J
[JD]
Guest
Reptalons have a very bad rep. Mention "reptalon", and a tamer will reply "Reptalons suck!"
So last night I decided to dig further and really see for myself what was the skinny on these under-used potential pets.
I read some good advice on the stratics page, and moved both Miasma and Rend to the entrance of the Labyrinth so that they were out of my way.
I dragged any minotaur spawn and unwanted reptalons into Miasma's grassy park area and used EV's and my newbie 100 myst/focus RC to kill them. Many players don't know about this trick but if I got aggro, I used pointy eared power to run and invis, passed down through the ages from all my elven forefathers.
I still wasn't really killing them that fast so I decided to go out, waving at Rend and Miasma while I was on foot, to get my favorite Greater Dragon.
I wave at them on the way back in, chain invising my dragon and myself as I go. Miasma decides to follow me back to the grassy knoll, despite all efforts to get her to stay at the entrance. I eventually convince her to go stand guard at the entrance for me again. Rend glares at me like I'm an Elven McNugget. Hey Rend........ my eyes are up HERE.
At last I'm finally situated back in the grassy knoll area, with a very hungry dragon. I pull some more reptalons.
As I lored them I discovered a reptalon with 119 wrestle and another with 108 tactics! This is interesting info as it is not on the stratics reptalon page (Calls updaters!) below:
http://uo.stratics.com/database/view.php?db_content=hunters&id=2459
I'm assuming this means they can have a max of 120 wrestle and 110 tac, although I'd need to do more loring to ensure those maximums. It's safe to say that those are the maxes for now.
I settled on one with 119 wrestle, 106 tactics, 900+ HP, but only 54 Physical resist (I couldn't hang around all night to find the 'perfect' one - its dangerous in there! And this one was 'good enough' for now.
Getting this particular reptalon provided to be quite the adventure, because as I was beating it down I noticed someone invising themselves in the corner! Crap, other players are coming in.
I beat him down to 40% and realized, I have my prized greater dragon with me. I have to stable it before I can tame!
UGHHHH. I'm facing other players coming in and poo-pooing Operation: Reptilon.
This unknown species may stay extinct, forever.
Now I know why I chose to use EV’s and Rising colossus in the first place. It’s slower but I could have tamed it right then and been done with it.
So what ends up happening is this invis’d person turns out to be part of a larger group, who then trains Rend on me in the grassy knoll area. Ouch.
I run out of there to stable the GD. As I get to the stables I have some trouble because my dragon is still showing in my control slots but isn’t visible. I log in and out several times until I can finally see it, and stable it. In hindsight I believe in my rush to "beat" those other players to taming my prize reptilon (or getting back before they KILL it), I forgot I'd invised my GD. Like Durrrrr Mcfly. ><
By now I figure the Rept is dead but somehow it hadn’t died yet. I like to think they kept themselves invis and attacked Rend because as tamers they knew what I was trying to do, but I don’t know for sure. I did get a couple instances of "Someone else is already taming this creature". That coulda just been my fault, running around and invising to keep aggro clear so I could invis-lead tame the reptalon.
Long story short they all died, all 3-5 of them. I lived, using my pointy eared power.
I called in a guildmate to help clear the trash. He comes in, waves his Gargoyle fingers and everything falls dead at his feet. Wow, he really is Wise.
I tame the reptalon and send it off to the stablemaster to be bonded.
In Retrospect, a stealth mage tamer with ninja smokebomb would have been perfect for this.
I reviewed the stats/skills/resists/abilities for both the Cu Sidhe and Reptalon. I noticed a lot of similarities, but also a lot of differences. My impression was OSI tried to make a “Similar but different” pet, akin to archery and throwing skills, when they created the reptalon.
My thoughts that the Cu is more “Defensive” in nature, and thus better for PVM. As in PVM, you want your pet to be able to “tank”. While it tanks, you nuke, curse, support it with cures, heals, and maybe you do the hustle if you have elven style (like me). Hamster style comes in a close 2nd.
The reptalon however appealed to me as a potential PVP pet as it seems to be more “offensive” in nature. In PVP, nobody is going to waste time killing your pet before you, so instead of having a defensive pet, you would want the most offensive pet you can find. And reptalons are pretty offensive! Have you smelled one? Peeeeee-yewwww!
Yes, a Dread Warhorse is still probably better. But they are hard to find, and expensive.
After taming, my initial impressions were:
* Wow, I am really disappointed this pets hitpoints are so low (it started with 950 and is halved to 475, that’s less than a 3-control slot regular dragon)
* Wow, this thing had 119 wrestle and 106 tactics pre tame!
* This thing does the EXACT base damage a Cu does (21-28)
* It has a fireball and some sort of paralyzing roar
* The damage type is 25% poison, and 75% energy.
* It’s rideable, kinda cool
* It has the same max physical resist (65) as the Cu
* It is MUCH harder to obtain and tame than the Cu, who live in their little valley and follow any pointy eared elven tamer out that wanders nearby.
* I remember being disappointed its strength was lower than the worst Cu.
I read on the stratics comments someone claimed that a reptalon could be trained back up to their pre-tame skill levels. We’ll see if, when bonded and trained, it ends up at 119 wrestle or not.
After these experiences, my thoughts are that Reptalons are in need of a change to make them more viable for tamers. Aren't the UO developers aware how under-used these pets are, and how HARD they are to obtain?
The best suggestion I can make, given how hard they are to obtain, their low hp, lower str, poorer resists, and inability to heal themselves, is that Reptalons should be changed to a 3-slot pet, and the rest of their abilties left alone.
Has anyone else done extensive Reptalon testing/investigation?
So last night I decided to dig further and really see for myself what was the skinny on these under-used potential pets.
I read some good advice on the stratics page, and moved both Miasma and Rend to the entrance of the Labyrinth so that they were out of my way.
I dragged any minotaur spawn and unwanted reptalons into Miasma's grassy park area and used EV's and my newbie 100 myst/focus RC to kill them. Many players don't know about this trick but if I got aggro, I used pointy eared power to run and invis, passed down through the ages from all my elven forefathers.
I still wasn't really killing them that fast so I decided to go out, waving at Rend and Miasma while I was on foot, to get my favorite Greater Dragon.
I wave at them on the way back in, chain invising my dragon and myself as I go. Miasma decides to follow me back to the grassy knoll, despite all efforts to get her to stay at the entrance. I eventually convince her to go stand guard at the entrance for me again. Rend glares at me like I'm an Elven McNugget. Hey Rend........ my eyes are up HERE.
At last I'm finally situated back in the grassy knoll area, with a very hungry dragon. I pull some more reptalons.
As I lored them I discovered a reptalon with 119 wrestle and another with 108 tactics! This is interesting info as it is not on the stratics reptalon page (Calls updaters!) below:
http://uo.stratics.com/database/view.php?db_content=hunters&id=2459
I'm assuming this means they can have a max of 120 wrestle and 110 tac, although I'd need to do more loring to ensure those maximums. It's safe to say that those are the maxes for now.
I settled on one with 119 wrestle, 106 tactics, 900+ HP, but only 54 Physical resist (I couldn't hang around all night to find the 'perfect' one - its dangerous in there! And this one was 'good enough' for now.
Getting this particular reptalon provided to be quite the adventure, because as I was beating it down I noticed someone invising themselves in the corner! Crap, other players are coming in.
I beat him down to 40% and realized, I have my prized greater dragon with me. I have to stable it before I can tame!
UGHHHH. I'm facing other players coming in and poo-pooing Operation: Reptilon.
This unknown species may stay extinct, forever.
Now I know why I chose to use EV’s and Rising colossus in the first place. It’s slower but I could have tamed it right then and been done with it.
So what ends up happening is this invis’d person turns out to be part of a larger group, who then trains Rend on me in the grassy knoll area. Ouch.
I run out of there to stable the GD. As I get to the stables I have some trouble because my dragon is still showing in my control slots but isn’t visible. I log in and out several times until I can finally see it, and stable it. In hindsight I believe in my rush to "beat" those other players to taming my prize reptilon (or getting back before they KILL it), I forgot I'd invised my GD. Like Durrrrr Mcfly. ><
By now I figure the Rept is dead but somehow it hadn’t died yet. I like to think they kept themselves invis and attacked Rend because as tamers they knew what I was trying to do, but I don’t know for sure. I did get a couple instances of "Someone else is already taming this creature". That coulda just been my fault, running around and invising to keep aggro clear so I could invis-lead tame the reptalon.
Long story short they all died, all 3-5 of them. I lived, using my pointy eared power.
I called in a guildmate to help clear the trash. He comes in, waves his Gargoyle fingers and everything falls dead at his feet. Wow, he really is Wise.
I tame the reptalon and send it off to the stablemaster to be bonded.
In Retrospect, a stealth mage tamer with ninja smokebomb would have been perfect for this.
I reviewed the stats/skills/resists/abilities for both the Cu Sidhe and Reptalon. I noticed a lot of similarities, but also a lot of differences. My impression was OSI tried to make a “Similar but different” pet, akin to archery and throwing skills, when they created the reptalon.
My thoughts that the Cu is more “Defensive” in nature, and thus better for PVM. As in PVM, you want your pet to be able to “tank”. While it tanks, you nuke, curse, support it with cures, heals, and maybe you do the hustle if you have elven style (like me). Hamster style comes in a close 2nd.
The reptalon however appealed to me as a potential PVP pet as it seems to be more “offensive” in nature. In PVP, nobody is going to waste time killing your pet before you, so instead of having a defensive pet, you would want the most offensive pet you can find. And reptalons are pretty offensive! Have you smelled one? Peeeeee-yewwww!
Yes, a Dread Warhorse is still probably better. But they are hard to find, and expensive.
After taming, my initial impressions were:
* Wow, I am really disappointed this pets hitpoints are so low (it started with 950 and is halved to 475, that’s less than a 3-control slot regular dragon)
* Wow, this thing had 119 wrestle and 106 tactics pre tame!
* This thing does the EXACT base damage a Cu does (21-28)
* It has a fireball and some sort of paralyzing roar
* The damage type is 25% poison, and 75% energy.
* It’s rideable, kinda cool
* It has the same max physical resist (65) as the Cu
* It is MUCH harder to obtain and tame than the Cu, who live in their little valley and follow any pointy eared elven tamer out that wanders nearby.
* I remember being disappointed its strength was lower than the worst Cu.
I read on the stratics comments someone claimed that a reptalon could be trained back up to their pre-tame skill levels. We’ll see if, when bonded and trained, it ends up at 119 wrestle or not.
After these experiences, my thoughts are that Reptalons are in need of a change to make them more viable for tamers. Aren't the UO developers aware how under-used these pets are, and how HARD they are to obtain?
The best suggestion I can make, given how hard they are to obtain, their low hp, lower str, poorer resists, and inability to heal themselves, is that Reptalons should be changed to a 3-slot pet, and the rest of their abilties left alone.
Has anyone else done extensive Reptalon testing/investigation?
