A few newbie Tamer questions

[YellowStarS2k]

I've been reading and have picked up a few tricks and techniques from reading this forum, but am hoping for some confirmation that I'm understanding correctly.

1. "-Gains are based on Real skill.
-Success is based on Displayed skill" - Quoted from FAQ at the top of this thread. So this means: ie. I have 85 Taming, I put on a +15 taming jewelry. Tame animals that I would still be taming at 85, I will succeed almost all the time, but will I gain from animals on par with 85 Taming? or do I have to tame animals on par with 100 Taming?

2. When trying to tame aggressive monsters, Invis taming and\or honor taming is the easiest way (other than just sitting there and taking the pain while GHealing). I also don't have peacemaking so that's out of the question.

a. Invis taming - Precasting invis, running up to it, target self, start taming, when invis wears off, repeat. Is this right? (as a newbie I'm scared to die and too poor for insurance)

b. Honor taming - Raise honor. Precasting invis, running up to it, invis, check lore, get off horse (why is this necessary?), activate honor, target self, start taming, when honor wears off, repeat.

c. Lead taming - I understand that, but it doesn't work well with casting monsters. Tame, run away, heal self, repeat?

as you can tell, I haven't tamed many aggro monsters, plus I'm still a very weak tamer with only 90 magery, so beating them down to slow them, then taming is hard for me.

3. Should I just be looking for jewelry that adds to Taming, or are there uniques or artifacts that I should buy?

4. I think I'm going to go mage tamer over archer tamer, as with archer tamer, I won't be able to fit chivalry and bushido, making dmg lower than if I had them. If I'm not mistaken, the mage is more versatile.


120 Taming
100 Vet
120 Lore
120 Magery
120 Eval
120 Med
-----------
700/720 skill cap

or

120 Taming
100 Vet
120 Lore
100 Mag
120 Arch
120 Tact+
------------
680/720 cap=

xx Chiv? (40?)+
xx Bushido? (0?)+
---------------
720/720 cap=
Gah Tamers are so hard! Mages and warriors are so much easier!

Sorry for the LONG post.
*bows* Thanks,
Joey

 

[GFY]

Taming can be a difficult skill to master because your usually training magery and it's related skills along with taming, lore, and vet.

Gains are based on real skill and total skill points as well. If your near the 700 skill cap you'll gain more slowly. Soul stone a skill or 2 that you aren't using and you should gain faster.

If your taming for skill only the best way to tame is probably paralize taming. Paralize a mob and tame away. Since your not keeping it for a pet stat loss is no big deal.

I'm kinda lazy. I stopped at 100 taming. I have a good 2/6 ring and bracelet that adds 15 taming and some lore and magery as well. I use this most of the time when I'm hunting. I also have another set that has 20 taming so I can tame larger mobs.

I have 2 tamers that I use. My mage tamer is my favorite, but I do have a pease tamer for those more nasty mobs.

Don't forget you can soul stone a few skills (like pease, music, & discord) and swap them in if you want to do something different with your tamer.

Good Luck & Good Hunting

 

[uoBuoY]

Two things...

I just finished my 3rd Tamer to 115.0 real skill and never tamed anything aggressive. I SoulStoned everything except for taming skills. I find this site very useful: http://www.tamingarchive.com/main/whattotame.php?skill=98.2

IMHO, a Disco/Tamer char is the most powerful Tamer combo. At 120 Disco, your target's skills and resists are reduced by 28%. You can kill faster or take on much tougher stuff.

 

[Sweety]

I think the easiest way to GM taming is wearing the + jewelry when taming

To tame the aggressive casting animals all u have to do is lower health almost all way and then lead tame or para tame

 

[Nenime]

Hi Joey,

I would answer your questions like this: (bit long, sorry)

1. The displayed skill is the one that counts. In your example you have to tame animals on par with 100 Taming difficulty (Bulls and Gamans e.g.) to get good gains.

2. Actually, you can get all the way up to Legendary without ever taming any aggressive animal. But you certainly want to have a good fighting pet and these tend to be somehow aggressive. If you dislike being a lunch, you may ask another, more experienced tamer to tame the pet for you. This is what guilds are for .

Taming tactics:

a) Lead taming: This should be your standard method anyway. It means that you keep enough distance for not getting bitten but still in taming range. After a few attempts on non-aggressive creatures you can practice this on Mongbats or some such things. This method can be combined with any other taming tactic. Basic routine.

b) Invis taming: What you need are key makros for quick access. Also necessary for this type of taming is the maximum rate for Faster Casting (2) and Faster Cast Recovery (6). A good Mana recovery and/or big Mana pool are useful too. Run to animal, hit invis makro, hit taming Makro, hit invis makro everytime you get visible.

c) Para taming: For this you need high Eval or you won't get very far. You have to be real swift with that. It requires some practice. Also, FC 2, FCR 6 and good Mana should be mandatory for this. *edit: Oh yes, there is a 4% penalty for post taming skill heigh. This is irreversible for skill levels above GM as some skills on Greater Dragons, Rune Beetles and others.

d) Whack taming: You attack the pets till it flees. Now you will have a few seconds untill it regains health and attacks again. But as long as the creatures Dex is low, it will move slower and will attack less often.

e) Honor taming: Target yourself and begin taming. No invis required, no dismounting either. (And you should lore the animal before using Honor.) After applying, there is a five minutes blocking period.

f) Peace taming: You should give peacing a shot when you want to tame a lot of aggressive creatures. With area peace you can easily lure a special one from the pack and by target peacing your chance to survive will increase notably.

g) Spellweaving: Another possible combination. Etheral Voyage works similar to Honor. SW also contains other very useful spells for Tamers.

h) Confusion blast potions: Not quite a technique but these are very helpful, especially when invis fails and your health is critical. Thrown at the follower, the beast will immediately loose focus (but will retarget you soon if in range).​

3. Basically jewelry. There is a Library Talisman (Birds of Britannia Random Summoner) which gives a bonus as well (Animal Taming +5, Animal Lore +5, Bird Slayer). Worth buying? I think Totem of the Void would be a better choice. For skill gaining, I don't recommend wearing taming bonus items anyway. FC, FCR and others (like resistances) are far more important.

4. About the template: It's based on the tactic you want to use. The Mage Tamer will prefer para taming. But... 120 Magery, Eval and the other? Hmm... will take some time to scrape the gold for this.

I have the same opinion as GFY, peacing will help you alot. Very easy to learn. As he said, later you may replace peace for discord which is very useful for hunting. Spellweaving is also recommendable.
Maybe not that good for you is the Archer Tamer because it's tricky to play and dependent on equipment (not mentioned the Dex/Int/Str question). But if you like it... go for it.

One last word for template building. As you will need Magery in almost all useful templates, you should raise this first. A bit boring but you will appreciate the GM level. If you have access to a soulstone, let Eval and Medi raise too - even if you won't need it later. It will help you raising Magery.
Your Taming skill is high enough to tame a Gaman. Get one with good phys resistance and go to Level 1 of Shame or Despise. Vet to a fare-thee-well and soon you will reach GM (and hey, maybe some Virtue Artis!). Lore should raise fast enough alongside with vet and taming.

 

[YellowStarS2k]

Thank you all for all the answers and help! (especially Nenime, that was as long as mine!) Someone needs to add some of this info to a guide or something, because I must have read every guide I came across.
Ahh, I didn't realize I would need faster casting and recovery to do Invis taming, I guess that's why I didn't invis tame very well.
I'll probably need to read all of this many times to make everything sink in.
I guess now I just need to figure out what kind of tamer I want. IMO a bard tamer seems kind of boring, although makes everything so much easier. However, I also read that peace and disco doesn't work well on the big bosses.
Once again, I say, Taming is so difficult!!!
Thanks a ton everyone.

 

[Nenime]

Wait till the old forum data is back . A huge amount of knowlegde is hidden there.

Actually, you DO not need FC/FCR but it is very much recommendable. Otherwise you will fail often to cast because the creature is already attacking you.

I like this one:

Gah Tamers are so hard! Mages and warriors are so much easier!

Post it on UHall and you will have a warlike discussion

 

[Lady_Mina]

Also a handy tip , is to get the 'pet' (or monster) it's health down before trying to tame it.

It will walk slower...wich makes it easier to tame.

 

[YellowStarS2k]

Although I probably can't come close to affording one, how much is a FC2/FCR6 ring cost?
Thanks again guys.
Mina is my girlfriends name :high 5 smiley:

 

[Nenime]

The Luck Jewelry Set springs to my mind. Worn together it has Faster Casting 3, Faster Cast Recovery 6, additional Hit Point Regen 2%, Mana Regen 2% and Luck 400. Obtainable through the Spring Cleaning Collection for 300,000 points. As a Tamer hunting in Virtue Dungeons and occasionally deleting some Vanguard Controllers, this should not be too hard to get.
Normal Jewelry with together 2/6 are sold at moderate prices. 1/2 pieces are common as a loot.

(Just for your information: Arties like Boom Stick, Vesper Chaos Shield or Scrappers Compendium (ask if you don't know them) have this properties as well. Not cheap of course.)

 

[Aikiri]

Hi all,

Was browsing thru the pages and wonder...doesn't anyone of you guys have difficutly taming dragons and white wrym??
I always fail or die even with GM taming and lore...am i just lousy or is just that i dun have any luck...
*sob**sob*..

Please help me....some one please....

 

[Nenime]

Aikiri, I assume you don't include Greater Dragons, which require some extra care. Because Dragons spawn alongside with Greater Dragons (can't recall any spawn without), the first problem is to drag on from the pack. You're right, they are not easy to tame, just keep going. The whole dragon breed has an extra difficulty level which will be obvious to you by showing you the message "You angered the beast" much more often. Plus the ability of fire-breathing (which can be combined in an allmost simultaneous combo together with biting and magical attack) makes taming them a matter of patience - especially solo-taming. Try to bring a guild-mate along, preferable a Mage for healing/invis or a Bard for peacing. Beating their health down is very useful because it will reduce their ability to fire-breath too.
Whyte Worms are a bit easier to tame (requirement provided), simply because of the location. Kill the lesser spawn in the hallway east of the lair. Use this space for escaping if things get too worse.

*edit: Wait, did I read GM Taming and Lore? Espect a taming chance of 12.4 ("You anger the beast"-attempts not included). For White Wyrm it's even lower (7.6). Sorry, but this will make not much sense. Either you go training a bit more or you ask a friendly Tamer with higher skills for help.

 

[Aikiri]

*sob**sob*

I can't find anyone so far with a higher taming skill den i do...i'm not in guild...and i'm kinda lonely in games sometimes...
well...i just have to keep trying isn;t it...

Thxs so much for the tips...do let me know if i need more tips...

*muacks**muacks*

 

[uoBuoY]

*sob**sob*

I can't find anyone so far with a higher taming skill den i do...i'm not in guild...and i'm kinda lonely in games sometimes...
well...i just have to keep trying isn;t it...

Thxs so much for the tips...do let me know if i need more tips...

*muacks**muacks*

Post on your shard form: "Looking to join a Taming Guild".

 

[YellowStarS2k]

*sob**sob*

I can't find anyone so far with a higher taming skill den i do...i'm not in guild...and i'm kinda lonely in games sometimes...
well...i just have to keep trying isn;t it...

Thxs so much for the tips...do let me know if i need more tips...

*muacks**muacks*

I say buy a 115 or 120 Animal Taming power scroll and find some jewelry that adds to animal taming. With ~110 animal taming, you should have a better chance than GM.
I learned the hard way that my armor isn't good enough to tame dragons. I'm able to beat the dragon down to lower HP, but take too much damage when trying to tame. After dying 5 times and getting off maybe 5 attempts of taming, I gave up.
What shard do you play on? If you play on an Asian shard, I don't think many players from there post on these forums.

 

[Lady_Mina]

I got :

115 taming
115 lore
115 music
115 peace
110 vet
100 magery

total 670

The left overs i'll probably invest in meditation...

 

[Aikiri]

I say buy a 115 or 120 Animal Taming power scroll and find some jewelry that adds to animal taming. With ~110 animal taming, you should have a better chance than GM.
I learned the hard way that my armor isn't good enough to tame dragons. I'm able to beat the dragon down to lower HP, but take too much damage when trying to tame. After dying 5 times and getting off maybe 5 attempts of taming, I gave up.
What shard do you play on? If you play on an Asian shard, I don't think many players from there post on these forums.

Oh...i dun really stays on one shard...i'm always playing on TC1...where i dun need to face problem gaining all the skills i need..hhaa...i used to be from Yamato and Formosa...after all my friends left...i move on to TC

 

[Eslake]

So this means: ie. I have 85 Taming, I put on a +15 taming jewelry. Tame animals that I would still be taming at 85, I will succeed almost all the time, but will I gain from animals on par with 85 Taming? or do I have to tame animals on par with 100 Taming?

Unless it has been changed.. it works like this.

Chance to gain is ~ Chance to Fail in Real skill at the attempt.
(Negative modifiers are included in Real Skill, such as -skill wearables, discordance and statloss)
(Positive modifiers are ignored, such as +skill jewlery and items)

So if you should be taming sheep for gains, putting on +35 taming would make your Displayed skill higher than is possible to gain at from taming sheep, but you still will, just as if you were not wearing it (tho you will always succeed so gains will come faster)


Taming agressives --
Invis Taming has never worked well for me. It is fine for smaller non-spellcasting creatures like frenzied ostards, but too easy to misstep and there are too many factors you cannot control that can cause it to fail. (spells landing on you After invis, etc)

Honor taming is the easiest absolutely, but you lose honor points every time you use it, and as a tamer honor gains are much slower than other templates (pets only give you a small % of the honor). And of course there is the long delay between uses of it.

Lead Taming is what I used from Pre-Ren up until after AoS. It works fine on even spellcasting creatures as long as they aren't killing you with those spells. The hard part is simply staying alive until the tame takes. It only takes a little practice to learn to stay 3 tiles ahead of a creature.

Subdual Taming is effective, but when I last tamed for gains it also resulted in a statloss for the creature after taming. So it made for a weaker pet.
I don't think that is still the case tho, and it isn't as difficult to do as you might think.

You don't have to have high skills otherwise to damage a hostile animal. Simply tame what you Can tame without trouble and use that as a weapon.
Even using Grizzly bears or Ostards you can eventually wear down a Nigthmare.
(of course if you can Tame a nightmare, you may as well go tame a passive Ki'rin to weaken her)


I suggest you try each for a while and see which you prefer.
Lead taming is easy enough to practice, just attack a cow and try not to let it touch you as you attempt to tame. Then try it on a bear, then go find a frenzied ostard.

The others are self-explanitory. Invis (have Fast Cast and FCR beefed up of course), and Honor.. for which you will need to first Gain a lot of it.

Gah Tamers are so hard! Mages and warriors are so much easier!

Which is why you see so many complaints about how powerful tamers are.

Anyone can max out a dexxer in a couple of days, and dexxers can do pretty much anything a tamer with a greater dragon can do (and quite a lot that the tamer/dragon cant). But since anyone can have a dexxer in a couple of days, they don't care - they just make their own.

But when they see a tamer do something, and learn it would take weeks of intense skill training to get one up for a greater dragon, they decide it is easier to whine and beg for nerfs than make one of their own.

 

[YellowStarS2k]

Oh...i dun really stays on one shard...i'm always playing on TC1...where i dun need to face problem gaining all the skills i need..hhaa...i used to be from Yamato and Formosa...after all my friends left...i move on to TC

Why not play on a production server? Doesn't TC get reset randomly? If you finally do get a dragon tamed, won't it suck to lose it? Having played for so many years, but never made a tamer, I realize how hard they are. I may be a newbie tamer, but I'm willing to help.

 

[YellowStarS2k]

Honor taming is the easiest absolutely, but you lose honor points every time you use it, and as a tamer honor gains are much slower than other templates (pets only give you a small % of the honor). And of course there is the long delay between uses of it.

You don't have to have high skills otherwise to damage a hostile animal. Simply tame what you Can tame without trouble and use that as a weapon.
Even using Grizzly bears or Ostards you can eventually wear down a Nigthmare.
(of course if you can Tame a nightmare, you may as well go tame a passive Ki'rin to weaken her)

Which is why you see so many complaints about how powerful tamers are.

Thanks for all the tips. I will try raising my honor.
Since I can tame a Unicorn, I'll try to use the unicorn to weaken the nightmare, then tame, although my resists still may be too low.
I'm looking forward to taming. Thanks everyone.

 

[LBM]

Unless it has been changed.. it works like this.

Chance to gain is ~ Chance to Fail in Real skill at the attempt.
(Negative modifiers are included in Real Skill, such as -skill wearables, discordance and statloss)
(Positive modifiers are ignored, such as +skill jewlery and items)

So if you should be taming sheep for gains, putting on +35 taming would make your Displayed skill higher than is possible to gain at from taming sheep, but you still will, just as if you were not wearing it (tho you will always succeed so gains will come faster)

1. The displayed skill is the one that counts. In your example you have to tame animals on par with 100 Taming difficulty (Bulls and Gamans e.g.) to get good gains.

Which information is correct?

 

[Nenime]

Which information is correct?

Mine, of course.

No, it's like this:
1. Taming is difficulty-based, this means you have to tame creatures of increasing difficulty to keep gaining.
2. Your ability to tame a particular creature is based on your displayed skill. At the minimum skill level required to tame a particular creature you have a 1% chance of successfully taming it. (both quoted from The Stratics Tamer Guide)
3. At (or above) 100% taming chance you will get no gains anymore.

The disagreement is just about whether bonus items, which boost your skill, are taken into account or not. Eslake say no, I say yes. I'm still working on a good explanation so I didn't protested yet. In crafting professions alike as on Magery and other skills the difficulty level varies with the displayed skill, not with the real skill. But his example with the sheeps made me wonder. Also the fact that Lightning Strike obviously gives you gains above 80 Bushido although it theoretically shouldn't, is odd. So, further investigations must be taken on this. Oh, and Eslake, did you get that information ("Positive modifiers are ignored, such as +skill jewlery and items") from an offical source?

 

[Eslake]

Yes, but the "Official Source" has a bad habit of changing the rules every few months on things.

The method at that time was, Negative modifiers count (being discorded, -magery weapons, etc), but Positivie modifiers were ignored in Diffculty-for-gains checks (+skill jewlery).
It was even noted that negative effects would only count in the amount lowered beyond the Real skill.
I.e. take off the +magery jewels before being discorded or it won't work as well.

I'm about to go in-game and do some testing to be sure it still works this way.

Heeere sheep sheep sheep.

 

[Eslake]

Well I'm back from slaughtering then taming 42 chickens.

I had 30.4 real skill. I put on +28 in jewlery (can't find my +15 bracelet)

In those tames, I gained 0.
(if it were basing it on my Real skill, I would have gained about 2.5)

I then tried taming a few rabbits. At 30.4 I should have been able to gain, but was getting the "Wasn't even challenging" message, indicating no chance at all for a gain.


They have changed it to pure difficulty.
I apologize to the OP for the misinformation and have removed that from the FAQ.


So don't bother with jewlery. It will only let you tame more difficult creatures, not speed gains from your current difficulty level.


But hey, there's a counter to some of the Tamer-Hate. Taming is now back in the Top 3 slowest skills to gain.

 

[Nenime]

Eslake, you're a great guy! Don't give it a second thought that you built on elder experiences. What makes this community (or forum) so great is that we don't just circulate rumors, we cross-check our informations. This helps to keep the infos up-to-date and accurate. Alignments are completely normal at writing FAQs and won't belittle your excellent one in any way.

the "Official Source" has a bad habit of changing the rules every few months on things.

This is very sad but also very true.

But hey, there's a counter to some of the Tamer-Hate. Taming is now back in the Top 3 slowest skills to gain.

I never understood why anybody could hate another one's profession is a MMORG. This is crazy Every skill/profession has it's pros and cons. Everybody should play however or whoever he wants in this game without being harassed. Too bad that some people begrundge specific advantages of another skill and scream "Nerf it!". Just build one by yourself or get over it.

 

[uoBuoY]

Quoting Eslake: "So don't bother with jewlery. It will only let you tame more difficult creatures, not speed gains from your current difficulty level."

There's another reason not to use jewelry: the higher your skill the slower you gain.

my first two tamers trained with a full skillset. My last tamer had only taming, lore and vet (never more than 350 total skill points). I really felt as though that last tamer gained skill a lot quicker than the other two, especially above GM.

 

[Eslake]

I never understood why anybody could hate another one's profession is a MMORG. This is crazy Every skill/profession has it's pros and cons. Everybody should play however or whoever he wants in this game without being harassed. Too bad that some people begrundge specific advantages of another skill and scream "Nerf it!". Just build one by yourself or get over it.

I look at it this way.

At AoS, the top warriors were hunting elder gazers (if they had high resists) and Ogre Lords for those who didn't.
Tamers were hunting balrons with White Wyrms.

Yes, a major discrepancy in power. At that time, Tamers and Bards were drastically overpowered in relation to other templates.

But now, the biggest pet is almost Exactly Double the power those WWs had.
While Warrior templates are now soloing peerless.

Sampires ( or if you prefer - BushidoChivalryParryWarriors ) can solo every single peerless.
Tamers can (I am told) solo 3. I have only solo'd Melissa - and that took an unpleasantly long time and a broken instrument keeping the balrons and imps at bay.
(And yet pets are already slated for another nerf)

Tamers are simply NOT the overpowered templates any more. People are just used to whining about pets - and are jealous of us having them and too lazy to invest the time to train the skills to have their own.

 

[YellowStarS2k]

Thanks again everyone. I finally was successful in taming my first and second aggressive monsters, both of which were Dragons!! It was so exciting to finally see the message that it seems to accept you as its master!

Before I would try to beat it down with EVs, then try lead taming. With only ~30 resists, I took too much damage and died ~10 times. Without using invis to break its aggression, too many times have I been hit, or I will hit it.

Invis taming (i guess) works awesome! I never 100% understood how it worked, but after getting the hang of it, it becomes easier.

Newbie friendly step by step instructions.
1. Precast Invis
2. Run up to monster within 3 tiles
3. Target self
4. Start taming
5a. If you anger the beast, just run away and heal and repeat.
5b. If you start taming, run a couple steps away so there's more of a buffer from his bites. Usually when I die, it's because of his bites.
6. Heal if you are taking a bit of damage. If you're not healing, you should be invising yourself.

IMO the best place to do this is the Destard entrance. Lead your dragon to the entrance and you can escape very easily to heal or invis.

One more question:
How would you guys rank these tameables: Greater Dragon, Dragon, White Wyrm, Nightmare, Hiryu, Cu Sidhe?
GD > Cu Sidhe > Hiryu > WW > Nightmare > Dragon?

 

[Basara]

I'd probably put Rune Beetle between Cu Sidhe & Hiryu, and remove nightmare from the "alone" list, and consider it a standard addition to any hunt where one takes a Rune Beetle, WW or dragon (so the entries would be GD > CS > RB+Mare > Hiryu > WW+Mare > Dragon+Mare). I'm not experienced enough as a tamer myself (even less experienced than you in the actual use of animals to know where a Dread Warhorse would fit in (you probably meant the DW instead of nightmare in terms of single creature use?)

 

[Oriana]

http://uo.stratics.com/content/skills/anim.php

This is another great guide in conjunction with much of the advice I see here. If you input your present skill, whether enhanced by jewels or not. It will give you a good guideline to know where you're best gains are.

Ori

 

[Nenime]

Hey, congratulations for taming your first Dragons, Star. You will have much fun hunting with them.

How would you guys rank these tameables: Greater Dragon, Dragon, White Wyrm, Nightmare, Hiryu, Cu Sidhe?
GD > Cu Sidhe > Hiryu > WW > Nightmare > Dragon?

That is indeed a difficult question to answer because it depends on many factors. But short: I would order them like Basara did.

I like what Stucky said in another thread (with other words): Pets are like slayer weapons. So you can only rate these compared to the monster you want to hunt. The resistances and the kind of damage output determines the value of a pet, alongside with good health of course.

Greater Dragons are probably one of the best pets in the game. Many Health Points, good resists, high damage output... simply great. But that doesn't mean others are useless now. At Melissa's I saw some G.D. with crappy resistances and they went down real fast. Due to the impossibility of riding a mount (5 control slots) it is very pesky to cross areas with multitude spawn. This reduces the scale of potential hunting grounds. A Hiryu with good resistances (phy. and fire) is sometimes much more valueable - they can take down Onis and Balrons fast.
A Nightmare is a very good pet for combinations, like Basara said, because it requires only two control slots. Since the appearance of Dread Warhorses I rarely use Dragons but I used to hunt with them a long time and they are good pets for the mid-range - i.e. against Daemons. My Rune Beetle was my favorite pet for a long time too, I made so much gold while hunting Swoop with it. It's poison damage/resistance is awesome. Like Nightmares they don't have many Health Points so you will be pretty busy healing them. White Wyrms together with Nightmares were THE ultimate combination before Mondain's Legacy expansion.
Since then, Cu Sidhes were probably the best solo pet (untill the arrival of G.D.s). Cus are great. Lots of Health Points together with their ability to heal themselves frequently makes them a reliable pet even against big bosses like Lady Melisande. Although they can pretty much fight anything they are vunerable against massive fire damage.

You should not forget about the pack instinct. I once noticed a Tamer with five Ostards and I look at him with a sceptical smile untill I saw what he can do with them. Extrem high damage output. I underestimated them.

 

[YellowStarS2k]

Sorry to keep bringing this back from the dead but, how about GD > Cu Sidhe > Dread Warhorse + Mare > Mare + Rune Beetle? (even though I realize I should be looking at the types of damage and resistances)
Also in your opinion, where would the hiryu fit?
Thank a ton for all the help. Now I've tamed all the high end pets except for a GD!

 

[Nenime]

Congratulations again

The Hiryu has a slightly lower combat ranking to me than a Cu sidhe - depending on this resistance/damage type thing. Both can be used as a mount, require the same control slots and have about the same Health Point amount. A Hiryu cannot heal itself so much like a Cu but can have high physical- and fire resistance and the Wrestling skill can be above GM. A Cu has an additional Bleed Attack, a Hiryu has Dismount and can do Lower Physical Resistance.

Because Dread Horse/Mare combi does not have good resistances I would rather rank them a bit lower. The damage output is not bad though i.e. against Swoop. And the Dread Horse has many health points so make it attack first.

Rune Beetle/Mare is an awesome combi with very high damage output. Physical, fire, energy and poison damage, Spells, Fire Breath, Greater Poison, Corrupt Armor ability and Bleed Attack. Not much left to wish for. If there weren't the low Health Points it probably would be the best pet combination.

The ranking is also determined whether you hunt alone or in a team - meant for PvM. When you take along more than one pet, be sure to draw all their health bars aside so that you can easily switch healing them - unless you have good UOAssist/KR macros.

But Star, did you noticed that the Tamer forum section is back up again? Not all Tamers read here. Look/ask there also for you will probably get even more answers.