I’d like to thank UOForums.com for accepting UOCraft to their new Partnership Program!

UOCraft now has a forum set up at UOForums.com:

UOCraft Forum

Feel free to contact me through the forum or these methods. And if you don’t already make a habit of spending time over at UOForums, I highly recommend it! Great community, great resources.

Based on ongoing conversations on Stratics and UOForums, I’ve begun tweaking the Pet Power Calculator.

It now lists the percentile rankings for resists, stats, and hit points.

Note that these percentiles are NOT weighted as displayed, but are weighted as part of the overall Power Rating. (The percentile value is where your pet’s value falls within the range of min-max possible). Several people noted that they’d like to be able to evaluate their pets more granularly based on the resists, stats, or hit points. The percentile display allows such analysis.

This should clear up the confusion caused by listing the percentage of max (which was purely for informational purposes and not part of the Pet Power Rating calculation).

For the math geeks out there, the calculator adds up the max possible resists, stats, and hp and the min possible resists, stats, and hp, and compares your pet’s resists, stats, and hp to that min-max range. Then, each category is weighted (resists at 65%, HP at 25%, stats at 5%, skills at 5%) and added up. The star rating, then, is the weighted result expressed in a 0 to 5 range.

I’ve kept an abbreviated percentage of max list at the end of the results (for backward human compatibility – some people have expressed that the values are useful to them), but like before – it is just an expression of the pet’s values compared to maximum possible. These % of max numbers are *not* used in the Pet Power Rating calculation.

Regarding modifications to how skills over GM are calculated, I have yet to decide what if anything will change in the calculator. The threads linked above have tons of useful suggestions, but the sheer variety of personal preferences leads me to believe that there is no one-size-fits-all approach that will work. As such, considering the relative diminished importance of skills compared to resists, HP, or stats, I’m inclined to leave the skills calculation as it is (optional, and at 5% of the overall score when included). That’s where I’m at on my thinking at the moment, but I have not yet come to a firm decision. Feel free to add feedback to either of those threads if you’ve got more convincing to do!

http://www.uocraft.com/taming/pet-control-chance-calculator/

Pets with only one damage type were erroneously assigned a second, which was resulting in inaccurate results including those pets.

The bug has been squashed.

The URL for the Best Battle Pet Tool has changed slightly:

http://www.uocraft.com/taming/best-battle-pet-tool/

FYI!

UOCraft presents a new taming tool to help you pick the best pet for your next monster brawl: the Best Battle Pet Tool.

This tool compares the monster’s lowest 2 resists to each pet’s highest two damage output types. When a match is found, it then looks at the monster’s highest damage output type and compares it to the pet’s lowest 2 resists. If a pet is strong in damage output but weak against the monster’s damage, it is eliminated.

The result is a list of pets that have a good matchup in damage output versus the monster’s vulnerabilities, and no major weakness in terms of resist against the monster’s damage type.

Of course, there are many other variables when choosing a pet for battle, such as: will you be hunting solo or with a group? Does your pet need to act as a meat shield as opposed to a damage dealer, or do you have another meat shield coming along? Can you feasibly stand close enough to a lower-hit-point pet to keep it healed throughout the battle?

As such, just because a pet makes the Best Battle Pet list doesn’t mean it’s the best pet in every situation. I leave the more subtle variables up to you, the Animal Whisperer.

What the Best Battle Pet list does do, however, is put you in the right ballpark for experimentation with different pet options when your goal is to deal out damage. It’s a lot more creative than grabbing Frank the Tank every time you go out, and particularly when hunting in groups with other tamers, can be a lot more effective.

This can also free up opportunities to take out combinations of pets so that, for example, you can have a magic caster along with a melee damage pet, or a poisoning pet to go with the melee damage, etc.

Try it out! You might just find some new favorite pets!

http://www.uocraft.com/best-battle-pet-tool/

Note: If you find a pet or monster that you’d like to see listed in the tool, contact Kitiara. You can view the list of which pets are available at the bottom of the results page after submitting your monster choice.

Long overdue update! The Stable Slot Calculator has been updated to include the +2 stable slots that come with the Stygian Abyss expansion (if applicable).

Check it out: Pet Stable Slot Calculator

Enjoy!

I made a few tweaks to the Pet Power Calculator today. As always, if you encounter any problems or oddities, please let me know!

• Fixed the Trained meditation skill value for regular dragons (thanks to Ezekiel Zane on the UO Stratics Tamer forum for the heads-up).
• Tweaked the max fresh-tamed eval and anatomy values on bane dragons, thanks to data from adamx on UOForums.
• Tweaked the data input interface. Stats, Resists, and Skills are now consolidated into columns. Using the tab key on your keyboard will still tab you through the list in the same order as before. Just looks a little cleaner on-screen and prevents the endless downward scrolling.
• Fixed the Print feature for the pet’s stat sheet so it only prints your power score and related data, instead of printing the entire web page. (Thanks again to Ezekiel for the heads-up on this one).

Enjoy!