Discord/Tamer, how to squeeze all skills ?

[popps]

Tamer means

120 Animal Taming
120 Animal Lore
120 Veterinary

Discord means
120 Musicianship
120 Discordance

Now, that is already 600 skill points gone.

For taming purposes, having also peacemaking would help but, a tamer also needs Magery to Gate the tamed pet out once tamed.

So, question is, in order to have an efficient Discord/Tamer to help taming attempts and make them less difficult, what would be the best skills set up ?

Thanks.

P.S. Or would it be better to just scrap the Discord/Tamer and go for Honor taming and forget about it ?

 

[Barry Gibb]

If you are just concerned about taming creatures (as your post reads) use a soulstone and swap Discord for Peace. Discord lends itself more when using your pets to hunt, but not when taming and obtaining new pets. Once you have the pets you want, soulstone the Peace off and the Discord back on. It takes one week to bond the pets, so you will have time.

To gate your pets, GM Magery will give you an 85% chance to cast 7th circle spells. If you want to cast more sucessfully, either raise it past that (110 is more than enough for 100% success) or use gate scrolls (they will be 100% successful at that skill level).

You can use the honor taming method, regardless of your skill set. Lead taming can also be done with any skill set and does not require working any virtues. It is a very good practice to learn for a tamer.


Stayin Alive,

BG

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

Taming doesn't have to mean all 120's, 110 Tame, 110 Lore, 100 Vet is sufficient.

You don't need to gate pets, you can use auto stable to move them around before they are bonded, and once they are bonded they will recall with you. You could just as easily use Chivalry, however having a weapon skill is a good idea as it lessens the frequency you are hit.

 

[[JD]]

Popps,

That is pretty much a horrible tamer spec. I’m not sure why you think you “have to have” 120 in all taming, lore, and vet.

Spec points are valuable, scarce resource. You must be wise about making decisions in investments with them just like you must be wise about determining what stats are best on your weapon, spellbook, or your armor suit.

Instead of just slapping everything at 120, use them to gain required abilities based on your playstyle and preferences.

First question: why would you want 120 Animal taming AND animal lore?

Do you regularily use Fire Steeds or a Dread Warhorse? If no, your taming and lore does not need to be that high for animal control purposes.

110 Taming and Lore gives 99% control on a greater dragon and is recommended by many tamers.

HOWEVER, My personal favorite is 115 taming and 105 lore. It uses the same exact amount of spec points to give 99% control on a GD. But it’s better than 110/110, because you can make an item swap macro and swap in a Birds of Britannia talisman and end up with 120 Taming and 110 Lore. 120/110 Gives you better taming ability and an extra stable slot over the usual recommended “110/110” combo. It’s a more intelligent use of your points, IMO.

Macros are easy as pie in the Enhanced Client, and I’m pretty sure UO assist can have this functionality in classic.

Now if you’re one of those tamers who wants the prestige of the “Legendary Animal Tamer” title, that’s cool – I understand – but your Lore can be dropped lower than 120.

Animal control chance is a combination of Taming and Lore, so with 120 Taming according to the stratics calc, you only require 103 Lore to have 99% Greater Dragon control. Congratulations, you saved yourself 17 spec pts over someone who specced 120/120.

As far as Vet, it really depends on how much emphasis you place on vetting and how often you’ll do it. I’ve found Vet to be severely limited and really don’t like it much except for the res. Magery heals are far better for 95% of healing circumstances and can be done from range and do not require bandages which can be looted or you can run out of them.

I only use vet for two reasons. First as an additional heal if my pet is taking a TON of damage. I double click the bandage on the pet, and then drop a magery heal. Both the bandage and the spell "land" on the pet at roughly the same time, healing up to a whopping 100hp or so (estimated).

I would never have a tamer without at least 80 effective Vet for the res. Some tamers like it for the extra stable slots. Again, you have to consider your play style and what you want out of it.

You have potential to save a cubic assload of spec points on Vet if you want to. If you really wanted to be sneaky, spec 80 in vet. Now imbue a ring and bracelet with +15 Vet each.

Remember that Birds of Britannia 1-press macro we were talking about above? Well, use that same macro to swap in your vet rings. Whenever you res your pet or stable your pet you can have 110 Vet, which gives you some stable slots, yet at the same time does NOT waste spec pts.

Now, according to a recent post by Lord God, the check for skill in music and disco is only done at the time of disco attempt. Again, with creative use of items and 1-press keyboard macros you could get some jewels made with +15 Disco/Music and spec 90 Disco/Music but have 120 effective. This alone saves you 60 skill pts.

So here’s where we were:

120 Vet, Lore, Taming, Disco, Music = 600 Spec pts (lots of waste!)

Here’s what I’ve discussed:

120 Taming (115 Trained, 5 BOB Tally)
110 Lore (105 Trained, 5 BOB Tally)
110 Vet (80 trained, 30 from jewelry)
120 Music (90 trained, 30 from jewelry)
120 Disco (90 trained, 30 from jewelry)
---
Total spec pts spent: 480
Spec pts saved: 120!!!

You shaved 120 skill pts off your spec which are now available for magery, med, etc just by being smart about where you place points and using 1-keypress macros for things like stabling, ressing, and disco.

In conclusion, here are the focus points for this post:

• Spec for gained abilities, playstyle or preference – NOT just to get “120”
• Be aware of game mechanics and use them to your advantage
• Use item swapping macros to save skill pts wherever you can

 

[Hildebrand]

You don't really want to peace or disco (or even paralyze) your pets since it lessens their mods when you tame them.
Honor is good method.
You could go mage weapon to help avoid getting hit.
You might even want to stone off Vet since the Ter Mur stable NPC Vet can rez pets now (Need SA Expansion). I'm not sure if there are other NPC Vets in other facets.

With imbuing, anything is possible now.

 

[popps]

If you are just concerned about taming creatures (as your post reads) use a soulstone and swap Discord for Peace. Discord lends itself more when using your pets to hunt, but not when taming and obtaining new pets. Once you have the pets you want, soulstone the Peace off and the Discord back on. It takes one week to bond the pets, so you will have time.

Hmmm.... I thought Discord was usefull when actually "taming" the pet since it lowers the stats and, it is my understanding, the taming requirements.

That is, using Discord a tamer would get much less that annoying "enraging the pet" message of a failed taming attempt.

Especially when taming high end pets, making it considerably easier to tame them (i.e. at the 1st or 2nd attempt) would make quite a difference....

If it works this way, then I would prefer much more Discord over Peacemake.
I just hate to get all those enraging the pet messages over and over.....
Of course, I'd just love to be able to have both Discord AND Peacemake when taming but unless one gives up magery, entirely, I see that hardly possible....

It ain't so ?

 

[popps]

Taming doesn't have to mean all 120's, 110 Tame, 110 Lore, 100 Vet is sufficient.

Yes, but the higher the taming the less failed attempts and the less angering of the pet....

You don't need to gate pets, you can use auto stable to move them around before they are bonded, and once they are bonded they will recall with you.

You mean there is a way to stable a pet in the wild, away from the stables ? How ?

You could just as easily use Chivalry, however having a weapon skill is a good idea as it lessens the frequency you are hit.

When you say having a weapon skill, does it also mean holding a weapon in hands ?
And if this is about not being hit, why a weapon skill and not parrying (and holding a shield) ?

Any skill level or there is a bare minimum which is needed and more is better ?

Thanks

 

[popps]

You don't really want to peace or disco (or even paralyze) your pets since it lessens their mods when you tame them.

Is it so ?

I read conflicting posts of some who think discord/peace gets a weaker pet as tamed and some who say it does not, that the effect is only temporary and eventually the originary stats come back saved for the taming loss.

Honor is good method.

It sure is, but the fact is that after each taming to get those Virtue points back, as a tamer (melee get them way faster), is a pain.....
Doing it once or twice is OK, but always playing "catching up" for honor points gets old, after a while...

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

You mean there is a way to stable a pet in the wild, away from the stables ? How ?

You log out and back in again. The pet is stabled while you are logged out, so if you had just Tamed something and wanted to get it to the stables, you could recall there and re-log and the pet would be with you at the stables.

If you log out when dead the pet is stabled and stays stabled until you re-log while alive.

When you say having a weapon skill, does it also mean holding a weapon in hands ?
And if this is about not being hit, why a weapon skill and not parrying (and holding a shield) ?

Any skill level or there is a bare minimum which is needed and more is better ?

Having a weapon skill means having skill points in whatever is in your characters hands. It includes Wrestling, Mage Weapons & Defensive Wrestling as well as the actual weapons like Swords etc.

Weapon skills have a 'hit' and 'dodge' part (except Defensive Wrestle which only has the 'dodge' part) the weapon skill is compared to something hitting you. Anytime anything in UO hits anything else weapon skills are compared. In the case of monsters and pets it is their Wrestling vs your weapon skill. If weapon skills are equal there is a 50% chance the thing trying to hit you will miss.

Parry works differently and requires certain things to be effective.

More is better, though wild Greater Dragon can have up to 145 Wrestling, so at 120 weapon skill you will get hit more than 50% of the time (which is still a lot better than 100% of the time). HCI & DCI are extensions of the base chance to 'hit' and 'dodge' without a weapon skill those properties do not work.

 

[[JD]]

(except Defensive Wrestle which only has the 'dodge' part)

LG, what is required for 'defensive' wrestle to avoid being hit, instead of a mage weap for example.. thx

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

(Anatomy + Evaluate Intelligence + 20) / 2 = defensive wrestling (capped at 120.0).

So for 120 Defensive Wrestle you would need 220 points between Anatomy & Eval, which could be 110/110, but better as 120 Eval/100 Anatomy. The formula gives you 20 points free compared to normal Wrestling (on a template with Eval) but you lose special moves. Its mainly used for cramped builds that are trying to get a lot on them, or for people that don't need/want the specials that Wrestling alone would give.

 

[[JD]]

cool thx. ill probably just stick with my -20 mage weap spell channel fc1 15 dci greater heal wand, cause i only need to raise my magery 20 pts to 140 to have 120 effective. though of course if disarmed, the anat thing would be nice

 

[Barry Gibb]

Hmmm.... I thought Discord was usefull when actually "taming" the pet since it lowers the stats and, it is my understanding, the taming requirements.

That is, using Discord a tamer would get much less that annoying "enraging the pet" message of a failed taming attempt.

Yes, but the higher the taming the less failed attempts and the less angering of the pet....

The message "you seem to anger the beast" does not depend on your Taming skill and it is not effected by any other skills or items. That message is a static chance of getting an attempt to tame the creature. Think of it as two rolls of the dice:
1. Chance for an attempt (static %, the Animal Taming page has gives it 1 in 20 odds). Though the page only lists nightmares, dragons, swamp dragons and white wyrms, this applies to any creature that can become angry (greater dragons, cu sidhe, etc..).
2. Your skill check, given you passed #1 (allowed to try), this is where your skill is checked for success (refer to Animal Taming page for % success).

Discord does not lower the stats of the creature, but it will lower its skills and resists. Lowering its resists won't make any difference on trying to tame a creature, since you don't want to damage it (which breaks your taming attempt). Lowering its skills will make it hit you slightly less often and slightly less hard, but it has one drawback. Since its skills will be lowered, it will be easier to hit. If you hit it, you break your taming attempt. Having high resists, for the creature's damage types, is a far better option to reduce the damage from it. Discord is not very useful when trying to tame creatures. The skill's strengths are when you are hunting with your pets, not trying to get pets.

You don't really want to peace or disco (or even paralyze) your pets since it lessens their mods when you tame them.

Is it so ?

I read conflicting posts of some who think discord/peace gets a weaker pet as tamed and some who say it does not, that the effect is only temporary and eventually the originary stats come back saved for the taming loss.

Peacemaking and Discordance have no effect on a pet, if it is tamed under the influence of either one. However, if a pet is tamed under the effects of Paralyze, it will lose and additional 4% from each skill. For pets whose maximum skills are 100.0, this just means extra time to train fully train them. For pets with skill caps over GM, that skill loss also effects their skill cap. Any skill that would train past 100, will have its skill cap reduced, thus making the pet weaker in the end (compared to if it had not been tamed under paralyze). It is unadvisable to use Para-taming for pets that can have skills over 100. Use the barding skills as much as you desire, without worry.

Stayin Alive,

BG

 

[Hildebrand]

I'm glad I'm wrong then.
Bards need more love, not ball&chains.

 

[maroite]

Taming doesn't have to mean all 120's, 110 Tame, 110 Lore, 100 Vet is sufficient.

You don't need to gate pets, you can use auto stable to move them around before they are bonded, and once they are bonded they will recall with you. You could just as easily use Chivalry, however having a weapon skill is a good idea as it lessens the frequency you are hit.

Always thought that how stable slots were linked to tame/lore/vet is kinda silly.

Instead of having them linked to the skills, they should just let tamers buy different size stable, or amounts of slots, like houses.

Either that or give us pokemon balls to store pets in! -.- lol

Peacemaking and Discordance have no effect on a pet, if it is tamed under the influence of either one. However, if a pet is tamed under the effects of Paralyze, it will lose and additional 4% from each skill. For pets whose maximum skills are 100.0, this just means extra time to train fully train them. For pets with skill caps over GM, that skill loss also effects their skill cap. Any skill that would train past 100, will have its skill cap reduced, thus making the pet weaker in the end (compared to if it had not been tamed under paralyze). It is unadvisable to use Para-taming for pets that can have skills over 100. Use the barding skills as much as you desire, without worry.

Stayin Alive,

BG

Peace taming takes far to long. -.- I read posts about people taking 30 mins to an hour trying to tame GD's with peace.

I can tame GD's in under 10 mins.

Best way to tame, is to learn how to invis tame, and you can do that with just 85 magery!

Might want to have 100 for gating though.

 

[Garm The Green]

Tamer means

120 Animal Taming
120 Animal Lore
120 Veterinary

Discord means
120 Musicianship
120 Discordance

Now, that is already 600 skill points gone.

For taming purposes, having also peacemaking would help but, a tamer also needs Magery to Gate the tamed pet out once tamed.

So, question is, in order to have an efficient Discord/Tamer to help taming attempts and make them less difficult, what would be the best skills set up ?

Thanks.

P.S. Or would it be better to just scrap the Discord/Tamer and go for Honor taming and forget about it ?

Tons of useful info here, but a bit technical IMHO.

While JDs ideas are great, they're for people who have access to an imbuer and are familiar with the ins and outs...

Vets a great skill especially for Greater dragons and for stable slots.

I run with

Nattens Madrigal Tamer Bard
Tame 110
Lore 110
Vet 107
Mage 95
Med 100
Music 120
Disco 120

And I only have 710 skill points. I use an imbued brace with +52 skill points on it.

On another shard I run

Ashe Starlight Tamer Bard
Tame 110
Lore 110
Vet 100
Mage 100
Med 50
Music 120
Disco 120

This is without any skill jewels or arties. It's a great setup to loosely aim for and you can work in +skill arties/jewels and mana regen or lower mana cost along the way to augment your mana regen and use.

It's a good setup for a poorman and can take on pretty much anything in the game.

Having said that, I wish i knew an imbuer on Drachs to make me a +skill ring and brace with FC/FCR etc etc to get med to 100!

With disco though, you barely need magery healing unless healing from range...

 

[Wenchkin]

Just a suggestion Popps, but if your tamer is going to be spending most of their time hunting and using pets, it's best to pick a template that suits you hunting than one which is optimised more for taming. Pretty much any template can be used for taming pets if you just use common sense and learn how to use the skills you have to good effect.

If you look at the template discussion threads or look at this page you'll see the range of templates we use for their tamers. Pick the template you fancy. If you've got soulstones and you wanna make a bard who swaps between disco and peace for taming, that's an option. I don't think that's necessary though. You can disco a pet before taming it, but I don't really do that much with my bard tbh. Honor, peacemaking etc etc - again all optional. Try the simplest taming methods and add more "stuff" in if you're struggling.

I think a good starting point is to try templates out on test centre and while you're at it, really work on practicing your lead taming when you have a ton of gold to blow on insurance. I think a lot of the time players feel honor and peace are necessary because they died a few times lead taming. If they stuck at it a bit longer they'd get past the death robe stage and realise it's really easy If you stick at it, even on a crappy con you can lead tame anything. Greater dragons on 28k dialup are pretty dodgy, but I did tame a few that way.

Equipment wise I never go all that fancy, high resists are my only must have properties on a suit for taming. I've got too many tamers to uber kit them all out heh. Other mods are optional depending how much time, effort and gold you want to spend.

Wenchy

 

[popps]

The message "you seem to anger the beast" does not depend on your Taming skill and it is not effected by any other skills or items. That message is a static chance of getting an attempt to tame the creature. Think of it as two rolls of the dice:

So, what does a tamer need to do to actually get less of those annoying "you seem to anger the beast" messages ?

 

[[JD]]

Popps, that message cannot be changed. It's a straight up percentage chance built into the game and no amount of taming/lore or anything else in your control will make that go away.

Your best bet is to be ninja-fast on your invises/cures/heals, or run protection to ensure you can get them off even while being beat on by your future pet.

 

[Wenchkin]

Popps, angering messages are just part of the process in taming the more aggressive wild animals. All you can do is raise your taming skill so you have the best chance to start and successfully complete a taming cycle.

Wenchy

 

[Barry Gibb]

So, what does a tamer need to do to actually get less of those annoying "you seem to anger the beast" messages ?

There is nothing in the game that changes this aspect of taming aggressive creatures (that is what I meant by "static %"). The only thing you can do is raise your taming skill, so that when you get a tame attempt, you are less likely to fail, thus having to retry to tame it again.

Stayin Alive,

BG

 

[Aibal]

So, what does a tamer need to do to actually get less of those annoying "you seem to anger the beast" messages ?

Get better lol. Seriously, you'll get that message even at 120 skills, depending on how aggressive your tame is within the game.