Taming a greater... what method works "best"?

[Gellor]

I'm trying to get myself a good greater dragon. I finally found the one I wanted(spend about an hour) and spent another 30 minutes trying to tame it... never got it tamed and got a royally blistered butt trying it.

So, with that said, what is the "best" method to tame the sucker?

My understanding is that peacing an animal will nuke it's stats. So that is a no go for me.

My tamer skills(all natural) are:
120 taming
120 lore
120 vet (swapped to 115 eval during taming)
120 disco
120 music
115 magery

Part of my problem is not being able to beat the sucker down effectively. Even swapping on eval and using dragon slaying spell book, I was not doing enough damage to keep it from healing right up.

I've got most other skills available to him

 

[Kellgory]

I've always just used honor when taming greater dragons. At knight of honor I have about 5 minutes to tame it with out it or anything else attacking me. I think discording a pet before taming messes with the stat, but I don't think peacing it does (I could be wrong).

 

[Barry Gibb]

I think discording a pet before taming messes with the stat, but I don't think peacing it does (I could be wrong).

You have them backwards. Taming a peaced monster will drop its skills by 4% once tamed. This will lower the Greater Dragon's skill cap, which is undesirable. Discord has no effect on the tameable's stats once tamed.

In short, Do Not Peace tameables with over GM skill caps.

Stayin Alive,

BG

 

[Barry Gibb]

If you have another Greater Dragon, use that to beat it down. Then stable your current dragon and head back to tame the other one.

I have never bothered to beat it down. I find it easy to go with a friend and have the friend keep invising you during your taming attempts. This dragon needs to retarget you so it minimizes how many times it hits you. He is also good to rez you when you die.

Honor is good too, but I feel like its cheating that way (but I have used it to get an awesome rune beetle).

Stayin Alive,

BG

 

[Gellor]

Barry, thanks for confirming the peace issue. I really haven't gone out and tamed any of the big monsters in a few years so I'm a little rusty there

I knew discord didn't do anything as long as you got the tame undisco'd before taming it

On the honor, how does one gain honor on a tamer? *confused*

I may try the use another pet trick... but it is a little difficult due to location

 

[Wenchkin]

I asked about peacemaking ages ago and got this in one of the FoF;s -

"The Playguide page on Animal Taming makes no mention of the additional 4% skill loss if the animal is paralyzed during taming. It would also be useful to confirm whether discordance or peacemaking during taming will also result in skill loss."

There is an additional 4% skill loss penalty after taming if the creature is paralyzed, and I'll add that to the Playguide page - thanks for the catch! Leurocian also checked, and Discord and Peacemaking have no effect on the creature's post-taming skills.

So peacemaking is still an option, but you will likely fail quite a few times even at 120/120 music/peace.

I don't use honor, always just lead tamed everything But as I'm about the only tamer who doesn't honor, you won't find a shortage of advice

What I do is get my full resist armour on, a few orange petals to avoid the git poisoning me and I head to fire temple. I pull all the outside spawn away from the dragon spawn area just leaving the greater drag on his own. You can work the spawn looking for a good drag or do as I did and tame the first you find, then use it to work the spawn

Before you tame one, get it out the temple somewhere quiet so you're not interupted, and there's no spawn for you and it to run into. As you're in need of practice I suggest you move it somewhere close to a wandering healer

If you don't have a greater to beat the dragon down with, I'd recommend disco + 2 bake kitsune if you have a pair.

I mark a spot nearby so I can recall, stable and return without my pets to tame it, then in your case it would be a case of precast invis, run to the dragon's feet and eat an orange petal.

I have the dragon set as my target so just hold the tame last target key while walking and watching my health. When I start taming I immediately try to invis, otherwise I keep trying to tame, taking short runs out to heal up, before invising beside it and starting again.

When the draggy gets to over half health it might get a bit more interesting again. You'll either feel quite crazy and keep taming to see who wins or drop an EV or two on the git before he gets ideas.

I love lead taming greaters, I don't use them or like them, but taming them is a cool challenge And don't feel bad if you're struggling, I still remember meeting 5 corpses on Europa when they first came out. That was some greater dragon BBQ....

Wenchy

 

[jeza]

A tamer or archer as well as a mage can gain honor.
It's harder and slower than with a warrior but it can be done.

I found that you can gain your first level and begin the second just with ogre lords.
To finish the second you'll have to switch to WW and arctic ogre lords
And up to knight you'll have to fight succubus.
Of course it would be faster to raise it from the beginning with succubus if you have no problem killing those

As for what was said for peace taming, you're mistaking it for para tame.
this comes from the skill guide on the official website :

Pets will also suffer an additional 4% skill loss if they are paralyzed during the taming process. While this means additional training time to get your pet back up to its full potential, it may be safer for some of the more dangerous creatures.

And anyway you cant peace a GD, just break the aggression with area peace but not target peace one.

 

[Kellgory]

I gain honor on my tamer by taking a Cu down to the fan dancer dojo to the large room with the succubus and ronin. I lead the ronin out of the room to either the far end of the hallway near the stairs or out where the fan dancers spawn and then invis and run back so they don't follow me back to the room. Then its just a matter of honoring the Succubus fast enough before it takes any damage or blesses itself. Normally I honor, have dog attack, invis myself to make sure it does agro to me, step back so I don't get hit by any area affect spells and just heal or cure pet using magery. It takes about twice as long to get to knight as it would for a melee char. I wouldn't take a rune beetle because you gain even slower due to the poisoning. There are other ways to gain honor faster if you read up on it such as letting the monster hit you first.

 

[[JD]]

Methods of taming GD:

1) Honor

2) Ethereal Journey

3) Fight it til it's redlined and then Lead-tame
a) If you've got guildmates, ask them for help. They can heal and invis you
b) If you're solo I tested Rising Colossus on TC and it worked great, the GD does dispell but not as often as it dispells EVs. 3-5 casts and the GD should be beat down and you can dispell the Colossus.
c) Use SDI gear and hit the dragon with something it's weak to, like Mind Blast (cold)
d) Use existing pets to beat it down. Have premarked runes directly to stables so you can recall off, stable pets, and recall right back
e) Lead other stuff which might fight it into the area so they "help" you kill it. I don't know of anything offhand, but mobs will work to help you if they don't like each other.

Gaining honor is easy. Just go right to the Fan Dancer dojo with a Cu trained to at least the 90's in its skills. Less will usually get beatup real bad. You can do it with a GD also but it takes more damage. A well trained Cu will almost be able to solo Succ nonstop.

If the 2nd floor Succ is taken, there is one on the 3rd floor. And still another yet near the spirituality gate in ilsh in the demon temple nearby.

Lead any other mobs in the area away so they won't harass you. The 2nd floor Succ has a Samurai guarding it - lead it away. The 3rd floor one has a demon guarding it - lead it away. The demon temple one has various "fire dungeon" type creatures, lead them away.

Honor method I use:
Pet is following and guarding me
Pre use "honor" so you get targeting cursor up
run up to within aggro radius of succubus and target succ with honor.
Invis self (or back out of range)
Succ attacks Cu
Heal/cure Cu and Mind Blast (cold) Succ as necessary

It takes a bit but there's gold to be had and items to unravel if you're into that.

Don't bother with anything but Succ. They give the most honor gains so start out on them right away.

 

[Barry Gibb]

My head must not have been on straight this morning. Bard skills do not have any adverse affects on the tameables. Paralyze does. Never Paralyze a tameable with ove GM skill caps.

Swoop is good for gaining Honor if you just want to lolligag around. It will take you to ~4 dots below knight.

Stayin Alive,

BG

 

[Gellor]

Sadly, this account isn't SA upgraded so no mystic skills

EV's blew up too easy. Do other summons work?

I try to do all my taming in seclusion so using my own pet can be problematic at best... why can't there be a pet stable ball

 

[jeza]

I try to do all my taming in seclusion so using my own pet can be problematic at best... why can't there be a pet stable ball

That's why the best way is to use honor taming, no need to bring a pet with you

 

[mutau]

Honor all the way.

Gain it from killing balrons and succubus in Fan dancer dojo. Just prime the rooms so that no bs spawn comes near it.

 

[Llewen]

As far as I know, peacing doesn't lower skills on tamed creatures, having said that, peacing is ineffective against greater dragons, even at 120/120. Paralyzing does lower skills, but that also is ineffective against greater dragons. As has already been stated, honour is the way to go, and succubus are just about the best thing going to gain honour.

However, I do one more thing. I make honour part of all my attack and kill macros. You can do that with the enhanced client, so I don't need to think about invoking honour every time I attack something or sic my pet on them. If you use the enhanced client and you want details, I'll provide them. You might be able to do a similar thing with a UOA macro.

 

[[JD]]

Gellor, I wouldn't lament about not having SA too much. On TC I tested with 120 Eval Int, 120 Myst, 120 Imbuing. You're talking about a significant investment in time and money. Not really attainable for the average casual player.

Good tip on making honor part of the all kill macro... very smart, ill have to try it

 

[Llewen]

Sadly, this account isn't SA upgraded so no mystic skills

Gellor, I wouldn't lament about not having SA too much. On TC I tested with 120 Eval Int, 120 Myst, 120 Imbuing.

As far as I am concerned imbuing all by itself is worth the price of admission, and The Abyss is one of the most well designed and interesting pvm areas in the game with some pvp content thrown in as a bonus. Although I must admit, I am heartily sick of killing those rat bosses...

 

[Tina Small]

I've managed to kill a GD with a pair of bonded lowland boura and have also used a lowland boura paired with a high plains boura to beat up a GD to slow it down for taming. Just be prepared with a good supply of bandages and make sure you've pulled the GD to a spot without other types of spawn and sufficient room to back off if you need to rez a pet or get caught up on healing one.

 

[Llewen]

I've managed to kill a GD with a pair of bonded lowland boura and have also used a lowland boura paired with a high plains boura to beat up a GD to slow it down for taming. Just be prepared with a good supply of bandages and make sure you've pulled the GD to a spot without other types of spawn and sufficient room to back off if you need to rez a pet or get caught up on healing one.

That's funny, I just commented in another thread about how I think there is something very special about those high plains bouras that no one that I know of has figured out yet. As I said in that other thread, some day soon I am going to spend some quality time farming them to see if I can get a good one to train up.

 

[Tina Small]

That's funny, I just commented in another thread about how I think there is something very special about those high plains bouras that no one that I know of has figured out yet. As I said in that other thread, some day soon I am going to spend some quality time farming them to see if I can get a good one to train up.

They are great fun and can handle more than I think most people realize.

 

[Llewen]

They are great fun and can handle more than I think most people realize.

Their specials are also very interesting. I also wonder if their parry skill, which is hidden, might be able to be over 100 after taming. When you combine their specials and skills, I think a fully trained one might be incredibly tough. Pretty remarkable that they can take down a greater dragon when fire is their lowest resist. I'm wondering if they just might be the best all round pvm tank in the game for everything except mobs who do heavy fire damage.

I'd like to try combining a high plains boura with a kit, or some other high dps two slotter, and see what happens.

 

[IgorBR]

How can I see my current lvl of Honor?

I was honoring the monster then killing it, I always gained in Honor, but I dont know how to see if I'm already a Knight. And how do I use Honor to tame? The same way I use to honor-then-kill but I'll honor-then-tame ?

 

[Llewen]

How can I see my current lvl of Honor?

I was honoring the monster then killing it, I always gained in Honor, but I dont know how to see if I'm already a Knight. And how do I use Honor to tame? The same way I use to honor-then-kill but I'll honor-then-tame ?

You should be able to bring up the virtues gump and just mouse over the honour icon. However, it hasn't been working for me, and all it says when I mouse over it is "Honor" right now. I keep forgetting to submit a bug report. But if it is working the the levels are "Seeker", "Follower", and "Knight".

You really need level two, "Follower", or better, for it to be useful in dragon taming. What you do is invoke your honour, then target yourself, but you need to make sure no mobs have targeted you before you do this because invoking your honour won't break aggression, it only prevents mobs from becoming aggressive toward you in the first place.

 

[IgorBR]

Thanks sir!

Just found that I am still seeker, I'll work that later. Thanks!