Animal Handling & Grouping (and some random thoughts)

[kazeandi]

While waiting for the next patch, I tried to get my skills up to snuff for a new series of videos to demonstrate problems with the class. There are, however, things I can just describe to make them clear enough.

On grouping:

The biggest problem for Animal Handling in groups right now is erratic behavior:

Take Dark Chapel, one member of the group pulls, one of the beholder-type mobs (forgot the name, there are similar ones in the Goblin dungeon) shoots an AOE Fireball and my pet runs in.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/8f/87/bf/8f87bf90f4f590e5176a417db33db93e--white-zombie-monster-mash.jpg

Put pulls everything at the next intersection, wipe.

This is a problem, because it makes Animal handlers a security risk in higher level dungeons, where the group relies on good pulling strategies to survive, or when the firepower is barely enough to handle small packs.

This happens in all modes except for "Stay". The pet even runs in if it's set to "Follow".

On control:

If your pet aggros onto something and you want it to aggro another mob, the only way to accomplish it is to have the pet set to "Assist" and attack yourself - and then hope nothing else hits the pet before it reaches the new enemy, which is unlikely. As soon as it's hit, it rotates on the spot to retaliate.

On runspeed:

Pets are extremely slow. Even with only 5 sprint, I lose it all the time and it gets beamed to me. Pets should have the runspeed their master has.

When you send your pet in to attack, it wanders over casually as if to give the monster a friendly slap on the shoulder. It should get a sprint boost on Sic Em use, or as long as it's in combat and fighting for it's life (and that of their master).

On possible bandaids:

Give us a "stop and return to user" button. It has to be a button, because cycling through the modes in the pet control window takes too long and then it's too late and your group wipes and hates you.

[Crissa]

Why aren't pets just faster than players?

I see no reason they shouldn't be. They have to path around, head to and from mobs, etc. There's no way the AI pathfinding is going to be as good as players', and even if it was, it would still have to deal with these side trips necessary to pet actions.

[kazeandi]

Yes, faster run speed and a stop&return button would be really helpful.
This would help with the pet problems in groups and it'd fix the problem that your pet hangs hundreds of meters behind when you need it by your side.

[Feral]

I wholly support having pets be as fast, if not faster, then their master. This is a problem with MMOs and their pet classes. Few get it right but for those that do it can be a fun experience. If not, I find it more frustrating then anything.

[karunama]

I tried to go Necro/AH as my first main skills with my current character, and it was pretty painful to be honest. The problems with pets are many, unfortunately, and their run speed is only one of them. Their AI is problematic, the behavior modes are somewhere between frustrating and useless (what is follow even supposed to do?), pets are quantifiably weaker than using nearly any other skill lines, they are more difficult to use and more expensive than any other skill line except perhaps Archery (I haven't tried it yet, so I can't say one way or the other on fletching) and pets can't be affected by AoE support abilities/heals/buffs further weakening their utility in groups.

I normally love pets, but they need a *lot* of work from what I've seen.

[Gorstak]

I tried to go Necro/AH as my first main skills with my current character, and it was pretty painful to be honest. The problems with pets are many, unfortunately, and their run speed is only one of them. Their AI is problematic, the behavior modes are somewhere between frustrating and useless (what is follow even supposed to do?), pets are quantifiably weaker than using nearly any other skill lines, they are more difficult to use and more expensive than any other skill line except perhaps Archery (I haven't tried it yet, so I can't say one way or the other on fletching) and pets can't be affected by AoE support abilities/heals/buffs further weakening their utility in groups.

I normally love pets, but they need a *lot* of work from what I've seen.


I agree,been 2 years,still waiting on real improvment on ah so i can come back.

[jacksin125]

I've been suggesting 2 buttons to at least use until they actually fix the ai for something like half a year: A attack target button, and a return to user button. I've also suggested allowing them to be bound to a key, because it makes using those buttons easier, and most mmos with pet systems already allow you to bind commands like that to keys. However, I'm not sure I've even gotten a response. Unless the pet system is built terribly from the ground up, I don't think it would be too difficult to code at least a basic version of those buttons in.

[Silvonis]

I've been suggesting 2 buttons to at least use until they actually fix the ai for something like half a year: A attack target button, and a return to user button. I've also suggested allowing them to be bound to a key, because it makes using those buttons easier, and most mmos with pet systems already allow you to bind commands like that to keys. However, I'm not sure I've even gotten a response. Unless the pet system is built terribly from the ground up, I don't think it would be too difficult to code at least a basic version of those buttons in.

We don't plan on committing development time on temporary changes like this for a multitude of reasons. Mainly, because we are in active development.

That said, we have asked for in depth reports regarding issues specifically related to AH but said reports have been far and few in between. If you can capture video to include with your very detailed reports, even better.

Also, as a rule of thumb, when someone says 'xyz shouldn't be time consuming or hard to code' it's a lot more difficult than they think.

[Leodane]

AH might be suffering from bad publicity, which is why input might be so scattered. Most of the threads about AH are about how bad it is...which is going to create a negative feedback loop with fewer people willing to try it, and a negative echo chamber of comments. I had considered trying it, but coming to the forums and reading the threads about it, the AH experience sounds like: I can't effectively control my weak pet, which can't reliably get aggro off me. True or not, that was the impression I was left with.

I don't really know the answer to fix this problem, other than for our devs to engage in more targeted conversations about what is wrong with it (which I think is happening, but the team is so small, there's only so much you can do.)

A solution may be to deputize some folks as "digital devs" or "quality control" or some-such, and incentivize the gathering of data somehow - a forum badge or a special little cosmetic item or a few extra inventory slots or a temporary buff which is bestowed on an account which submits a good bug report. Dunno, just kicking ideas around...it's hard to get good data from a small population about an increasingly infamous bad option which takes significant time to test, especially when no one is expressly assigned to test it.

In the spirit of ending on a positive, keep up the good work =) I haven't felt arrested by a game in such a long time, but I find myself thinking about playing while at work. This experience is special. The solution to AH is there, we just need to find it.

[Khaylara]

I don't particularly refer to AH, it's a general thing determined by the size of the development team. I find that some skillsets are known to be not working too well but they put it on the backburner till they have time to adress it properly.
I personally don't play AH because I find it boring and I avoid classic summoner classes in all games, no matter how OP they happen to be. But! A year ago everyone and their mothers were taming Hissy and everyone was necro (another pet class). Both skillsets were considered OP and here's a small example-my skeleton swordsmen had at lvl 60 (max lvl at that time) and with no mods 1,400 HP! That is triple my HP. People were charming Hissy and soloing elites with it (charming, not even taming in some cases).
As you can probably conclude pets were quite OP so for balance purposes they had to be nerfed. The developer had no time since then to properly focus on the matter (I would imagine they have to prioritize other things like GUI revamp, adding new content, preparing for beta steam launch etc) but I am positive the pets will be reworked in due time. I understand it's frustrating as I miss my skellies but I'm sure they'll see daylight again at some point and that will warm their little undead hearts.
In the meantime my best advice is to try the skillsets that involve pets and focus on selecting the best gear mods to boost pets' HP and defenses and offer as much feedback as possible so when they do get re-worked the devs have at least some idea about what players want from the skill. "Pets suck" might be a true statement atm but it's not very constructive. They need proper reports with level, gear, gear mods, character stats and the actual pets used. I was surprised that someone who used necro and concluded it was bad used mainly the suicidal skeleton mods (they do more damage but they take way more damage)-in which case the gear was what was getting the pets killed not the skillset itself (necro pets are still decent till about level 60).

[jacksin125]

We don't plan on committing development time on temporary changes like this for a multitude of reasons. Mainly, because we are in active development.

That said, we have asked for in depth reports regarding issues specifically related to AH but said reports have been far and few in between. If you can capture video to include with your very detailed reports, even better.

Also, as a rule of thumb, when someone says 'xyz shouldn't be time consuming or hard to code' it's a lot more difficult than they think.

Of course, everything takes a decent amount of time. But when I say it shouldn't take too long it's because I've already programmed a similar feature, albeit on what was probably a simpler ai. As for the lack of bug reports, it's very difficult to post a bug report when most of the system is broken. Sure, you can post reports about the pets randomly stopping every 30 seconds, but fixing that isn't going to fix the fact that the follow ai generally dosn't work well. Honestly, I tried to post a ton of bug reports a while back about everything that was going wrong with pets. Everything from the bug I just said, to the modes (follow, assist, defend), not seeming to actually work differently, to the pets being too weak to compete with mobs of a similar level, to pets pulling the entire room, and having now way to keep them from doing that, etc... I got no response, and have seen few changes to AH & necro, and haven't even seen much about them in blog posts, even though they're one of the most complained about features I see.
Also, as for the two buttons I keep suggesting, those are actually used in finished games, and they work quite well. The only reason I was suggesting them as a temporary fix was because I'm pretty sure you'd want to make it more of a pain to control them than that in the finished game, being as there are things like a loyalty meter.

[Tagamogi]

As for the lack of bug reports, it's very difficult to post a bug report when most of the system is broken. Sure, you can post reports about the pets randomly stopping every 30 seconds, but fixing that isn't going to fix the fact that the follow ai generally dosn't work well. [....] Everything from the bug I just said, to the modes (follow, assist, defend), not seeming to actually work differently, to the pets being too weak to compete with mobs of a similar level, to pets pulling the entire room, and having now way to keep them from doing that, etc...

Yeah, basically all of this. I just decided to give animal handling another try and it was not pretty. I'd sum it up as a mix of unclear/awkward UI, plus bad AI, plus random bugs, plus lack of pet survivability that in combination just drive me crazy.

The last time I played animal handling seriously was about a year and a half ago, prior to the pet armor/health nerfs. The AI at that time really wasn't better, it was just that the pet was so overpowered, it didn't matter much how awkwardly it behaved. Anyway, today I dug some old sword gear and one single ah ring out of my bank, and decided to try farming orcish spell pouches in Kur at 52 sword / 53 animal handling and with a level 50 Fangsworth pet:

My biggest problem was lack of control. I started out with the pet in Assist mode, and as soon as an orc thaumaturge attacked me, my pet ran up to him, pulled 2 more adds and we both died. I ran back to Eltibule to rez the pet.

Next try, my pet and I killed one orc together, then my pet ran after an add, and aggro'd 2 more mobs while I was still looting the first mob. Pet died before I even looked up from looting, and the extra two mobs wandered off, leaving me to finish the original add. I decided to rez the pet on the spot since I didn't want to go back to Eltibule already - it took me 5 tries using up a master first aid kit each time since I didn't have any good kits on me. Immediately after the rez, my pet took off running after the mobs that had killed it and who were not currently aggro'd on either of us. I frantically tried to get my pet window back and changed the mode from assist to follow which seemed to make it run back to me but unfortunately the damage had already been done and the extra mobs killed the pet and then me.

I then figured out that Follow mode seems to generally make the pet not attack when something attacks me, and that I can use Sic 'Em to make it attack the mob on command. Except when that doesn't work. The pet always seems to attack if a mob hits the pet itself instead of me, and sometimes even if the mob only seems to be hitting me. And, sometimes, the pet will just stand by and watch me fight even if I used Sic 'Em. I also ran into an awkward situation when Sic 'Em wasn't up yet and I couldn't remember how to make the pet attack - it probably would have worked if I'd toggled its mode, but since that was on the pet menu instead of on my hot bar, I didn't remember it in the heat of the moment.

I used Get It Off Me a few times. It didn't usually seem to make the pet able to taunt off me, but that was ok. What wasn't ok is that it switched the pet mode to Guard Me which appeared to cause the pet to remain in place when I moved back to the campfire. A couple passing orcs noticed the pet and killed it. Again.

Damage seemed ok'ish. Usually autopsy seemed to put me around 63% damage and the pet at 36%. Given that I only had a single ah ring, I'm willing to pretend that with better ah mods, my pet might have been doing more damage. (I was not using calligraphy to enhance my sword damage, but I had some sword gear mods from my previous sword/shield playing.)

However, ah seems really lackluster compared to sword. There is no supporting skill like calligraphy. I don't really find the ah abilities themselves that exciting either - great, I got 2-3 pet attacks and 2-3 pet heal/damage reduction abilities, but they all have longish cooldowns, the attacks don't necessarily go off, and the defensive skills don't actually seem to do much to help my pet survive. When my pet dies, my whole ah bar becomes immediately useless, and I'm stuck in single combat skill mode until I get my pet rezzed which requires either a number of expensive first aid kits or a trip back to the "nearest" stable. That seems like a very excessive penalty for what is really a not-so-useful pet. ( The following may no longer be applicable, but a year or so ago, I played low level deer / animal handling with a rat, and the summoned deer did more damage, attacked more reliably and was sturdier than my rat. And, if it died, all I had to do was hit the Summon Deer button again. I think that was the final experience that soured me on animal handling last time around.)

Edit: Thinking about this a bit more. I really like how EQ currently handles pets (or 2 years ago, rather, but I don't think it changed.) If I remember correctly, pets would only pull aggro if they attacked something, never just from proximity, which eliminates all kind of pathing awkwardness. I also found the EQ modes of assist/guard/passive quite intuitive (and non-bugged ;) ).
Also, pet control was essentially done through the pet menu, leaving the spell bar free for other things. My big complaint from tonight's ah playing is how useless the whole ah bar becomes once the pet dies. Yes, ah is meant to be pet-focused, but how about some abilities that buff both me and my pet and don't become totally useless once the pet is down? Or more abilities like shrill command? Maybe abilities that cause me to do damage to a mob or heal myself, and buff the pet as a side effect? Or a high cost, long cooldown rez? Or a long cooldown "play dead" ability that causes the pet to lose all aggro, hopefully saving its life once in a while?

[INXS]

Does anyone know how different the AH pet and the BC golem behave? I can't compare since never used AH but are they both running on a same mechanics?

[ShieldBreaker]

Does anyone know how different the AH pet and the BC golem behave? I can't compare since never used AH but are they both running on a same mechanics?

The Golem you program and just have it follow you around waiting for condition of its program to kick in, you can trigger program manually with the trigger ability which is set as that rule's condition. AH pets can get into fights on their own and win, and depending on the mode will attack what you attack or attack what attacks you. Many AH abilities effect how the animal fights, it is more cast clever trick, cast Special Attack. If they are sharing underlying code, could be, but it not obvious that they are. Are they alike in feel of use, diffidently not.

[Tagamogi]

Does anyone know how different the AH pet and the BC golem behave? I can't compare since never used AH but are they both running on a same mechanics?

Mm, I'd say there are some similarities. Both the ah pet and the golem have the tendency to stand a bit away from me, attracting mob proximity aggro I wouldn't get on my own. Occasionally, both the golem and the pet appear content to stay quite a long distance away from me, increasing the wandering mob aggro risk. So, I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be to bring the golem to a group in a difficult dungeon either... I haven't had too many problems with the golem pulling aggro by standing around, but it can happen and I'd hate to wipe a whole group by accident.

I never tried to set up my golem to attack, so I can't compare the similarities there. Of course, one very important difference between the ah pet and the bc golem is that the golem can be helpful in a fight without attacking mobs. ;) I've been pretty happy with the bc golem really - I suspect it of sitting out the occasional fight for random reasons and it can net me the above-mentioned adds, but usually it's pretty well behaved and when it gets aggro, it's sturdier than the ah pet, so it doesn't die right away. If it does die, I can just resummon it. And if my summon is on cooldown, there are lots of other things I can do with bc in the meantime...

[karunama]

They need proper reports with level, gear, gear mods, character stats and the actual pets used. I was surprised that someone who used necro and concluded it was bad used mainly the suicidal skeleton mods (they do more damage but they take way more damage)-in which case the gear was what was getting the pets killed not the skillset itself (necro pets are still decent till about level 60).

I've tried what you're suggesting. In fact, my personal favorite playstyle while soloing is as a full summoner/support. I love the idea of being a general that can empower his troops. At lvl 50, as Necro/AH, I ran a set of gear that was exclusively modded for pets. Keep in mind that I typically solo, and used Kur Tower and the Werewolf Cave for most of my testing. While it was a drop set I farmed in Kur Tower for the most part, nearly all the mods were +to pet survival, aggro generation or damage. The problems I found were several fold. (Caveat: I mostly tested this before the recent changes to Clever Trick and only briefly afterwards as I had mostly given up on pets and moved onto other skill lines. As such, I won't go too in depth regarding AH pet damage aside from what little I've seen post patch.)

First off, while the idea of 'Get it Off Me' changing your pet's behavior sounds cool, in reality it's terribly impractical. In particular, I've had my PBear simply drop target completely and refuse to fight until I either manually change his behavior back or am targeted myself. Using Sic 'em or Clever Trick to get it to fight my target is very hit or miss. Assuming he actually carries out the command (often he won't due to what is commonly thought to be a pathing issue) I have had him use it and then not actually fight anymore until, again, either i manually change his behavior or I'm being attacked.

Secondly, Even with every +Skeleton Damage, +Skeleton Swordsman Damage or +dmg during provoke undead mod (including the ones that do flat damage to the skeletons after a duration, but excluding the ones that make them take extra damage or instantly die from certain damage types), the Skeletal Swordsman generally can't do any damage at all to level 50 or higher mobs due to armor mitigation. Since most of the +aggro mods are +%s, that means they're still causing 0 aggro generation. I refuse to use the +damage and damage received mods for two reasons; First I want them to tank for me, and fragile tanks are not tanks at all. Doubly so if nature damage one shots them >_>;.

For the second reason; Skeleton archers and *especially* mages are already incredibly squishy. Archers aren't terribly useful for anything, but they do manage to do a small amount of damage to most enemies that are level appropriate with them and don't grab too much aggro if I keep Wave of Darkness on my bar and watch their hp like a hawk for when i need to hit it and grab things off them. If I fail to pull off of them using a modded up Wave of Darkness/Life Steal combo, which is rare but does happen (unless I'm fighting Undead and don't have them on my bar at all) they die after 8-12 seconds in a 1v1 with most mobs. Using both heals from necro, they may live long enough for me and the pets to kill their target. Mages do get aggro often and quickly, thanks to their reasonable damage and AoE capabilities. They die instantly though, since they have no armor, and there is (to my knowledge) only one mod that can give them a higher max armor. The amount the mod gives is tiny and irrelevant in the end, since they still die faster than they can be healed or have aggro pulled from them.

In both Animal Handling and Necromancy, healing pets is extremely problematic. AH has one heal, Necro has two, and you can mod up a few abilities in AH to provide small amounts of armor or healing, but some of those heal *you*, not the pet, making them totally meaningless. The biggest issue with pet classes is that they wrap all of their combat capability into the pet. If my bear dies, I die. Even if you argue that that lets me run, there is no arguing that once my pets are gone, the fight is over. Even with Armor Patching and First Aid, keeping your pets alive after you're ready to start soloing parts of Goblin Dungeon is extremely difficult, and never gets easier. That said, healing is never easy in PG, so that may be a conscious design decision. That said, other than what I mentioned above, the only abilities that actually heal pets are; Healing Sigils, as from Sigil Scripting or Druid's Healing Sanctuary and single target heals. All of the party based/multi-target heal/buff/support abilities do *not* actually hit pets (caveat: Haven't tested BC, so it may be an exception). Coincidentally, while AH has one heal and several mods that add tiny heals or mitigation to pets, Necromancy is the opposite; the advantage of two heals is offset by the fact that many of the pet mods make those pets flimsier, not tougher.

As I mentioned above, dead pets end your current fight, but getting them back in time for the next fight is not reasonably possible. In necromancy's case, much of the hassle can be sidestepped with enough prep time... as long as you can get back to the dungeon entrance where you made your impromptu graveyard. They died in the overworld of kur? You're screwed. Make a new graveyard at the zone entrance or run to Eltibule's Crypts. The femurs add an extra bit of annoyance to the experience. Even so, AH is far worse. I've used 10 Master's First Aid kits in a row to try and revive my pet, which is a considerable expense, followed by having to leave the dungeon anyway and go all the way back to Hogan's Keep or Serbule to pay to have him revived. That experience goes far beyond frustrating. 'Rage-Inducing' is not strong enough either. I'll get back to you when I find a term that fully encompasses the absolute seething hatred I feel when I waste over 3000 councils and 20 minutes or more just to revive my pet only to immediately have him die again for some incredibly stupid reason as soon as I *finally* get back.

Animal Handling pets still do very low damage from what little I saw post patch. I don't have a Hissy to test, so I can't speak to that, but even with a huge +% aggro generation mod and +direct damage, my PBear still has a tough time holding aggro since he doesn't hit very hard at all. In particular, the regular, non-tamed PBears still hit much harder than he does, something which has always bothered me, especially since they're lower level than him now. Normally, dedicated combat training should make an animal *more* deadly than its wild counterparts, not far less as is the case currently.

Zombies are trash. I can't be nice about this. There is literally no other way to put it. The only way I could see using a zombie effectively is if you added a pet attack button you could then send him into a mob to get them all to group up real nice so you can AoE them down. Create Super Zombie actually makes the zombies worse, not better, which is quite frankly amazing. I honestly cannot grasp the purpose of a tank type pet that dies faster than it can be healed *out of combat*, so if the devs actually had a purpose in mind for this PoS, I would love to hear it. I was planning to finish this post with a list of the things that are *good* about these skill lines and their pets, but zombies won't be in that list. They are just terrible. Honestly, if they exploded and did a lot of damage when they died, that would make sense, but as-is, they just putter around between using the razors to cut their pain away every few seconds like the useless emo kids they may as well be.

The pet behaviors... I can't decide if too much has been said about them already or if it's a case of 'not enough can ever be said', but I imagine the devs are at least aware of how bad they are so I'll leave it at that for now, since this post is already pretty long.

Pet Tanks have no AoE. This is a huge issue. Tanks, pets or otherwise, *cannot* function effectively without AoE aggro grabs. For player tanks, tab targeting can mitigate this issue somewhat. Pet tanks on the other hand are more automated and lack the ability to discern when they need to switch targets in order to maintain a flagging aggro level.

Necromancy is forced to fight many *MANY* undead in order to farm bones, but has zero means of effectively doing so, unless you count 'compete with lowbies in the Serbule Crypts and hope your mages don't get killed by mobs 40 levels lower than they are... again'.

Good points about the two skill lines:
First; PBears do look and feel very sturdy with the right mods on your gear and judicious use of AH abilities. Are they sturdy enough to do their job? That's a bit harder to say, and a lot of issues come from not having good healing for them, but they're still much sturdier than I am, which is how a pet tank is *supposed* to look.
Second; The skeleton stun is surprisingly useful in a lot of situations, and a mod that lowers their max rage so they can use it more often makes it feel very good to use indeed. This could easily be the one situation in which pets are still OP.
Third; While the pets in Necromancy are incredibly suspect, as long as you're fighting non-undead, it's surprisingly easy to build for +dmg to your personal abilities in necromancy in order to have rather decent, even possibly end-game viable dps. Wave of Darkness and Life Steal in particular are incredibly easy to make deal ridiculous amounts of damage. The addition of a fear and a movement restriction power make for a well rounded, even powerful toolset in any non-undead related situation.

[Tagamogi]

This is rather late, but I played bat/necro during UI preview release #1 , and just wanted to make a quick and hopefully not too out-of-date post about the pet UI/AI:

1. I really liked the new pet UI, its buttons and its new hover tooltips that explained to me precisely how my pet would act if I selected a particular mode. This definitely takes care of the "unclear UI" I complained about before. :)

2. None of the pet modes allowed me to pick how I want my pet to act. In particular, I want the pet to not retaliate if it is attacked. I think having a pet that fights to defend itself when it is attacked is realistic but it's generally also the worst strategic fighting choice possible since the pet is unaware of concepts like "keep running until we lose aggro", "don't attack that mob in the back because it will call its 20 friends" or "don't attack because then I can't pull aggro off you and you'll die".

3. The pet doesn't always follow the selected mode. One specific example I remember is fighing in the entrance of the boarded-up basement with 2 skeleton mage pets out and in Follow Mode. My party member and I were fighting a couple melee goblins, then a goblin caster wandered up and joined the fight. I believe the goblin cast a fireball at my party member - I'm not very good at picking up on floaty numbers, so without a combat log it's hard to tell. I'm positive neither of my pets lost any health though, which seems it should mean they did not get attacked. However, at least one of my mage pets then began attacking the goblin caster which of course meant the caster called for help and we wiped. In general, my skeleton mages seemed happy to attack anything that moved in the Boarded-Up Basement, no matter if I had them on Follow or Assist.

I'm not planning on doing much more with pet classes in the near future (too much other stuff keeping me busy for now), so I just wanted to post this before I forget about it.

[Vyanie]

I agree with you completely, it feels as if they intend pets to be throw away because of how bad they are but they put an extreme punishment in place if you try to use the mechanic as such. If they do not want pets to be throw away then considering you are sacrificing your bar (and sanity because of aggro and such) then these things need to be just as strong or nearly as strong as a full player as now you become a support tool for the main focus (the pet). This is especially true as you have almost zero control over the things once the fight starts. or even before that as they tend to aggro anything by taking ... lets just say "strange" pathing.

[kazeandi]

Roughly one year has passed since I started this thread. AH pets now have Bond, which makes them more survivable (damage is still on the low side, but not extremely bad anymore).

However, 2 things are still in effect that cause problems:


Pets don't always seem to follow their mode: Follow seems to act more like Assist; Assist has my pet run off to retaliate; Guard has my pet run off to retaliate
When I set my pet to Stay, I rely on SicEm / Get it Off Me, which doesn't always work (seems like the pet can't find a path to the target), then it stands still.


What I think the pet modes should do:

- Follow should mean a pet stays close to you and does not fight at all unless ordered to do so.
- Guard Me should work as is now, it's pretty much what you'd expect it to be.
- Assist should mean your pet only attacks what you attack - nothing else. No retaliation, no running in when a ranged mob fires at you or the pet.

Also, pets should have a leash you can set as a player. If you set it to, say, 10, your pet never runs further away than 10 steps.

[Vyanie]

Pets might look more tanky but they are really not, this is exaggerated by the fact that damage is extremely low and you don't have much control over it. Click sic em, pet attacks one of the things it is in combat with randomly.... I compare this damage with other combat skills I have and it is beyond low, my unarmed kills immensely faster for mobs in wolf cave, knife is even faster, all the while hissy is fighting one mob ive killed 4-6 other ones in the same time, this should not happen, in addition ive now had to waste power to heal my pet because its doing piddly damage to the mob and taking a lot of damage from it., ohh and this is in all armor that benefits my pet only, not my other skills. Balance should be looked at based on how it compares to other combat skills, not to what a person might think "feels" appropriate just because its a pet. if you have taken the time to get what is supposed to be a high dps pet then you should be able to output the same dps as other high damage combat abilities, not do the same dps or lower than psychology and feel proud.

[Niph]

You can gear up to have a pet tanking, just not any of them, and it won't be the best tank. See my post: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?1373-Thoughts-about-Animal-Handling&p=11175&viewfull=1#post11175.

[Vyanie]

You can gear up to have a pet tanking, just not any of them, and it won't be the best tank. See my post: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?1373-Thoughts-about-Animal-Handling&p=11175&viewfull=1#post11175.

you say this, but as someone who has all pieces of gear setup for pet, a lvl 60 hissy cant even do well in goblin dungeon, sure 1 at a time vs a solo goblin if you can hopefully bodypull before pet gets stupid and dives into a room full of mobs, problem is... pets are beyond retarded, you fight 5 mobs it hits each mob 1 time each and cycles through them all instead of focusing, you have no way to EVER force it to focus one target, try out the red area with a pet.... you cant. pet hits crystal 1 time then spins around being stupid and waiting to die instead of hitting the ONE thing that you want it to attack. As i said before all of my gear is pet focused, i have 2 pieces that also add knife fighting to include pet, KF has outdamaged pet since lvl 20, pet refused to even keep attacking mobs, hits once ... then runs back to you and wont attack again unless you order it like 5 times to attack, by then you are dead because pet aggro is so wonky you can stand next to pet and do NOTHING and you still gain aggro over your pet. Add in the fact if you do manage to kill something pet continues to attack a dead body for 5-10 seconds making you count as still in combat so you cant regen power, slowing you, or your party down to a crawl, and if a miracle happens and your pet attacks then it dies... ok well yeah you can revive, I have a 42% chance to revive pet.... 27 kits later im running back to a town to pay to have a the stupid thing revived. thats not just bad rng, considering it costs a kit it should be 100%. If for some reason the stars align and it doesnt die and attacks something then... ohh wait you doing NOTHING and the mob comes after you... even with your pet doing +200% aggro for its damage and your not doing anything except maybe a single wild endurance and the initial sic em, ok cool this ability called get it off me, does nothing except switch your pet from assist to guard mode (contrary to what it says) or doesn't even do that if for some reason your pet is 20.01 meters away but it DOES waste power and go on CD just like every other ability

[Raviollius]

As i said before all of my gear is pet focused
Not all gear mods are created equal.

What mods do you have, exactly?

[Vyanie]

every piece has some form of the following, increase direct damage with each attack, sic em boosts pets slashing, armor absorbency, enthusiasm, recover armor every 5 seconds, pet taunt as if they did additional damage, max hp, max armor and bypass mitigation, if i hit a mob 3 times i will ALWAYS have aggro over the pet, and it cant get it back. my knife is now 45 and MUCH higher damage than my 60 hissy, with almost no mods on knife. the damage difference with bear is even worse and it only takes 1 -2 hits and i have aggro. rat is.... just ........ bad. If it is a boss type mob, say flower child in sunvale if I am standing NEAR the mob while pet is attacking the mob will stop attacking pet and focus on me when the only 2 skills I have used, once each were wild endurance and the pet heal.

even better, how many other skills just refuse to work? like a pet that refuses to attack? or stops attacking in the middle of a fight to come back to you and sit there until mob hits it 5-8 times until it goes "ohh im getting hit maybe i should hit back?!" or the always fun, hit sic em 10 times pet still refuses to leave your feat.... ok fine go and attack mob yourself 1 time and pet is unable to ever pull aggro from you again. The most ive been up to between sic em and clever trick trying to get my pet to attack something was 43 times.... wanted to see how long it would refuse to attack.

[Vyanie]

For some reason the pet aggro seems to have been getting worse of the past few weeks. What i mean by pet aggro is the pet actively attacking a mob. it seems to only like to attack for 2-3 seconds now before comming back to you, taking massive damage along the way because it seems NONE of its defenses are activating (almost like its vulnerable). I WANT the damn pet to stick to mobs.... not come back to me like a retarded puppy, maybe im trying to be ranged with a pet, maybe im trying to duck out of a rage ability like an ogre breaking bones aoe garbage...... the fact that the pet disengages and follows me until i hit an ability then hits the mob once and spins around doing nothing, or turns around and comes back to me yet AGAIN is ludicrous.

[Raviollius]

every piece has some form of the following, increase direct damage with each attack, sic em boosts pets slashing, armor absorbency, enthusiasm, recover armor every 5 seconds, pet taunt as if they did additional damage, max hp, max armor and bypass mitigation

Try this: use Get It Off Me BEFORE you start the fight, set the pet manually to assist mode(don't worry about the duration, GIOF has 30 sec duration and CD, you can have 100% uptime), aggro the mob then use monstrous rage and sic 'em. Report results.

Btw, report how much bond level, happiness and enthusiasm your pets have. Iirc, one of the three is supposed to make this behaviour(coming back to you rather than continue attacking) either stop happening or only doing so very rarely, at high levels. It might be bugged.

[Vyanie]

Try this: use Get It Off Me BEFORE you start the fight, set the pet manually to assist mode(don't worry about the duration, GIOF has 30 sec duration and CD, you can have 100% uptime), aggro the mob then use monstrous rage and sic 'em. Report results.

Btw, report how much bond level, happiness and enthusiasm your pets have. Iirc, one of the three is supposed to make this behaviour(coming back to you rather than continue attacking) either stop happening or only doing so very rarely, at high levels. It might be bugged.
I have tried get it off me before hand... Seems to be a waste of power. At the moment I have 3 different hissy for testing, one with almost Max bond and happiness, one middle of road and one that...hates life. All 3 have the exact same ai stupidity. For having to both cost more AND having way more to work on than other abilities I'm sorry pets are trash. Good example I send pet in to attack the desert slug, have it hit for 10+ seconds using sic em, and get off me, I then go in hit mob 3-5 times and I am now the 100% focus of the mob and nothing the pet can do will save me. In addition about half the time the damn pet just stops attacking and sits there looking stupid. I've tried swapping pets out and doing the fight with only pets....nope to much power drain and also after you dismiss first pet second cant get aggro back you die

[Raviollius]

That's hella weird behavior, and likely something to do with KF itself doing too much aggro. You said it got even worse recently, and KF jus got a big buff with DoTs hitting harder in less time.

[Vyanie]

That's hella weird behavior, and likely something to do with KF itself doing too much aggro. You said it got even worse recently, and KF jus got a big buff with DoTs hitting harder in less time.
Not so much since the kf buff but since the little patches. Pets should only stop attacking if you specifically tell them to. ATM pets have worse AI than mobs. Besides the AI being stupid a 60+ damage specific pet with literally all of the pet damage+ bypass mods and high to Max bond should not lose out in damage vs kf and 1-2 mods that is 20+ levels lower than it. Even worse try and bring the pet to a fast dungeon group, the thing being so slow, both in movement and to attack and the pet running away I have been told to swap AH to anything else or just use shrill command and desummon the pet.

[Dzikun]

I have recently come back to game. In pre alpha i was Necro/AH minion master and it was fine in open word/solo play but in groups/dungons as OP said its horrible. Pets are too slow and they dont have good stance for dungeons. I know its alpha and game have lags, but Can you pls give us temporary "be close to owner" stance so if pet go beyond 15-20m he teleports back to owner.

After two years this game still have lag and will have it (i never played mmo on unity without lag/desync). Im playing now Archer/BC and have new "experience" with this golem pet. So this pet is so slow he need to teleport back to me every few sec, but because of lags he teleport to me, but 30m behind so hes buffs like "haste conection" is useless, he throws it behiond on the ground. Pets need to have owner movemend speed + 30%, give it temporary and if you fix lags, you can always remove it.

My conclusion is pets are in really bad shape, I dont know what ideas you have to fix it, but you can always do temporary easy QoL fixes for players playing this game in alpha. And pets are big part of this game ~5 classes have it.

sry for my bad eng

[Gorstak]

Has there been eny improvments to ah skill since last year,is it viable or still neglected,cas frankly if they would make it fun skill i would gladly return playing?

[Mbaums]

I want to add some stuff after going all in for AH. It started because I didnt think ANYTHING could work AH. I wanted to see how far I could take it. Everyone told me not to do it, and that the pet would just be a liability. But I've come to see it as a damage over time build that is strong single target DPS. And I am planning on gearing up a second AH build (eventually) because I like what it can do.


Looking at the pets Sic Em and Clever Trick is really important. These 2 skills are like two totally diverse abilities you can swap out with each pet. The best two IMO are the cats with a slashing debuff and the sewer rat with the poison debuff. Just because of the pet's temperament, it's place is in long fights. I'm not sure if people have noticed, but ALL NPC's will tend to swing at dead corpses. This is a non pet specific flaw. My build treats it like ranged slashing DPS. And the GK cat, for my build, blows hissy away. The GK cat debuffs slashing and only deals slashing, so the synergy with mentalism is practically screaming at you. If you get anchor runes, you can unload serious DPS vs bosses. You'll need at least two healing abilities for the pet at all times if you run with unnatural wrath, you can bring the heat. It's like having a second monstrous rage. Only problem is getting anchor runes and deciding which NPCs are worthy of burning one.

The other build I was thinking of was a poison knife build with the sewer rat with his poison debuff. AH would be more of a background type of ability, but it could work well. The build in total could debuff poison damage by ~50%, which is outrageous.

*edit*
This post is glowing about AH but there are flaws:
1) the drop rate of anchor runes is nuts. It's very boom or bust, but the bright side of the farm is you'll get so many WOP #3 (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=3) 's youll feel like a boss. But I'd honestly recommend work orders paying 700-800C per each.
2) Pet aggro is bugged. I didnt test anything with aggro since the last patch, but the pet wouldnt hold aggro unless it has 90%+ aggro on the autopsy. This might be part of a bigger problem, I have seen % aggro on autopsies where the NPC's actual target did not match up in a fairly large admin-spawned event. I have not figured out a way to really test this because autopsy isnt 100%. (The issue I've seen is NPC attacks second highest aggro person vs the first).
3) You cannot use any of the auto assist/ auto target features with sic 'em/clever trick because you'll get an error message "invalid target".

[Gorstak]

I want to add some stuff after going all in for AH. It started because I didnt think ANYTHING could work AH. I wanted to see how far I could take it. Everyone told me not to do it, and that the pet would just be a liability. But I've come to see it as a damage over time build that is strong single target DPS. And I am planning on gearing up a second AH build (eventually) because I like what it can do.


Looking at the pets Sic Em and Clever Trick is really important. These 2 skills are like two totally diverse abilities you can swap out with each pet. The best two IMO are the cats with a slashing debuff and the sewer rat with the poison debuff. Just because of the pet's temperament, it's place is in long fights. I'm not sure if people have noticed, but ALL NPC's will tend to swing at dead corpses. This is a non pet specific flaw. My build treats it like ranged slashing DPS. And the GK cat, for my build, blows hissy away. The GK cat debuffs slashing and only deals slashing, so the synergy with mentalism is practically screaming at you. If you get anchor runes, you can unload serious DPS vs bosses. You'll need at least two healing abilities for the pet at all times if you run with unnatural wrath, you can bring the heat. It's like having a second monstrous rage. Only problem is getting anchor runes and deciding which NPCs are worthy of burning one.

The other build I was thinking of was a poison knife build with the sewer rat with his poison debuff. AH would be more of a background type of ability, but it could work well. The build in total could debuff poison damage by ~50%, which is outrageous.

*edit*
This post is glowing about AH but there are flaws:
1) the drop rate of anchor runes is nuts. It's very boom or bust, but the bright side of the farm is you'll get so many WOP #3 (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=3) 's youll feel like a boss. But I'd honestly recommend work orders paying 700-800C per each.
2) Pet aggro is bugged. I didnt test anything with aggro since the last patch, but the pet wouldnt hold aggro unless it has 90%+ aggro on the autopsy. This might be part of a bigger problem, I have seen % aggro on autopsies where the NPC's actual target did not match up in a fairly large admin-spawned event. I have not figured out a way to really test this because autopsy isnt 100%. (The issue I've seen is NPC attacks second highest aggro person vs the first).
3) You cannot use any of the auto assist/ auto target features with sic 'em/clever trick because you'll get an error message "invalid target".

Yes thats what i dont like about this developers,if they even maked such complex skill then they should maked it worth using same as all other skillls and not putting it aside with every update and keeping it as a ghost skill which only disapoints new players thinking its a fun and worth skill,it was worth skill before theyy nerfed it without reason.

[Mbaums]

Yes thats what i dont like about this developers,if they even maked such complex skill then they should maked it worth using same as all other skillls and not putting it aside with every update and keeping it as a ghost skill which only disapoints new players thinking its a fun and worth skill,it was worth skill before theyy nerfed it without reason.

I think we're misunderstanding each other. I'm saying I believed the anti-AH talk initially and saw it wasnt true. There are some rules Eric seems to follow with skills. Rule 1: "Easy to start, hard to finish" and Rule 2: "Skills meant for mid-to-late game (experienced) players". The experienced player skills would be like battle chem, fairly serious require to unlock it, requires a lot of council after that. AH is really easy to start and really hard to finish. You show up in town, pay some council and boom, you got the skill. Boring unlock, but simple. When you level it, you also have to level a pet, at when you switch pets you take a step back to take a step forward. I think over the past year AH saw a great deal of love with a change in their happiness system and pet crit rate. Overall, I think it's worth using.

[Gorstak]

I think we're misunderstanding each other. I'm saying I believed the anti-AH talk initially and saw it wasnt true. There are some rules Eric seems to follow with skills. Rule 1: "Easy to start, hard to finish" and Rule 2: "Skills meant for mid-to-late game (experienced) players". The experienced player skills would be like battle chem, fairly serious require to unlock it, requires a lot of council after that. AH is really easy to start and really hard to finish. You show up in town, pay some council and boom, you got the skill. Boring unlock, but simple. When you level it, you also have to level a pet, at when you switch pets you take a step back to take a step forward. I think over the past year AH saw a great deal of love with a change in their happiness system and pet crit rate. Overall, I think it's worth using.

And thats why cas the skill is so worth ur not using it and not even playing the game.

[Solence]

Hello everyone. I am new and liked the AH skill right away, despite what I had seen veterans saying about it in Global chat, etc. So, my main skillset is AH and Fire Magic, with Mentalism close behind these two, along with Psychology. I have Necro skill, but as yet I have not used it at all, because I am so distracted with a ton of other things and have a limited amount of time to commit, for now. I laugh because I am still online and playing Gorgon allot!

The following is a [/I]Personal Opinion[/I] and not a critique of anyone, or the methods they may prefer while grouping in a dungeon or blasting for Skill Experience. It is just what I have found so far, that works for me.

My personal "fix" to the erratic behavior of our AH Pets is to Guard Me, then watch the attack sequence - especially when there are adds. In my short time playing, I have only grouped a few times, with pet, but in these circumstances I have used Sleep button, to stay my Pet until I return to the area I want to battle in, then I hit Assist Button. Only after I have managed the pull I intend do I send in the pet to attack. In groups where another is pulling, I stay my pet until I can assist the one that most people are on. I know we all like AoE and Burst for the fast Experience this gives, but we lose learning tactical advantages by depending on these techniques, and therefore we do not advance a skill that can be really advantageous in a group, when using AH.

I have tried to use High Pet Taunt mods on items that I have found, so that it helps keep me alive to finish the fight. I am not always successful, but using Fire Magic usually works well to help with this. Bring them to The Fire Wall, watch them burn, while having a mod item that allows the Fire Wall to heal you, as well as one that boosts Fire Wall hit points. (In my limited experience, I have still found and kept items that have these advantages.)

If the battle is going badly and I am out of power or heal for pet, I dismiss pet, attempt to run out of range, recall pet and attack again... yes, this is allot of button pushing and situational awareness that most people would never want to bother with, as well as being only suitable for soloing.

Now, I am entering my third week, so feel free to scoff and bash at my newness, my ignorance. All I can tell you is yes, AH has a bad reputation from what others have mentioned in this thread, because we want to sit back and let the pets take us for a great ride. There have been some really good suggestions for making our pets better and I hope that some will be seriously considered, so that the people playing AH skill, will be rewarded for hanging in there.

I am hanging in there, while I continue to enjoy the Animal Handlers "Off Leash" Nightmare.

Enjoy the sunrises and celebrate the sunsets,


Solence