Pet skills

[Scoobs]

In your experience, what is the practical difference between say a 2 scoring pet and a 3 scoring pet. Is there really a noticable difference or is it really more about small benefits?

I was given a greater drag by a very kind player, but I don't know if I want to spend all the time training it as it has a low score on the pet calculator.

 

[Meat Elemental]

The most thing I find is better resistances make a big difference, most people go nuts for the 1900+ greaters for example, ignoring other stats and resists.
A high wrestling lets your pet get hit less too.
I also find higher magery on greaters dont make much a difference. If your on Great lakes I could help ya out with a nice greater.
So I would say there is a big difference in a weaker pet compared to a strong one, but every pet has its strengths against other monsters, I love having discord on my tamers makes battles much easier.

 

[[JD]]

frankly i find that calculator not all that great... its very subjective what it considers best attributes and seems to weight other important things not all that well. i guess if you don't know what you want or two creatures are very similar and you just want a 2nd opinion it is good to use.

as pointed out, resists are a very important part of a pets makeup. think about what you would be using the greater dragon to fight. what are its resists vs. that which you will be fighting? i tend to look for high phys and fire first, followed by the rest.

a greater dragon is one of the few pets which can exceed 120 in wrestling. high wrestling helps determine if the pet's blows hit, as well as help it get missed by whatever it is fighting, thus lessening its dependence on you for heals. look for one that will have 120+ wrestling POST tame and you'll be golden.

a greater dragon has the most hp of all pets. in the wild it can range from 1000-2000 hp, upon taming it is halved. thus its important to find one pretame with high hp (1800-1900+ if possible). the one i have is 990 hp post tame. when blessed it's well over 1k. if i had used the discord trick on it, it would have been insane.

as the greater dragon is more a tank than a damage dealer i tend to look for all these traits first which make it a better tank* before I would move on to the next step, which would be to evaluate the rest of its skills (tac, anat, magery, resist) and stats (high strength for dmg)

*note tank does not mean can dish out dmg, tank means it can take punishment.

post the dragon(s) youre considering and we can help advise if you should keep one or keep looking.

 

[Wenchkin]

In your experience, what is the practical difference between say a 2 scoring pet and a 3 scoring pet. Is there really a noticable difference or is it really more about small benefits?

I was given a greater drag by a very kind player, but I don't know if I want to spend all the time training it as it has a low score on the pet calculator.

I tend to use the power score as just a rough guide to a pet's quality. Because it's the stats, skills and resists that tell you exactly how good a pet is and whether it suits you.

You can always post the stats and skills here if you want some of the more experienced tamers to take a look.

I'd suggest that even if you don't want to keep the dragon longer term, it's worth bonding and using the dragy a) to work the greater drag spawn for a better one and b) to test how strong GDs are without worrying about losing skill gains after a death. You can always pass the draggy on to another tamer when the time comes.

Wenchy

 

[Scoobs]

Drag stats are:

HP 669
Stam 68
Int 68

Resists
67, 88, 41, 55, 61


Wrestling 93
Tactics 98
REsist 89
Anat 49
Mage 103
Eval 68
Med 96

 

[Llewen]

In my personal opinion that dragon isn't worth keeping unless you really do have some sentimental attachment to it. I've farmed greater dragons for less than a couple of hours over the past few days and that one is worse than most of the ones I killed.

 

[Scoobs]

I just managed to tame one using honor. After the tame, it is actually worse than my first one! Can anyone post the untamed stats I should be aiming for?

Thanks

 

[Llewen]

Hit Points: 1800
Strength: 1200
Dexterity: na
Intelligence: na

Resists: 80 85 50 50 65

Wrestling: 123
Tactics: 123
Resisting Spells: 123
Magery: 123

That would be what a good dragon would look like before taming, or close to it.

 

[Lexx Merlin]

If you want any of the skills to be over 120 post taming, you need to look for wrestle, tactics or resist to be 133.3 or more, for it to train up to 120 in those skills. After taming it will lose 28% of those skills (birth stats), and its magery will go down 10%. That will be the maximum magery it can have. All your pets can train up to 90% of their birth stats.

 

[[JD]]

yeah that dragon you posted is really bad, if you dont have another dragon you could at least bond it and maybe use it to help clear out ones you dont want to keep like wench suggested.

do you have mysticism? i found that a high powered RC on a tamer did wonders clearing unwanted GD's, and when you find the one you want it can beat it down to 10% life, you dispell, invis, and begin invis taming it.

they are dragons so bring a dragon slayer book and use cold based spells to beat it down - hail storm, mind blast, etc. i find that beating GDs down works much easier than honor taming where when honor fails on you, you have a full strength dragon to contend with at close range (yikes!). the real trick is how you beat it down. slayers are your friend

i like to go into destard and when i see one i like ill drag it over to the room near the water elementals, theres no aggro over there. in tram you can even mark and recall into that area too, bypassing the need to run through all the aggro.

there's another option but i still think destard is easier. its wind. in wind there is a greater dragon spawn, which is surrounted by dragons, drakes, and daemons. you can lead off all the trash stuff further down the hall and then the greater will be alone. if one spawns and you dont like it, instead of having to beat it down to get rid of it you can simply run it up to the guard zone and yell guards and it'll get guard whacked. this method takes longer to setup but once you get going it can be pretty forgiving. the hardest part is setting it up and leading all the aggro away.

if you can post the skills of the char you are trying to lore and tame the dragons with i can make better custom suggestions...

 

[Scoobs]

Thanks for the tips.

I am a bard tamer.

115 taming, 110 animal lore, 110 vet, music 115, discord 115, magery 100, rest in med.

My suit is mostly mid 50's with some mr.

I usually hunt with a mare / bettle but they do get munched when I either make a healing mistake or lag out. I suspect that these pets are not terribly god stat wise as I kept the first one tmed many, many years ago.

I have no slayer books (except for an undead one) so I suppose I better dust off the 80 or so inscription on a stone and make some books!

As an aside, its odd how I have been playing for so long (account is 9 years old) and have crap gear and no skill in tackling the tougher monsters. Oh well.

 

[Llewen]

As an aside, its odd how I have been playing for so long (account is 9 years old) and have crap gear and no skill in tackling the tougher monsters. Oh well.

This is one of those, "As long as you have fun, who cares?"

 

[[JD]]

scoobs,

i found when trying to tame greaters that resists were paramount. that fireball they have can practically one shot you with low fire resists, so if you can i'd pump your phys and fire up to 70s. Fire that low will end up with you making a lot of death runs, which can ruin enjoyment.

second although you only need 110/110 to control a gd, having only 115 taming will lead to more failures in the taming process, extending the duration, leading to a rougher time. are 120 taming PS's within your reach on your server? if they are, i would recommend one, and then temporarily boost your taming to 120 just for the process of picking up the tougher pets... gd's, rune beetles, bane dragons, etc. The 120 taming power scroll isn't REQUIRED, but it will make your work easier, so give it consideration.

i think this should be doable for you with a few minor tweaks. first off since you have no eval you can use Mind Blast and it requires no Eval and will hit the GD's lowest resist, cold. Next grab a dragon slayer mage book, they are pretty cheap and available usually (or inscribe one if you have time but i wager there is a cheap one in housing right now).

Drag the GD to be tamed over to that east room near the water elementals (but not close enough to aggro them). Position some of those rock formations between you and the GD. As it chases you Keep the rocks between you and dragon until you are ready to tame, that will eliminate melee attacks and you'll only have to contend with its nukes and fire breath.

Disco and then begin to nuke it down til around 10% of its life. The dragons fire breath is HP based so the less HP it has, the less damage its breath will do. Once its low on health it becomes a cake walk, it will be out of or low on mana, and you can proceed to invis tame it, no honor needed.

some other things that can make your life easier is protection so you can heal/invis through attacks and orange petals to cure the poison it will cast. If it nukes you too much just quickly offscreen and heal and come back. Lastly an ethy or throw away horse (there is a horse in a stable in skara brae always available to tame) would be useful. Use it as a mount until you are ready to tame then release it.

When you get your new GD, feed it and either gate it out from the safe room (if you are in tram), or tell it all stop, all stay, invis it, you run out/recall and then relog at the stables and the dragon will appear next to you. that will eliminate aggro bringing it out of destard...

Let us know how it goes and also what server you are on. If you are on Sonoma I can help.

 

[Wenchkin]

I'd recommend fire temple for GD taming, while you can't go in and lore a lot of dragons while they're sitting there, it's a lot easier to pull one out and tame it in the jungle. Nearby healers are also handy

Wenchy

 

[Annonymous User]

Just in reference to the pet calculator. I guess I do not understand it, I have like a 4.6 GD on there, but out of like 100 cu's every one ranks around 2's and 3's /shrug what gives why are there no good cu's according to the calculator

 

[Trunkz]

@ Tixic2,

I believe Kitiara (the pet calculator creator) commented on the fact that Cu's Dex stat was being weighted incorrectly in the calculator.

The fix is to set Dex at 125 in the calculator, no matter what. Just do it. Then you will get an accurate quality/star rating relevant to the Cu's stats.

Either that or when your evaluating the Cu with the calculator, select the "pet has been trained" setting which will automatically apply a Dex value of 125. Same solution, 2 options.

 

[Llewen]

I always enter the numbers for my pets as they would be when they are fully trained. As far as I am concerned that is the only way to get a reasonably accurate rating.

 

[Annonymous User]

Okay Ill try it really fast and see what i get..

Here it is.... a 3.1 cu shide (blaze color)

UOCraft.com Pet Power Calculator

How Powerful is Your Pet?

Your Pet’s UOCraft.com Power Rating: 3.1




5 Stars Max

Your pet’s data [Madara - Cu Sidhe]:

You indicated that your pet is untrained.

Your pet appears to have been trained since taming. Dexterity calculation exceeds maximum allowances. Please retry using the Trained option. If you did use the Trained option and still see this note, please double-check your input. If your pet exceeds the maximum Dexterity listed below, please contact Kitiara with your pet’s information.

Hit Points: 548
Str/Dex/Int: 601 / 125 / 258
Resists: 60 / 32 / 84 / 49 / 75

Skills:
Wrestling: 0
Tactics: 0
Resist: 0
Anatomy: 0
Healing: 0
Poisoning: 0
Magery: 0
Eval Int: 0
Meditation: 0

Power Ratings (% of max):

Stats: 98% / 147% / 89%

Hit Points: 91%

Resists: 92% / 71% / 99% / 98% / 88%

Compared to the most powerful Cu Sidhe, your pet [Madara] has:


98% of the maximum Strength (601 / 612).

147% of the maximum Dexterity (125 / 85).

89% of the maximum Intelligence (258 / 290).


91% of the maximum Hit Points (548 / 600)


92% of the maximum Physical resist (60 / 65)
71% of the maximum Fire resist (32 / 45)
99% of the maximum Cold resist (84 / 85)
98% of the maximum Poison resist (49 / 50)
88% of the maximum Energy resist (75 / 85)

0% of the maximum Wrestling skill (0 / 100)

0% of the maximum Tactics skill (0 / 100).

0% of the maximum Resist skill (0 / 100).

0% of the maximum Anatomy skill (0 / 100).

0% of the maximum Healing skill (0 / 100).

0% of the maximum Poisoning skill (0 / 0).

0% of the maximum Magery skill (0 / 0).

0% of the maximum Eval Int skill (0 / 0).

0% of the maximum Meditation skill (0 / 0).

Note: The percentages above indicate exactly what they say – “Percentage OF MAX” and are not scaled to the same min-max range that the Power Calculation is scaled to.


trained / untrained doesn't change the rating

 

[canary]

I have an elder tamer and I dunno, I personally love the challenge of going in with pets that are not uber.

I fight with a boura and a nightmare. Call me crazy.

 

[Llewen]

I have no experience with boura, but the nightmare is the most underrated pet in the game in my opinion.

 

[Trunkz]

@ Toxic2

I ran your numbers through the calculator, and I want to state that your Cu is a 3.1 star rating (3.3 with skills at max) even with this "bug" in the dex claculator. BTW a 3.1 Blaze Cu is an awsome pet, congrats!

Now that that is out of the way.

When I plugged in your stats with the "untrained" filter applied, I recieved the same dex value of 147% of max, or whatever becuase it appears to cap the Cu's Dex at 85 when using this "untrained" filter. This did not seem to effect the rating however, since it still rated a 3.1.

Then, after setting the filter to "trained", i recieved the following output:

Your Pet’s UOCraft.com Power Rating: 3.1 [3.3 with skills included]

5 Stars Max

Your pet’s data [ - Cu Sidhe]:

You indicated that your pet is trained.

Hit Points: 548
Str/Dex/Int: 601 / 125 / 258
Resists: 60 / 32 / 84 / 49 / 75

Skills:
Wrestling: 100
Tactics: 100
Resist: 100
Anatomy: 100
Healing: 100
Poisoning: 0
Magery: 0
Eval Int: 0
Meditation: 0

Power Ratings (% of max):

Stats: 98% / 100% / 89%

Hit Points: 91%

Resists: 92% / 71% / 99% / 98% / 88%

Compared to the most powerful Cu Sidhe, your pet [] has:

98% of the maximum Strength (601 / 612).

100% of the maximum Dexterity (125 / 125).

89% of the maximum Intelligence (258 / 290).

91% of the maximum Hit Points (548 / 600)

92% of the maximum Physical resist (60 / 65)

71% of the maximum Fire resist (32 / 45)

99% of the maximum Cold resist (84 / 85)

98% of the maximum Poison resist (49 / 50)

88% of the maximum Energy resist (75 / 85)

100% of the maximum Wrestling skill (100 / 100)

100% of the maximum Tactics skill (100 / 100).

100% of the maximum Resist skill (100 / 100).

100% of the maximum Anatomy skill (100 / 100).

100% of the maximum Healing skill (100 / 100).

0% of the maximum Poisoning skill (0 / 0).

0% of the maximum Magery skill (0 / 0).

0% of the maximum Eval Int skill (0 / 0).

0% of the maximum Meditation skill (0 / 0).

So your pet scores a 3.1 either way; with 147% of max Dex or not. The "bug" may be a nuisance, but it is not affecting your pet's power score.

 

[Annonymous User]

Okay so he is a 3.1 thats great and all, but I mean is there a 5.0 cu even in existence in the game. I set and tame them all the time and have yet to see one even hit 4.0 /shrug. Thanks for the reply though and the explanation !

 

[gortman]

Okay so he is a 3.1 thats great and all, but I mean is there a 5.0 cu even in existence in the game. I set and tame them all the time and have yet to see one even hit 4.0 /shrug.

If you tame them long enough eventually you will find one near or above 4.0. I spent a couple of months last year looking for a good cu. My best was rated 4.5 on the calculator. Also found a 4.3 and a couple of 4.1s. If you ask me, I think the resists are top priority. If you can find one with close to max resists but lowish HPs, I think that beast would do better on average than one that might rate higher on the calculator but has lower resists.

Just my two cents.

 

[canary]

I have no experience with boura, but the nightmare is the most underrated pet in the game in my opinion.

Bouras are fun, and with a heal here and there my fully GM boura can solo a dragon.

I have a mage (non tamer) that uses 2 fully trained vollems, which are essentially nightmares reskinned. They are great when you are in an area that won't let you cast EVs and the like. They can take down Bane pretty quick with next to zero damage in a 1:1 situation.

 

[Nexus]

Bouras are fun, and with a heal here and there my fully GM boura can solo a dragon.

I have a mage (non tamer) that uses 2 fully trained vollems, which are essentially nightmares reskinned. They are great when you are in an area that won't let you cast EVs and the like. They can take down Bane pretty quick with next to zero damage in a 1:1 situation.

I go after Drakes with this guy, his skills have been completed since I took that pic.

I think the Pet Power Calculator is screwy when it comes to ferrets I get this when I plug him in. Might be due to lack of trained ferrets to establish a base line.

UOCraft.com Pet Power Calculator
How Powerful is Your Pet?

Your Pet’s UOCraft.com Power Rating: 19.1 [15.5 with skills included]

starsstarsstarsstarsstars


5 Stars Max

Your pet’s data [ - Ferret]:

You indicated that your pet is trained.

Your pet appears to have been trained since taming. Strength calculation exceeds maximum allowances. Please retry using the Trained option. If you did use the Trained option and still see this note, please double-check your input. If your pet exceeds the maximum Strength listed below, please contact Kitiara with your pet’s information.

Your pet appears to have been trained since taming. Dexterity calculation exceeds maximum allowances. Please retry using the Trained option. If you did use the Trained option and still see this note, please double-check your input. If your pet exceeds the maximum Dexterity listed below, please contact Kitiara with your pet’s information.

Your pet appears to have been trained since taming. Intelligence calculation exceeds maximum allowances. Please retry using the Trained option. If you did use the Trained option and still see this note, please double-check your input. If your pet exceeds the maximum Intelligence listed below, please contact Kitiara with your pet’s information.

Hit Points: 130
Str/Dex/Int: 125 / 125 / 125
Resists: 49 / 12 / 39 / 23 / 23

Skills:
Wrestling: 100
Tactics: 100
Resist: 100
Anatomy: 100
Healing: 0
Poisoning: 0
Magery: 0
Eval Int: 0
Meditation: 0

Power Ratings (% of max):

Stats: 250% / 227% / 167%

Hit Points: 260%

Resists: 98% / 80% / 98% / 92% / 92%

Compared to the most powerful Ferret, your pet [] has:

250% of the maximum Strength (125 / 50).

227% of the maximum Dexterity (125 / 55).

167% of the maximum Intelligence (125 / 75).

260% of the maximum Hit Points (130 / 50)

98% of the maximum Physical resist (49 / 50)

80% of the maximum Fire resist (12 / 15)

98% of the maximum Cold resist (39 / 40)

92% of the maximum Poison resist (23 / 25)

92% of the maximum Energy resist (23 / 25)

100% of the maximum Wrestling skill (100 / 100)

100% of the maximum Tactics skill (100 / 100).

100% of the maximum Resist skill (100 / 100).

100% of the maximum Anatomy skill (100 / 100).

0% of the maximum Healing skill (0 / 0).

0% of the maximum Poisoning skill (0 / 0).

0% of the maximum Magery skill (0 / 100).

0% of the maximum Eval Int skill (0 / 100).

0% of the maximum Meditation skill (0 / 100).

Note: The percentages above indicate exactly what they say – “Percentage OF MAX” and are not scaled to the same min-max range that the Power Calculation is scaled to.

Print Your pet’s stat sheet

Friend of mine used this during the Dark Wisp invasion a few years back..

Yes it's a packhorse.

 

[canary]

@ Nexus...

That is amazing! How did you go about training?

 

[Nexus]

@ Nexus...

That is amazing! How did you go about training?

The Ferret? Easy, usually when I'm training pets I and other folks in my Guild's alliance will give a shout out about having a shadow elemental up. Bringing the ferret out while a Cu is tanking took care of the majority of it, along with a Discoer when it's skills got high enough to slow it down. As for Resist... Spectral Spellbinders, get 3-4 have it attack them after each kill command immediately give a stop command.. The pet will flag on the spell binders then just stand there and take the hits from them all you have to do is heal. My friend trained her packhorse in a similar fashion.

Pets are exactly what you put into them, if you sped a bit of time looking for a quality pre-tame, then really work their skill up sometimes it surprises you what you wind up with. Too many people in my honest opinion rely on the meat shields of the Taming arsenal, that being the Cu Sidhe and the Greater Dragon. They have their place but about 80% of the time they are overkill, and finding he proper combination of pets to prey can really expand the enjoyability in being a tamer.

Would you believe you can achieve "Glorious Lord/Lady" status with no skill above 50? You can as a tamer, go get 5 polar bears (35.1 taming) bond and train them and kill Ice Fiends. 1 slot pets are defiantly under rated as a group especially one's with pack instinct.

BTW that's not an imprisoned Ferret, I spent a couple days in Fel Prism of Light weeding out potentials before bringing that one out.

 

[canary]

The Ferret? Easy, usually when I'm training pets I and other folks in my Guild's alliance will give a shout out about having a shadow elemental up. Bringing the ferret out while a Cu is tanking took care of the majority of it, along with a Discoer when it's skills got high enough to slow it down. As for Resist... Spectral Spellbinders, get 3-4 have it attack them after each kill command immediately give a stop command.. The pet will flag on the spell binders then just stand there and take the hits from them all you have to do is heal. My friend trained her packhorse in a similar fashion.

Ah... yeah. I tend to do mine the old, OLD fashioned way... hunting. I killed a TON of cyclops and titans in Ilsh to get my animals to GM levels.

It takes a bit of time. And I don't think I could get the anatomy gains that way on such a small critter.

thanks for the info!

 

[kitiara-atlantic]

Love the pack horse, Nexus!!

Indeed - the only data I have on ferrets is what's in the Stratics hunter's guide. I don't have any other practical data - so what's in the Pet Power Calc is what's on Stratics. That information is obviously incorrect (particularly re: stats).

 

[Nexus]

Love the pack horse, Nexus!!

Indeed - the only data I have on ferrets is what's in the Stratics hunter's guide. I don't have any other practical data - so what's in the Pet Power Calc is what's on Stratics. That information is obviously incorrect (particularly re: stats).

Yea I figured you didn't have a enough data to from a good baseline. Though I'm not complaining I get to tell friends I have a pet so Uber it breaks the Pet Power Cal... When they ask to see it I whip out a ferret!....

I'll pass on your appreciation of the pack horse to my guild mate who owns and trained it.