Greetings UOF!
A few of my friends from UOR and UOSA have recently moved here and so far are enjoying it.
The only thing we saw lacking was a real guide on Animal Taming.
Maybe there is one out there somewhere, but we were unable to find a good one, so here goes:
Start the character with 50 Taming, 49 Magery, and 1 Healing. Stats won't matter too much, so mix and match however you want.
Stats on this server raise pretty quick.
If you start Young Status:
Scorpions in Compassion Desert 50-75
Now, a lot of people will say tame in the dungeon in Shame. Skill gains on this server are increased in dungeons.
But, in Shame, there are 3-4 groups of PKers that come through, plus a few solo PKers which thrive on stopping you from taming. The scorpions will attack you in the dungeon, regardless of young status. You will have to peace them over and over and this actually takes longer to skill gain vs Compassion.
In Compassion, once a scorpion is tamed, Hell Hounds will kill them quickly so you don't have to stop to release. Set your razor macro to tame scorpion, or closest grey, and you are good to go.
Now, if you are competing with another tamer, and you run out of scorpions, feel free to venture into the woods north of the desert and tame bears, cougars, hinds, etc and you can lure them down to the hell hounds as well.
At 75 go to Dagger Isle. TAME EVERYTHING. Do not think that a walrus can't give you a gain. I got 93.1 on a walrus and 93.2 on a Polar Bear. So seriously, tame everything.
Now, Dagger Island can get you to GM and beyond. Once there, you never have to leave. If you die, you can get rezzed by one of the many healers, the shrine, or a tamer you see out working their skill.
On Dagger you can tame/rename/release or you can lure your tames to one of the many monsters on the island that can kill your tames. There are plenty.
Now, if you get where your mind is going crazy from all the white, you can jump over to Moonglow Moongate and tame grizzly bears and great harts there. Also around the Minoc Moongate and Yew moongate you can find stuff to tame.
If you get real creative, in the woods outside Covetous, you can find all types of bears, wolves, and large cats. But, keep in mind, tame it all! Between the six tamers in my guild working the skill, we find that taming success gives better Taming Gains than taming failures. Animal Lore benefits from fails, but it seems that Animal Taming does not.
Good luck all!
If you start without Young Status:
Stay in the forest and tame everything. A good place to start is Minoc Moongate. Just walk out and head south. Tame bears, cats, wolves, and anything else you see. Leave Bulls alone, of course. At 65, head to Dagger Island and then follow the guide above.
Things to avoid:
1. You're going to hear a lot of tamers tell you to get into the dungeons to tame, ignore them.
While the skill gains per tame are better, the time spent taming is worse. In the time you tame scorpions in Shame and get .1 Animal Taming, you'll have .3 or .4 out in the forest taming brown bears.
2. When you get to 80 Taming and GM Lore, you can accept a dragon. Don't get caught into this and lose your way. Keep Taming!
The amount of time you spend farming before the dragon dies is not worth walking away from a skill you need.
3. Its easy to get bored and frustrated while working a tamer. You have to make it fun and valuable if you plan to enjoy it. Add all regs to scavenger agent as well as all bags/boxes/containers and while you run around taming, you'll pick things up. Also, be sure to click house signs as you walk around. You could find an In Danger of Collapse and make yourself some money!
4. Taming Skill scrolls. If you have them, then sure, use them. It's not worth to buy them until after GM. At 200k+, its not worth buying because you can get more gains in the time you spend farming to get that gold. Now if you have bank in real life and want to buy donation coins to buy skill scrolls with, then by all means have at it.
