Help:Taming

Taming food
There are some carnivores like Berunda/Vrock that have 100 affinity for Rotten meat and less for all meats below that.

Some creatures like special food more than anything, like Centaur Wine for Centaurs.

Getting Ready, Preparations
Never jump into taming without some level of planning and preparation. There are several pieces of equipment as well as some practical knowledge that will serve you well if you just take some time in advance. This includes not only crafting the right equipment but also know which feed is best for the tame as well as scoping out the area you plan to tame within.

To tame most creatures, you will need a bow or crossbow as well as either stone hook arrows or iron hook arrows.

To craft a bow, you must unlock Rank 2 in Ranged Crafting. The recipe is: The next item you will need are the stone hook arrows. The recipe is:

To equip your bow simply drag the stone hook arrows onto the same space in your hot bar as the bow.

Before heading out on your first tame, be sure to craft a wood feeding trough as well as stock up on enough food for the tame. In general, most low-level carnivores will tame easily with raw meat or rotten meat. Low-level herbivores will tame easily with grass or apples as a preferred feed. If you are not approaching taming as an opportunistic sport, and have your mind set on a specific creature, consult the bestiary to learn the best possible food for the quickest and most successful tame.

You should also have a good supply of Hook Arrows as not only do you need enough to knock the creature out, you might need them stop it from waking up before it's taming is complete.

Finally, before heading out to tame, know where you are in relation to any of the three towns. You are not able to place a feeding trough anywhere within town limits so be careful if you are taming near these areas. As you are shooting the creatures with arrows, you will notice that some may try to flee right away while others will eventually try to flee after putting up a fight. If they flee in the direction of the town you will need to try to drive them in the opposite direction. The same applies to areas blocked by the structures of other players if there's any.

Taming Methods for Non-Mystical Creatures
When taming Non-Mystical Creatures you make them fatigued and thus collapsing, knocked out, then feed them and making sure they do not wake up or get damaged/killed before the taming process is complete.

Hooked Arrow taming
As you are seeking out the desired target, try to approach within enough proximity to see what level creature you are about to tame. Chose the creature with the desired level and note if there are others from the same species nearby. Most creatures from the same species will aggro on you once you have fired on one of their own. Be prepared. Either try to isolate the intended target, try your luck at multi-taming, or multitask and kill the others in the heard while taming the one you want. :)

Once ready, simply fire one of the stone hook arrows at it. After you have successfully hit the target you will need to attach the hook to the ground by a second left-click and repeat as many times as necessary. The Constitution of the creature is most impacted when they stretch the taming arrow tether until it breaks. The more broken tethers, the more the constitution is affected. Invent your tactics depending on the kind of creature you hook arrow regarding kiting/chasing pattern and the way pattern you attach your arrows to the ground.

If the intended target is trapped in some manner it will not be able to stretch the tethers enough to trigger the desired effect. Consider options such as pumping a stuck creature full of arrows and then “helping” to release the creature so it runs far enough distance to break all of the tethers. All in all the breaking of hooked arrow tethers deal way more constitution/fatigue damage than the fatigue over time it deals when attached.

Once the creature is down, quickly scan the area for other predators or challenging situations. Place a feeding trough near the downed creature and add the desired feed for taming. Keep a careful eye on the constitution level as the creature is taming. If you need to, shoot it with an additional stone hook arrow and attach it to the ground to keep your creature from waking prematurely. Simply, you keep your creature from waking up too early by watching the fatigue-bar and attaching new hooked arrows to it, and thus raising the bar fatigue instantly.

Keep some simple logic in mind: the higher level the tame, the longer it will take and the more food it will require. Also, the greater chance you will need to reapply an arrow or two during taming...

You should also consider enclosing the knocked out fatigued creature as predators might kill it / decrease it's bonus levels by damaging it. Later on Wooden Spiked Walls will be an easy way to do that, however early-game straw foundations and walls should do instead.

Feeding Trough
The feeding trough currently has two versions. The and the ; both of these accomplish the same goal which is to be used for taming animals and also for feeding your already tamed animals that are nearby.

The stone trough simply has higher durability and more storage space.

If your tamed creature has a feeding trough icon by their name it means they are within range of your trough and they will eat from it if their inventory has no food.

Don't be mistaken... Wooden Feeding Troughs are not expensive!

Wooden Club + Cobweb of Crystal Ball taming
A less practiced alternative to the conventional Hooked Arrows taming method is clubbing the sense out of a creature with Wooden Clubs and usually the help of Cobweb of Crystal Balls. This way you apply fatigue by melee hitting the chasing or fleeing creature. For fleeing passive ones the Cobweb slows help you to reliably stay in melee range of them. On the other hand in the case of creatures that retaliate though the use of Cobweb is especially important. When knocking out aggressive or neutral creatures with a club the Cobweb slow will not only make it easier to hit them, but also makes them unable to attack you by letting you stay behind their backs, circling around them while hitting their backside, staying away from the reach of fangs and or claws. Naturally you can use Clubbing in combination with Hook Arrow taming, but there is little meaning to it as the tethered arrows' fatigue over time is small, the creatures won't really break the tethers when Cobwebbed and you will be occupied with the clubbing anyways. Make sure to bring 2-3 or more Wooden Clubs with yourself as they usually break before the creature collapses. It should be noted that usually you will still need to take Hook Arrows with you to stop the creature from waking up once it starts feeding as raising the already collapsed creature's fatigue by Wooden Clubs will decrease it's taming bonus levels, so you will still have to use Hook Arrows for that.

Currently (2018.November) there is a common Slow bug that permanently slows Wooden Club + Cobweb (CC) tamed creatures unless you reapply the cobweb and let the slow run out as you ride them. Check Wooden Club for further detail.

Tameable Creatures
(And maybe more?)