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An Unnecessarily Detailed Guide to RUSHING Beefalo Taming


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Ever since YOTB, I've been doing numerous beefalo rushes as various characters, in solo worlds and in pubs, and would like to share my experience on the topic.

 

Why rush a beefalo?

  • SPEED: As soon as you plop a saddle on a beefalo and mount, you may enjoy a 63.33% faster movement speed. Add on a glossamer saddle and that bumps up to 80.83%. Nobody can deny the advantage of speed, especially in the early game.
  • COMBAT: Say goodbye to expensive weapons and armor because a beefalo can be both! Without durability! During taming, you will be stuck with 34 damage (unless you're Wendy). But you will get a 1000 health regenerating tank from the start.
  • FUN: Sick of your normal early game play? Beefalo are here for you!
  • LOW COST: It costs about a dozen twigs (or anything the beefalo can eat) per day. I personally don't at all mind it because you can pick items while on a beefalo.

 

Character?

Some characters have perks and downsides that synergize more with others.

  • Wendy, Wes, Maxwell, and Willow are fantastic with an Ornery beefalo. It seems common knowledge on the forums now that Wendy has a 54% damage boost on a beefalo if she's fighting with her sister because players lose their base damage multiplier when fighting on a Beefalo. Wes loses his health downside, and also his 0.75 damage multiplier. Maxwell loses his health downside, his shadow puppets can do things while Maxwell is riding the beefalo, and you can freely use all the nightmare fuel you don't need on an Ornery beefalo. With Willow, BERNIE! can be nice as an extra companion and tank. In fact, Willow, Wendy, and Maxwell (I know Max mains hate duelists but I think their 15 per 2 second regeneration ability is amazing) having additional fighting companions can be wonderfully helpful on a beefalo. You also don't have use for a walking cane on a beefalo so Willow can instead hold Bernie during winter.
  • Wormwood is interesting. On one hand, he loses his healing downside. On the other hand, he already can sustain a perma speed boost via growth fertilizer. Up to you! Walter also loses his health/sanity downside. But he gets Woby from the start who provides similar speeds as riding a beefalo.
  • I don't at all recommend taming an Ornery beefalo as Wigfrid or Wolfgang. Combat is already cheaper as them, and they lose ALL of their perks while fighting on a beefalo. HOWEVER, I do recommend taming a rider beefalo as those two. If you wanna rush one, you just have to go about it differently. I can go into that later.
  • WX loses their health and speed perks. Woodie will leave his poor beefalo behind when he transforms. Wortox's healing capability doesn't work on, and isn't helpful on a beefalo. Nor can he soul hop while riding a beefalo.

 

Getting Started

I like to get a saddle ASAP and start taming. You'll need to find the mosaic (usually near-ish to spawn) or rockylands for at least 12 gold for science, alchemy, beefalo bell, saddle. A forest to hammer at least 2 pig houses to get 4 boards and cut stone for alchemy, and 4 pigskin for a saddle. And a beefalo savanna (I often find a road going through a little savanna near spawn leading to the big savanna) for the beefalo! I also recommend getting stuff for a football helmet and a lantern. You'll need to shave 2 beefalo at night with a razor for wool and saddle a third. I would recommend bonding with your beefalo when you can with a bell. It just takes up a slot and is pretty convenient. It'll make your beefalo follow you when unmounted, into the caves and through wormholes, and if your beefalo ever gets itself caught in a fight unmounted, you can just run far away with the bell in your inventory for it to teleport back to you like chester.

The first time you mount the beefalo, it will buck you off in a measly 15 seconds. Fear not, however, as this quickly increases over time.

 

When to feed the beefalo

The beefalo's domestication WILL be increasing as long is it's being ridden. Keeping it's "hunger" stat (300 hunger per day) up does not also increase domestication if it's being ridden, so don't bother. For your beefalo to allow you to ride it, you need to maintain the "obedience" stat. Feeding a beefalo anything grants 10% obedience. Expect obedience to decay at a rate of 110-160% per day. When obedience goes below 50% your beefalo will not let you back on. So feed it 5 things and remount. When obedience goes below 40% it can shake off it's saddle, decreasing it's durability. Feed your boof at least 6 things, put the saddle back on, and mount it. Note that obedience will not be an issue once the beefalo is fully tamed. 

  • The simplest way to know when your beefalo needs to be fed is to just feed it 5 things when it doesn't let you back on. The downside is that the beefalo will also often shake off it's saddle. You must be prepared to craft extra saddles with 4 gold, beefalo wool, and pigskin.
  • I usually just eyeball it and feed my beefalo when I dismount. This means I probably waste a couple grass or twigs every now and then by feeding it when I don't need to, but I don't mind. 
  • A lot of people use a mod such as "show me" that displays information such as the obedience stat.

 

But what if I need to do things off the beefalo?

First of all, don't worry about salt licks. Domestication loss starts off negligible and you shouldn't need to leave your beefalo unmounted for too long. But when you do, there are 2 options.

  1. It'll only increase the total domestication time by a little. Don't worry about it.
  2. If you're obsessive about trying to tame your beefalo as fast as possible without delay like me, keep it fed while you're not riding it. Each twig/berry will satiate it for 15 seconds and a carrot/juicy berry for almost 20 seconds.

 

Glossamer and War Saddles

Sadly it's difficult to get the war saddle early when ewecus chances are low. It costs 4 steel wool and a ewecus drops 2-3. It increases damage by 16 so a war saddled, ornery beefalo does 66 damage. I would recommend making this one with a construction amulet once you can. The glossamer saddle costs 68 butterfly wings, 4 silk, and 2 living logs. Might seem like a lot but this is doable even without an amulet early on. If you're playing with others I suggest farming butterflies at base with other players nearby to increase butterfly spawns. I might also recommend a quick little ruins rush with your beefalo for a construction amulet if you're up for it.

 

Quick Ruins Trip is Totally Doable!

This is in no way needed obviously. I've been experimenting with making a quick trip to the ruins for just a construction amulet for future glossamer and war saddles, a couple star caller staves, and maybe some frazzled wires or a crown. All you really need is a lantern, tools, a football helmet, maybe some blue caps to be safe, and maybe moggles if you really lack confidence but I find the beefalo to be fast enough that you can run right past clockworks without a problem. You can feed beefalo light bulbs by the way. Avoid fighting clockworks; just dodge them. Mine some statues, I like to run around the rook set pieces (stay away from the bishop), and craft some things. I suggest going later in autumn so the buck timer is longer but you do still need to take opportunities to dismount and remount! It might be a good idea to farm 34 butterflies on days 9, 10, and 11, do what you need to do on the full moon, and then go on day 12 with a precrafted alchemy engine to make the glossamer saddle as soon as you get the green amulet (only needs a broken station to craft). I was able to get 34 butterfly wings on days 18, 19, and 20 before winter hit but it was tight.

 

Tendencies

The ornery tendency is great for rushing because you're free to fight while riding. And a base of 50 damage once tamed is very valuable. It's downside is that it has a minimum obedience of only 45% once tamed, meaning you will often need to feed it 1 item to mount it. The other tendencies have a minimum obedience of above 50% so obedience no longer has any effect. If you wanna tame a rider beefalo (also fantastic, about 15% faster, without ornery downside, base 25 dmg), I suggest to not worry about taming it quickly and just use it to get around. I personally haven't tamed default before because I don't mind the downside of Ornery. You can tell it's tendency by it's expression. For ornery you just need to attack a lot and/or get hit a lot. For rider just don't do those things. You shouldn't have much trouble.

 

When will my boof become fully tamed?

It takes a minimum of 20 days after you start to complete taming. Once you do, the buck timer will skyrocket and you'll gain benefits of the tendency you trained. Definitely expect at least a bit more than 20 days. Depending on your goals, you can be more or less careful to keep domestication rising. You'll probably want a fully tamed ornery beefalo for when deerclops comes on day 30, but that gives you plenty of time, and even that isn’t required.

 

Beefalo Heat:

Beefalo heat has been pretty finicky since YotB, but it's something you definitely want to avoid. When in heat, your beefalo will buck you off 5x faster than otherwise, beefalo in heat will attack you if you’re not wearing a beefalo hat, and also everything else. Horny beefalo also have a chance to have a child. Attacking this child or forcing your beefalo to attack their child will make them very angry with you!

Once a beefalo is fully domesticated, it will never go under heat in any circumstance. A not-yet-fully-domesticated beefalo will always go into heat in spring. Don't tame a beefalo during spring, and try to finish taming before spring. Beefalo also have a seperate heat timer where they go into 3-day long heat every 20 days (on default settings). But whenever you log off and back on or go to the caves with the bell in your inventory, the heat timer for the bonded beefalo resets back to 20 days. This is likely a bug.

Just get a beefalo hat and finish taming before spring.

 

Other notes

  • If you can, make a piggyback because it's speed penalty doesn't apply while you're riding a beefalo.
  • PLEASE dismount and remount your beefalo before combat to reset the buck timer.
  • Feel free to ask any questions or comment on your beefalo rushing experience.
  • EDIT: added Beefalo Heat
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Unless they’ve patched it- your guide is inaccurate, Partially tamed (bell-bonded) Beefalo DO Still go into heat, and they will follow you while in heat and get close enough to attack you.

And if your playing as Wendy.. It’s even worse because Abigail attacks your Beefalo back.

Other then that: Just feed it sticks or grass as you walk around, slap a saddle on its back and ride it till it bucks you off, immediately feed more twigs/grass and then re-saddle: Repeat until tamed or you can get better equipment to tame faster (Brush) they are so easy to tame now... I’m surprised Klei hasn’t rebalanced the enemy mobs to be centered around how easy it is to get a Beefy companion now.

Plus: The Year of Beef Costumes are now permanently part of the game and they’re all instantly unlocked for free, so build yourself a Beefalo Dressing Wardrobe- Mix and match parts to create your perfect woolly friend.

Steps to do this: Create cowbell, create Beefalo Wardrobe, Bound with random Beefalo, hitch to Wardrobe, enjoy!

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Should include that Wormwood has the easiest time healing the beef thanks to mushroom planters. Every mushroom planter with a blue spore will have a healing potential of 480 hp. They also arent very filling so you wont have to worry about a beef needing extra time to do its barfing animation. 

I also suggest skipping the mosaic and going straight to the pig king or a swamp if you happen to cross one. It saves time to just give the pig king pig skin and any meat you get from killing the pigs. The road to the village is easy to find and follow. 

On console when a beef knocks me off I immediately press interact and it stops the beef from doing its unsaddle animation. Not sure if it works on pc. I've never had to craft more than 1 saddle.

I do recommend building at least 1 salt lick at base. This removes the need to feed it while organizing your chests or cooking. I always prototype one while prototyping everything else, its a good habit to have.

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2 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Unless they’ve patched it- your guide is inaccurate, Partially tamed (bell-bonded) Beefalo DO Still go into heat, and they will follow you while in heat and get close enough to attack you.

And if your playing as Wendy.. It’s even worse because Abigail attacks your Beefalo back.

This has been patched. Bonding a beefalo prevents it from going into heat.

I’ve heard you say riled up Abigail attacks a bonded, untamed beefalo before and I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve tested multiple times and I have not had that experience. Bonding a beefalo labels it as an “ally” like Chester or a befriended pig. Abigail does not attack Chester. Has this happened to you multiple times? I encourage you to test it again.

2 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Should include that Wormwood has the easiest time healing the beef thanks to mushroom planters. Every mushroom planter with a blue spore will have a healing potential of 480 hp. They also arent very filling so you wont have to worry about a beef needing extra time to do its barfing animation. 

Good mention! Also being able to grow 20hp veggies like tomatoes and potatoes en masse.

2 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

I also suggest skipping the mosaic and going straight to the pig king or a swamp if you happen to cross one. It saves time to just give the pig king pig skin and any meat you get from killing the pigs. The road to the village is easy to find and follow. 

This is true. To start you only really need 4 rocks for a science machine.

2 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

I do recommend building at least 1 salt lick at base. This removes the need to feed it while organizing your chests or cooking. I always prototype one while prototyping everything else, its a good habit to have.

I mean there’s no harm in it. But it really isn’t necessary now that zark fixed the bug causing beefalo to lose domestication 10x faster than intended. Domestication loss starts off at a negligible amount and then increases over time. Because salt licks just pause domestication, they only really make a meaningful difference if you leave your beefalo alone for quite a while. A full day of domestication loss can be recovered with 2 minutes of riding.

2 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Just feed it sticks or grass as you walk around, slap a saddle on its back and ride it till it bucks you off, immediately feed more twigs/grass and then re-saddle: Repeat until tamed or you can get better equipment to tame faster (Brush) they are so easy to tame now... I’m surprised Klei hasn’t rebalanced the enemy mobs to be centered around how easy it is to get a Beefy companion now.

To be fair, this is called “an unnecessarily detailed guide” :-P

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2 hours ago, __IvoCZE__ said:

I want to see *you* fully domesticate a beefalo.

54444C58-E439-4053-9EC7-CD860E2C2586.thumb.jpeg.4b891af9d9ab4939c8e745136cc5820b.jpeg

Its not as Hard as your making it out to be- and this was BEFORE the Beefalo Update where you can ring a bell beside them and have them follow you around loyally anywhere you go (including into caves)

The sheer amount of grass and twigs you can gather from both the surface and now also caves shard while your Beefy friend happily follows you around is absolutely Unmistakable..

Taming them prior to what I like to call the “Follow Me!” update: Required bringing the food to the Beefalo, Relying on things like Salt Licks for long trips away from it.

Now- That is no longer the case & it’s a literal walk in the park (see what I did there?) to tame Beefalo.

This isn’t just opinion... it’s hard facts.

Edit: even a partially tamed (not fully domesticated) Beefalo has drastically changed the Game they follow you everywhere loyally and occasionally poop: which the poop can be used for “On the Go fire fuel, and also the “plant crops almost Anywhere RWYS Gardens”

I just hope that with all these features being “Casualized” they have plans to introduce “Hard Mode” or something later..

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6 hours ago, Friendly Grass said:

This has been patched. Bonding a beefalo prevents it from going into heat.

I tested and this information is wrong

from my experience playing since YOTB until Wes Refresh, beefalo does go in heat even it is bonded, it is like domestication value above around 80% to prevent beefalo goes in heat 

but overall, beefalo before fully domesticated stop getting heat sounds more like a bug to me, taming beefalo in heat is where the downside part but reward I enjoy challenging

if you wanna completely avoid beefalo goes in heat without brush, tame it from summer day 1 works for you

 

step to reproduce for bonded beefalo but still goes in heat

day 1:

I feed 10 light bulb, put saddle on, brush it, ride on it

console command instantly skip to spring: LongUpdate(16800) 

day 36:

blah, it is in heat now

 

below is picture I tested on my default server

image.png.f41099dd8ddec4d4514026773a60ae24.png

 

but it is great to know detail about feeding 1 twig for 15 seconds you may start doing other stuff, thank you

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1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

Why?

Well.. I can think of several reasons: Speed, Combat, free poop for fueling winter fires &/or fertilizing Winter RWYS gardens, Free Wool when shaved.

I mean really A bell bounded (doesn’t have to be fully domesticated yet..) Beefalo is good for most everything..

The only downfall is if you haven’t got it tamed by the time Deerclops spawns.. and you can trick that.. by just bell bonding, and dropping the bell in an obscure area somewhere (caves work) the Beefalo is actually bound to the BELL and not you.. so if you need it to stay somewhere you can hitch it to a dressing station and drop it’s bell beside it, and build a salt lick- 

Which keeps it safe from Clops. (As long as your far away from it when clops spawns)

If you survive clops and your beefy friend is still not fully tamed it will go into heat in spring.. and you will need a Beefalo Hat to be near it or you will be chased and mugged.

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52 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

I guess because it prevents being atacked when it goes in heat ither than that, if you dont plan to go to the caves, bounding a beefalo is overrated

actually bonded beefalo doesn't allow other to mount it, and you may travel through wormhole, logging out server with you, I believe bonding are very important for anyone playing on public server

I'm not sure but bonded beefalo in heat will engage fighting with abigail, Wendy players have to keep abigail in flower most of the time

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5 hours ago, gghhrr said:

I tested and this information is wrong

from my experience playing since YOTB until Wes Refresh, beefalo does go in heat even it is bonded, it is like domestication value above around 80% to prevent beefalo goes in heat 

but overall, beefalo before fully domesticated stop getting heat sounds more like a bug to me, taming beefalo in heat is where the downside part but reward I enjoy challenging

if you wanna completely avoid beefalo goes in heat without brush, tame it from summer day 1 works for you

 

step to reproduce for bonded beefalo but still goes in heat

day 1:

I feed 10 light bulb, put saddle on, brush it, ride on it

console command instantly skip to spring: LongUpdate(16800) 

day 36:

blah, it is in heat now

 

below is picture I tested on my default server

image.png.f41099dd8ddec4d4514026773a60ae24.png

 

but it is great to know detail about feeding 1 twig for 15 seconds you may start doing other stuff, thank you

LongUpdate command probably messed it up. Beefalo have not been going in heat in the first winter or in spring for me in my actual worlds.

EDIT: actually, I missed your first paragraph somehow. My beefalo usually have pretty high domestication by the time winter starts so it’s possible that’s the case.

3 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Why?

Bonding a beefalo only prevents it from going into heat. If you bond a beefalo that’s already horny, it won’t remove it from heat.

The main reason you don’t want horny beefalo on your hands is that it will buck you off FIVE TIMES FASTER than it would otherwise. Fun fact: a shaved, 0% domestication, beefalo in heat will buck you off in 0.6 seconds :wilson_ecstatic:

In addition to the buck timer, beefalo in heat will attack you if you’re not wearing a beefalo hat, your friends, and your allies. Horny beefalo also have a chance to have a child. Attacking this child or forcing your beefalo to attack their child will make them very angry with you! Bond your beefalo!

 

1 hour ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

I guess because it prevents being atacked when it goes in heat ither than that, if you dont plan to go to the caves, bounding a beefalo is overrated

Bonding a beefalo allows you to control where it goes or stays unmounted. So you can drop it off somewhere and then come back later (remember to pick the bell back up!!!!). Also, if you find your beefalo in a sticky situation fighting with a tentacle or something, you can just run far away and the beefalo will teleport like Chester. Not going in heat is the most important thing for me. Tbh, I’m not sure if unbonded domesticated beefalo will go in heat. They did not before yotb, but depending on how klei fixed the bugs I think they might have to be bonded now. But the only downside of bonding a beefalo is the 1 inventory slot.

 

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3 minutes ago, Friendly Grass said:

The main reason you don’t want horny beefalo on your hands is that it will buck you off FIVE TIMES FASTER than it would otherwise.

I was unaware of this fact, thank you. I had thought you were just overstressing the importance of it not attacking you.

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2 minutes ago, Friendly Grass said:

remember to pick the bell back up!!!!

I learned this in the hard way xD

2 minutes ago, Friendly Grass said:

Also, if you find your beefalo in a sticky situation fighting with a tentacle or something, you can just run far away and the beefalo will teleport like Chester

Good advice, thanks

4 minutes ago, Friendly Grass said:

Tbh, I’m not sure if unbonded domesticated beefalo will go in heat. They did not before yotb, but depending on how klei fixed the bugs I think they might have to be bonded now.

Before yotb fully tamed beefallo didnt went on heat. Partial one did and atacked characters (and abi who will fight back but was as simple as unsummoning her)

 

 

Your guide is very clear and simple. Well done

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1 hour ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

I learned this in the hard way xD

Good advice, thanks

Before yotb fully tamed beefallo didnt went on heat. Partial one did and atacked characters (and abi who will fight back but was as simple as unsummoning her)

 

 

Your guide is very clear and simple. Well done

That.. that right there is EXACTLY the problem: Unsummoning Abigail using an Xbox Controller still requires you to be within Spear slapping Distance of her ghost and tapping left on the controllers Directional pad.

Now an Angry in heat Beefalo that Abigail is attacking that YOU have to get close enough TOO Abigail to unsummon her so Abigail does not kill it- Means that your going to be close enough to draw that Beefalo’s Aggro onto yourself.

The best thing to do in this situation I have found: is to drop the bell on the ground so your in heat Beefalo stays near it & not you.

Remember how I said this game would need a ton of optimization and fair playing fields between PC/Consoles if we were ever going to get Cross-Play between them? These are some of those differences I was talking about.

As a Wendy Main who plays on Console the best advices I can give to other Wendy Mains who also play on console is to Always, always, ALWAYS put Abigail into her flower during trying to tame a Beefalo (the start of bonding with bell process, at least the first 6-8 saddle riding attempts, and of course- Before unmounting your Beefalo) 

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This is an amazing post. Thanks!

I LongUpdated to the evening of Day 35, bonded a beefalo in Winter, then let the clock run into Spring. The bonded beefalo went into heat like clockwork. It could still be a consequence of long updating. I'll run this test in my Survival world right before Spring hits and report back.
image.thumb.png.aa06661c39a4d16cf4924969f589f8cc.png

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37 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

Whenever I try beefalo taming using bell, they still go in heat. Is that supposed to happen or nah?

If this happens outside of spring, you can fix it by going in/out of the caves with the bell. Once they’re fully domesticated you’re guaranteed it won’t happen.

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Don't you still need to constantly ride the beefalo and gather sticks and grass at the same time? It seems like you can't afford to be ever off the beefalo unless you feed it 32 sticks which is A LOT on a public server. Also, you can't use tools on the beefalo so you can't dig up twig bushes, etc, while riding the beefalo. I just don't see how you can setup a base when you constantly have to be on the beefalo in order to tame it ASAP, otherwise you waste 32 twigs which took a day getting.

I don't know
I tried rushing beefalo on public servers a couple times, but they're a pain. I have to constantly make sure the beefalo is above 40% obedience so my saddle doesn't get ruined since pig skin is hard to come by in public servers. Saddle horns are a pain to get too since you need to make a boomerang first to get a jet black feather and also find bones.

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