Taming

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Taming

Branch of Adventuring

Overview

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Many wild creatures can be tamed to serve as companions in combat, mounts, gatherers, or to provide utility to make progress through the game easier.

There are three different taming methods used in Dark and Light: Passive Taming, Stun Taming, and Durance Taming.

Passive Taming

Passive Taming is the simplest form of taming, but it is also quite rare, applying only to the Snowy Fox in the Shard of Faith DLC. In order to passively tame a creature - you must put it's preferred food in the last inventory slot <=>. Get close to the creature and target it, then press the 'use' button to feed the creature. You will be able to repeat this process periodically as the creature's food stat depletes adequately until the creature becomes tamed.

Stun Taming

Stun Taming is the most common method of taming and requires the use of a projectile weapon, such as a crossbow or bow, and taming arrows - either Stone Hook Arrows for 'small to medium' creatures (almost any creature in the game), or Iron Hook Arrows for large creatures - i.e. Infernus Dragon and Mythical Creatures. In order to Stun tame a creature, you must increase it's 'fatigue' until it grows too tired to flee or fight any longer, and it will either appear unconscious, or repeat an animation as if it is trying to stand, depending on the creature. Either way, it will no longer be able to flee or attack. To accomplish this, you must first hit it with hook arrows, and then 'anchor' the arrow to the ground by clicking your attack button a second time after the hook has attached. The fatigue effect will not be applied until the creature has moved far enough away from the anchor point to 'break' the tether line. Thus, you must either 'kite' an aggressive creature away from the anchor point, getting it to chase you far enough to break the tether, or get a fleeing creature to flee in a direction away from the anchor point. This makes many 'taming pen' methods ineffective, as the target must have about '8 squares' of movement space to break a tether. The number of arrows necessary will depend on the 'Fatigue' stat of the creature, with some creatures naturally having a higher base in this stat, and higher level creatures typically having a higher fatigue than lower level creatures.

Once the creatures has been subdued, a Feeding Trough may be placed nearby (note a Feeding Trough does not require a foundation, but must follow rules regarding proximity to enemy structures and 'no-build' zones around cities.) An appropriate taming food must then be placed within the trough, which will be consumed by the creature periodically as it's Food stat decreases over time. Depending on the effectiveness of the food being used, the 'Taming' bar will increase incrementally with each unit of food consumed. If the food is the 'ideal' (usually Delicate Carnivore Feed or Delicate Herbivore Feed) for the creature, than 'Wildness' will generally have little or no loss, but less optimal foods will see this decrease incrementally with each feeding. Wildness affects the end effectiveness of the tame effort. A maximum 'Wildness' tame, will come out at 1 level less than 50% higher than the original level of the creature. Example: A level 100 wild creature, tamed at maximum Wildness, would complete the tame process as level 149. Each creature can only be raised in levels a set maximum from its base, thus a maximum level base tame (120 on official servers) could have an effective starting level of 179 after tame, and max out at level 239, whereas a level 8 tame would tame at level 11, and would max out at level 71, creating a dramatic difference in overall effectiveness over the course of the game. As a trade off, the level 8 tame may only take a few minutes, and a few units of food to tame, but the level 120 may take hours and high quantities of food.

Durance Taming:

Taming 'elementals' uses a completely different process referred to in the creature information overlay as 'Durance Taming'. In order to tame an elemental creature ( balrog, ice imp, ice elemental, fire elemental, light elemental, treant, water elemental) you must damage the creature to less than 20% of its maximum health - and then use a Suppression Stone . Once you have seen the green message indicating that the creature's soul has been suppressed, you may then finish killing the creature. The now 'full' Suppression Stone - showing with a green glow to the symbol on it where before it was black - can be taken to a Summoning Pool, where the creature can be resurrected as a tamed creature by putting the stone, and the ingredients indicated on the stone into the pool, and allowing some time for the creature to reconstruct.

In the Shard of Faith DLC Heavy Cannon is the preferred weapon for taming Mythical Creatures.

If you want a 'taming pen' for herbivores the creatures seem to veer away from the ramps quite often at present. But with perseverance they do go up. I have found 8x4 will break the tethers. Don't forget a door. Once inside the pen. Break the ramps you don't want a sneaky deathstalker falling in with you and ruining everything. If you want a carnivore pen. I would suggest a beast gate and pillars of about 2 high. With a winged pen you probably want a beast gate. 4 high. Ceilings and pillars.

Sometimes with high value targets in a high risk environment and no pen. It is worth building some protective walls around so a wraith or skelly don't come and murder it. Once taming is complete keep the community spirit up by demolishing your structures.

Another effective taming method is to use a 'cobweb' to slow a creature during the taming process. This makes passive creatures too slow to flee effectively, and defensive or aggressive creatures too slow to catch you. If there are no flying creatures in the area, a simple Spiked Wall can be quickly erected around the unconscious tame to ward away unwanted predators. Note: using a cobweb to tame a creature can sometimes result in triggering a bug, where the slow effect remains in place after the tame is complete. Applying a new slow effect, such as by using another cobweb, or frost bolt - will lift the slow effect once the new one has resolved.

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To increase this knowledge

To increase the Taming skill, you will need to perform the following tasks:

Skill Ranks

Rank	Prerequisites	Unlocks	Reward
1	Ranged Crafting (Rank 2) Level 6	Wooden Feeding Trough Fur Turkey's Egg	Constitution + 3.00
2	Level 9	Stone Feeding Trough	Constitution + 6.00
3	Level 15	Summoning Pool Small Soul Suppression Stone	Constitution + 9.00
4	Cooking (Rank 5) Level 24	Herbivore Feed Carnivore Feed	Constitution + 15.00
5	Level 30	Summoning Stone Delicate Herbivore Feed Delicate Carnivore Feed	Constitution + 21.00
6	Level 36	Soul Suppression Stone	Constitution + 24.00

Guide

Check out the taming guides on the Taming help page.