UO Tracking Skill Guide
Tracking lets you locate nearby creatures or players and follow their trail. It’s a key anti-stealth tool in PvP and useful in PvM to find specific monsters, champ spawns, or quest targets.
Tracking is a utility skill in Ultima Online, rated as Easy difficulty to train. This guide walks you through everything you need to raise Tracking from 0 to grandmaster, including the most efficient training methods, the targets and items to use at each skill range, and the gains you can expect along the way. Whether you are building your first character or optimizing a finished template, the breakdown below will help you train Tracking as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Below you will find an overview of what Tracking does, a step-by-step training guide, recommended skill ranges, any bonuses Tracking provides, and the templates that pair well with it. If you would rather skip the grind, UO King can deliver a ready-made character or the gear you need to support a Tracking build on your shard.
Tracking lets a character detect and follow other players and NPCs across distances well beyond what the screen shows, and it can even reveal targets who are hidden. Activate it from the skill list (or a 'use skill - tracking' macro), pick a category such as Animals, Monsters, NPCs, or Players, then choose a specific target. A small arrow then points toward where your quarry has gone. If the target outruns you or recalls away, the arrow vanishes and you are told you have lost the trail. It is a favorite utility skill for PvP hunters and anyone who needs to find creatures or people that do not want to be found.
Gains are earned by using the Tracking skill and selecting a target type (animals, monsters, NPCs, players). Higher difficulty targets and longer tracks tend to yield better gains.
| Skill Range | Training Method |
|---|---|
| 0.0 – 30.0 | Train from a Ranger/Scout NPC if available, or use skill repeatedly in town |
| 30.0 – 70.0 | Track animals and common monsters around cities and dungeons |
| 70.0 – 100.0 | Track players, high-end monsters, or stealthers in active zones |
| 100.0 – 120.0 | Track stealthers in PvP hotspots and champs; longer trails for more checks |
0.0 – 30.0
30.0 – 70.0
70.0 – 100.0
100.0 – 120.0
Tracking does not craft or fight on its own; its power comes from how it combines with related stealth and detection skills:
- Works with Detect Hidden: Your chance to track a hidden player pools your Tracking and Detect Hidden against their Hiding and Stealth.
- Counters Stealth: Higher Tracking makes it far harder for stealthed opponents to slip away unseen.
- Category Awareness: Choosing the right category is essential, since players disguised by spells or forms are tracked under the form's category rather than as players.
Whether you can track a hidden or stealthing player is decided by a formula that weighs your detection skills against their concealment skills:
| Formula |
|---|
| % Chance to Track = (Tracking + Detect Hidden + Random 1-20) / (Hiding + Stealth) x 50 |
By this math, a character with Grandmaster Tracking and Detect Hidden has roughly a 50% chance to track a target with Grandmaster Hiding and Stealth. A target with no Hiding or Stealth can always be tracked at 100%, though in practice every human has 20 points of Hiding and Stealth from Jack of All Trades, and elves carry a racial resistance that makes them harder to track. Disguises matter for category selection: players in monster forms such as wraith, horrific beast, lich, or vampiric embrace (or magery polymorph monster forms) must be found under the Monsters list, while animal forms like llama or wolf (ninjitsu) and magery animal polymorphs are found under Animals. Ghosts cannot be tracked at all.