really annoying aggro problem

[Sukurachi]

for some odd reason, my pet Shale Spider runs up to the mobs I tag, fights one of them, then just runs all the way back to me refusing to go back into battle.

I've tried assist and defensive modes, nothing changes its behaviour.

on defensive, technically, shouldn't all the mobs attacking it become its targets?

and if it's on assist mode, shouldn't everything I'm firing arrows at become its targets?

this is REALLY fricken' annoying!

did I just tame the only pacifist Shale Spider in the whole realm?

[Lisaara]

Hm...that is strange.....is it on passive?

Defensive = Not it. You. If it attacks you, then it'll attack whatever it hitting its master.

Assist = If you hit something, it auto goes after it...or should.

[Shade]

I think there is a glitch with the way the stances work.

Every pet I put in Assist mode on my level 63 hunter these days runs almost all the way back to me before moving onto another target. Usually when a tank pulls a large group I shoot in an explosive trap into the group, hit bestial wrath and then multishot a few times to hit everything. After my main target is dead my pet runs back to me while I am steady-shotting, and will not run back into the mobs until my steady shot goes off (and on a lowbie this takes what feels like forever!). Its getting really, really irritating that the pets are not shifting targets to the things that I hit with multishot at least.

And I've tried switching the stances off to defensive or passive then back, it does not help.

[Talaridan]

I've had a similar problem. I think it's just a stance glitch. It gets really, really annoying though. Because then I have to run around, trying to get at ranged while my pet does that annoying spin-run-spin-run until it finally decides to attack fully again.

[Lisaara]

I've had a similar problem. I think it's just a stance glitch. It gets really, really annoying though. Because then I have to run around, trying to get at ranged while my pet does that annoying spin-run-spin-run until it finally decides to attack fully again.

Definitely possible. D: I've had it happen to some of my pets, especially on spine of Deathwing

[Talaridan]

Yep! It's really bad in raids, I've noticed.

I have some problems with it soloing as well.

[Lisaara]

Soloing I dont have too many issues but I've encountered it a few times myself. But it always seemed to fix itself so I didnt really look into it.

I'm wondering if Blizz did anything on maintenance day.

[Rawr]

I have the same problem with all my pets they really need to fix it.

[Sukurachi]

I noticed another problem, which is new as of this Tuesday:

when I target something and hit my "attack" macro key, I get the "I need to target something first" message. I ahve to press my attack macro at least twice, sometimes three times, before it recognizes that I have a legitimate target in focus.

my problem with my pet was soloing (well, duo-ing, technically) in a lower-level dungeon. I found that the only way to deal with the pet problem was to literally change targets when attacking a group and shoot at least one shot into each mob in a group. my multi-shot wasn't activating my pet's aggro-meter. it's like he wasn't registering any of my secondary targets as valid.

[Lisaara]

I noticed another problem, which is new as of this Tuesday:

when I target something and hit my "attack" macro key, I get the "I need to target something first" message. I ahve to press my attack macro at least twice, sometimes three times, before it recognizes that I have a legitimate target in focus.

my problem with my pet was soloing (well, duo-ing, technically) in a lower-level dungeon. I found that the only way to deal with the pet problem was to literally change targets when attacking a group and shoot at least one shot into each mob in a group. my multi-shot wasn't activating my pet's aggro-meter. it's like he wasn't registering any of my secondary targets as valid.

I've had some weird problems on all my toons. Like....DS10 for example.

My guild NEVER has a hard time getting atleast up to the Gunship or Spine but this week was NUTS.

1. Shadowball dude.....we moved him as needed...the shadowball went THROUGH him....he didnt absorb it. It literally just went right through the center of him! We were like "WTF!"

2. Ultraxion Trash.....spawned faster than the tanks taunts were off cooldown. Had to help but even then it was a struggle when it shouldn't have been and it never has been in the past. Also...I tried attacking a dragon that was grounded. It said I was too far away when I was close enough to kiss it if I wanted. My RL had to go SV to help with Ultraxion trash and more often than not, her 'taunts' werent working either and she too couldnt hit dragons, neither could her pet. We were both like "WTH?"

3. Ultraxion.....we had a tank that for whatever reason either he couldnt hit the button(like he was trying but nothing happened), the button was on a very very long cooldown when it shouldn't have been, Fading Light still hit one of the tanks and killed him even though he used his button so I had to go emergency bear tank to take his place(which in the end we beat the bastard).

So theres a lot of wonky things going on.

[Talaridan]

Unfortunately, it tends to happen every time there is a patch, no matter how minor. Hopefully by Tuesday, they will hotfix and repair some of the problems at least.

[Lisaara]

I hope they fix all of it.

[Sukurachi]

it's incredibly frustrating.
I've been doing rep runs of Auchindoun, and a couple of times was actually in danger of being overwhelmed by packs of mobs I normally breeze through... simply because my pet refused to do his job, or my character just couldn't "target" a mob that was right in front of him.

[peanutbuttercup]

Simple answer is multishot (and traps too I believe) do not trigger the Assist stance from your pet. Or if they do, they don't do it reliably. Any other shot including auto will trigger Assist stance. This is why your pet will go to the primary target that you start the multishot on, because of the autoshot that follows. This has pretty much been the case since they switched stances. The pet just does not see any target other than the one you focus on.

The way around that is to either put your pet on passive and CTRL-1 one target at a time (not practical for low level farming) or tab target through a pack and try to weave in auto and other shots on every possible target. Or, in the case of lower level instances like you described, assuming you can't just one shot the targets, I would misdirect, multishot (because that does temporarily pull aggro to the pet even if the pet isn't attacking), and then start running away and dropping traps behind me while misdirect and multishotting. It's a weird mix of kiting and MD/multishotting - this way any mobs that pull loose from the pet or that come in late are either slowed and / or misdirected back via trap damage to the pet. They'll keep peeling off but if you FD and keep up misdirect you can pretty much get a huge pack to simply run around a room until you finish them off.

[Lisaara]

Simple answer is multishot (and traps too I believe) do not trigger the Assist stance from your pet. Or if they do, they don't do it reliably. Any other shot including auto will trigger Assist stance. This is why your pet will go to the primary target that you start the multishot on, because of the autoshot that follows. This has pretty much been the case since they switched stances. The pet just does not see any target other than the one you focus on.

The way around that is to either put your pet on passive and CTRL-1 one target at a time (not practical for low level farming) or tab target through a pack and try to weave in auto and other shots on every possible target. Or, in the case of lower level instances like you described, assuming you can't just one shot the targets, I would misdirect, multishot (because that does temporarily pull aggro to the pet even if the pet isn't attacking), and then start running away and dropping traps behind me while misdirect and multishotting. It's a weird mix of kiting and MD/multishotting - this way any mobs that pull loose from the pet or that come in late are either slowed and / or misdirected back via trap damage to the pet. They'll keep peeling off but if you FD and keep up misdirect you can pretty much get a huge pack to simply run around a room until you finish them off.

Multishot actually does trigger Assist Pet so that is not the problem at all. It's always been reliable up until the recent patch, which means Blizz messed something up big time.

Not tryin to sound mean or nothin....but Assist Pet is triggered by any hunter attacks(traps may be an exclusion from that). I've never had an issue with multishot before.

[peanutbuttercup]

Multishot actually does trigger Assist Pet so that is not the problem at all. It's always been reliable up until the recent patch, which means Blizz messed something up big time.

Not tryin to sound mean or nothin....but Assist Pet is triggered by any hunter attacks(traps may be an exclusion from that). I've never had an issue with multishot before.

No, you don't sound mean or anything. Is it possible this is just a glitchy thing that doesn't affect everyone evenly and / or doesn't happen every time? Or maybe I ended up with all pacifist pets like the OP, because Multishot plus Assist just has not worked reliably for me in months. I will add that my multishot is macroed to /startattack and I've had that since the start of Cata. Not sure if that affects it somehow, but I don't see why it would?

So I guess I shouldn't have worded it "multishots do not trigger the Assist stance" but rather "I personally haven't been able to make multishots trigger the Assist stance reliably."

I have also noticed many other pet stance issues that seem to take place randomly. Like Passive stance is giving me problems too, and I don't remember it every being so buggy. For example, on Yorshaj I normally set my pet on passive, then have it stay on the boss the entire fight. Two weeks ago, for no reason, when the second wave of oozes came out, the pet peeled off the boss and just stood next to me. Worse yet is Blackhorn. I have the pet on passive for the entire fight, and when Blackhorn lands I put the pet on him while I'm on the drake, but I would say 50% of the time the pet comes back to me and just stands there.

[Lisaara]

my RL has had a lot of problems every since they messed with our stances. So it's definitely a stance problem it looks like. Like on assist, I tell my pet "hey go attack that tentacle right over there" and it runs over...then does nothing. I try kill command...it says Out Of Range or Need A Target First.

I've had that problem on Blackhorn too. It puzzles me.

Blizz! Stop breaking the hunters more than they already are damnit! D<

[Finduilas]

I had the same issues as peanut, my pets (on all my hunters) only attack the target I have tagged when multishotting and they all run back when this one target is dead. And this is the case since they changed the stances and not only recently. I always try to hit at least one more target with an arcane or autoshot so my pet won't run back to me before continuing to fight. What I noticed: if my pet gets hit by an aoe or ability of one of the other targets it starts attacking this one after the current mob is dead, so this might be the reason why others didn't notice it yet.

Also very annoying (and already mentioned somewhere): Rabid is not autoused by the pet during Ultraxion fight and the "claws" of Deathwing (it attacks the tentacles and blood during the fight with rabid but not the claws). I had to put rabid out so I can manually click it every 30 seconds during these fights. I tried it on different pets, wolfs, cats and taller ones like devilsaurs and even flying ones like Ban'thalos or a bird.

[peanutbuttercup]

Re: Rabid and Ultraxion - http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16915

Long story short, if you don't want to manually click it I suggest macroing it with Steady or Cobra Shot:

#showtooltip Cobra Shot
/cast Cobra Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast Rabid
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

Also turn off Dash on Ultraxion as the pet will burn focus when it's up, trying to get behind him.

[Talaridan]

Re: Rabid and Ultraxion - http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16915

Long story short, if you don't want to manually click it I suggest macroing it with Steady or Cobra Shot:

#showtooltip Cobra Shot
/cast Cobra Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/cast Rabid
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()

Also turn off Dash on Ultraxion as the pet will burn focus when it's up, trying to get behind him.

Ohh, thank you for the tips!