In the unforgiving world of Ultima Online Outlands, the Mage Tamer stands as one of the best PvE templates, combining the raw primal power of Avadon’s most dangerous beasts with the refined utility of high-circle Magery. Unlike traditional servers, Outlands has evolved the taming profession into a complex endgame system where your character acts as a tactical commander. By choosing the Mage Tamer path, you aren’t just a bystander; you are a healer, a crowd-controller, and a heavy-hitter who can sustain a pack of loyal followers through the deadliest dungeon levels and world boss encounters.
The Mage Tamer is the gold standard for high-end utility and survivability. While a Archery Dexxer Tamer might offer higher raw DPS, the Mage Tamer’s ability to heal and cure pets from a safe distance—combined with powerful offensive spellcasting—makes it the preferred choice for tackling the world’s most dangerous bosses and high-tier dungeons.
The skill Template
A standard endgame Mage Tamer typically aims for the following skill distribution:
- 120 Animal Taming & Animal Lore: Highly recommended to control the most powerful pets and maximize the Underdog Bonus, which buffs pets that have lower taming requirements than your current skill level.
- Magery (120): Essential for Greater Heal, Cures, and offensive spells like Flame Strike.
- Eval Intelligence (100): Directly boosts your spell damage and the effectiveness of your Magery.
- Herding (100): A common addition to boost pet damage and damage resistance
- Meditation (80): Critical for mana regeneration during long boss fights.
- Veterinary (80): Increases pet healing amounts and gives a significant damage bonus to your followers.
Key Item: Wizard’s Grimoire
As a Mage Tamer, investing in a Wizard’s Grimoire is essential. It enhances your healing effectiveness, cure chances, and spell damage as you gain experience.
Best Pet Teams
The best pet teams depends on whether you are farming “trash” mobs (efficient gold farming) or fighting a single high-health boss.
The Bossing Team (Single Target & Tanking)
The Sun Wyrm and Sun Wyrmling combination is the premier “Single-Target Burn” team. This setup is specifically engineered for bossing and high-end hunting where the goal is to dismantle a single, high-HP target as quickly as possible through ramping fire damage.
Why This Team is S-Tier
The Sun Wyrm duo is the gold standard for boss-killing due to its unique “ramping” mechanic:
- Armor Piercing Specialists: Unlike teams that rely on a separate armor-strip pet (like the Skeletal Dragon), both Sun Wyrms have innate 50% armor ignore on their primary ability. This means their damage remains consistently high even against the most heavily armored dungeon bosses.
- Ramping Lethality: The 30% damage stack is one of the strongest self-buffs in the game. Once both pets have fired their initial breaths, they essentially gain a permanent “Enrage” status against that specific target.
- Long Range Safety: With a 12-tile range on their special attacks, these pets can often engage dangerous targets from a distance, giving the tamer more room to maneuver and avoid boss AoE mechanics.
- Consistency: While swarm teams (like 5x Blood Hunters) offer higher “peak” DPS, the Sun Wyrms offer much higher “floor” DPS because they don’t rely on being in melee range to start their armor-ignore attacks.
High Single-Target DPS
The 5x Blood Hunter is the undisputed “Glass Cannon” king, offering the highest raw single-target DPS potential in the game. This team is designed for high-APM (Actions Per Minute) players who want to melt bosses and high-HP targets through sheer volume of attacks.
Why This Team is S-Tier
- Attack Speed Overload: With Blood Frenzy active across five pets, the sheer frequency of hits can “stunlock” or overwhelm the health regeneration of the toughest bosses.
- Bleed Stacking: Each individual pet has its own chance to proc Bleed. In a swarm of five, you are almost guaranteed to keep a permanent, high-damage bleed dot on the target.
- Redundancy & Flexibility: If a target is low health, you can split the swarm to “finish off” multiple mobs at once, something a single large dragon cannot do efficiently.
- Bestiary Scaling: Because experience gains scale with the number of slots used, this team ensures you are always gaining maximum Bestiary XP for your “Attack” class upgrades.
AoE DPS
The Skeletal Dragon and Water Drake combination is widely considered the premier “AoE Specialist” team for mid-to-high-tier dungeon farming. This team maximizes the synergy between armor debuffs and multi-target damage, making it perfect for clearing crowded dungeon rooms or handling “trash mobs” efficiently.
Why This Team is S-Tier
The combination of these two specific creatures creates a “Force Multiplier” effect:
- Double AoE: Both pets use cone-based breath attacks simultaneously, meaning every few seconds, up to 3 enemies are hit by massive burst damage at once.
- The “Pierce & Cripple” Combo: The Skeletal Dragon strips the armor from the group, which significantly increases the damage the Water Drake (and the player) deals. Meanwhile, the Water Drake slows the enemies’ attacks, ensuring the Skeletal Dragon survives longer as a tank.
- Low Maintenance: Unlike a 5-pet swarm that requires constant micro-management and individual healing, this 2-pet team is easy to manage with target-switching and area heals.
Aspect Choice
selecting an Aspect for a Mage Tamer is a choice between maximizing your pets’ power or your own magical sustainability. While Command is the definitive “Tamer Aspect,” other choices like Eldritch or Water provide viable alternatives depending on your budget and playstyle.
Command Aspect
The Command Aspect is the primary choice for any serious Tamer. It is specifically designed to enhance followers rather than the player character.
- Inspiration Proc: This is the core mechanic. When you cast spells or attack, you have a chance to trigger “Inspiration” on your pets.
- Damage Bonus: Grants a massive +50% damage bonus to your followers.
- Healing: Provides a “mini-heal” to your pets when it procs, which is invaluable for keeping multiple pets alive without constant manual targeting.
- Passive Benefits: It provides a flat bonus to your effective Animal Taming and Animal Lore skills, helping you reach the 120 cap more easily and boosting pet stats.
- Downside: It is typically the most expensive aspect on the server, with high costs for both cores and extracts.
Final Thoughts
The true strength of this build lies in its unparalleled survivability and “bossing” potential. While other builds may struggle with mana management or glass-cannon vulnerabilities, the Mage Tamer utilizes Meditation and Evaluating Intelligence to keep their mana pool full for constant Greater Heals and Cures. This magical support is further amplified by the server’s unique Command Aspect system, which allows a mage’s spells to trigger “Inspiration” procs, drastically increasing their pets’ damage output and health recovery in the heat of battle.