Is it supposed to be so hard?

[Black Sun]

For about 2 months now I've been having a terrible time training my tamer. It seems like no matter how much I train, or what type of animal I'm taming I can't gain beyond my GGS. I've thought maybe my char was bugged (Sent at least half a dozen pages to GMs, no help there), thought maybe it was my target animals. I'm at my wits end. Maybe it's something I'm doing. Here is my current template.

Lore 110
Taming 101.9
Vet 92.4
Magery 84.2
Anatomy 61.6
Eval 60.2
Healing 58.7

Str 85
Dex 25
Int 120

Alex is a male human tamer. For the most part with training I've been alternating between Ki-rins & ridgebacks, and a few retame bulls thrown in when I can find them. Tonight for instance, I found a pre-tamed Bake Kitsune outside New Haven, tamed it. No gain. I tamed about half a dozen ki-rins and turned them into the zoo. No gains. After that I headed to Ilsh and tamed about 30 ridgebacks and 2 or 3 dire wolves. No gains. Decided to try something easy, headed to Delucia, tamed a few bulls. No gains. Tamed a mongbat, no gain. Tamed 3 retame bulls in Jhelom. No gains. Committed suicide & headed back to try Ki-rins again. Another 3 ki-rins, and not GGS. I haven't even logged onto my tamer in 3 days. GGS should have came and went by now.

I've been training both with and without jewels on, and I'm just getting so frustrated. Can anyone see a problem? Is there something I'm over looking? I would be so appreciative of any help or advice anyone could give.

 

[James [W^H]]

I have taken multiple tamers to 110 and 120 Taming over the years. I am currently working on one with 105.8 Taming, 104 Lore and 100 Vet. On Friday evening, I was at 105 Taming and 100 Lore. Since Friday, I have tamed about 5 hours and you can see the gains I got in that time. I use the same method for every tamer and find that the gains raise at a good rate. My method is to tame "quantity" over "quality" and to move around alternating between animals from one server to another is best for gains. All I have ever tamed to get to 110 taming is White Wolves, Great Harts, and Bulls. Most of these are fresh because I kill and repeat. I also remove all jewelry while taming. You might also try to put your Anatomy and Healing on a soulstone, or just dump them. They are too low to be of any real use, and the lower you are from your cap, the quicker I beleive you will get gains.

 

[Guest]

To get gains beside your GGS ones, I'd say your training sessions really need to be measured in hours rather than # animals tamed. Some days I've gotten lucky and had a couple of gains relatively soon, but the best idea is often to work things like the zoo turnins, so that you get benefits other than the illusive gain.

As to whether it's meant to be difficult, I guess it depends how you value the rewards at the end of the road. I think they're worth the trouble

Wenchy

 

[imported_Mark Trail]

You could be getting the gain and not seeing it.

Starting when you are due for a GGS and wearing a bracelet to bring taming skill up to the cap. Tame something and get the GGS gain. But you are already at max so you see no gain. However, the gain actually is there if you remove the bracelet and see the base skill.

 

[Piper [PGoH]]

Yessir... sounds just like my predicament. I'm over 115 now, but I don't gain unless it's my daily point, regardless of how long or what or how many I tame. I've spent all day taming cus to no avail many times, same goes for just about everything else. Maybe we both have bad luck? That's what the GMs told me, anyway...

 

[imported_revenant2]

Taming is really an oddball skill in UO today. It's insanely hard to gain at higher levels. Maybe Ninjitsu is a bit like it, but yeah.

I don't know if they intended it to be like this from the beginning or what, but it's strange.

For all the effort required, you would think that they give you some kind of extra-nice benefit for high natural taming. But having said that, I'd hate to see them nerf jeweled-up taming! In the whole scheme of things, taking things away from people and redistributing them to only a select few does NOT equal the creation of something nice for that group. It's just nerfing and it can be really stupid when done that way.

 

[Black Sun]

Things were much different when I hit GM with this char. It was slow, but it seems to me it wasn't this slow. But that was a long time ago, back in the days of AOS and Power Hour. I suppose it's possible my recollection of gains up to GM are not entirely accurate anymore. I suppose that I just need to invest more time into my tamer and hope for the best. It's going to be a much longer road to 110 than I expected is all.

 

[imported_Tina Small]

<blockquote><hr>

Here is my current template.

Lore 110
Taming 101.9
Vet 92.4
Magery 84.2
Anatomy 61.6
Eval 60.2
Healing 58.7

Str 85
Dex 25
Int 120

[/ QUOTE ]

I know this is going to sound odd, but try unlocking your stats right before you try to tame (or use a stat scroll) and let your strength raise to 100 if you can. I can't point you to any source that proves any kind of connection between stat changes and taming gains, but give it a try and see if anything happens.

Also, I've found that I get the best gains off unicorns when taming skill (with jewelry on) is in the 105-110 range. You may want to try for that taming skill range for ki-rins too. Perhaps also try taming a couple of drakes or dragons.

Good luck and hang in there. Hopefully you're just having a streak of bad luck with the RNG.

 

[Black Sun]

Ok, thats the second time I've seen it mentioned now, so I'm going to ask... what is RNG?

 

[Prudentis]

Random Number Generator

 

[Guest]

Quantity over quality.

For the most part, anyway.

In any case, I agree with Wenchkin. Taming sessions should be measured in hours, not in number of animals. A good taming session should be at least an hour long, and each hour you should be able to tame at least 60 animals, if not more.

When I was stuck at 115.2 (and again at 115.3) on my first legendary tamer, I always did hourly sessions every day even when I thought I wouldn't get a gain. Sometimes I tamed for more than an hour. I probably tamed ridgebacks at the rate of 2 per minute, if not faster. Yeah, I didn't get a single gain (not even GGS) for three months. I reckon that if I didn't stick with my hourly sessions, I would've been stuck much longer.

Of course, I understand that some people don't have time for hourly sessions. Right now, I barely have the time myself. But if there's anything I want to tell you...

1. Quantity over quality
2. DON'T BE FRUSTRATED

Good luck, and happy taming.

 

[joblackjon]

This was mentioned but deserves repeating: dump all skills except The Taming Three and something to heal you (skill or pots). My current Tamer-in-training has 412 total skill points. You will at least get a GGS every day and yes, that's what most Tamers settle for at some point.

Get a Mare to kill your tames and protect you.

I might be wrong but I think you're training too high for your sweat spot. Take a look at the tamingarchive.com: the taming calculators, What Do I Tame. Gaman, Frenzied, Giant Toad and Lava Lizard are the best for 101.9

I'm at 107.0 real Taming and gaining from Gaman in the Kitsuni Wood. I love it there. No real danger and an endless supply of Gaman. I started there wearing all the Taming boosts I had and using a exceptional instrument.

To break up the monotony, try this. Tame 3 Gaman and have them kill a Kitsuni or Tsuki Wolf. Trying to keep the Gaman alive is pretty tense but I already have over 115 Vet!

 

[Black Sun]

**Update**

After taking the advice offered by everyone here I set out to make a few changes. Last night I emptied out a few soulstones to hold my skills besides my 3 'tamer' skills, I bought a +20 stat scroll. Since I had to wait for 24 hours to use my stones again, I couldn't test things out until tonight. I stoned off all my extra skills, and last night I had raised my strength to 100. I set of taming bulls in Jhelom and got .2 within half an hour. I think that did the trick. I just wanted to thank everyone for their advice.