Pet focus help

[Rhoam]

So last night we were killing Emperor Draygun and I had my pet focus key lined up and ready for use. I did not want the pet on draygun at all due to the fact that he changes from evil form to good form and any damage when he changes to good heals him. So I put pet on hold and tried to use him for killing souls only with /hold and /pet focus. I did not put the pet on Draygun at any time with /pet attack and only took pet off hold for use on the souls.

As the fight progressed, I went from killing the souls to draygun, he turned to good and when I went back to kill the souls, my pet went from souls to draygun when I hit /pet attack on souls without /pet focus. Does using /pet hold and then /pet focus take the pet off hold entirely to the point where the pet will attack anything that casts on me? I am embarassed to say that I got a tell (thank god it was a tell) from the raid leader telling me to kill my pet because he was attacking draygun while I was meleeing the souls. It seems that the soul I focused my pet on died and I didnt put him on a soul with focus again and he ran over and hit the next thing on his hate list, which was draygun because draygun was casting his aoe hp and mana sap spell on me while I was meleeing the souls. With my pet shrunk it is difficult to see where he is all the time and I lost track of him while concentrating on meleeing the souls as fast as possible.

Does using pet focus take the pet off /pet hold entirely? Is the pet then able to run and attack anything once I take it off /pet hold with /pet focus?

I dont want to experience the embarassment I experienced last night again. What is the best way to use /pet focus with /pet hold and /pet attack? I thought focus only took him off hold for the focused target and that once the target is dead he would go back to hold, but that is not the case apparently. Do I need to repeatedly use pet hold to ensure that my pet's hate list is cleared? Seems very confusing and cumbersome.

I imagine casters dont experience this problem much because they stand back and are able to see where their pets are, but being in close and meleeing with a shrunk pet makes it hard to keep track of our pets sometimes. I know I will be so much more cautious about my pet from now on..... :oops:

[Khauruk]

Use pet focus once, when you zone in.  That'll turn it on, and it stays on.

When you use /pet focus repeatedly, you're turning it on and off and on and off, etc,....

[Vidyne]

Pet focus - When I tell you to attack a mob, that mob is put on your hate list with unlimited hate until it dies.

Pet hold - until I give you another "ACTION" to perform, turn attack off and do not pursue targets.

/pet attack is an action.
It breaks pet hold.
Pet focus is a toggle, and is used once per zone, it also breaks pet hold the "one" time it is invoked upon zoning in.

When a mob dies, your pet returns to "searching for target" status... no matter what pet disciplines or pet hold or anything available to beastlords currently.

Petition to soe to have /pet hold toggle on after mob death.. or make it an AA. 

Until then, you have to /pet hold your pet after every single death of a mob you send him on.  He does not pet hold automatically, and aoeing mobs will have generated more hate than any other mobs, and the aggro list does not wipe on mob death either.

You simply have to watch him after every single death of an add and /pet hold, or /pet attack another add.


Personally I probably hit my pet hold key 500 times in an average raid...

[Spiritclaw]

I have /pet back off on my pet hold key as well to lose agro for any damage done.  That way when I have pet attack something new, he doesn't run off and try to focus on something I don't want him to.

[Tigrah]

I concur with spiritclaw. the method I found works most of the time is
/pet hold
/pet back off (sometimes repeated for safety)
have new target
/pet focus
/pet attack

rinse and repeat as needed.

[Nusa]

The previous response shows a basic misunderstanding of how the /pet focus command works. If it's part of an attack hotkey, it will keep toggling the focus on and off every time you hit it, rather than leaving it on. This is the same way "/pet taunt" works. If you watch the messages, you can SEE it happening.

"/pet focus" -- toggles mode. If pet was focused, it becomes unfocused, and vice versa. There is only a toggle action, specifically turning it "on" or "off" is not available like it is with /pet taunt (I've done /feedback on this many times). No other pet commands change the focus mode. When pet is summoned it is off by default. Zoning also turns it off.

"/pet attack" -- in unfocused mode: stick current target on the hate list, then attack the target you hate most ("hate" is affected by range and target health as well as raw hate, so it may not be the mob you have targeted).

"/pet attack" -- in focused mode: stick current target at the top of the hate list and go after it exclusively. Note that once that target goes away, it's going go after the next target on the hate list, if any. For true control, you have to keep giving the pet specific targets.

"/pet hold" -- stop attacking, no matter what is happening. Does NOT wipe hate list, just prevents acting on it until the pet is told to attack again.

"/pet back off" -- wipes hate list.

For raiding, I have this hotkey I hit ONCE whenever I summon a pet or zone to ensure the pet remains in the desired state.
/pet focus
/pet taunt off
/pet hold

[Nusa]

To answer the original poster, /pet hold is canceled permanently as soon as the pet is told to do something. There is no way to make the pet revert automatically to a held state after a mob dies. Get it in the habit of hitting the hold key EVERY time a mob dies, even if it was the last mob. Leaving your pet in a state where an AE will cause your pet to charge off is usually a bad thing for a raid.

[Vidyne]

Before pet focus :

/pet hold
/pet back off

and

/pet back off
/pet attack


after pet focus:

/pet hold
/pet back off

and

/pet attack
technically don't need back off now.


As nusa said, taunt should be off as pets have a chance of overaggroing the MT and not letting them posistion the mob.
Pet focus should be toggled once to ON when zoning in, and never touched again.  There may be some very rare cases that you want taunt on for maybe 40 adds swarming the raid and you want the pet to pick up and tank one... but thats doubtful.  No reason I can think of for pet not to be focused.

/pet focus
/pet taunt off
/pet hold

Yeah I like Nusa's hotkey. 
I do /pet taunt off every pet i summon, and pet hold gets spammed quite often to make "sure" my pet is held.

[hokarz]

take /pet focus off ANY hotkey you are using. It doesn't work like /pet hold, or /pet attack where you need to keep mashing it throughout the fight.

Now I see Nusa's post :) I would be afraid of hitting it accidently during a fight and unfocusing my pet. Screw that.

[Nusa]

That one is a mouse-only hotkey, not a keyboard one...and I'm mainly a keyboard player, so not much chance of an accident. Heck, I'll even TYPE "/pet kill" or "/pet hold" if I need to control the pet while hotkeys are down (during casting mainly).

[Pakratz]

I would give your left nut to have /pet focus work as default state so i won't have to hit my hold key after every friggin kill.

[Vidyne]

Pet focus is a default state.

Once invoked and on, your pet will ALWAYS go after whatever mob you /pet attack until its dead or you issue another pet attack command.  If it kills its target and is not given another.. it is no longer meeting criteria for pet focus(you pressing attack button), and will resort to normal pet operation.. my attack is on, and i am searching for targets i hate.

What you want is a /pet hold "state" after kill.