Dreads and banes do require a high amount of skill to control at the best of times, so they will be more susceptible to a sudden drop in loyalty. Fortunately they're mounts, so if you get a refused command and the pet isn't wild, you can mount them and ride away till the disco wears off. But I personally wouldn't take a dread out unless I had 99% real control normally and some jewels to boost up if I got disco'd. Even then, with bard NPCs I don't think a rare pet like this is a good idea when they can't be replaced.
With a dread actually going wild it's worth double-checking your control. At one time there was a calculator which wasn't giving the correct control chance % for dreads. The Stratics one always worked, but I know some tamers had checked their control chance and been given the wrong answer. You need 112+ in tame and lore to have 99% on a dread. Some believed 110 was enough, but at that level you only have 87.4% control.
Check your skill here to be sure, or try different skill combos of lore and taming. You probably do have enough, but I would rather tamers double-check than risk losing a valuable pet.
Jewels should help you, if you have 99% control without them, they'd give you a replacement. But please check you really do have enough skill - get discorded without a pet and then
check your remaining skill is enough.
If you can't control a pet and need to pull it out of a fight, recall somewhere else in town. I mark safe spots and use those, so I can break the discordance, vet my pet back up and then get back into battle quickly. It just saves you giving a command as the pet should be beside you after recall. You can mark inside a building to avoid the pet wandering (or running) back into a fight. Just don't ever repeat commands if you fail one. Keep a good supply of pet food with you and use it, but check the loyalty is back at wonderfully happy before you issue the next command. Sometimes it's hard to hear a refused command noise over the spawn. Be careful you don't land a lot of spawn on some innocent bystander by recalling though, it's never cool to dump a ton of spawn without giving warning first.
I'm doing ok so far with the invasion but my tamer is 120 skill and using her greater...*mumble* so I haven't had a huge problem with bards. But I don't try commands when I'm discorded. I just heal and vet. If my pet wanders off for a coffee I just cast on the bard myself. I must say I did think my greater was a bit "I don't give a crap about your troubles," but during this invasion I swear he takes delight in it.
Wenchy
