Beginner's Guide to Taming

This guide has been superceded by the Release 70 version. This version remains in place for historical use.

Getting started in Taming can be a daunting task, an entire skill tree, nine skills, 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 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).

· 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.

· Heal Creature: Does exactly what it says on the tin.

· Obedience: Controls how low in health your pet can get before it runs away in terror. Since pets can’t hold aggro (they generate threat for the tamer) it isn’t a real concern. I find 40 to be more than enough, even at 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, not a lot of reason to take it higher.

· Combat Training: Adds to your pet’s Level. More in this below.

· Concentration: Combat Pets have an associated Focus Cost. This skill reduces that cost.

· Refresh: Reduces the Summon Tamed Debuff timer. Only really useful if you die a lot.

Level 1 (So you want to be a Tamer…)

You should have begun the game with 1 point each in Tame Creature and Summoning (if not, go unlock them at a Skills Trainer). You can now…do absolutely nothing! Taming requires materials, Taming Collars and Taming Whistles. 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 effects, if they have any) are the:

o Small Corpion (Poison)

o Large Grey Wolf

o Small Crocodile (Knockdown)

o Wolf / Small Brown Spider (Web & Poison)

o Large Brown Bear (Knockback)​

I 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 Pokémon 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 of the 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. Since the highest level pets are ludicrously 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).

Level 20 (OK, I want to do this. How do I start?)

The first step is to raise your Tame Creature and Summoning to 20. This will require 992 Adventurer XP, enough silver to pave Brittany 4” deep, the patience of a chopping block, and the following knowledge:

· 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. If you don’t know where silver is, you can’t get there (yet). This means that you are going to either have to wait until you can handle Elysium or Verdantis Mines by yourself (5 Skull zones), you are going to need someone to help you get there, or you are going to have to beg / borrow / steal / dupe (I’m kidding…stealing silver is slower than mining it) silver ingots to make Taming Collars and Summoning Whistles.

· Each Taming Collar Takes 1 Silver Ingot, an Animal Collar (2 Straps, 1 Binding, and Tailoring Scissors), and a Mortar and Pestle; and each Summoning Whistle takes 2 Silver Ingots, an Animal Whistle (a Wooden Pole, a Wood Rasp, and a Carpentry Hammer), and a Mortar and Pestle.

· 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 laugh at you when you die.

· Stick to 3 Skull 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 half HP gives up to a 10 point bonus to your tame chance on a linear scale i.e. reducing it to ¾ HP gives a 5 point bonus. It isn’t necessary, but it is useful to optimize your taming chances.

· OK, enough talky, let’s do this. Add Tame Creature to a combat deck or action bar (however you do). Equip a Summoning Whistle in your necklace slot (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. 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 half 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 succeed, move on to the next mob. Repeat as necessary.

· 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 effectively be half-lifed. They are found in many lower level zones / towns and include (in order of increasing difficulty):

o Chickens

o Rabbits

o Bay and Palomino Foals

o Does

o Pigs

o Dogs

o 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.

· 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 lose more collars by actually taming stuff. Your mileage may vary, but this is a good place to start, and 3 Skull zones are pretty much full of these.

· Move on to other 3 Skull 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. Repeat as necessary until you get to Level 20 Tame Creature and Level 20 Summoning.


Level 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 (at least 33,991).

· See your local Skills Trainer and unlock Heal Creature, Obedience, and Collar Recovery.

· 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 your pet (or yourself, or the bartender) until you have 40 in your three new skills. Lock all three.

· Head back to the Skills Trainer and unlock the remaining 4 skills. Work these up to 40 however you like. Lock them.

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

o Corpion

o Small Red Spider

o Desert Wolf

o Brown Spider

o Crocodile

o Timber Wolf

o Large Wolf Spider

o Stag​

· Tame and Summon until you get to Level 40 in both.

Level 60 (I really hate Timber Wolves…)

You know the drill, we are going to take everything up to 60 except Resurrection and Obedience, which we will leave locked at 40. This step takes a lot more silver (no, I’m not kidding, and 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 (at least 159,649).

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?

At this level you can move on to some 4 Skull areas. 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.

Level 80 (Why can’t I tame Huge Corpions?)

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 and Resurrection (both still locked at 40), Summoning (lock this at 81) and Combat Training (lock this at 85). These odd intervals are because of the way the game handles decimals internally.

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

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

Welcome to the Ferocious Tamers Club! At 84 Tame Creature you have a 0.4% chance to tame a Ferocious Wolf Spider. For most people, 0.4% chance doesn’t sound like a lot, but by the time you have 84 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 start trying to tame Obsidian Wolves at 69 (0.4% chance) and Obsidian Bears at 76 (0.6% chance).

Keep taming until you hit 101 Tame Creature, where you will have a 0.6% chance to tame a Ferocious Brown. This is truly the pet of the Grandmaster Tamer. If you think yourself up to the task, it is said that many an unwary adventurer has fallen victim to a pair of ancient and powerful spiders that appear as if from nowhere as the sun fades from the sky in the Necropolis Barrens…

Lock Combat Training at 98 for the +15 Tame Level buff and Summoning at 101 to open up your Ferocious Brown’s full Level 90 potential, giving it an Effective Level of 105 and a Focus Cost of 288.6 with GM Concentration.

Legendary Taming (Uhhh, no.)

If you think have another round in you, dig in, because it’s a long way to the top. The only other tamable in the game at this point is the Ferocious Red Spider, the pinnacle of the profession and the twinkle in the eye of every arachnophilic Tamer in Novia.

The breakdown is something like this…

· 117 Tame Creature gives you a 0.2% chance to slip your collar around this majestic beast’s cephalothorax.

· 126 Summoning opens up its full Level 100 potential.

· 113 Combat Training gets you a +16 Tame Level Bonus. 128 Summoning bumps this to +17

· 120 Concentration takes 54.2% off the Focus Cost of this regal creature, meaning it will only cost you 332.1 Focus to bask in her Level 117 glory.

· Who cares about anything else? You have a Ferocious Red Spider! And to think, it only cost you a bit over 87 million XP...enough to get from the Isle of Storms to Adventurer Level 96 if you didn’t put any points in any other skills along the way.

 

@Jaath Windsong
Thank you for the interesting lesson on taming. It was never something that I intended to seriously pursue, since I don't mine and couldn't afford to purchase the silver.

I am curious to know if taming is still a lucrative business. Tamers used to be able to amass great wealth selling their tamed creatures to non-tamer players. I have the impression that since the requirements for summoning pets were made stricter, far fewer players are running around with pets. I used to buy and hunt with a large red spider pet, but since I can't summon it any more, I just go without.

 

@Kara Brae
As you may have surmised, Taming is no longer lucrative as most people no longer use pets after The Great Taming Nerf. However, if you wanted to dig your old friend out of the closet and put him back to work, there is a relatively inexpensive (in both collars and XP) way to do it. Work your Tame Creature up to 20 and your Summoning to 44 using the above guide (or any method you find convenient) and lock them. Open Heal Creature (only) and cast it on your friends / enemies / pets / passersby until it is at 40. Lock it. Open up Resurrect Creature. Use this as necessary until it hits 40, then lock it. All of this together costs 14,005 XP and gives you the full strength of a Level 61 combat pet. Just a thought...

 

Holy mackerel this is a great guide. Thanks a ton!

 

Im curious if you have a chart or how your found the max combat / summoning to get the full potential out of a fero red?

 

Not a tamer, but a very informative and enjoyable guide to read!

Summoning @Berek - we all have him tamed... Maybe a nod in an update good sir?

 

Mostly by deriving the formulas that the game uses, then extrapolating out to Crazytown where the Ferocious Red lives with all the Legendary Tamers. I touch on some of them in my Advanced Taming post.

 

Thanks great information

 

some personal feedback from having gone from 0-107 in a couple of days:

• you can train collar recovery at /20/ taming, there is no need to wait until 40 to save silver
• 40 collar recovery is still very expensive, i recommend 80. you get it for free by spamming heal pet anyway.
• 10% chance is too low. even at 80 recovery, you will be blowing up collars on failure at this rate. 14-15% is the sweet spot imo, and almost all collar uses will be for success.
• you don't need to bash creatures to half health, you can also choose a harder creature or easier creature to get to the % you need.
• use an alt/friend with plate and healing to keep aggro, it goes much faster that way.
• above 80 i recommend keeping pool over 1M

 

Good points, you have clearly felt the pain of the Tamer!

I do suggest training Collar Recovery at 20 and leveling it before Tame Creature, it is possible you misunderstood the admittedly misleading headings. For example, the Level 40 heading refers to how to get to Level 40, not what to do once you're there.

I actually mention (or allude to) most of these points somewhere. The one thing I didn't discuss is an XP pool, because I knew everyone has an opinion on this. By the time anyone has any skill to 80 they should have their own opinions about how skill-ups work and how they prefer to do them, and the last couple sections of the guide that deal with Taming Skills over 60 are intentionally just rough guidelines.

All that being said, I would love if more Tamers would give their feedback on this guide to give new Tamers as many points of view as possible.

Thanks!

 

Have you moved shop? Tried to find your shop as directed but no joy. Used to run a GM tamer/Bard in UO a very long time ago and am excited to see it lives on and anxious to get started on my stable in SOTA. Btw, can one still run a pack or are we limited to one pet out at a time? Thanks for the great guide.

 

Shop is still there, found it, pets that were suppose to be 400g weren't there tho, prices ranged from 2500g up. Ran there kinda in hopes of getting one for 400g. :/ Oh well. Ended up buying foal anyway. Beeing new to the game and have ways to go before I can even try to get to mine silver I quess 2500 wasnt all that bad.

 

The vendor was sitting down, only 4 whistles all 2.5k in stock. None of the ones mentioned for starting out I could see. Plus the available collar's didn't seem to show a skill level required if there is one?