(Please see the Macros section for extensive explanations of how to set up the recommended macros)
Taming is like normal dungeon crawling, but instead of the baddies being able to kill you in 30 seconds or so, a pair of dragons can kill you about 5 seconds or so. If you keep your head and use what you can to your advantage you will usually come out on top tho :)
The first thing is getting your macros set up properly. You will probably want to have a good look at the macros chapter for some suggestions on macros to have, but at the absolute minimum you should have these set up for the actual taming process.
and the speech macros of
I would strongly recommend that you also have some Greater Cure potions, and a few G-heal potions as well.
When setting up your pack, you want to be able to have quick access to all the things that you might need, for me I have my rune books on the left hand side, my reagent pack in the lower left hand corner, Trapped pouches next to the runebooks,3-4 single pieces of meat across the top of the pack, on the right hand side I have a bag for things I want to keep, underneath that is my bag of things I want to sell and I have heal and cure potions on the edges.
The pack may look crowded and it is, however it's organized. Everything that I need when out hunting can be handled in the first level of the pack, so I don't have to waste precious moments opening bags and pouches looking for something when I need it.
For reagents I take 99 of everything and 120 mandrake root (Mandrake root is the most commonly used reagent, 9 times out of 10 it will be the first reg you run out of). I tend to go heavy when loading up on regs, but you can probably take about 60 of everything and be fine.
As for greater cure potions and greater heal potions, you carry them, but for different reasons that one might expect.
The cure spell macro you have set up is to cure you of everything but leval 4 and 5 poison, it will work great for that and cure it almost always in the first attempt. Your magic is potent, but their is a huge factor of casting time, Lv4 and Lv5 poison damage you every few seconds as opposed to the slower level 1-3 poisons. You have a hard time succeeding in casting Arch cure because your spell will be interrupted. Drinking a potion on the other hand is uninterruptible, and works 100% of the time (if its a greater potion) Carry G-Cures and never have that problem.
Greater Heal potions will restore on average 18-33 hit points, but the greater heal spell will almost always do better than that, and at a significantly cheaper cost too. Your carrying greater heals because if its a laggy day, or there are a lot of things going on your Greater heal spell macro will sometimes Jam, and you wont be able to cast another spell until it times out, or you log out then back in. In a place with dragons meandering about this is often not a satisfactory solution....
So you have a few greater heals, and chug them in emergencies.
As a side note Greater heals potions have a much more significant role in PvP when you need to heal via every available means during combat, as opposed to a quick heal to buy you time to recall away.
The trapped pouches also have a PvP significance, which applies to taming. Namely being paralyzed. When your paralyzed you stay that way for a few moments, or until you take damage. Most PvPers will carry trapped pouches because they can open them, and take 1 point of damage, but be free of the effects of being paralyzed.
Same thing with Dragon taming, Paralyze is a spell that dragons (and Wyrms) cast often, if they paralyze you they can then walk up to you and do up to 50 points of damage in a single melee attack, if you already have a little damage and a spell goes off at the same time, Boom your dead. So you carry trapped pouches and NEVER have to worry about it :)
To make trapped pouches simply cast "magic trap" on them, and don't open them until you need them. Also as a side note, if you count resources with UO assist its going to set off all your pouches, not really that awful a thing but something you might want to remember if your about to go into combat.
Be on a horse!
I sometimes harp on this, that is because you can do all the same things that you do walking while mounted, the difference is you're 2-3 times faster. Yes, I'm aware there is a tremendous cost with owning a horse of 1 piece of fruit every few hours...
Get a horse! :)
Speed is very important for staying far enough in front of a wild dragon to lay down a paralyze field, its also critical if their are multiple monsters in the area your trying to work in. Being mounted on a horse is a VERY good idea. You might have noticed that I said horse and not nightmare, that is because you can replace a horse for about 700 gold if you die and the dragon(s) kill him, but a nightmare goes for up to 25k or a very difficult taming experience to replace. Nightmares are tough, but unless you have trained yours way up a dragon can kill it. Multiple dragons and creatures can kill it fast.
If your not however out doing suicidal things (Like taming dragons etc) its always nice to have a nightmare on hand.
