Every ability in Sheep Tag Online

• All nine
• Leap
• Shear
• Snare
• Sprint
• Torch
• Huff and Puff
• Howl
• Watcher Ward
• Sheep's Clothing

All nine, side by side

Every key can be changed in Settings. Controls has the rest of the keys and the phone buttons.

Leap

Your sheep jumps up to 3.4 tiles toward where you aim, clean over anything in between: your own walls, a wolf, a gap in someone's fort. It comes back after 10 seconds.

• It lands on the furthest clear spot. If the full jump would land you inside a farm, you land short of it instead. If there is no clear spot at all, nothing happens and Leap isn't used up.
• 3.4 tiles clears a two-tile wall with room to spare. A three-tile Big Barn is too wide to clear.
• Use it to break a corner, not to start a chase. A wolf is faster than you on open ground. Leap when it is one step away and you have a wall to put between you, never when it is still across the field.
• Watch for Sprint. A Wolf that just pressed Sprint can't press it again for 15 seconds, and you Leap every 10. Out-wait it, but not right after it tags someone near you: every tag gives it a free Sprint.

Shear

Your fleece grows 2% a second, so it is ready to shear after 20 seconds at 40%. Shearing does two things at once:

• Wool bales: one for every 25% of fleece, so up to 4 at a full coat. Each bale builds a Wool Wall with C: a 2x2 wall that costs no gold.
• Speed: 15% faster for 15 seconds. With another sheep nearby, that is faster than a Wolf.

The fleece stops growing at 100%, so sitting on a full coat wastes it. My habit: shear the moment you need to run or the moment you need a wall, whichever comes first, and never let it sit full for long.

Snare

10 gold. Your sheep drops a rope trap at its feet. 0.8 seconds later it is set, and the first wolf to step on it is held still for 1.25 seconds, then can't be held by a snare again for 4 seconds. You can have 2 set at a time, 10 seconds apart, anywhere but the den and the pen's ring.

• Drop it on the line you run. A wolf chasing you straight runs onto it, and 1.25 seconds is a long way on open ground.
• Drop one on the way to a rescue. The wolf guarding the pen chases you out across it, and your friend walks free.
• Wolves can find it. A wolf that walks slowly near a snare spots it, a Watcher Ward sees the ones round it, and a Howl finds every snare within 12 tiles. A found snare still holds a wolf that steps on it, but wolves can see it and go round. Huff and Puff and the Torch spring it without harm.

Its partner is the Watchtower (F, 12 gold), a farm rather than an ability: your flock sees everything within 15 tiles of it and hears a bell when a wolf comes into view. The farm guide has where to put it.

Sprint (Wolf)

45% faster for 2 seconds, every 15 seconds. That takes a Wolf to 5.8 tiles a second, faster than anything else in the game. Every tag gives the Wolf that made it a free Sprint on the spot (not in Switch, where the tagger becomes a sheep). Its own Sprint's cooldown carries on as it was, so a tag is a running start at the next sheep.

Two seconds is short. Sprint to close the last few tiles on a sheep in the open, or to cut it off from its door. Don't Sprint across the map to get somewhere: you arrive with it on cooldown, right when the sheep Leaps.

Torch (Shepherd)

The Shepherd throws a torch up to 7 tiles away. Every farm within 3 tiles of where it lands burns for 4 seconds, 320 damage in all, and a hidden Shadow Shed that catches fire shows up while it burns. It comes back every 16 seconds.

The torch works from outside a fort, so the Shepherd softens a wall without standing where a sheep can see him coming. Throw it at the corner where three farms meet, then chew the weakest one.

Huff and Puff (both)

Every farm within 3.2 tiles of you takes 1.5 bites at once: 157.5 damage from a Wolf with no claws, 225 from a Shepherd. It grows with Iron Claws, and it comes back every 22 seconds.

• Stand where the most farms meet. It hits each farm in reach, so a corner of three Straw Houses takes three hits for one press.
• It breaks the small stuff outright. From a Wolf with no claws it flattens Hay Blocks, Windmills and Scarecrows in one go, and every level of Iron Claws widens that list.
• It doesn't use up a Potion of Strength. The potion goes on your next normal bite.

Howl (both)

Every sheep on the map shows to the whole pack for 3.5 seconds, even one hiding in a bush. It comes back every 60 seconds, the longest wait in the game, and everyone hears it, so the sheep know exactly when you've used it.

Howl when you are about to choose a target, not when you are already chasing one. The best Howl of the round is at nightfall, when everyone's sight drops and the pack needs to pick the softest fort together.

Watcher Ward (both)

Not on a cooldown: it costs 25 gold each time. Place it up to 14 tiles away and it sees 10 tiles around it for 120 seconds, and shows any Shadow Shed in its sight.

Put one on the fort you keep losing, or on the path between two forts the sheep run along. A ward on the pen tells you who is coming to rescue before they get there. You can't place one before the den opens anyway, and Iron Claws come first.

Sheep's Clothing (Wolf)

The Wolf pulls on a fleece for 10 seconds. Every sheep sees a plain white sheep where you are, with no name over it and a sheep's dot on their map. Your pack still sees you, in the fleece. Bot sheep take you for one of their own until you are within 3 tiles.

In the fleece you are a sheep's size, so you fit through any gap a sheep fits through: between two farms a tile apart, or in at a fort's one-tile door. If it comes off where only a sheep fits, you break out at full size through the nearest, cheapest farm in your way, and you can tag at once. A Brick House or Big Barn never breaks this way: it takes a heavy hit, a third of its health, and you step out to the nearest open ground. The break earns no gold. It recharges for 3:30 from the moment it comes off, so you get it about twice in a standard round.

You can still tag in it. A tag, the clock running out or a second press rips it off, loudly, in a cloud of wool. Walk up to a fort's open side or the pen while the flock is busy, not straight at a sheep that just watched you put it on. The Shepherd has none.

Not an ability, but close: the Potion of Strength

Wolves can also buy a Potion of Strength with C for 25 gold. Your next bite breaks the farm you bite, whatever it is: a Brick House, a Big Barn, all in one. It is the answer to a sheep who walls in with Brick and nothing else. The catch is that it goes on whatever you bite next, so walk past the Hay Blocks. Items and upgrades has when to buy it.