Pacific Rangers Council
 

 
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Pet Handling: Training

Limitations of skill and stat gains:
  • All creatures spawn with random elemental resist, skill and stat values within a range set for their type.
  • Elemental resistances are not trainable.
  • It was confirmed by Designer Oaks that GGS does not apply to pets, but that their skills train up about twice as fast as those of a player.
  • They have skill and stat caps. For any stat that starts out below 125, 125 is the maximum, any stats above that mark will not improve. This means you can train a chicken to 125/125/125, but if your nightmare starts out with 515 str, 97 dex and 123 int for example, the maximum you can train it up to is 515 str, 125 int and 125 dex.
  • All creatures start with various levels of wrestling, tactics and resisting spells. Creatures with spell casting ability of course have magery skill as well, poisonous creatures have poisoning skill. Only some creatures spawn with developed anatomy, eval int and meditation skills.
  • Pets can only be trained in their inherent skills - a frost spider will never learn poisoning or magery for example.
  • Most pets can be trained to a maximum of 100.0 in their skills, so far the fire steed is the only exception with magic resist over 100.0. If skill over 100.0 is lost after resurrection, it will not be possible to regain, if this happens, 100.0 will also be the maximum.

The groundwork

If you want to start training with a fresh pet, make sure you choose one with high starting stats and skills - especially in resist and magery or poisoning respectively - since pets suffer skill loss (not stat loss!) when tamed for the first time. The percentage is 10%, 14% if paralyzation spells are used. Animal lore of 100.0 and higher gives you the possibility of seeing a creature's statistics before you tame it, so you can pick one to your liking.

The benefits

Stats:
Increased STR/hitpoints:

Since stats over 125 can not be raised further, only lower-level creatures will benefit from this, but for these pets it is critical. Your smaller companions are going to survive adventures so much easier with higher strength.

Increased DEX/stamina:

Important for mounts, since the more stamina they have available, the longer they are able to run at top speed. Also the attack speed of your pet depends on it's stamina level: the lower it is, the slower your pet will hit.
Pets with the ability to fly lose stamina rapidly during flight Keep an eye on your pet's stamina level at all times and feed as necessary.
Note: You may notice that DEX raises much slower than other attributes. Don't worry about this, it will go up rather fast once your pet's melee skills are maxed out.
Increased INT/mana:

Only magical creatures will benefit from higher INT and a greater mana pool, they benefit just the same as any player mage. The results are faster mana regeneration and the ability to cast more spells before having to regenerate mana.



Skills:
Wrestling - increased chance to hit an opponent, decreased chance of getting hit and taking damage.

Tactics - damage bonus to melee damage

Resist - self explanatory, increased resistance to non-direct damage magical attacks

Anatomy - damage bonus to melee damage

Poisoning - increased frequency of poison injection, if the skill is 99.0 or above, a chance to inflict poison one level higher than normal. The chance to poison is given an additional boost at 100.0 Poisoning.

Magery - increased damage to offensive spells, increased benefits from defensive spells (bless etc.)

Eval Int - damage bonus to spell damage

Meditation - self explanatory, faster mana regeneration (pets only meditate passively)

How to successfully train a pet

There are three simple rules you need to keep in mind if you want to train your pet successfully:
  • Rule #1: Don't overestimate your pet's fighting abilities and your means to keep it alive, be it with magery or veterinary. Start by hunting small things you know your pet won't have trouble defeating, then build up the challenge as you learn how your pet behaves and how much damage you can heal how fast.
  • Rule #2: Don't underestimate your opponent's power. You can't train a dead pet and you want to see results instead of starting over after resurrecting a pet with skill loss every so often, right?
  • Rule #3: A pet's abilities won't improve if it doesn't get to use them. You can ride your mare all day long and everywhere you go, but if you don't get off it and let it kill things, it's stats and skills won't improve.
Other than that, things are pretty straightforward. Most of the facts that apply to skill gain for players apply for your pets as well.
Melee skills (wrestling, tactics, anatomy) and poisoning:
Wrestling and tactics are trained most successfully by having your pet fight creatures that are within its own skill range. It won't do you any good if you train a pet with tactics in the 40s by fighting monsters with tactics in the 80s for example. The poisoning and anatomy skills will raise nicely just from normal fighting, the opponent's level in these skills does not matter.

Magery skills (magery, eval int and meditation):
The best way to train your pet's magery skills is to let it fight until its mana is expended, then take a break until it has been fully regenerated. (Mana regenreates normally while you are mounted on your pet and also while it is stabled if you are logged in, but not while you are logged out!) This is not necessary if you are still working on melee skills, magery will go up nicely enough at low levels just by letting your pet fight continuously. All three magic skills will develop regardless of what type of creature your pet is fighting, unlike the melee skills, which require targets of a certain difficulty. If you want to train your pet's magery more actively, you can have them dispel summoned elementals or energy vortices. For this to be effective you will need to keep your pet out of melee range though, otherwise the summoned creature will not survive very long.

Resist skill:
Instead of simply checking the magery skill of the opponent vs. the pet's resist skill (like it used to be), after the "Age of Shadows" expansion the spell type matters as well. Direct-damage spells are checked against the respective "elemental resists" (which are not trainable), so they are of no value for resist training. Only the non-direct damage spells listed below are checked against the resist skill, so they are what you will have to expose your pet to.

Resist gains are not exclusively tied to the magery level of your pet's opponent anymore. It is still the case that the smaller the difference between your pets resist skill and the attacker's magery skill, the more of a chance your pet has to resist successfully (which is needed for gains!), but the difficulty of the circle of the spell being cast is also taken into account - the lower it is, the higher the chance to resist successfully. For pet training this means you may be able to train your pet on monsters which have a much higher magery skill, but if they cast the correct type of (lower circle) spell, your pet will still gain.

Spells that are checked against the resist skill:
  • Magery Spells:
  • Clumsy, Curse, Feeblemind, Weaken, Mana Drain,
    Mana Vampire, Paralyze, Paralyze Field, Poison, Poison Field
  • Necromancy Spells:
  • Blood Oath, Corpse Skin, Mind Rot, Pain Spike



The table below offers assistance with choosing training targets for wrestling and tactics of higher end pets as well as monsters to fight in order to improve your pet's resist skill. Since there are only few options for raising low end pet's melee skills to GM by fighting monsters, you might want to consider letting them spar one of their own species instead of endangering them by fighting high-skilled monsters. (Of course this works well for any type of pet from rabbit to dragon kin, but you might have to enlist the help of a friend if the creature takes up 3 control slots.)

Overview of average monster skills
Note: the classification of monsters below is based on very rough averages, since on some monsters skill levels can vary a lot (e.g. I have seen Blood Elementals with wrestling anywhere between 82.0 and GM). The purpose of this table is just to give you the possibility to pick the best opponents for your pet's current skill level.
Monster's Skill Wrestling Tactics
10-30 Wandering Healer
Lich
Pixie
Headless
Horde Minion
Shadow Wisp
Horde Minion
Pixie
Kirin
Unicorn
Shadow Wisp
Headless
40 Evil Mage
Mummy
Zombie
Mummy
Zombie
50 Evil Mage Lord
Bogle
Bone Magi/Skeletal Mage
Corpser
Ettin
Imp
Orc Mage
Shade
Skeleton
Titan
Wraith
Bone Magi/Skeletal Mage
Bogle
Corpser
Ettin
Imp
Orc Mage
Reaper
Shade
Skeleton
Wraith
60 Orc
Reaper
Water Elemental
Gargoyle
Gazer
Lich Lord
Ratman
Troll
Water Elemental
65 Gargoyle
Gazer
Lizardman
Ratman
Ratman Mage
Sea Serpent
Troll
Air Elemental
Dread Spider
Lizardman
Ogre
Orc
Ratman Mage
Sea Serpent
70 Daemon
Dread Spider
Efreet
Efreet
Orc Mage
Swamp Tentacle
Titan
75 Air Elemental
Earth Elemental
Lich Lord
Ogre
Swamp Tentacle
Earth Elemental
Evil Mages
Dull Copper Elemental
Evil Mage Lord
Daemon
80 Acid Elemental
Dull Copper Elemental
Harpy
Poison Elemental
Stone Gargoyle
Wisp
Ice Fiend
Lich
Poison Elemental
Stone Harpy
Wisp
85 Cyclops
Elder Gazer
Fire Elemental
Frost Troll
Kirin
Stone Harpy
Nightmare
Unicorn
Acid Elemental
Harpy
90 Blood Elemental
Bone/Skeletal Knight
Dragon
Ice Fiend
Evil Mages
Wandering Healer
Blood Elemental
Bone/Skeletal Knight
Cyclops
Elder Gazer
Fire Elemental
Frost Troll
Stone Gargoyle
95+ Arctic Ogre Lord
Ogre Lord
Orc Brute
Arctic Ogre Lord
Dragon
Nightmare
Ogre Lord
Orc Brute

Tips and tricks

  • The most useful support for successful pet training is a skill level of 110.0 or higher in animal lore - it allows you to see statistics for all creatures in the game and helps you determine the right "training targets".
  • Feed your pet during the training process. The lower its stamina, the slower it will attack, slowing down skill gain. Pets with the ability to fly also lose stamina rapidly while in fly mode. Keep an eye on their stamina level and feed if necessary.
  • If you use UO Assist, set hotkeys for "apply bandage", "cast greater heal" and "cast cure" for the pet you are training. This can save your pet's life (also while out hunting!) in difficult situations since you will not have to search and aim with a target cursor.
 

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Last update: Sunday, February 20, 2005 at 11:16 pm