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Taming Mastery bonus

Should taming Mastery be changed from 1 extra stable slot to 1 extra controll slot?


  • Total voters
    54

Khameleon

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Taken from the UOguide website
The maximum amount of stable slots any one character can have is 19:

Five slots for having 240.0+ taming skills, nine bonus slots for the three taming skills at levels 100.0, 110.0, and 120.0 plus 2 bonus slots for being SA upgraded.
plus 2 additional slots are available through Time of Legends.
plus 1 additional slot using Taming mastery. <<< IS this really Necessary?\

Who Needs 19 Greater Dragons?

Every Tamer is a Gargoyle because they get to fly around since it doesn't take up a Control slot
What they should have done is give the Taming Mastery 1 extra Control Slot so they could at least ride an Ethereal... We would see a lot more Races being tamers than Just Gargoyles...
 

Ansel

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Taken from the UOguide website
The maximum amount of stable slots any one character can have is 19:

Five slots for having 240.0+ taming skills, nine bonus slots for the three taming skills at levels 100.0, 110.0, and 120.0 plus 2 bonus slots for being SA upgraded.
plus 2 additional slots are available through Time of Legends.
plus 1 additional slot using Taming mastery. <<< IS this really Necessary?\

Who Needs 19 Greater Dragons?

Every Tamer is a Gargoyle because they get to fly around since it doesn't take up a Control slot
What they should have done is give the Taming Mastery 1 extra Control Slot so they could at least ride an Ethereal... We would see a lot more Races being tamers than Just Gargoyles...
A few too many assumptions here ;)

The reason I have at least 2 tamers per shard I'm involved with (Chesapeake, Europa and Atlantic) is because I kept running out of stable slots. None of them are Gargoyles because, well, Gargoyles can't ride. Sorry, but you gotta ride :) The majority of pets are mounts after all.

So what the heck am I doing with all those stable slots? Dare I reveal that little secret about true tamers in Ultima Online, knowing you'll think we're all nuts? What the hell...

Tamers in UO - the bonafide ones - may know, intellectually and rationally, that in-game pets are a mixture, a concatenation of code strings directing pixels and such to digital action. Nonetheless they regard their pets as ALIVE. Our pets are living things. They are.

And I'm fond of mine, from my crew of five frenzied Ostards and their cacophonous compliance to every command, to the many massive, meat eating, magic casting black steeds known as Dread Warhorses that I've collected over the years, to the menacing hiss of Rune Beetles, the portentous laugh of Bake Kitsumes. There are those Cu Sidhes that heal themselves - and me at times - with bandages, the satisfying base rumble of a White Wyrm's voice to....you get the idea.

When I was doing an Orc prison compassion run one day I saw an abandoned Kirin just left there, gamely fighting off Orcs. What was I supposed to do? Just leave it? I am the product of a live birth and a living soul, my friend. I tamed that charming, forlorn creature and departed the cave with the now renamed Lost and Found. I stabled it. And, when it bonded, I trained it, GMing even its magery. Marvelous magical long maned animals, the Kirin.

But they are not my favorite. That would be the Hiryu - pronounced Hear-You. They come in many colors, all of which I possess an example of. Further, in farming and taming them, I selected not only Hiryus with bright hides; they have high stats and every one of them is curse tamed as are many of my Cu Sidhes. The Hiryu is the easiest pet to work with because its range of visibility is longer than any pet in the game. Tell it to guard you and it will move to threats screens away in a blink. It can see farther than you can. They are stronger than most Greaters (700) and if they have high intelligence they'll almost spam their specials: dismount and armor corruption.

Yes the Greater Dragon is a useful pet - against a monster. Some pets are particularly good, and far better, at killing people. A Rune Beetle can have eval as high as 112 and poisoning beyond legendary. And, given the extremely mobile nature of that sort of fighting, their very high dexterity (up to 170) means they can keep up with their owner, riding a Nightmare, at full gallop.

As for poisoning, though, nothing is quite like a Bane Dragon - technical designation: Dread Swamp Dragon. It's hard to get any high stat animal but, in my experience, the Banes were the worst....hours, days, weeks in the Abyss, in that temple complex of Slasher's, farming and farming to find fine examples. Their statistical package matches that of the Dread Warhorse whose mana can go as high as 165. But the Bane is a difficult beast. Crude too. Fed with blackrock stew it just spews poison - often deadly poison - EVERYWHERE. I've seen them poison people or things standing BEHIND it.

More subtle is the Skree. It uses Mysticism and Sleep. Strange little green creatures, the Skree.

Yes, there are some pretty useless pets. The Fire Steed's difficulty in taming - largely due to its location - feels uniquely unrewarding. It's not very strong and its pack instinct is not effective. Same for Raptors.

In truth, I don't use most of my pets anymore. White Wyrms are probably the best example of pets kept by tamers for sentimental reasons alone. But I have a fondness for all of them. Thus, I have plenty of use for all those stable slots ;)

A full stable is the prize of much patience, and many, many years.
 
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Petra Fyde

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Actually the maximum number of stable slots, if the tamer has level 3 mastery, is 21 - one per level of mastery.
  • My tamer is not a gargoyle,
  • doesn't exclusively use a greater dragon,
  • uses some of her slots to temporarily store new stock for her pet stall in Magnicia - which stocks pets for non-tamers.
Changing the mastery bonus from stable slot to control slot would be a major balancing problem. It wouldn't just mean a tamer could ride an ethy while hunting with a greater dragon. It would mean a tamer could go hunting with a variety of currently unavailable combinations.
Rune beetle and dread mare? Cu sidhe and bake kitsune? 3 bake kitsune?
I think you need to re-assess your assumptions and think a little harder about your proposal.
 

Khameleon

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I was unaware that anyone actually used anything but a Greater Dragon, or now a Dragon Turtle... Every event I've gone to everyone is flying with a greater dragon behind them... I don't understand why gargoyles get to have an advantage of flying while every other race is stuck on the foot with a 5 slot pet. basically all's I'm saying is let the other races use an ethereal...
 

MalagAste

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I have 8 tamers on GLs alone.... Tamers on many other shards as well..... of all of those ONE is a Gargoyle.

I prefer my elven female tamers who can tame EVERYTHING in game save the Kirin. I like to have a wonderous variety of tamers, from Peace Tamers, to an Archer Tamer, Mage tamers, Mystic/Mage Tamer, Stealthing Tamer.... etc... and I agree with @Ansel it's a love of the creatures. I've found abandoned pets and "rescued" them. I even once made a memorial to one of my pets after a glitch caused my pet to "vanish" once. Wrote an Ode to Ice. Cried as though I'd lost my kitty IRL.
 

BeaIank

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Have to agree with Petra on this one, however if it was limited to just ethy's then we could talk and my tamer is not a gargoyle
I guess they could try to make ethy's to use zero control slots to deal with this matter.
The extra stable slots from the taming mastery are nice, but I think it should still grant more stabling slots so we can accommodate a proper variation of pet combos in our stables.
 

Ansel

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I have 8 tamers on GLs alone.... Tamers on many other shards as well..... of all of those ONE is a Gargoyle.

I prefer my elven female tamers who can tame EVERYTHING in game save the Kirin. I like to have a wonderous variety of tamers, from Peace Tamers, to an Archer Tamer, Mage tamers, Mystic/Mage Tamer, Stealthing Tamer.... etc... and I agree with @Ansel it's a love of the creatures. I've found abandoned pets and "rescued" them. I even once made a memorial to one of my pets after a glitch caused my pet to "vanish" once. Wrote an Ode to Ice. Cried as though I'd lost my kitty IRL.
Strange how that is. I've done it too. And I've had the pleasure and the privilege to retame lost pets after server crashes.

In some cases the host thinks you're still logged in. Thus your pet stays logged in and goes wild when it doesn't see you for an extended period of time. But fortunately we tend to know the pets of our fellow tamers and every so often we find them and return them to their VERY grateful owners :)

I felt truly sad though for a gal on Chesapeake. Every day at server up she and a friend would go fishing and chat. They weren't into building characters with fancy suits and such. They fished and they talked every day. To deal with the matter of the occasional sea serpent or water elemental they each had a Vollem. No taming needed. And those cute little guys would dispatch any threats. But, one day, the server crashed in the manner I mentioned. Problem is Vollems can't go wild. They vanish. My friend was pretty broken up about it naturally. It's not like losing an item by any means.

To be honest I think it would be fairer if gargoyles were 'grounded' when out with a five slot pet.
I agree. That's the most logical solution certainly.
 

Ansel

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Sorry, this got me to thinking of a little weekly guild event I've been running off and on for years for UWF on Atlantic. It's a group treasure hunt with a whimsical theme. Yes, many folks can solo level 6 or even level 7 treasure maps. When done as a group, though, it can be fun and very social in interesting ways.

A pertinent example here is a young lady named Emily the Tamer. She can do all the serious stuff just fine. In fact, as I'm writing this she's leading fellow guildies through all the new rooms and roof encounters. But she loves her pets and uses the more relaxed nature of group treasure hunts to make use of all the pets in her stable :) Examples below....





 

Ansel

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Really so then Gargoyles would be F'd since they can't even RIDE a pet. That's NOT fair. Could you imagine as a Gargoyle having a Beetle and Mare and not being able to ride??? That's totally unfair.
True....true....sorry, MalagAste, I think I let my "thing" with Gargoyles get the better of me there ;)
 

Petra Fyde

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Really so then Gargoyles would be F'd since they can't even RIDE a pet. That's NOT fair. Could you imagine as a Gargoyle having a Beetle and Mare and not being able to ride??? That's totally unfair.
Apologies, my turn to have not thought the thing through. When there is a rideable pet, yes they should be able to move at riding speed - ie flying. I guess there is no simple answer.
 

MalagAste

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Apologies, my turn to have not thought the thing through. When there is a rideable pet, yes they should be able to move at riding speed - ie flying. I guess there is no simple answer.
The answer is to give them the ability to fly whenever they so chose... As the DEVs have rightly done. Yes it does give them an advantage when dragging along a SLOW MOVING Greater Dragon or Dragon Turtle..... but they are still just like anyone else limited to the movement of their pet... and the pet lumbers along at a pitiful rate. So while yes they can abandon their pet and run away quickly at mounted speed... they can NOT run you down with it. They are still limited to the slow pace of the pet in tow.

They also can't go down and tame a fire beetle hop on it and run back out like most other tamers. Same with Nightmares, Unicorns, Kirins, blue beetles or CuSidhe... They are stuck trying to get it out by the slow methods risking losing the new tame to any number of things present in the area.
 

Ansel

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The answer is to give them the ability to fly whenever they so chose... As the DEVs have rightly done. Yes it does give them an advantage when dragging along a SLOW MOVING Greater Dragon or Dragon Turtle..... but they are still just like anyone else limited to the movement of their pet... and the pet lumbers along at a pitiful rate. So while yes they can abandon their pet and run away quickly at mounted speed... they can NOT run you down with it. They are still limited to the slow pace of the pet in tow.

They also can't go down and tame a fire beetle hop on it and run back out like most other tamers. Same with Nightmares, Unicorns, Kirins, blue beetles or CuSidhe... They are stuck trying to get it out by the slow methods risking losing the new tame to any number of things present in the area.
Oh, I get it. But this is why I never considered one as a tamer. So many key moments - important for any tamer - are denied to them.
 

MalagAste

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Oh, I get it. But this is why I never considered one as a tamer. So many key moments - important for any tamer - are denied to them.
Yeah. People think "oooo Unfair!!!!!" And cry foul.... but those of us who really are tamers understand the crippling problem it is to play a Gargoyle Tamer. Honestly unless someone else gets their pets for them.... they aren't that useful as a true tamer. I use mine mostly for doing spawns in Fel yes with a Greater Dragon... that's his "niche" usefulness.... I would NEVER use him for taming beetles or anything else useful. Sometimes he's ok for taming Greaters... but really he's not that great. The problem of him outflying the Greater is annoying too.
 

Ansel

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Yeah. People think "oooo Unfair!!!!!" And cry foul.... but those of us who really are tamers understand the crippling problem it is to play a Gargoyle Tamer. Honestly unless someone else gets their pets for them.... they aren't that useful as a true tamer. I use mine mostly for doing spawns in Fel yes with a Greater Dragon... that's his "niche" usefulness.... I would NEVER use him for taming beetles or anything else useful. Sometimes he's ok for taming Greaters... but really he's not that great. The problem of him outflying the Greater is annoying too.
It's the chief quirk with taming, in my view. Many tamers never tame, just as many sampires don't craft their own armor and weapons. Imagine if you could not wield, lets say, a sword unless you could craft swords ;)

And all this discussion over stable slots and control slots - interesting as it has been - side steps the fundamental issue with the Taming Mastery: it is aimed at dedicated tamers. What I mean by that is that you really need 120 actual taming skill to make the best use of the combat taming masteries.

This really bewildered and frustrated a guildmate of mine in TeamSpeak two nights ago. Given the new loot system he had managed at least 4 mana regen per suit piece, including jewels, plus a cloak with MR, a sash with MR, yet found himself mana challenged when using Consume Damage on his Greater Dragon. The problem? His "real" taming was 100 - 10 skill points over the minimum required to use the masteries - but not enough to make full use of them.

Thus I'm seeing many players scrambling to redo their builds to get their taming to 120 clean. Consume Damage is that much of a game changer.

Of course this level of clean skill doesn't make them tamers in the sense that you and I regard taming as a rather all consuming act of game world immersion and willing suspension of disbelief on many levels. But it does perhaps signal the beginning of the end of taming as something squeezed into a build.
 
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Khameleon

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Thank you everyone for your input... it looks like more ppl on other shards run non gargoyle tamers.. so it doesn't look like my idea will be further Pursued.. I guess I'm just tired of being a gargoyle and stuck looking at gargoyle only armor...
 

GarthGrey

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Yeah. People think "oooo Unfair!!!!!" And cry foul.... but those of us who really are tamers understand the crippling problem it is to play a Gargoyle Tamer. Honestly unless someone else gets their pets for them.... they aren't that useful as a true tamer. I use mine mostly for doing spawns in Fel yes with a Greater Dragon... that's his "niche" usefulness.... I would NEVER use him for taming beetles or anything else useful. Sometimes he's ok for taming Greaters... but really he's not that great. The problem of him outflying the Greater is annoying too.
But how many current gargoyle tamers, worked that skill from 0 , as a gargoyle ? :p I just like being on a differing opinion :)
 

Khameleon

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Many of us where legendary tamers before stygian abyss

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
 

MalagAste

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Many of us converted characters that were already built.
 

WhiteWitch

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Its nice to see people are still enjoying non gargoyle tamers, I came back to UO in 2014 having been away about 9 years to find my legendary tamer(which took 8 months to get from 100 to 120 in the days before SoTs) rather obsolete, the old trusty combination of nightmare/unicorn/fire steed and white wyrm/dragon etc replaced by the rather unimaginative "greater" dragon(which looks exactly the same) but you have to walk everywhere, how very boring....

The Cu-Sidhe was the only viable alternative I could see, although Id have to become an elf.

My legendary tamer is now completely unused there on Europa, I converted my tamer on Siege to gargoyle as if I had not I would be ridiculously easy meat being on foot, especially vs a garg tamer.

edit: out of interest does this consume damage mastery thing work on more than one pet at a time?
If it does it might open the door to using pack instinct pets or at least anything but a GD(or the token turtle sprite GD)
 
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Khameleon

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It's the chief quirk with taming, in my view. Many tamers never tame, just as many sampires don't craft their own armor and weapons. Imagine if you could not wield, lets say, a sword unless you could craft swords ;)
I agree once you have found you 4.3 or better greater dragon there is no point to look for and tame another greater dragon...
they should like weapons create more creatures that fight better in different situations... dragons are strong in fire, a mare would be would be good against undead same as undead slayer.. we as tamers need more options... I wouldn't bring a 300-500 hp pet into a boss fight... so the stats would have to be comparable to a greater dragon/turtle....
 

Odin of LS

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Many of us where legendary tamers before stygian abyss

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
I had 2 tamers that were 120 natural Tame/Lore/Vet that I had trained by hand several years ago. I believe they have never eaten a pink or blue scroll to help either it took a long time. Since ToL came out I've worked up 4 other tamers that were using + skill jewelry to 120 natural tame/lore using the mastery. My goal is to eventually have 1 or 2 tamers on every US shard.
 

Ansel

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Its nice to see people are still enjoying non gargoyle tamers, I came back to UO in 2014 having been away about 9 years to find my legendary tamer(which took 8 months to get from 100 to 120 in the days before SoTs) rather obsolete, the old trusty combination of nightmare/unicorn/fire steed and white wyrm/dragon etc replaced by the rather unimaginative "greater" dragon(which looks exactly the same) but you have to walk everywhere, how very boring....

The Cu-Sidhe was the only viable alternative I could see, although Id have to become an elf.

My legendary tamer is now completely unused there on Europa, I converted my tamer on Siege to gargoyle as if I had not I would be ridiculously easy meat being on foot, especially vs a garg tamer.

edit: out of interest does this consume damage mastery thing work on more than one pet at a time?
If it does it might open the door to using pack instinct pets or at least anything but a GD(or the token turtle sprite GD)
I haven't tried Consume Damage on multiple pets yet. The mana cost is quite manageable with one with a 120 clean tamer. And I have only 23 mana regen on my suit....I realize that the word, only, sounds almost bizarre to a returning player but jewelry with MR 4 on it has become commonplace with the new loot system.

If you see the thread on soloing bosses you'll see some interesting use of pets other than a Greater Dragon.

The problem with Greaters is their low lethality....or DPS depending on what you call it. Greaters are used mostly because of their durability. With up to 85% of all physical damage blocked and a whopping 90% of all fire damage blocked they hang in there. Also many have another damage mitigator - wrestling - well over Legendary. But after they've gone through their mana pool their damage dealing ability fades. Plus their in-combat mana regeneration is practically nil....heck, it's low out of combat.

But folks like it because they can sustain it without having to get within bandaging range or even having high levels of vet at all. And why not? The monster does, eventually, die :)

More accomplished (just my opinion) tamers use very high lethality pets and take their lower sustainability as a challenge. Plus they choose their pets based on damage type. The natural Demon slayer of the bunch is the Cu Sidhe. Although it appears to be chewing away on its foes, and has a bleed attack special, it deals cold and energy damage. Plus it heals itself with bandages making it good against monsters who dish out poison.....with the exception of Chief Paroxysmus who will literally devour a pet.

Rune Beetles with high eval and poison have very high DPS but low hit points. Best work with them in a combo with a Nightmare which you can mount and heal mounted when it gets into trouble, or a Bake Kitsume, invising one or the other to get its foe to switch targets.

Bane Dragons are also very high DPS pets, especially in the area of deadly poison. They can have significantly higher hit points than a Cu Sidhe as well.

Highest damage against people is the Dread Warhorse but only if it has high strength and mana. Hit points and resists are not important for PvP animals because smart players target the tamer and not the pet. And you have to dismount your foe first.

Highest pure physical damage is the province of the Hiryu. Their strength can go as high as 705 - higher than any GD - plus they can have high physical and the same crazy-high fire resist. Plus their specials - dismount and armor corruption - are good against human opponents.

Sorry....this is turning into more of a tome than a forum post. But it's not theoretical. Every day tamers key peerlesses and solo bosses using pets other than Greater Dragons. And, apart from "field walkers" (GDs with above Legendary spell resist who can hop over mage fields) the GD isn't worth much when fighting other players.

Executive Summary: the ubiquitous use of Greater Dragons says more about the players and state of the contemporary game that it does about objective pet capability.

Sadly it's always best to find your own comfort zone as a tamer in group hunts, especially large group hunts. And, alas, I'm not seeing much of this on Europa currently :(
 
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BeaIank

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A pity Hiryu's take 4 control slots. Imagine the havoc they would wreck if sided by a tiger.
Edit:
But alas, whoever came with the number 5 for the control slots didn't put much thought in the future and much in terms of leeway for combos either.
Had the number been 10 and the control slots numbers adjusted within this new range, you could come with some more interesting combinations while still having the power to block combos that would be much too powerful.
Like Hiryu's using 7 control slots and Bake Kitsune's using 4 slots.
 
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drcossack

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I haven't tried Consume Damage on multiple pets yet. The mana cost is quite manageable with one with a 120 clean tamer. And I have only 23 mana regen on my suit....I realize that the word, only, sounds almost bizarre to a returning player but jewelry with MR 4 on it has become commonplace with the new loot system.

If you see the thread on soloing bosses you'll see some interesting use of pets other than a Greater Dragon.

The problem with Greaters is their low lethality....or DPS depending on what you call it. Greaters are used mostly because of their durability. With up to 85% of all physical damage blocked and a whopping 90% of all fire damage blocked they hang in there. Also many have another damage mitigator - wrestling - well over Legendary. But after they've gone through their mana pool their damage dealing ability fades. Plus their in-combat mana regeneration is practically nil....heck, it's low out of combat.

But folks like it because they can sustain it without having to get within bandaging range or even having high levels of vet at all. And why not? The monster does, eventually, die :)
Yup. For most things, I use my greater dragon: Champs, Shadowguard rooms, hunting random crap, etc. My suit has about 30 MR + 115 med, so I never run out of mana if I'm just standing there. I turn on consume damage and I can go make a sandwich or two.

As far as I know, I'm one of the few people who will still use older pets. I will take a White Wyrm, Nightmare, or Rune Beetle to the Shadowguard Roof (however, more often than not, I leave the White Wyrm @ home) without even blinking, and they very rarely die. They can't tank, obviously, but the extra damage they dish out (especially the Rune Beetle, although only one of the 4 bosses are affected by its poison) makes it worth it. I kinda wanna try a Frenzied Ostard/Hell Hound quintet there sometime, but they're WAY too squishy.
 
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Ansel

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Yup. For most things, I use my greater dragon: Champs, Shadowguard rooms, hunting random crap, etc. My suit has about 30 MR + 115 med, so I never run out of mana if I'm just standing there. I turn on consume damage and I can go make a sandwich or two.

As far as I know, I'm one of the few people who will still use older pets. I will take a White Wyrm, Nightmare, or Rune Beetle to the Shadowguard Roof (however, more often than not, I leave the White Wyrm @ home) without even blinking, and they very rarely die. They can't tank, obviously, but the extra damage they dish out (especially the Rune Beetle, although only one of the 4 bosses are affected by its poison) makes it worth it. I kinda wanna try a Frenzied Ostard/Hell Hound quintet there sometime, but they're WAY too squishy.
Roger that - the highest DPS pet combo in the game is five Frenzied Ostards but I didn't mention that because, yeah, they go down fast. They are the only pet whose hit points increase with training...but not enough to matter :(

I was going to test this to see if Consume Damage could serve to bring some of the old combos back. Then I made the rather embarrassing discovery that Ansel - my main character and clean skill tamer - had long ago handed off his more interesting pets to my other tamers who all have rather complicated builds and taming levels meant to control, rather than tame, pets. They're not suited to the high taming mastery. I do have a very good 120 tamer who tames and has a great stable but he's on Chesapeake and is, essentially, inactive. Thus he won't be getting book III anytime soon. I may end up moving him to Atlantic.

Part of the issue is the prevalence of two damage types: physical and fire. If you had more encounters featuring Frost Dragons and Cold Drakes then the White Wyrm could make a comeback. Folks still bring them along for level 7 Tram or Fel t-chests because Greaters can struggle against those cold damage dealers and I only see them at those chests. Similarly, if Ancient Wyrms were more common outside of treasure hunting then the Hiryu - a natural Ancient Wyrm slayer - would serve more front line duty.

Of course what I think most tamers would prefer is the ability to tame an Ancient ;)
 

drcossack

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I was going to test this to see if Consume Damage could serve to bring some of the old combos back. Then I made the rather embarrassing discovery that Ansel - my main character and clean skill tamer - had long ago handed off his more interesting pets to my other tamers who all have rather complicated builds and taming levels meant to control, rather than tame, pets. They're not suited to the high taming mastery. I do have a very good 120 tamer who tames and has a great stable but he's on Chesapeake and is, essentially, inactive. Thus he won't be getting book III anytime soon. I may end up moving him to Atlantic.
It SHOULD work for older pets, but I haven't tried it extensively. It works great with my greater because of its 83% phys resist/high HP. My WW has 456 HP/64% Phys resist, my nightmare 309 HP and 58% Phys. My Rune has 345/47%. The main drawback with consume damage: the more damage your pets take, the quicker they die because they can't restore enough HP from the mastery. In short: Don't go somewhere with a lot of monsters (i.e. the Ratman Village in Ice) while you have the Humility Virtue quest active.
 

ysolt

Seasoned Veteran
[QUOTE="WhiteWitch, post: 2645736,

edit: out of interest does this consume damage mastery thing work on more than one pet at a time?
If it does it might open the door to using pack instinct pets or at least anything but a GD(or the token turtle sprite GD)[/QUOTE]



That's the thing with consume damage,you can only use it on one pet at a time.Which suck's bigtime.
 

ysolt

Seasoned Veteran
But i guess if you use a pet combo for example,a Mare/Rune Beetle,You take out the Rune Beetle first from the stable's so it will be the tank and use consume damage on the Rune Beetle,guess that could work.
 

Khameleon

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Consume damnage is a target based spell... and if hit cast it again it auto cancels the spell. ..

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Silent Singer

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I love a good tamer chat. Regarding DPS and GDs versus other pets, I have 110 real taming on one of my 5 tamers. He is the only one with a lvl 3 mastery so far. I tested Consume damage against A LOT of Swoops with a GD, Beetle/Tiger, Beetle/Mare, Cu, and Hiryu. Hands down, the Beetle/Mare combo blows the doors off that old bird. I can drop one VERY fast, and typically use 1 bandage, and only then because I don't let my pet drop below 80% health. This is the same bird that will eat most players and pets for dinner. Consume damage with real skill is the best thing to happen to tamed in a long time. Dragon turtles? Screw em. Tigers I like. But Consume Damage I LOVE.
 

PlayerSkillFTW

Babbling Loonie
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UNLEASHED
I love a good tamer chat. Regarding DPS and GDs versus other pets, I have 110 real taming on one of my 5 tamers. He is the only one with a lvl 3 mastery so far. I tested Consume damage against A LOT of Swoops with a GD, Beetle/Tiger, Beetle/Mare, Cu, and Hiryu. Hands down, the Beetle/Mare combo blows the doors off that old bird. I can drop one VERY fast, and typically use 1 bandage, and only then because I don't let my pet drop below 80% health. This is the same bird that will eat most players and pets for dinner. Consume damage with real skill is the best thing to happen to tamed in a long time. Dragon turtles? Screw em. Tigers I like. But Consume Damage I LOVE.
Yep, against most targets a Rune Beetle+Mare/Bake/Tiger combo will out damage the hell out of a GD/DTH, they're just more frail. Rune Beetles really cause enemies to drop fast during a group fight, because their Armor Corruption (halves victim's Resists for several seconds) causes everyone attacking the target to do more damage. Against Fire weak opponents, 2 Fire Steeds will also out damage a GD/DTH.
 

BeaIank

Crazed Zealot
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I will have to test how consume damage works against meaty targets that don't do mainly physical damage (aka Dreadhorn and Navrey).
I will try to give them a run this weekend and report back with results as soon as I have them.
 

Khameleon

Adventurer
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Yeah but during a long fight can those pets really stand handle the physical damage without dying

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
 

WhiteWitch

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Id sooner the passive mastery bonus was either a boost to all pets resilience/resists or a boost to the effect of the veterinary skill as that skill is rapidly becoming optional as a healing method.

I like that consume damage thing, its great for my treasure hunter tamer, I'm having to stone off cartography for meditation in order to keep that up but that's no problem, its of no real use to my regular mage tamers though as its more efficient for me to use that mana on energy bolt spamming whatever my pet is fighting.
 

Aragoni

Journeyman
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5 Slots is complete crap and should removed / nothing should taken more as 4 from 5 slots !
 

RockoNV

Seasoned Veteran
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Apologies, my turn to have not thought the thing through. When there is a rideable pet, yes they should be able to move at riding speed - ie flying. I guess there is no simple answer.
Correct, there is no simple answer. However there is player choice: we choose one over the other, or both. Soulstones allow us to use more than one character on an account to be a tamer. I like my garg tamer but sometimes I want to ride a mare....soulstone power to the rescue!
 

RockoNV

Seasoned Veteran
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
But how many current gargoyle tamers, worked that skill from 0 , as a gargoyle ? :p I just like being on a differing opinion :)
Why start at 0? What is the benefit? 50 is the way and the only way to start unless you go with a token.
 

Trixicle

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
A few too many assumptions here ;)

The reason I have at least 2 tamers per shard I'm involved with (Chesapeake, Europa and Atlantic) is because I kept running out of stable slots. None of them are Gargoyles because, well, Gargoyles can't ride. Sorry, but you gotta ride :) The majority of pets are mounts after all.

So what the heck am I doing with all those stable slots? Dare I reveal that little secret about true tamers in Ultima Online, knowing you'll think we're all nuts? What the hell...

Tamers in UO - the bonafide ones - may know, intellectually and rationally, that in-game pets are a mixture, a concatenation of code strings directing pixels and such to digital action. Nonetheless they regard their pets as ALIVE. Our pets are living things. They are.

And I'm fond of mine, from my crew of five frenzied Ostards and their cacophonous compliance to every command, to the many massive, meat eating, magic casting black steeds known as Dread Warhorses that I've collected over the years, to the menacing hiss of Rune Beetles, the portentous laugh of Bake Kitsumes. There are those Cu Sidhes that heal themselves - and me at times - with bandages, the satisfying base rumble of a White Wyrm's voice to....you get the idea.

When I was doing an Orc prison compassion run one day I saw an abandoned Kirin just left there, gamely fighting off Orcs. What was I supposed to do? Just leave it? I am the product of a live birth and a living soul, my friend. I tamed that charming, forlorn creature and departed the cave with the now renamed Lost and Found. I stabled it. And, when it bonded, I trained it, GMing even its magery. Marvelous magical long maned animals, the Kirin.

But they are not my favorite. That would be the Hiryu - pronounced Hear-You. They come in many colors, all of which I possess an example of. Further, in farming and taming them, I selected not only Hiryus with bright hides; they have high stats and every one of them is curse tamed as are many of my Cu Sidhes. The Hiryu is the easiest pet to work with because its range of visibility is longer than any pet in the game. Tell it to guard you and it will move to threats screens away in a blink. It can see farther than you can. They are stronger than most Greaters (700) and if they have high intelligence they'll almost spam their specials: dismount and armor corruption.

Yes the Greater Dragon is a useful pet - against a monster. Some pets are particularly good, and far better, at killing people. A Rune Beetle can have eval as high as 112 and poisoning beyond legendary. And, given the extremely mobile nature of that sort of fighting, their very high dexterity (up to 170) means they can keep up with their owner, riding a Nightmare, at full gallop.

As for poisoning, though, nothing is quite like a Bane Dragon - technical designation: Dread Swamp Dragon. It's hard to get any high stat animal but, in my experience, the Banes were the worst....hours, days, weeks in the Abyss, in that temple complex of Slasher's, farming and farming to find fine examples. Their statistical package matches that of the Dread Warhorse whose mana can go as high as 165. But the Bane is a difficult beast. Crude too. Fed with blackrock stew it just spews poison - often deadly poison - EVERYWHERE. I've seen them poison people or things standing BEHIND it.

More subtle is the Skree. It uses Mysticism and Sleep. Strange little green creatures, the Skree.

Yes, there are some pretty useless pets. The Fire Steed's difficulty in taming - largely due to its location - feels uniquely unrewarding. It's not very strong and its pack instinct is not effective. Same for Raptors.

In truth, I don't use most of my pets anymore. White Wyrms are probably the best example of pets kept by tamers for sentimental reasons alone. But I have a fondness for all of them. Thus, I have plenty of use for all those stable slots ;)

A full stable is the prize of much patience, and many, many years.
I couldnt agree MORE - wnderfully written and every word total truth! ;)
 
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