If you are on this page you must have done one of the toughest skills in Shards of Britannia - Grandmaster Tamer, congratulations!
As soon your skilling adventure is over the next journey begins.
You are now able to have any of the tameable pets available, so you have to consider what type of pets you want to have set aside for your tasks.
Five pet slots can be filled, which gives you various options. On the Animal Taming skill page you can see how many slots a pet needs.
A typical setup might be:
1 Nightmare & 1 Dragon or White Wyrm
or
2 Nightmares/Kitsunes/Drakes
By having a Nightmare and a Dragon/White Wyrm, you need to know you will not be able to ride a separate horse or ethereal mount at all, keep that in mind because if you want to have the full damage output you will need to dismount. This means you will be vulnerable due to reduced movement speed. Of course, you can mount your mare anytime and move away.
So chose your pets wisely when setting up and the pet itself on stats & abilities.
If you want to tank harder mobs or even bosses you can't get past a White Wyrm or Dragon due the high hit points and Armour. A nightmare is a powerful pet, but it's hit points and Armour are markedly lower than a Dragon or White Wyrm.
Most of the following pet commands you want to have as macros stored in your cast bars:
You can adjust every command by using a specific pets name to give different commands to your followers.
For Example: Replace the word “all” with your pets name to: "PETNAME follow me"
| command | description | macro text |
| all follow me | Your pets will follow you, there are some situations where they won't instantly or will stop following you. | say all follow me |
| all follow | If you like your pets to follow an alternate char write as listed and target the player to follow. | say all follow (ev. +target) |
| all stop | Your pets will/should stop their current action (i.e. attacking or following) | say all stop |
| all stay | Your pets will/should stay at their current place. | say all stay |
| all guard me | Your pets will be guarding you and immediately attack an opponent (mob or player) if he's attacking you. | say all guard me |
| all guard | Your pets will guard the character you chose. | say all guard (ev. +target) |
| all attack | Your pets will attack the chosen target until they received another command. | say all attack (ev. +target) |
| all kill | Your pets will attack the chosen target until it's dead (or your pets die). | say all kill (ev. +target) |
So why is it written “will/should”?
You have to be aware that in certain situations your pets might not do what you ask them to.
If your pet is extremely hungry it might refuse your commands. Also, if your taming and/or lore skill is not GM yet, depending of the difficulty of your pet it might also refuse your commands.
And last but not least: If your pet(s) is poisoned, the poison tick will break any command you give them and they will attack whoever/whatever poisoned them.
So be aware: if you are in a situation where you need to recall your pets (due the risk of being killed), with poisoned pets, it might be exhausting to take them out of the area. It will be necessary to spam “all follow me” every time the poison ticks to get your pets to another location. So consider if you are able to cure them first to make moving away easier. You might have opponents like spiders, rotting corpses, infected knights, etc, which will poison your pets often so curing and keeping them cured is going to be a huge challenge.
First thing you have to know as a tamer: Your pets are an obstacle!
This is very important for several reasons, it can help you a lot but it also can make things complicated.
Always be aware of the area you are fighting in, combining natural constrictions in the area with your pets can give you an advantage while fighting.
If you place them properly, you can stay behind your pets for healing, while your opponents (mobs) won't be able to get through to you.
And here is the hook:
Other tamers, summoners, etc, are (mostly) not able to walk with their followers through your pets. This means you have to pay attention so your pets are not preventing other players with their followers from moving or attacking (if in a group).
So in narrow areas a single tamer with his pets can block almost the entire gameplay. In such situations it's shown very fast which tamer knows how to react and how to clear the road.
Moving forward means often - you have to go back!
If you pass another tamer or summoner in a narrow area and your pets are not able to cross properly due to the width of free space you will see unexperienced players trying to force the pets through the obstructed path, It wont work.
If such a situation happens you need to check your way back until you find a spot with a wider path. Pull your pets there and wait until the other player passes or the area clears allowing space for your pets. This might also happen on crossroads situations, where mobs are around the corner not being able to attacked but your pets are stuck trying to do so.
So you mostly have to go back if you want to continue forwards!
Your pets will mostly go and do whatever you tell them to so chose your commands wisely.
If you like to engage an enemy far away for example, you might send your pets by command (kill/attack) but consider your pets will move to the enemy via a path you may not want/choose and might pull more enemies in a wide range around them so this could end up quickly into a situation you won't be able to manage.
If you have a Nightmare and Dragon for example, you will want to pull your target out of his area to fight it in a more secure place of your choosing.
There are two ways to do it:
1st option: Give the all stay command while mounted on your Nightmare. Your Dragon or pet of choice will stay in place while you can run mounted in the direction of your target allowing you to pull it using a low level spell like magic arrow or just walk into the aggro range area which causes the mob to want to attack you. You can then go back to you desired fighting location where your Dragon or pet of choice is ready and waiting to engage (kill/attack command).
2nd option: This ones a little bit more tricky, but with experience you will be able to do that safely.
Use the attack/kill command on the desired target. Your pet(s) will run in to attack and gain aggro from the target, as soon you see the target moving towards your pet(s) call them back to you and move to the desired location you want to engage.
In both options keep in mind you can't pull the mobs through an entire dungeon level (or certain area), they will reset if they are not engaged (receive dmg) or if they are dragged to far away from their spawn location, at which point they will also start to heal very quickly.
Additionally you are mostly able to adjust your location even while fighting your opponent if you move to another location and command your pets to follow you. In this case keep in mind you have to move a little bit further away from the place where you want your pets to be after moving as they will not move exactly to your location, roughly 1-3 tiles away from where you are standing.
One of your pet is not attacking the desired target.
This mostly means your pet cannot find a direct way to the target, if you are using a ridable pet (i.e. Nightmare), always adjust with the ridable pet, even if it's not the one unable to engage your enemy, it is the easiest to reposition to allow the other pet through to the fight.
Mount your pet and walk 1-2 steps away clearing the path for the other pet so it now has a free path to the target. You can then walk your Nightmare directly in front of the target, dismount and engage it.
Movement and target position are the most important things to handle.