Warders: The root of all evil

[shenker]

I have had just the opposite happen to me actually and thats why I changed it to how it is now /shrug guess I just had some strange crap happen to me.

[Hrann]

Most bsts I know have their Hold key macroed as:

/pet hold
/pet back off

The reason is that Hold just stops the pet from doing anything, it doesn't affect its hate list at all.  Back off wipes the pet's hate list, so next time you tell him to attack, he atacks who you want and not that other creature who has built up a ton of hate on him.

Puting back off first is will also usually work because of the speed at which these commands are issued after each other, but it logically makes more sense to put it last.  This is because you want to wipe his hate list last - it will give him more of a chance to get out of the fray.  If you do it first, there is a theoretical possibility that the pet could be hit after the back off command, thus leaving him with a small amount of hate.

In reality, since we are talking about such small possibilities, it works either way.

[shenker]

If you do it first, there is a theoretical possibility that the pet could be hit after the back off command, thus leaving him with a small amount of hate.

Well I have seen it happen with /pet hold last but like I said maybe it was just some strange circumstances but it caused me to change how I had it setup.

[Hrann]

What I meant by "it", was /pet back off, not /pet hold.  Putting back off last slightly lessens the chance of the pet having hate after the commands (since by definition, you have wiped his hate list later).  Also, I suppose there's the very unlikely possibility that the pet could be hit and strike back in the sliver of time between commands if you issue /pet back off first.

[TerjynPovar]

Your responses if anything have gotten me even more confused.

When I use /pet hold, fluffy stops attacking and backs off.  How could it do that if it still had hate?

Are you telling me if I just do /pet hold and then issue any other command, fluffy will charge back into the fight because it still has hate built up?

[Hrann]

Fluffy does still have hate, but he won't do anything because you've told him to hold.  In fact, if something continues to hit him while he's on hold, he will continue to build hate for that thing.

Here's what could happen if you don't do /pet back off:
Mob_01 is doting/bashing/smacking the crap out of fluffy.  You do /pet hold - pet comes to you.  An add comes - you then target the add and do /pet attack.  Fluffy will attack Mob_01 because he still hates that guy more than the one you told him to attack.

[TerjynPovar]

Ahh, interesting.  And now I see why this has almost never come up...I primarily use pet hold for repositioning and then send him back in on the same mob as before...in which case it doesn't matter.

Thanks for the answer. :)

[Scalewulf]

Yeah, to sum it up.

/pet hold makes pet not attack and that is all.

/pet back off clears pets agro until it is hit again (you need to /pet back off again if pet gets hit after /pet back off)

These are my macros

/pet hold
/pet follow me

/pet hold
/pet guard here

/pet back off
/pet attack

With this setup, it allows me to clear pets agro before I send her to attack something, assuring that she has no residual agro from getting beat on or taking AE's while being held.  When I send my pet, it goes to the target I intend it to go to.  Hope that helps.   :wink:

[sarjent]

hmm  guess I am confused now.  I could of sworn that any command given to a pet after /pet hold would cause the hold to be removed.  If thats not the case then cool, makes my life easier hehe :)

[Ghoat]

You just use /hold & then go afk, what diff does it make? ;)

[Hrann]

Yeah sarjent, as far as I know, only /pet attack breaks the hold, although I don't think I've tried all of them.

[Mirna]

Your responses if anything have gotten me even more confused.

When I use /pet hold, fluffy stops attacking and backs off.  How could it do that if it still had hate?

Are you telling me if I just do /pet hold and then issue any other command, fluffy will charge back into the fight because it still has hate built up?

Not after just any command.. But imagine having adds who pick on you and your warder, naturally, goes after them. Using only /pet hold will have him charge that same mob that attacked you (who should  be under controll of add-tanks now) once you tell it to attack again, instead of your own target.

[Silresa]

As far as Elemental raids, I -always- use my pet, even in water. If you pay attention and watch, your pet can be extremely beneficial with pushes in water, especially with how screwy some things are. NPCs have that advantage of never being out of range when they don't want to be, and seeing mobs when we really can't. ;)

And, as mentioned up a bit, in the case of Blazzax.. Push isn't that big of a deal. Unless your clerics have a CHeal range of 300 with an extra extension in there somewhere, there is NO way they'll be avoiding his AE, Nova Inferno, since it's PBAE with a 300 range. And really, I don't think there's any added "risk" of pushing because of pets.. No more risk than some rogue, ranger, Shadowknight or any other player who isn't paying attention to what side they're swinging from.

In fact, in fights like Blazzax, Grihlion, Babnoxis and so forth.. Pets are, in some ways, better than player Melees.. They're alot easier to keep going, at least, with Protection of Calliav (Which I have come to find is just about the most useful spell ever put in. :D I was a bit skeptical at first, but it's proven so immensely useful.. Saves me ALOT of time from healing and curing my pet from AEs.)

But, back to the main topic.. I personally feel it is an issue of pet ignorance, and I obviously agree with Ghoat and others.. Pets should always be viable and usable in most any situation, regardless. If your pet classes are halfway knowledgeable and paying attention there should be no issues. None at all. The key is paying attention.

And I have found that mages and necros often times will just throw their pet at the mob and see what happens, but granted it is alot easier for us to position, since we're up in melee range, anyways, so that's an understandable sort of thing.

People that know enough about pets, know that it isn't all their fault.. And in my opinion, warriors should be thankful for the aggro our pets help them build. I won't go into depth on my opinions with that, since it's off topic.. But even now, in Elementals and against Sol Ro minis and whatnot, my pet is STILL the first one summoned if I mob gates or moves out of MT range by much.

And once again, responding to an earlier post.. I always engage my pet as soon as possible.. Every proc of rellic is 50 hate direct, stun hate and 155 DD hate, all of which the MT can take advantage of without any chance at all of losing aggro to the pet as long as they're in range. What's more, if my understanding of Taunt is correct, the pet taunting will boost their aggro to the MT's, and then further subsequent procs and damage will only further add to that, which once again can lead to being a sizable boon for the MT keeping aggro.

In my opinion, it's like archery.. The MT engages and the rangers start bowing.. Why not throw the pets in? They can't take aggro from the MT while he's in range, so do damage while you can.

[mrowrr]

5 beasts in my guild and we're time flagged, from day one POP till time we all have had pets on ever raid as long as pet hold was used as a control.

There has been no more push from our pets than any other class in the guild.  In fact everyone is to blame for push including casters and here's why I say that.

Because in Fennin Ro's case to properly place that bad boy so he stays in one position requires all casters to face a certain direction to cast to move him based on someone calling off which direction to cast.  This directs where Fro is going to position himself, this is done strictly with spells(note not pushing spells but regular spells direct damage spells that cause him to move).  Face away from Fro you pull him to you when you cast, face toward him you push him away.   The dynamics of push can be equally attributed to casters causing minute push as an individual and on a larger scale such as a group of wizards or druids, you get enough casters facing a mob and tossing their largest spells and you'll see a mob jump and leap at times.  I don't see how blaming pets is anymore applicable than blaming a wizard team who's intent on tossing everything they got on some mob.

Of course you can get into equilibrium and push and why my guild has a "Be The Sperm" policy(don't ask I'm sure you can figure it out).  Where we all are to surround certain mobs, but suffice it to say, if one area thins out a bit the mobs going in that direction.  

Push is a fact of life that's why they made walls in everquest, in most cases and I'll say 9.5 out of 10 times you will have a mob walled with a shrunk MA with 40 melee trying to keep it pinned in some corner.  So saying you can't have pets up is ludicrous.

Tests have been done as well, case in point:  2nd Giant in the Agnarr script, requires that a single MA fights the giant while the rest of the raid does range damage.  In this case we place 4-5 beastlord pets behind the mob to offset push.  Everytime we have done this event our pets have had the mob pushed over them, only thing attributable to that sort of push is the MA(highly unlikely a single person can push over 4-5 pets), or the ton of spell and range damage is overwhelmingly pushy?  In theory though if what your guild is saying is right, the pets should have pushed the mob over the MA to the casters and totally fucked up the fight :)   Sorry I'll repeat, pets don't push anymore than anyone else and in fact I think their push is negligable in the grander scheme of push theories.

[Bryc]

or the ton of spell and range damage is overwhelmingly pushy?

It's the spell damage. A surprising number of spells cause small amounts of knockback. Scorpion Venom is one of them, it causes about 1/10 the pushback of a Cleric stun. 10 bsts could push a mob all over just chaining Scorp.

Look at Lucy, and check the raw spell data for the "pushback" field.