Warders: The root of all evil

[Kaspur]

As I stated before pet push is the BL's responsibility and easily controlable.

If I'm reading things correctly though I'm seeing that some here are saying that when and if to bring out a pet is also the BL's responsibility and this I have to disagree with some what.

If the BL has the pet hold AA then I agree that it should be his resonsibility, however there are circumstances where BL's without pet hold AA should not be allowed to have pets out. In any situation where you have mobs that AE then pets that are not on hold can wipe the party.

Granted a BL that is on the ball can controll his pet by spamming /pet back off constantly but in a raid situation this spam is annoying to say the least and one small lapse can easily spell wipe out. For this reason and this reason alone my guild will not allow unheld pets in AE situations and I fully agree.

I also agree that the decission to not bring out a pet should always be the BL's. When we picked up a new 65 BL in the guild he was always used to not having pet out in raids so even though he had pet hold he never brought out pet (and noone said anything for his decission not to). After parsing several raids he saw the value of pets DPS (blew both of us away cause of others things we do during a raid) and now he always brings pet.

The guild can set policy and guidelines about pet use but IMHO they go too far if they tell you specific's during a raid. After all your not a bot, right?  :wink:

[Whiptail_Warclaw]

http://pub149.ezboard.com/feqdruids24038frm1.showMessage?topicID=5611.topic .... A thread about "Pushing"

My favorite quote from the above thread at EQDruids...

The biggest culprit we found was beastlord pet procs, we blamed everyone including the dog, it turned out to be the cat

I feel naked without my Warder by my side, but what am i going to do? I'm currently in the process of joining a higher-end guild. They are great poeple and I have a few friends in the guild already, but it does piss me off, when we start a raid and the order goes out that there is to be no pets at all. Not having my Warder is like cutting my right arm off.

Please post a list of Raid hotkeys we can use to control and reposition our Warders.

[shenker]

Why oh why are there so many retarded people around. If you have pet hold and keep an eye out on your pet then that should be all that matters minus a few situations like in POW. I am in an org that is currently at quarm and only one encounter have I been told to shelve the pet and that was the carpin cycle in COD. You are expected to have pet hold if dealing with any ae encounters and you are expected to handle your pets no matter what. No pet=lost dps and sometimes that extra dps from a pet might make the diff between killing a god or wiping to a god. Anyone that screams no pets minus a few areas/encounters in the game is ignorant of thier uses and contributions. Saying no pets cause of a few people that don't pay attention is the way to cripple your raid or just make yourself look like an ignorant ass. Find out who is messing up and talk to the owners instead of a blanket statement involving the ones that control the pets as well.

[Elrathin]

Telling a BL that no pets are allowed on ANY raid is like telling a warrior that he may use 1 1HS weapon in the primary, but his secondary has to be empty.  Your only hurting your guild by making a blanket statement no pets allowed on ANY raid.  The best thing IMHO to do is if your a raid leader, group leader, is to find the culprits and ban their pets accordingly.

[bugman]

i guess i just assumed we're all talking about pets in raid situations and pet hold was a prerequisite just to have this conversation, as most people would agree in most situations not having pet hold just isnt worth it for the "what if" factor alone"

the only argument ive heard that holds any water for people being allowed pets without the ability to hold them is that now you can filter out what pets say to a dummy window, so if melee and casters dont want to see pet spam they dont have to. i have as of yet found a way to do away with other peoples pet spam and keep my own though, so the one time i heard this argument it was quickly squashed because when you're spamming a raid with pet back off imo the last people you want to spam are other pet owners as they're getting enough of it already, know that you prolly shouldnt have a pet up and are being reckless and are often specifically annoying your fellow pet owners, which isnt smart to alienate the people "on your side".


and like someone mentioned, the only fight i also recall being told not to use pet (along with everyone else) was carprin cycle. the funny thing though is my pet has pretty high survivability. our last TZ fight my pet was meleeing constantly and lasted until 30ish percent before i mended, and then didnt die until low 20% when pretty much all other melees were dead and TZ turned and my pet was tanking.

[Tytallia]

I would like to thank everyone for their different viewpoints and situations. Even when someone else talks about the same subject their slightly different POV can educate people. I've learned a few things that I either had forgotten or didn't truly understand well enough to explain to fellow players.

Whiptail: My hotkey with "/pet back off" and then "/pet attack" has to be the most used pet control key I have (aside from using /pet hold after every mob dies) and I can't say how much of a value and integral tool it is for pet control/placement. I very rarely use "/pet guard here" anymore simply because of how the pet walks back to it's spot... the faster your pet is moving the faster you can get into a better position, cutting down on wasted DPS time.

[Murkk Dakruul]

I hope all the "no pets allowed!" guilds fail on every mob at 1%. They deserve it.

/spiteful off

:)

[Strigori]

That raid leader doesnt come off as a very good one to me.  Anytime the only resort is to make blanket statements like "no pets period" it means that person really does not have a full grasp of the situation.   I have been with my guild sence we started raiding(we were a familiy/social guild foralong time).   The only times we have had a 'no pets period' policy is on mobs who spawn things when players/pets die, which has been only the second boss on carpin cycle, and shie(pets shouldnt die in this one,  its mainly from the mages/necs sit behind the wall and dont watch).  Heck the only other time we have even kicked ones with out pet hold was farming HoT.  We generaly alow all pets for anything else(NToV included).

Expecting every player to understand and manage every aspect of thier class makes for a stronger guild that relys on skill over numbers.  I have no respect for people who(like the plauge that is open raiding on aro) use 100+ on a regular baisis to kill mobs that are doable with 50ish without problem.

[Xilbeast]

Strigori your in a much differint class of raiding then the guilds that are denying pets on raids.  I recall when i first did HoT the raid leader at that time and in a totally differint guild called for 'no pets'.  I wasnt a beast then, in fact, beasts didnt exist then.  Today I know a lot of the guilds doing HoT are freely admitting pets, imo this is largly due to the knowledge of what discipline level is necessary for those raids.  

Sometimes when were doing Vex Thal were permitted to spawn our pets for that raid.  Why?  The knowledge of how to do that raid is well known and rehersed amoung the entire guild.  Specific dedicated attention to every last detail isnt necessary, thus pets are sometimes allowed.

The guilds in the elemental planes right now, especially those who havent been there very long are doing mobs of a much more focus specific design.  Blazzak the Omnifiend in fire, for example, hits for around 3k has an ae for 1500ish i believe.  That stuff hurts like hell, 1 player or 1 pet pushes the mob and the MA out of healing range of the clerics and the whole raid wipes.  Would you risk it?  

What of some of the other beastlords in the elementals?  Your raid leaders permit pets on every raid or not?  (please assume when answering every pet class player has /pet hold)

[Strigori]

I dont think we are in a different class...we have dropped bertox..only thing keeping us from elementals is finding acouple mobs up when our raiding hours are.   And here we go...Pet OR player....the level of discipline should remain the same regardless of what your raiding.  Allowing it to be sloppy on some raids and not on others is a bad precidence. This attitude that becuase we are not a guild that has been around sence almost server creation that we are somehow lesser.   We have advanced at a very fast pace.  The only guilds ahead of us on aro are ones that have been a raiding guild for close 2 years before we existed.   There are multiple ways to do most fights.  Because your raid leader does not trust your people to use pets should not translate to no one anywhere should not use pets

[sarjent]

Assuming you have pet hold I can't think of much you wouldn't use a warder on.  Personally I like to keep mine suspended while the pulls are happening and then pop it out once we engage the mob.

Other things you can do, keep your pet on follow all of the time.  Helps position quicker.  I have hotkeys for repositioning and wouldn't you know they are the same keys I use to control my pet during Enrage.  
hotkey:
/attack off
/pause 2,/pet back off
/pet hold
Now, if the warder is on follow, this key allows you to cease all offense and move to a different spot.  Nothing bothers me more than to still be swinging while I am trying to position and catch a riposte or enrage smack.

Things to consider are:
The encounter - is the mob a walled mob, or a push to corner type of mob, or an open area open (open area is the hardest to control all melee in, let alone pets..balancing takes lots of practice)

Angles - is there a spot to get your pet to hit from behind without getting in the way of the rogues?

When to engage the pet - Do Ya /pet attack immediatly when engage is called or do you need to move into a position before hand while the tanks are messing with agro.  On one mob we typically call pets engage so that we can get the mob into position..however, you need to move up into your own position before engaging or else you agro another mob when bad pathing occurs.

[TerjynPovar]

/attack off
/pause 2,/pet back off
/pet hold

Thoroughly dumb question here, but why the /pet back off line?

[shenker]

What of some of the other beastlords in the elementals? Your raid leaders permit pets on every raid or not? (please assume when answering every pet class player has /pet hold)

As long as you have pet hold you are pretty much allowed to have a pet up at every encounter including water. If you have a pet up in water you better pay attention to push or the mobs will warp into the walls though. If it becomes any kind of problem to keep the pet alive then Protection of Calliav will become your best friend.

Thoroughly dumb question here, but why the /pet back off line?

I may be mistaken here but I believe that /pet hold does not wipe the hatelist of the warder but /pet back off will. I use /pet hold then /pet back off. The /pet hold being done first ensures that the pet will not keep ping ponging on the mob if he has agroe for any reason then the /pet back off to wipe his hate list. If I am wrong about this then no big deal as I will continue using that hotkey anyway.

[sarjent]

/attack off
/pause 2,/pet back off
/pet hold

Thoroughly dumb question here, but why the /pet back off line?

lack of coffee does that to me! ;)

[sarjent]

you gotta put the back off first because if you issue any commands after the pet hold it forgets the hold command was issued.  So if you get an AE while moving your warder will engage.

I guess overall you don't need the backoff command but its still nice to make sure Homey is not engaged with a lik extra spam ;)