Beast Mastery

Beast Mastery is the advanced side of taming on UO Sagas, building on Animal Taming, Animal Lore and Veterinary. Tamed creatures are not static: they gain experience in combat, level up, and carry randomly rolled abilities that scale with their level. A wild Dragon is dangerous — a max-level, well-bred Dragon with the right abilities is a monster of your own making.

For the basics of taming and controlling pets, see Animal Taming. For the list of what you can tame, see Tamables.

Creature Levels

Every tamable creature levels up through combat experience, from level 0 to 8.

Experience (XP)

Pets gain XP while fighting under your command:

• 25% of damage dealt and 25% of damage received is converted to XP.
• You must stay within 16 tiles of your pet for it to gain XP.
• XP from a single opponent is capped at that opponent's maximum health — no farming one punching bag.
• Pets do not gain XP in the newbie regions.
• The Expert Trainer perk from the Animal Lore skill mastery grants bonus pet XP.

XP Thresholds

Level-Up Bonuses

Each level grants, based on the pet's original values:

• +10% damage per level
• +10% armor per level (armor caps at 95)
• Abilities grow stronger with every level

When first tamed, a creature's raw power is reduced (animals keep about 50% of their strength and 80% of their damage). Levelling more than compensates: a max-level pet ends up significantly stronger than its wild counterpart.

Pet Abilities

Tamable monsters have up to three ability slots — Active, Passive and Ultimate — rolled randomly from the creature's ability pool when it spawns.

• Before taming you can see with Animal Lore which slots a creature has, but not the specific abilities.
• After taming the exact abilities are revealed.

This makes hunting for the "perfect roll" a core part of Beast Mastery: two Dragons with the same stats can carry very different ability combinations.

Active Abilities

Active abilities trigger in combat, usually on melee attacks, and most have a cooldown.

Icon	Ability	Trigger	Cooldown	Effect
	Fire Breath	10% on hit	100–150s	20 + (6 × level) fire damage, 10 tile range. Half damage against players.
	Small Fire Breath	10% on hit	100–150s	15 + (5 × level) fire damage. Weaker version of Fire Breath.
	Poison Breath	10% on hit	10–15s	10 + (3 × level) poison damage plus poison, 10 tile range.
	Rage	On hit	100–150s	Massive attack-speed burst (+1000% Dex) and full stamina for 3 + (0.5 × level) seconds. The pet changes color while raging.
	Small Rage	On hit	100–150s	Attack-speed burst (+600% Dex). Weaker version of Rage.
	Noxious Bite	5% on hit	None	Poisons the target; poison strength scales with level (lesser at 0–2 up to deadly at 9+).
	Armor Piercing	10% on hit	None	Reduces the target's armor by 1 per pet level per hit; armor recovers after 30 seconds.
	Mule	Always	None	Gives the pet a backpack like a pack horse. Cannot be stabled while loaded.

Passive Abilities

Passive abilities are always on, or trigger when the pet takes damage.

Icon	Ability	Effect
	Iron Will	+2 Magic Resist skill per level (max +20).
	Iron Hide	+5% armor per level (max +50%).
	Primal Might	+4% melee damage per level.
	Spell Surge	+2 Evaluating Intelligence skill per level (max +20) — stronger pet spells.
	Poisonous Blood	2% chance per level to poison melee attackers.
	Poison Immunity	Immune to poison; immunity strength scales with level.
	Musical	+6% melee damage per level against barded targets (pacified, provoked or discorded).
	Woundlicker	10% chance when damaged below 50% health: heals 4% × level of max health. 1 minute cooldown.
	Detective	Reveals hidden players and containers within 2 + (level ÷ 2) tiles. 20 second cooldown.
	Flee	When the pet would die, it instead teleports away, hides for 10 seconds and recovers to 25% health. 30 minute cooldown.
	Rideable	The pet can be mounted and ridden.

Ultimate Abilities

Ultimate abilities are triggered through the Animal Lore skill mastery "Call for Blood" proc — your pet roars its ultimate on command of fate.

Icon	Ability	Effect
	Wyrmfire	Cone of dragon breath in the pet's facing direction; 30 × level damage per tile. Spares other controlled pets.
	Heart of the Pack	Fully heals, cures and refreshes the pet, you, all allied pets and party members within 10 tiles.
	Venomfall	Poison rains on all enemies within 8 tiles; poison strength scales with level.

Feeding

Drop food onto your pet to feed it. Each creature has favorite foods — the wrong kind is refused ("the animal shies away").

Feeding:

• Restores stamina (gold restores 1 stamina per coin for gold-eaters).
• Raises loyalty — roughly +10 loyalty per successful feed.
• Drives bonding progress.

Bonding

Bonding permanently links you and your pet.

Requirements: you must be the pet's owner (not just a friend), the pet must not already be bonded, and for pets requiring over 29.1 taming your base Animal Taming must meet the pet's requirement.

Process:

1. Feed the pet — "Your pet has started to bond with you."
2. Wait at least 3 hours.
3. Feed it again — "Your pet has bonded with you!"

Benefits:

• Bonded pets can be resurrected (Veterinary bandages or the Resurrection spell). Non-bonded pets cannot.
• Loyalty decays half as fast (48 hours instead of 24).
• Only bonded pets can be intentionally released safely.

Loyalty

• Non-bonded pets drain from 100% to 0% in about 24 hours; bonded pets in about 48 hours.
• No decay while stabled or ridden.
• Below 25% the pet "looks around desperately" and stops obeying commands.
• At 0% the pet goes wild and is lost (though it may still be retrievable — see pet recovery in Animal Taming).

Follower Slots

You have 5 follower slots. Typical costs:

Notable Beasts and Their Ability Pools

A short list of popular tames and what they can roll. Full taming requirements are on the Tamables page.

Nightmares spawn in two variants — a stronger 3-slot and a weaker 2-slot version. A Necrophorus that rolled Rage requires full taming skill to control; without it, anyone can control it like a horse.

Tips for Beast Masters

• Feed regularly — especially before logging off.
• Stay close in combat — within 16 tiles, or your pet gains nothing.
• Bond everything you care about — resurrection alone is worth the 3-hour wait.
• Check slots before taming — Animal Lore shows a wild creature's ability slot types; hunt for the roll you want.
• Invest in Taming, Lore and Veterinary — more stable slots and better pet control.

See Also

• Animal Taming — the taming process, commands and pet recovery
• Tamables — full creature list with taming requirements
• Pet Stabling — storage, costs and stable slots
• Skill Masteries — the Animal Lore mastery tree