Issues with New Kill Command

[Rawr]

1st off the new range is great but they took away the single best function of KC and that is my pet can KC something Im not targeting. Example, the Generals in DS on heroic, I can put my pet on Passive (the only stance that seems to work right for me but thats for another post) then send it on on the General (either one) while I run after eyeball stalks and slime bubbles, all while hitting KC and not having my pet move from his spot. With the new KC it seems that my pet can't use it unless I have a target and he will always run to that target to use it, even if he was already targeting something right in front of him. Example, I tell my pet to go after some random mob, he starts biting away, I unselect all targets and hit KC, I get a new error saying I need a target, my pet is still munching on a mob. If I have him on one mob and I'm on another he will cross the world to get to my target if I hit KC, dragging whatever was on him at the time. I liked KC needing just my pet's target and not mine. It seems like pets are getting stupider every expansion.

[Ziarre]

That aspect of Kill Command was likely a 'good thing' that couldn't last forever, as it half-trivialized getting out of LoS of a BM hunter. I don't PvP a ton myself, but I could see that as an issue in Arenas.

And to be fair, it was only useful to me because my pet's Kill Command couldn't reach some raid mobs, so I used the 'attack a different target' to keep it doing something useful. See: drakes on Blackhorn. I went after drakes, pet was told to stay on 'ground' adds because it couldn't reach drakes. While I can see reasons for this aspect of it to remain useful, the biggest reason for me to want it...is being removed with the range extension.

[Rawr]

It seems they changed it in the last few BETA patches (I haven't been on in a while and just tested it again) and went halfway with both, I can have my pet KC things he is targeting as long as I target something, dont even need to be in combat with what I'm targeting it seems, I just need a target that I CAN attack, friendlies don't work. He doesn't even attack what I was targeting afterwords either, weird but I'm cool with this CK.

[Ziarre]

Yeah, that works too. The ability to attack a different target than yourself can be somewhat important at times, although most of it in my case...has to do with being out of range for Kill Command. *death glare at stupid 5-yard range* Your days are numbered, tiny range!

[Rawr]

Yeah, that works too. The ability to attack a different target than yourself can be somewhat important at times, although most of it in my case...has to do with being out of range for Kill Command. *death glare at stupid 5-yard range* Your days are numbered, tiny range!

Ikr?

[Sasrei]

wait hunters play arena? I still have false hope that they will fix pet AI. It really is extremely glitchy especially in certain fights. Soloing Onyxia has been difficult just because im trying to place said turtle to go to said spot, turtle doesnt want to go to said spot.. turtle doesnt wanna listen T.T its an annoying little game we play that usually ends up with me dying. In DS pets still have issues and I did Heroic nef last night and my pet basically would not attack at all.. like at all. He'd stay in one little spot and not attack a single thing. Its kinda why I liked spamming KC without worrying about him switching targets. I do it regularly on the ship fight on DS while im attacking the dragon I have my pet attacking the boss.

[Rawr]

Yeah, I miss Aggressive Defensive and Passive stances still not sure what was wrong with them. Blizz's new mato is "if it ain't broke turn it into something new that is".

[Ziarre]

Pretty sure one of the top arena teams has a hunter, at least I remember such being mentioned in the past few months.

*mostly ignores AI complaints as her pet's AI works just fine* If it doesn't want to go somewhere, that's generally due to terrain issues.

[Neilaren]

My pet's AI squabbles usually just come from it's really ADD nature in Assist Stance... which is the "feature" of Assist Stance.
What I'd give for the old Defensive back...
I've been finding good use for it lately in doing dailies in Tol Barad though... serpent sting several mobs, watch my pet slowly switch to each one systematically to grab its attention, then I multi shot down. :3

I also really liked the function of Kill Command present for the Blackhorn fight... if they have more fights like that and Kill Command can't be used the same way, my RL would just stick me on melee, though, so meh!
But I haven't been having any weird issues with Kill Command lately in beta. In fact there's been a lot of times I targeted something new, hit Kill Command, and then remembered my pet wasn't actually attacking it (yet). Ahaha...ha...oh well.

[Ziarre]

I'm ADHD and fail to see 'ADD' behavior with Assist. It's really not that hard to work with when you learn what it can do and work with it instead of assuming that something done that works against it is simply a flaw of it. It takes a few seconds of damage for it to kick in the target switch. That's how it's meant to work.

[Neilaren]

Well yeah, my pets just act weird when they switch after things I don't usually expect them to switch off of, like when I apply serpent sting to a second mob and then switch back.
I wish I could tell my pet something like "I'm just applying a dot, ignore it!" But it's just as easy to just redirect them with ctrl-1.

Now, the time I sent my pet after a simple horse trash mob in Kara and the pet went straight to Midnight instead... hoo, boy, am I glad pets don't do that anymore.

[Ziarre]

If it takes you too long to switch back then yes, that will happen. When doing that you need to switch back pretty fast, or it'll simply go 'oh switch targets now, yes?'

[Rawr]

I wish they had the option still for Aggressive stance and Defensive stance worked the way it used to not how it works now, ie I tell my tank pet, on Defensive, to kill mob A and mob B starts to hit him, he kills mob A and drags mob B to me, I get agro on something else and FD, he stands at his normal spot then decides to turn around and kill mob B (who is cleaving btw) dead Hunter. I like the old Defensive better, tank pet, on Defensive, is told to kill mob A and mob B starts to hit him, he kills mob A and turns around to attack mob B, I get agro on something else and FD, he kills mob B, and we continue to go through the dungeon melting faces. I really miss that.

[Ziarre]

Unfortunately for those that want that, I think that's a thing of the past. They apparently had issues with Aggressive, so they combined it with Defensive in a sense, and then gave us a stricter form of Defensive.

[Rawr]

Not sure what was wrong with Aggressive it did what it said it would, they would attack anything with a red name plate. I think there were just too many huntards (and I mean huntards, people who don't want to or don't know how to play a Hunter correctly) who didn't know what they were doing (or did and were being jerks) and too many people complaining about them that ruined it for the rest of us, sounds like something that happened recently with some funny looking pets I know of *hugs Pinky*

[Boven]

Not sure what was wrong with Aggressive it did what it said it would, they would attack anything with a red name plate. I think there were just too many huntards (and I mean huntards, people who don't want to or don't know how to play a Hunter correctly) who didn't know what they were doing (or did and were being jerks) and too many people complaining about them that ruined it for the rest of us, sounds like something that happened recently with some funny looking pets I know of *hugs Pinky*

The problem with Aggressive was that your pet essentially had instant reaction time in PvP.

Let's say you're in a BG, arena, or even world PvP. You hear that telltale 'stealth sound' and catch a glimpse of an enemy rogue near you. It takes a little time for you to recognize what you just heard, saw and take some sort of action, whether that be targeting the rogue before you lose sight of them, doing some sort of aoe, or whatever. There'll always be some sort of delay and during that time you could lose track of the rogue, he/she could open up on you, sap you, etc.

Your pet, however, doesn't have that limitation, at least not enough to make any difference. So with Fido set on aggressive, as soon as he catches a glimpse of that rogue, he's attacking. The time between 'spotting' the stealthed rogue and attacking was almost nil. Rogues and druids complained about this, thinking the pet was seeing through stealth. That's not really the case, but the result is pretty much the same: Fido catches a whiff of the rogue and is on him (essentially) instantly.

Personally, I find myself inclined to prefer that they'd simply removed Aggressive, leaving us with just Defensive and Passive and giving us an extra spot on the pet's spell bar.

[Rawr]

Not sure what was wrong with Aggressive it did what it said it would, they would attack anything with a red name plate. I think there were just too many huntards (and I mean huntards, people who don't want to or don't know how to play a Hunter correctly) who didn't know what they were doing (or did and were being jerks) and too many people complaining about them that ruined it for the rest of us, sounds like something that happened recently with some funny looking pets I know of *hugs Pinky*

The problem with Aggressive was that your pet essentially had instant reaction time in PvP.

There is a simple fix to that. Make Aggressive stance not usable in PvP, BGs, Arena, whatever OR nerf it in PvP (many skills are) to have a delay. If PvP is the only reason we don't have it, I think its unfair for the rest of us who used it in things like raids, dungeons, any other PvE place. The option to use it should still be there. Think about it we had it in Vanilla, BC, and WotLK, how many years is that? I just don't see why replace it entirely with something that (in my opinion doesn't work half the time) and change Defensive stance (still not sure why they did that either).

[SpiritBinder]

I know of a "band-aid" fix that may help alleviate this issue, (not that we aren't used to this kind of thing ) but a macro could solve the problem.

Something along the lines of this should work.

/cast [target=pettarget] Kill Command
/targetlasttarget

[Ziarre]

They tend to be careful about making things act too differently between PvE and PvP, with good reason. It effectively doubles the production time of a spell because you're actually testing two spells that happen to look similar, and because they look similar people will get confused. The more spells for which this is done, the more confusion. That's why instead you tend to see blanket rules like 'CC lasts X seconds maximum in PvP.' People can understand that.

[Rawr]

They tend to be careful about making things act too differently between PvE and PvP, with good reason. It effectively doubles the production time of a spell because you're actually testing two spells that happen to look similar, and because they look similar people will get confused. The more spells for which this is done, the more confusion. That's why instead you tend to see blanket rules like 'CC lasts X seconds maximum in PvP.' People can understand that.

So put ' X second delay in PvP' not hard as they have done it many times with many spells. And if a spell has a condition like 'in PvP' and people can understand the difference they should NOT be playing. I'm tiered of Blizzard changing things because some 5-year-old wants to play with the big boys. If you can't read or understand what is going on you should not be playing (not talking about people of the right age that have difficulty reading btw I'm talking about Blizzard catering to people that are too young to play). And I can wait for them to change it if it means getting it back (that and the old Defensive stance). So what is the next 'defend Blizzard to the death because I like getting babied and can't take responsibility for my pet' argument?