay and Palomino Foals
• Does
• Pigs
• Dogs
• Sheep

Because these are very low level, they become collar inefficient relatively quickly, but every tamer eventually tames a chicken, names it Nugget, and AFKs with it in Sequanna Square, so you may as well get it out of your system.

You can’t tame cats. No one knows why. They are the Huge Corpions of your generation.

When possible, try to practice on mobs that you have about a 10% chance of taming. In my experience this seems to maximize the used : lost collar ratio. If your taming chance is lower than about 10% you seem you lose more collars on failed attempts, and higher than this you use more collars by actually taming stuff. Your mileage may vary, but this is a good place to start, and Tier 3 zones are pretty much full of these.

Move on to other Tier 3 zones to keep from going insane looking at the same rock / taming the same group of Timber Wolves / rezzing at the same ankh over and over. Mostly just wander, gather if you like, and tame. Summon one of your fresh tames every time your Summon Tamed Debuff wears off to work Summoning up.

Pro tip: Lock everything but Tame Creature while you are taming to make the maximum number of points go to the Tame Creature skill. Same goes for Summoning. Once you hit their goals, unlock the remaining skills and use Heal Creature to raise them.

Pro tip: Bookmark Rinaldi’s List of Useful Links. Use some of the excellent listed guides to figure out why and how the above works. Read through The List and see what else you can learn. Waste the rest of the day reading other guides. Go! Learn things!

Once you get to around 20 in your four skills, move on to…

Levels 20 - 40 (Wow, this is hard. I should have just unlocked Fire.)

This batch of levels is really just more of the same, except this time you are going to need more silver (a lot more), patience (same), and XP (about 20,000).

Use Heal Creature while you hunt with your pet until you have 40 points in it, Obedience, and Collar Recovery. Alternately, find someplace with nice scenery / good ale and cast Heal Creature on yourself / the bartender / your pet until you have 40 in these three skills, then lock them.

Acquire another batch of collars and hit the trail. Stick with Tier 3 areas, you should have some favorites by now. Some ideas for taming at this level are:

• Corpion
• Small Red Spider
• Desert Wolf
• Brown Spider
• Crocodile
• Timber Wolf
• Large Wolf Spider
• Stag

Tame, Summon, and Heal until you get to (at least) Level 40 in all the Tier 1 & 2 skills.

Levels 40 - 60 (I really hate Timber Wolves…)

This step takes a lot more silver (no, I’m not kidding, and by now you know it), a lot more patience (by now you are either Zen or you are talking to the potted cactus on your desk), and a lot more XP.

It is time to introduce yourself to Bodan. Grab 1100g and at least 187,912 XP (or 11,661 XP if you aren’t going to Specialize). Take the Brittany Ferry to Kingsport, then run southwest to Braemar. If you haven’t yet been to Braemar, you may experience a bit of Soltown déjà vu. The Master Taming Trainer Bodan Koran is behind the creepy house across the street from the Braemar Inn. Give him 700 of your hard earned gold. Train all the skills in Tier 3. Lock them all except Combat Training, Pet Speed Training, and Pet Strength Training (the three that branch to Tier 4). Break out your combat pet (or tame one of his chickens) and heal it until you have 40 in each of these three. If you are going to take Taming Specialization, lock Speed and Strength and take Combat Training to 80. Have Bodan train you in the Tier 4 Taming Skills.

You know the drill, we are going to take everything up to 60 except Obedience, which we will leave locked at 40. Resurrection takes a long time to level as it only raises on use, but that is fine. Just leave it unlocked (it doesn’t leach points from Tames or Summons) and it will get wherever you need it. If you already have Combat Training at 80 just leave it locked there for now.

Raise the skills using any method you like, but take Collar Recovery up before Tame Creature. Some might say it is best to take Collar Recovery up to at least 80 at this point, you can judge for yourself based on your personal silver consumption. I wouldn’t say you were wrong if you chose to go this way, but remember, once you are GM’d Collar Recovery is essentially wasted points, so don’t get too nuts. Balance in all things. Zen, remember?

How far you want to take Taming Specialization at this point is up to you (and your XP gathering prowess). It takes 9,920 XP to level it to 20; 77,740 XP to raise it to 40; 533,880 XP to get it to 60; 3,602,760 XP to take it to 80; and a breathtaking 24,248,480 XP to GM it.

At this level you can move on to some Tier 4 areas (or higher, depending on how much you have put into Specialization). Perhaps head to the desert for some Large Corpions and Large Desert Wolves, try some mountain passes for some Large Arctic Wolves, or head back into the forests for some Large Timber Wolves / Elder Wolves / Large Brown Spiders / Red Spiders. Mix it up, variety is the spice of life, and even if this Taming thing doesn’t work out you will know the map as well as anyone.

Pro tip: You may want to start wearing three-day blessings at this point. See (and bookmark) Rinaldi’s Solutions to Puzzles & Treasure Hunts (Spoilers!) for a complete list (including Blessing of the Tamer) and instructions on how to get them.

Pro tip: You can use Root (in the Earth tree) to hold your tames for at least part of the time it takes to tame them. You will need a very high level and a lot of attunement before it is really useful, but even a few seconds can be the difference between a new pet and an ankh walk.

Pro tip: You can use Animal Charm / Moon Beams (in the Moon tree) to stop a beastie from attacking you for long enough to run away and regroup. It costs less mana than a heal and can buy you a critical few seconds, even at low levels. Note: you cannot Tame a Charmed animal.

Levels 60 - 80 (My wife thinks I am cheating with a girl named Elysium…)

Again, more of the same. By now you certainly don’t need this guide anymore, you are a font of information about Taming. Take everything to 80 except Obedience (still locked at 40, no point in ever taking it higher, unless you are a fan of symmetry) and Summoning (take this to 81 due to how the game handles decimals internally).

At these levels you can finally move onto Tier 5 zones. Try some Large Grizzly Bears, Obsidian Stags, Large Polar Bears, Large Red Spiders, and Bear Patriarchs.

Pro tip: You will also have undoubtedly noticed that different pets are better in different situations. You may want to start maintaining a stable at this point: a bear, a spider, a boar, a wolf, etc. and see which you enjoy using against different types of enemies. There are more ‘species’ to come, and there is a quick overview of their pros and cons at the end of this guide.

Hang in there.

GM Taming (There cannot possibly be this much silver in the entire solar system.)

Welcome to the Ferocious Tamers Club! At 80 Tame Creature (with 0 Specialization) you have a 11% chance to tame a Ferocious Wolf Spider (at one-quarter life). For most people, 11% chance doesn’t sound like a lot, but by the time you have 80 points in Tame Creature you will be ready to test your skills against Big Grey. Bring a stack of collars to Hilt Fortress and tame your first real Combat Pet. If Spiders aren't your cup of tea you can also start trying to tame Obsidian Wolves and Obsidian Bears with the same odds.

Of course, those odds are for those who chose not to Specialize. Those poor fools will have to take Tame Creature to 140 for a 2% chance to tame a Tier 13, and they will never know the thrill of breaking the will of the legendary Tier 15 Destroyer.

With 80 Tame Creature and 40 Taming Specialization, your odds jump from 11% to tame a the aforementioned pets to over 28%...and you are now over 8% to tame a Tier 10 pet...the first real Tamers Pets in the game. Wyverns, Young Dragons, and Ferocious Reds are now yours for the taking. Take Taming and Specialization both to GM and the Tier 13 bears, arachnids, and corpions are nearly 22% likely to submit to your will.

Pro tip: Since these are the levels where you really start trying to tame stuff that can two-shot squishies I will let you in on an old tamer secret (if you haven’t figured it out yourself yet). Tame using a disposable pet to tank your new pet. Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much, let me sum up. Let’s imagine that you want to tame an Obsidian Destroyer, but every time you try to tame him he eats your fase (bares mostly like the taste of fase). You might grab a fresh necklace and hit Ulfheim to tame an Obsidian Bear. Then you might summon that bear, find a Ferocious Bear Patriarch, order the Obsidian to attack the Ferocious Patriarch, and let your bear tank the bigger bear while you tame it right over the top of the Obsidian and onto the same necklace. Then when you get to North Majestic Forest you might repeat the above procedure, first with a Ferocious Obsidian Bear, and finally with an Obsidian Destroyer.

It really is that easy. However, you had better be able to both put out some serious DPS and have some decent Focus regen, because Destroyers regen health fast and your bear is going to take a metric firkin of damage. Bring help if you aren’t sure. Actually, bring help even if you are sure.

Not that you are taming Destroyers at this level, but it isn’t far now…

Legendary Taming (Can someone please tank this Destroyer for me…)

I lied. It’s far. It’s still like a metric furlong from here. But hang in there, because…

With GM Specialization it becomes numerically (theoretically) possible to tame a Tier 15 at 106 Taming and you break 2% at 109. To get a 10% shot you have to take Taming to 122.

You could, of course, take Specialization higher, but the XP cost starts to get a bit…excessive. It takes a bit over 24 million XP to GM Specialization. Putting another 24 million into it only gets you to 107. It takes another 139 million to take it to 120…and that only raises your taming chance a bit over 7%. Pass.

However you get here, this is it. Tier 15. The Land of Destroyers and Ferocious Arachnids. I will probably rewrite my Advanced Taming Guide for Release 70 and get more into the internal math of the game for the min/maxers out there, but for now let’s do the simple breakdown I promised at the beginning of this guide so you know where you will want to lock your skills:

• Taming Specialization: By now, if you have taken it, you will have seen that this skill is Taming. GM it and lock it. GM Specialization is necessary for a Tamer, but the excessive XP cost of taking it much higher is better spent on the other skills. I will refer to all skill levels below as if you have GM Taming Specialization.
• Tame Creature: 114 gets you 5% to tame a T15. Go up from here as you see fit, but remember, these are wasted points once you actually have a pet. Spend them places that will make your pet more useful.
• Heal Creature: This is another skill that gets dramatically better to about 80, then tapers off fast. Heals around 500 at GM but taking it to 120 doesn’t really seem to make all that much difference.
• Summoning: This skill ‘gates’ the maximum level of the pet you are able to summon. Mouse over yours to see where you are at (it is the +XX.X Tamed Creature Max Level). Because of how the game handles decimals internally, the steps for this one are as follows: 101, 103, 106, 108, 110, 113, 115, 118, 121, 123, 126. Any points above the previous break are wasted i.e. 105 Summoning is the same as 103.
• Obedience: Still stupid. Maybe they will fix it one day, mine is locked at 40 so I will be the first to know. For now, your pet will die fighting with 40 Obedience.
• Collar Recovery: Like Tame Creature, these are wasted points once you have a pet. Essential while leveling (when you don’t have it), almost worthless at high levels (when you have it).
• Resurrect Creature: Gains (slowly) on use. Take it as high as you see fit, I have never had it fail since 40 (unless I was out of range, interrupted, etc.)
• Frenzy: This is good stuff, and it just keeps getting better. The debuff makes it less useful when your pet is tanking, but at the highest levels the Combat Regen makes up for it a bit. If you use it feel free to take it as high as you see fit, GM is a fine place to start.
• Combat Training: Take this one up in groups of 4 i.e. 92, 96, GM, 104, 108, etc. Adds one Pet Level for every 4 points. A Pet Level is the same as your Adventurer Level, it add STR, DEX, INT, HP, etc. More is better.
• Pet Speed Training: If you like hunting with slower pets put more here. This is a personal choice, but GM is probably a good place to start.
• Pet Strength Training: A flat 1 Pet Strength for each point you have. One of the better places in the tree to spend a point, at least up to GM.
• Concentration: Goes up rather quickly to about 80, then fades fast. Still necessary for using the highest level tames…your own build will be your guide here. Take more if you need it. GM gets you a flat 50% reduction in Focus cost (and I know it says -50.4%...it lies).
• Refresh: Now that we have different classes of tames (bears, wyverns, dragons, etc.) this is more useful. Reduces the cooldown to 2m32s at GM.
• Pet Taunting Training: Seems to increase both threat generation and AoE Taunt radius. If your pet tanks for you, get some. I have never pulled aggro off my pet with this at GM. Take more if you need it.
• Pet Attack Precision Training: Not super useful until the highest levels, then it is…nice. Watching those yellow 300s pop over and over above a spider is…pleasing. I haven’t done a lot of testing with this, but my feeling is that you should take it up in 10s i.e. 90, GM, 110, 120, etc.
• Pet Hide Toughness Training: Makes a big survivability difference. Spend the points here or in Heal and Rez. Take it up in groups of 4 i.e. 92, 96, GM, 104, 108, etc.

Got it? Good. Now, a quick breakdown of the types of pets you will be able to tame at these levels. You will, of course, have formed your own opinions of the assorted tamables over the countless hours spent taming, but here are some of my impressions of the highest level pets:

Edit: Release 74 (4 FEB 2020)

• Bears: Yup. It may have been the first thing you tamed, and it may be the last. At T10 you have the Large Obsidian and the Ferocious Patriarch. At T13 is the Ferocious Obsidian, and coming in at T15, the Obsidian and Polar Destroyers. These beasties have the highest HP of all tamable pets, awesome defense, knockback, and hit like a bus. There are really very few situations where a bear is not a good choice, as long as you can keep its fat bear butt off your loot.
• Tamer rarity: Every Tamer has at least one.
• The Verdict: Keep one in your stables at all times.

• Wolves: Do good damage and OK in every other category. Higher level examples are the Ferocious Arctic, Desert, and Obsidian; and for that top tier crunch tame yourself a Lupine Destroyer.
• Tamer rarity: Occasionally seen.
• The Verdict: Situationally useful, though they don’t really shine compared to other pets.

• Crocodiles: Fair damage, good armor, and a knockdown, but no current T15 variety limits end game usability.
  
• Tamer rarity: I have never seen a high level Tamer using one.
• The Verdict: Only if you are trying to stand out and don't mind a gimped pet.

• Corpions: Hit hard, poison, strong armor. What’s not to love? Less HP than some other pets, though not terrible. Fair movement speed. The Darkstarr Destroyer is the bad boy of this bunch.
• Tamer rarity: A lot more than it should be, rarely seen in use out in the world.
• The Verdict: This could easily be a go to pet. Will become much better if Poison ever starts to scale.

• Stags: Don’t bother, high level examples are still not available.
• Tamer rarity: Non-existent
• The Verdict: See above.

• Spiders / Arachnids: The last of the ‘classic’ pets, and my personal favorite. Second only to the bear in most categories…but with Poison and Web. Movement speed leaves a bit to be desired, but as an archer its Web ability is gold. Will become devastating if Poison is ever fixed.
• Tamer rarity: Very rare. I actually see more wolves in daily use, and I have no idea why.
• The Verdict: My personal go to pet. Get yourself a Ferocious Red or Ferocious Black Arachnid and live the good life.

…and now, the new pets:

• Boars: This is another possible go to pet. This beastie really has no weak spots. A Razorback Destroyer would make a fine pet for any situation.
• Tamer rarity: In common use, probably second only to the bear…for good reason.
• The Verdict: Get one. You won't regret it.

• Wyverns: Available in most colors of the rainbow and black! The colors make no difference, so pick one you like. Its sting gives a Strength debuff. It was supposed to have a cleave, though I have never seen any evidence of it. Likes to park its leathery butt on loot.
• Tamer rarity: Not as common as I would have thought. Seen occasionally.
• The Verdict: Since Tier 10 is the highest (only) available level, it is great for up-and-coming Tamers, get something better at the highest levels of Taming. Could be great if a T15 version ever becomes available.

• Young Dragons: As with Wyverns, come in more colors than sherbet, however the dragon fights only at range with fireballs. Tier 10 only. Will steadfastly refuse to tank. Likes to stuff itself behind obstacles so it cannot see its target, then simply refuse to do anything unless you drag its target back into is field of view…which is easy, because you will be tanking it. Even when it is fighting its damage output is somewhere between sad and pathetic…and that is only for mobs with low fire resist.
• Tamer rarity: Semi-common.
• The Verdict: A variety of fruity colors isn’t enough to keep the Young Dragon from being the worst tamable pet in the game. If you aren’t into Game of Thrones RP the only use for these things is filling up your Pokédex.

• Nightmares and Unicorns: Awesome. If I stopped there you would know enough. The Nightmare has a single visual model and the Unicorn has two, Dark (solid black) and Light (solid white). Both (all three?) are Tier 15 only. Both have the same HP as the Tier 15 bears. Both have a physical attack and a special attack called Hoof Smash which is simply a double physical attack like the wolves. Both also have a frontal cone AoE breath weapon-style attack, the Nightmare Spike and the Rainbow Attack. (Side note: the Dark Unicorn has the 'Rainbow Attack', the Light Unicorn has a 'Rainbox Attack', which, while clearly a typo, means that they are not using the same spell.) Both effect cones are three-dimensional, even though the spell effect is 2D. Both are absolutely devastating. The fire-based Nightmare Spike seems to work slightly better against most targets but fire immunity e.g. fire elementals renders it harmless. Nothing I have tested against (so far...) is immune to Rainbow Attack.
  
• Tamer rarity: Still very high as of this writing, but I guarantee this will change.
• The Verdict: Tied (with bears) for best HP. Tied (with wolves) for best physical attack. Frontal AoE. The only reason not to use it is if you need Poison (I have no idea why) or crowd control. Best tamables in the game, hands down...and they look awesome.

One final Pro tip: Since you made it this far, and if you haven't figured it out for yourself yet, the best thing about this game is the absolutely outstanding community. No matter what you need, you can probably find help on these forums, in Discord, or in the assorted in-game chat channels. See you in New Britannia!

 

please bug the typo

 

The deadly Rainbox attack... what a mysterious effect...

 

Outstanding guide! It would be even more outstanding if you mentioned where you can find some of the high level beasties.....

 

For real-time Taming information join the Tamer's Guild Discord channel at

https://discord.gg/NwSWFvy

 

Fun guide