Tips and tactics for taming a greater dragon?

[Bara]

My friends and I restarted UO after years of absence and I've gotten to the point (skill wise) that I am ready for my first greater dragon.

I was wondering if any of you had some tips and tactics to help me to tame this dangerous beasty.

So you know what we are working with.

I have a tamer/mage/spellweaver with around 106 taming, 110 lore, gm magery, eval, meditation and spellweaving.

I'll have the help of a bard/mage capped at 110 music/peace, so while he has a chance to peace greater dragons with a slayer instrument, it can't be counted on either. We'll also have a mage/spellweaver backing us up for healing and a timely invis.

My plan, as of now, is to lead in with an army of Nature's fury and ev's to weaken him some (so the firebreath won't be killer). I realize that they auto-dispell, but mass numbers should stick around long enough to weaken him. Then try to tame when he gets redlined. For spawn location, I was thinking tram destard and try to pull him close to the entrance to help cut down on potential adds.

However, I am looking for better tactics, and appreciate any help.

Thanks!

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Taming Greaters can be...interesting.

I have had the best luck, if I am alone, using honor taming. Build up your honor and then just honor yourself. If you have a high enough honor, it should give you 3-4 good taming attempts before the Greater agros on you. At which time, be prepared to invis yourself, or hide if you have the skill.

If I am with a partner or a group, the easiest way is to beat it down first. A peace bard is very helpful. Once you beat it down, it will start to move slowly, and it will generally be low on mana and HP, so there will be less casting on you and less damage from the fire breath. Careful though, if you are lead taming it, it can still tear you to shreds with its claws.

The last thing I will say...


...get a +skill taming ring or bracelet before you go. Taming a Greater with only 106 taming is going to be almost impossible. You will fail 99 times out of 100, and with all the "anger the beast" results thrown in, that could become very frustrating.

 

[Wenchkin]

Firstly, my favorite spot is the daemon temple on fire isle, you can easily find and pull out the dragon you want and take it somewhere quiet to tame. You can pull the other spawn away from where the dragons spawn outside on the left of the building bit, then work the spawn if you want to select a good dragon.

I get the strongest resist suit I can, and some potions and orange petals so I'm not worrying about curing, only healing.

If your friend has 110 peace/music, it may be helpful for them to try healing and invising you as you're taming, rather than peacing. By all means try to peace, but I think even with a slayer 110 will fail quite a bit. I'd go more for supporting mage if possible

My general technique is really basic. I beat the beast down to a sliver of health then stable pets (or in your case dispel summons) and then, as you're a mage you'd precast invis and get within taming distance of the drag before invising yourself. Then munch your orange petal so you get the longest protection with it.

Brace yourself and then hold down that tame last target macro (I double click a dagger and target the draggy to set the target up without any skill delay). You'll then find, as I did, that even on a sliver of health, a greater dragon is dangerous hehe.

If you have a friend helping, have them heal you while you attempt to start a tame, then when you manage that, casting invis repeatedly will save the dragon from focusing his attacks on you. Just ensure your friend isn't so close that the dragon targets them instead

The other thing - as Morgana rightly pointed out - you really need as much taming skill as you can.

Wenchy

 

[Tina Small]

My friends and I restarted UO after years of absence and I've gotten to the point (skill wise) that I am ready for my first greater dragon.

I was wondering if any of you had some tips and tactics to help me to tame this dangerous beasty.

So you know what we are working with.

I have a tamer/mage/spellweaver with around 106 taming, 110 lore, gm magery, eval, meditation and spellweaving.

I'll have the help of a bard/mage capped at 110 music/peace, so while he has a chance to peace greater dragons with a slayer instrument, it can't be counted on either. We'll also have a mage/spellweaver backing us up for healing and a timely invis.

My plan, as of now, is to lead in with an army of Nature's fury and ev's to weaken him some (so the firebreath won't be killer). I realize that they auto-dispell, but mass numbers should stick around long enough to weaken him. Then try to tame when he gets redlined. For spawn location, I was thinking tram destard and try to pull him close to the entrance to help cut down on potential adds.

However, I am looking for better tactics, and appreciate any help.

Thanks!

Bara, pull it to the side (the chest room to the east works well). It may be easiest for the bard to do this once you've lored all five of the GDs in Destard and picked the one you want. Have the bard go into war mode and then area peace to calm all the critters around the GD you want. Then have him tap on the life bar of the GD you want to get it to follow him. As he drags it towards the chest room, he will need to continue area peacing and tapping on the GD's life bar to make it continue to follow him. With it calmed like this, the GD should not hit the bard all that hard if it decides to cast a few spells.

Once you get the GD where you want him for taming, bring on everything you have available to try to beat it up as much as possible. A greater hiryu and/or cu sidhe might be able to do okay if you all help keep it healed.

Once you have it beat up pretty well, the bard needs to just keep area peacing over and over while your friends keep you cured and healed as you attempt to tame. With 110 peacemaking and 110 music and a dragon slayer instrument, I think the bard should do fairly well with the peacemaking. If he can discord the GD, all the better.

If you decide to go the route of honor taming, do try to beat up the dragon a bit first if you have the help to do so. I wouldn't try honor taming until you get to the Follower level. That should give you a good 3 or 4 tries.

Something to be aware of with honor taming: The recent change that added a gump to ask if you really want to honor yourself can screw up your use of honor if you aren't careful. As you may know, when you activate the honor virtue, you come out of hiding. The addition of the gump means the GD has just enough time to aggro on you, which may make using honor useless for that particular critter. (Without the gump, you could usually run up to the critter, hide, and then honor yourself so fast the GD had no time to aggro on you when you became visible.) You can try invizzing yourself if you see that it has aggro'd on you and before you attempt to tame, however it doesn't always work. Best bet now since the change is to back up so the GD is off-screen before you honor yourself and then run to it and start your taming attempts. Tell everyone beforehand to stay back or hide because you don't want the GD to start going after them while you're trying to tame it.

Good luck to you, especially if you're on Atlantic. I had a heck of a time finding a couple of decent GDs there for myself and guild mates because of the larger population. You may have to settle for one that isn't as good as you want, get it to bond (or not), and use it to help kill a bunch of the GDs to try to get a better one to spawn. I'm also willing to help with the barding (or taming) if you drop me a PM and give me a little advance notice of when you want to go. (I can also help if you're on GL, Baja, Legends, Sonoma, Napa, Pacific, Origin, or Lake Austin. The barding skills aren't so great yet on LA but I have a GD that can help beat up the one you want to tame.)

 

[TimberWolf]

I just tamed my first two Greaters on the weekend.

First one was fast and easy in Destard, my friend distracted the other Drags while I tamed my target.
It tamed on the first attempted and we were outside Destard and done 2 mins after entering.

Unfortunately it wasn't an idea fighting drag, Great resists and low HPs.

So after stabling it ( it was my first after all) we went hunting for a nice one in Ilsh. We found a beauty but he ate us a few times, and seemed to sense when his freedom was in peril. Whenever I was almost done taming him, he would invis himself until the taming attempt wore off. First I thought it was a coincidence, but he did it three times, and the only time he invised himself was when I was part way through a successful tame attempt.

Finally he gave in, and is now in my stable resting and preparing to be trained in a week.

After having someone there to help peace and heal, I think this week I will work honor and see how that goes!



To be honest though, I found taming cu's near GM level harder then taming Greaters at 120. But I have only tamed two so I will let you know if those feeling change later.

 

[I Like Pie]

Honor Taming is by far the easiest way to tame greaters, rune beetles and a rare colored cu... any other way is a waste of time IMO. Build up your honor wear some jewels, its easy as... well you know... pie!

 

[weins201]

I drag everything out but the one greater draggie. The I bring my own greater in and kill away until i find one with the stats I like. At the monent i only look ar ones with 95% or better in all areas.

When i get one I like i beat it down to a heart beat of death and gate out.

I usually do this from the east wall as or on the opposite side from the target.

I then return and lead tame it. If it get a little to much health i try and EV back to near death.

I also use honor if it is a really sweet one and i dont want to risk killing it.

Second place is Ish.

Last choice is destard.

Good luck.

 

[Iuyarus]

um well just get a provoker with 120 provoke and music to provoke the dungeon and provoke 2 greaters on each other then they run out of stamina and loose a lot of mana on each other then tame get in front of it don't let it hit you by touching you or you might die so then just keep taming it and stay ahead of it so it doen't touch you but heal when it's dragons breath goes off dragons breath only will go off a certain amount but you will have time to heal yourself you can tame a greater alone WITH EASE.. if your using a provoker tamer mage with like no eval but who is gonna make a char like that just to tame greaters..

 

[Iuyarus]

I played the game for like 6 years then took a 2 year break then came back just to fool around on test because I lost the password to my other account.. I was running a mage tamer the whole time


so that's why I suck at pvp on the test SHARD!

 

[Bara]

Thanks for the tips everyone.

I got my first greater dragon today!

I found an upgrade to my taming ring, which brought me up to 110, and managed to tame one in Destard. Pulled it up to the western slope towards the enterance to level 2, and had it well isolated except for a random giant serpant or two. We weakened it with mass summons and I lead tamed it with an occasional teleport spell(so exciting) till it finally tamed. Only died two times.

 

[TimberWolf]

Thanks for the tips everyone.

I got my first greater dragon today!

I found an upgrade to my taming ring, which brought me up to 110, and managed to tame one in Destard. Pulled it up to the western slope towards the enterance to level 2, and had it well isolated except for a random giant serpant or two. We weakened it with mass summons and I lead tamed it with an occasional teleport spell(so exciting) till it finally tamed. Only died two times.

you never forget your first!!!!..Anything

lol

 

[WildWobble]

Enough chatter

#1 get your tamer some honor and use it on your self when you have a canadite picked out that you like go up spam tame best if very high tame skill 110+ will do it 120 will do easily

#2 spellweaveing etherial voyage has same affect as honor though does not last as long put a greater dragon you want to tame by the door in destards go into voyage go in spam tame prepare to cast invis once you start to tame.

the methods are pretty easy to figure out honor works wonders
they are good for solo tameing of most anything at all

How to train honor up just set up a macro invoke virtue honor to a hot key preferably beside all kill macro hehe then go find some easily killed big nasty things like arctic ogres honor them all kill and in no time you have enough honor to tame a big mean nasty greater dragon

Last one i tamed 922 hp 624str 650ish int 83 phiz rez 84 fire 54 cold 60 poi 75 energy resists will train up to 123 wrestle has 118 magery pretty decent dragon made me happy going to train it for solo melisan