I frequently see people asking about how to train taming. While the existing guides do contain much of the same information I posted here (like Mutombo's guide), some of that information is either outdated or isn't really the most efficient or most AFK way to do it. I am not a fan of grinding, and I've managed to make 6 tamers now, and so I'll share what I've learned with all of you. I'm quite busy and couldn't do this all in one shot, and so I will be making updates to this periodically, and I plan to add a few additional sections to cover other topics. You are welcome to send me suggestions or corrections.It is first important to understand a couple of basic concept to training taming. First, because you can gain on fails, you always want to attempt to tame the most difficult MOB possible so you get as many attempts (and chances for gains) as possible per MOB. So generally you would follow this chart. Secondly, your stats (STR, DEX, INT) can affect the shown skill (not show real), and this can be used to your advantage when training taming. One of the most difficult skill gain areas is 67 to 71.1, right before you get to do bulls AFK. This time would be spent on Dagger Island normally. Fortunately there is a trick that lets you skip this area completely.
TL;DR summary version:
Step 1. Create a character with 50 taming, 50 magery, 10 STR and 10 INT.
Step 2. Immediately lock your STR and INT so you don't forget!
Step 3. Tame scorpions, and then add snakes at 59.1. Use a 2nd character to drag spawn.
Step 4. When you get to 67 (you can actually stop at 66.2), raise your STR and INT to 100 and you will then be at 71.1 or higher.
Step 5. Tame bulls at Jhelom until GM. You can also do hellhounds, pre-tamed bulls in a bull factory/Delucia, frenzied ostards, or whatever else you prefer.Detailed version:
- Follow steps 1 and 2 above.
- Use the macros below for step 3.Scorpions only macro:
// --------------------------------------------------------------- copy text between these lines ---------------------------------------------------------------
!Loop
Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|35
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:00.6000000
Assistant.Macros.TargetTypeAction|True|48
Assistant.Macros.HotKeyAction|1395|
// --------------------------------------------------------------- copy text between these lines ---------------------------------------------------------------
Scorpions and snakes macro:
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!Loop
Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|35
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:00.6000000
Assistant.Macros.TargetTypeAction|True|48
Assistant.Macros.HotKeyAction|1395|
Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|35
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:00.6000000
Assistant.Macros.TargetTypeAction|True|52
Assistant.Macros.HotKeyAction|1395|
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Gains are very, very fast at Compassion Desert, especially if you have the entire desert to yourself and are actively pulling. If you are in a hurry, you will get the most "bang for your buck" being attended here. But since I am lazy, I did it semi-AFK. It took me about 5 to 6 sessions of about 20-30 minutes of aggressively dragging scorpions and snakes to get to 67. I would drag a bunch and then go AFK for a while to let my tamer finish off the spawn that I had collected during this time. Be sure to have a few earth elementals and/or stone harpies to kill the tame scorpions. You don't want non-tame scorpions doing this because it will kill some of them (and the snakes) and slow you down.Some additional notes about the Compassion Desert:
- There are usually small house spots open. I used to have a house here but dropped it because it was a pain to refresh, and I don't think I will make a 7th tamer. Lock down tables so the MOBs cannot enter the house, but your tamer still has LOS to tame.
- Log out your tamer in the house, and just have your puller recall home when finished so you don't have to mess with the table wall/trash barrel b/c it will be a pain with the MOBs.
- Make sure your puller can cure poison.
- There are no casting MOBs except for during holidays.
- For pulling scorpions, I've found that it is best to "overshoot" the house because MOBs tend to return to the place you pulled them from. If they don't get aggro on your tamer quick enough, then might turn around. So pull them to the opposite side of the house, and then either quickly run offscreen or inviz yourself.
- Getting PKd here is rare but it does happen. Your tamer should not be carrying anything and don't go go AFK on your puller.
See AlsoTaming Razor Scripts for use with Khal Draco's Taming Guide:Taming Guide to 120 Animal Taming - by Khal Draco *Updated April 8th 2021*Animal Taming Faqs from the Taming Discord ChannelGuide and Script: Animal Taming AFK Skill Gain in ClassicUO!Step 4: Once you get to 66-67 shown skill (the higher number with "show real" red, not green), pump up your STR and INT to 100. To do this, buy/train other skills to hit your 700 but not spirit speak or herding. Then make sure all skills are either locked or pointed up. Point herding and spirit speak up (they should be at zero) and point your STR and INT up. Go buy a shepherd's crook, put it in your tamer's hand and head over to a stable. Find a cow and record the following macro: double click shepherd's crook, target cow, target cow, use skill sprit speak. Adjust the timeouts or convert them to a fixed time like 500ms so it doesn't get hung up. Let the macro run AFK until your STR and INT are 100. Watch it for a second to make sure you aren't actually gaining herding or spirit speak if you forgot to lock them. Once you are done, make sure to point some skills down again so you can gain taming when you continue to bulls. FYI - camping will do both much more quickly but you'll have to collect kindling a number of times and I prefer to use as much AFK training as possible. Also, to see the jump in taming skill from 66-67 to 71.1+, you have to close and re-open your skills GUMP.
Step 5: Now onto bulls.
Here is a macro for taming bulls and great harts at Jhelom:
// --------------------------------------------------------------- copy text between these lines ---------------------------------------------------------------
!Loop
Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|35
Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|1
Assistant.Macros.TargetTypeAction|True|232
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:00.6000000
Assistant.Macros.HotKeyAction|1395|
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:00.6000000
Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|35
Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|1
Assistant.Macros.TargetTypeAction|True|233
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:00.6000000
Assistant.Macros.HotKeyAction|1395|
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:00.6000000
Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|35
Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|1
Assistant.Macros.TargetTypeAction|True|234
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:00.6000000
Assistant.Macros.HotKeyAction|1395|
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:00.6000000
Assistant.Macros.IfAction|0|0|0
Assistant.Macros.SpeechAction|0|52|3|ENU|0|REZ!
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:00.6000000
Assistant.Macros.GumpResponseAction|1|0|0
Assistant.Macros.EndIfAction
// --------------------------------------------------------------- copy text between these lines ---------------------------------------------------------------The last 5 lines are optional. If you are killed, it will make your ghost show and auto-accept resurrection. Please note that it will also automatically give out a murder count. If you partner up with a friend (especially several time zones away) you could resurrect each other.
Green = preferred spots
Yellow = decent spots
Red = non-preferred, but functional spots
Note: At times some of the yellows might be better than greens depending on where the bulls are spawning and if there is aggressive spawn outside the fence nearby.1. Park your tamer (holding no items) outside of the fence. Make sure you are opposite to someone else if they are taming. It is typically acceptable to be opposite someone already taming, but it is considered very rude (and likely to get you killed) to be close enough to another tamer so that your character can see their tamed bulls. The maximum is 2 tamers per pen outside of the fence. The NW side of the NW pen is usually the best spot. Don't start the macro just yet.
2. With an alt, go up into the jungle above and lure a silver serpent (you can do a giant serpent since they are easier to lure without dying but they sometimes die if the bull spawn is very heavy) to the inside of the fence up towards your tamer. Be ready to cure poison, and be ready to possibly die as well if you cannot cure in time. Arch cure is recommended. Either run away, invis or teleport to the outside of the fence so the snake aggros your tamer and stays there. Simply start your taming macro and go to bed, work or playing with an alt character. Try not to kill someone else's AFK tamer during this process.
3. To speed things up you can use an alt to drag bulls to your AFK tamer. Many people will get very angry if you pull bulls away from their "AFK" tamer, however some people believe that attended tamers have a right to the bulls and they don't belong to anyone just because they spawn closer to someone. That is up to you to decide, but you may want to avoid the "Jhelom drama" as much as possible.
Tip: if you find that somehow two serpents are together and you want to separate them, get a character with provo, and provo the serp onto some animal that is towards the middle of the pen, and then be ready to get aggro as soon as that animal dies.
Be ready to be killed repeatedly and to get pulled into the "Jhelom drama". Even very patient people get angry there. People will intentionally kill you to steal your spot, just to be jerks, because they are trying to feed their bull factories, or just to inflate their kill count and look like a good PK (you might be surprised to know of some "well known" PKs/guilds who fancy themselves as "PvPers" who kill AFK tamers there). Often people will mistakenly identify you as their killer and take revenge on you. You might do the same. You can always leave OBS Studio recording while you are AFK. Then, if you die, you simply watch the video to see what happened. These taming macros will turn you grey if another tamer comes up and also starts taming next to you or brings tame animals near you. People may do this on purpose. If you are very frustrated because you have been dying a lot, just remember that they can slow you down but they cannot stop you. DO NOT let them win by giving up. When you get GM taming, you have won and you will joke about the same stuff you were furious about a few weeks earlier.
If you are getting killed a lot, take a break and come back later. I did 4 of my 6 tamers totally on new bulls this way and if you just spend the 5 minutes before bed/work over and over to set this up you will get there very soon regardless of the Jhelom drama. Often I was able to resurrect and resume with very little down time. I've been able to stay alive for 12-16 hours several times. Once I actually made a full 30 hours without dying (only one manual intervention out of sheer luck). Other times I died five times within the same 30 minutes. It's really unpredictable but persistence will get you there.
This is NOT the fastest way to GM, but it is the "most AFK" way to GM. It gets really, really slow in the upper 90s and some people like to switch to pre-tamed bulls (see below), hell hounds or giant toads at that point. That is up to you.
Alternative bulls and great hart macro:
There may be times when you don't want your macro to attack bulls. This might be because someone has parked right next to you and started taming, or you are taming a group of bulls inside the pen or at Delucia. For these circ*mstances, I modified the original macro to simply tame by type. If you use this outside the fence, you will need to manually attack bulls to get aggro. I've used this in the past when someone tried to turn me grey by bringing tamed bulls near me. They got annoyed because it appeared that I had some really fancy macro that only attacked grey bulls, but not blue ones, and of course they wanted this super-advanced macro of mine!
// --------------------------------------------------------------- copy text between these lines ---------------------------------------------------------------
!Loop
Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|35
Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|1
Assistant.Macros.TargetTypeAction|True|233
Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|35
Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|1
Assistant.Macros.TargetTypeAction|True|234
Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|35
Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|1
Assistant.Macros.TargetTypeAction|True|232
// --------------------------------------------------------------- copy text between these lines ---------------------------------------------------------------And of course if you want to run this AFK (it works fine if someone is herding bulls towards you) you can add the auto-accept-rez lines from the macro above:
Assistant.Macros.IfAction|0|0|0
Assistant.Macros.SpeechAction|0|52|3|ENU|0|REZ!
Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:00.6000000
Assistant.Macros.GumpResponseAction|1|0|0
Assistant.Macros.EndIfActionPre-tames and bull factories
- According to the taming chart I posted above, every time a MOB is tamed by a unique tamer (that has never tamed it before), the taming difficulty is increased by 6, up to a max of 5 (you can actually tame one more than the chart shows, so a bull would require 95.1 skill for the 5th attempt). People run "bull factories" where they tame groups of bulls multiple times with multiple tamers. This will greatly speed up your skill gains, but it is only semi-AFK. I have been invited to a couple of bull factories, but I have also run my own and used frenzied ostards (a bit more difficult b/c you have to keep them separated from each other). If you have friends who have tamers or if you have other tamers, make sure you are always taming the most difficult re-tame per the chart. For example, if my taming is 84, then I'll tame and release some bulls twice so my new tamer is attempting the 3rd re-tame.
- There is a bug/mechanic that will allow you to attempt to tame a MOB even if your skill is not high enough to do so, and you will not gain. So if someone tamed and released some bulls at Jhelom and left them in the pen, you could sit there all day and all night trying to tame them and never gain off them. So if you think this is happening, you might have to bring in an alt to get rid of the pre-tamed MOBs.Converting an existing character
So what if you are wanting to convert an existing character to a tamer, or you already created your character and invested significant time/gold before seeing this guide? You can still take advantage of the stat manipulation to skip most of 67-71.1. Unfortunately you will need to train up to 47.1 before you can start scorpions though. I did this and it was not bad. So here is what you do (assuming you don't have a Mask of the Wild (MOTW):
1. Get your STR and INT to 100 (see above).
2. Buy animal taming to the max. This will get you to almost 43.
3. Tame polar bears and walruses on Dagger Island until 47.1. You can tame from a house on Dagger just like the scorpions. You'll need to simply write a macro that attacks polar bears and walruses and then tames last target. I found it easiest just to make a macro that tames by type, and walk around semi-AFK. There are healers on dagger so don't carry anything and don't worry about dying. You may also tame whatever else you want from the chart.
4. Go to Compassion Desert and tame scorpions until at least 52.4 (41.6 show real).
5. Drop your STR down to 25 again. Use snooping to do this just like herding for STR and spirit speak for INT. You will still have barely enough to tame scorpions (47.1).
6. Continue with scorpions and then snakes until 67 (63.6 show real)
7. Once again push your STR up to 100 and leave INT at 100, you will be at 70.3 animal taming. This means you only have to gain 0.8 more. So head head to dagger island and tame a few white wolves until you get to 71.1.Some of you might now be rolling your eyes about moving stats up and down so much, but this is really the most "AFK" way to do it. If you are not in a huge rush and you work or sleep, simply start the macro and go do something else. Yes, it takes time, but the time you actually spend doing something is just a few seconds! That is the whole point of AFK macroing.
Using a Mask of the Wild (MOTW)
There is a rare, very expensive item in the game called a Mask of the Wild which gives you +3 animal taming, even at GM (so you can have 103). This mask can be used in two ways:
1. If converting an existing character above, it can almost completely close the gap between NPC trained taming and getting to scorpions. Then, every time you have to train until xx.x shown above, you are permitted to stop 3 points sooner when you put on the mask. Just remember that before moving on, you need to "make up" those 3 points by taking off the mask and continuing to tame. The goal of using the mask in this way (and also stat manipulation) is to push all the pre-scorpion taming into the scorpion range, and to push the 67-71.1 either into scorpions/snakes or bulls. In other words, it's much easier to gain on scorpions/snakes/bulls than it is walking around dagger island.
2. You can start taming the next most difficult MOB 3 points earlier by putting on the mask. So when you are close to a "break point" for pre-tames according to the chart, you can put the mask on to put you as close as possible. For example, if you are at 80.1 skill, the gains will have slowed down considerably when taming bulls that have already been tamed and released once. But if you put on your mask, you should get lots and lots of failures and therefore more gains. Another way to say this is that the mask can help you to get more fails and therefore more attempts per MOB.Some people have told me they have gone through a bull factory without a mask and gained just as fast as someone who was using the mask. I don't know what to say about that except that in theory the mask should speed things up. At the very least, if you just hate the thought of having to change your stats over and over, you will save some time by getting to scorpions 3 points sooner, and getting to bulls 3 points sooner. Just don't forget to take off the mask, especially when you get close to GM or your gains will slow way down. I used a mask on my last tamer and it seemed to work very well.
