Mage pet chain summoning on Blue is broken

[Dolalin]

Okay so I recently scraped and indexed the Magician's Tower boards. While this thread is from 2002, I think it's still pretty close to the classic pet aggro behaviour as I remember it.

First, it's implied that the second pet would grab aggro pretty fast after the first one was dismissed, if not immediately:

7. Depending on how fast the pet is losing hit points, you will want to recast roughly when the pet is between 20 and 40% of his hit points. When it's time to recast, hit your /Assist hotkey to target the mob, then start casting a new pet.

8. It takes 10 seconds to cast a new pet, so you have approximately 9 seconds to type this message: /pet get lost. Do not make this a hotkey, and when you type it do NOT hit <Enter> yet. Wait until you have half a bubble of casting time left, then hit <Enter> to kill the old pet. Your new pet will appear in about half a second or so. At that time, hit your /pet attack hotkey to continue the fight. Go back to step 6 and repeat until the mob is either low on hit points or dead.
Alternately, with the New UI, you can click the "Go Away" button in the pet window instead of typing /pet get lost.

9. When the mob is low on hit points you must decide whether you want full experience for the kill, or share it with your pet. If you pulled with a small nuke and did any damage, you will get full experience for the kill. If not you will need to nuke at least once before the mob dies to get full experience. If the pet does all the damage it will take 75% of the experience.

10. Dead mob, loot at will.

This bit is about taking on multiple mobs. It's fairly explicit that the mob would go straight for the pet and not beeline to the mage if he hadn't built up any spell aggro:

In answer to the multi-mob question. Yes, if your pet can handle the damage output from several mobs at once, you can chain pets. There are a couple tricks to this. First off, a damage shield is mandatory, your pet can only attack one mob at a time. So with a damage shield in place, all mobs are taking damage.

Second, you have to control your agro on the multi-mobs very carefully, do not nuke any of them unless you can finish one off completely before you need to chain another pet. If you haven't nuked any of the mobs, when you chain the next pet and send it in, it won't need to overcome any agro you have built on a mob and the mobs won't run past your pet to bum rush you. You can also train a mob that has rushed you back onto your fighting pet if you don't have major agro on that mob. DS-ing, burning out, and even healing your pet do not generate significant agro.

https://web.archive.org/web/20040830...pic.php?t=2238

[Dolalin]

I think what would be helpful here is to try to quantify to what extent chaining pets is actually not working as it "should" be on P99.

* Is 100% of the aggro from the pet currently transferred to the mage when the pet is dismissed?
* How long does it take a second pet to taunt it off the mage, after dismissal of the first pet, if he has done no dmg to the mob?

This all feels a bit fuzzy right now and it's hard to know what to look for specifically if we don't have a firm grip on what's wrong (if anything).

I don't have a mage on p99 so I cannot test this myself.

[Tann]

Originally Posted by Dolalin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

* Is 100% of the aggro from the pet currently transferred to the mage when the pet is dismissed?
* How long does it take a second pet to taunt it off the mage, after dismissal of the first pet, if he has done no dmg to the mob?

this is fairly anecdotal because my mage is only 29 but I tried several times on a few mobs outside (so i could run away like Sir Robin, bravely), the few attempts i made went like:

air pet
taunt off
no spells cast
casted 2nd pet BEFORE the first one died and used /pet getlost when the cast was about to complete. (mob was around 60-70%hp remaining at this point)
2nd pet immediately regains aggro.

Perhaps i'm doing it wrong?? Do I need to reclaim or let it die first for the threat transfer?

[long.liam]

Originally Posted by Tann [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

this is fairly anecdotal because my mage is only 29 but I tried several times on a few mobs outside (so i could run away like Sir Robin, bravely), the few attempts i made went like:

air pet
taunt off
no spells cast
casted 2nd pet BEFORE the first one died and used /pet getlost when the cast was about to complete. (mob was around 60-70%hp remaining at this point)
2nd pet immediately regains aggro.

Perhaps i'm doing it wrong?? Do I need to reclaim or let it die first for the threat transfer?

I will have to test it myself, but It might be that the Air Pet's Stun Proc produces enough Hate to pull it off of you. I do recall the water pet struggle to pull the mob off. Also each subsequent cast seemed to build more and more hate making increasingly more difficult for each new pet to pull aggro.

[long.liam]

Yea I just tested it again on my 45 Mage in OOT. I tried to chain summon the Fire Pet on a Cyclops and each new pet took longer and longer to pull aggro from me. The 5th and final pet that killed the cyclops I was able to Aggro kite around the whole island before the pet finally got aggro. I can do it again and record Video if Necessary.

[Tann]

Originally Posted by long.liam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yea I just tested it again on my 45 Mage in OOT. I tried to chain summon the Fire Pet on a Cyclops and each new pet took longer and longer to pull aggro from me. The 5th and final pet that killed the cyclops I was able to Aggro kite around the whole island before the pet finally got aggro. I can do it again and record Video if Necessary.

did you let pet die or use reclaim? or did you /getlost before new one was cast? Not doubting at all just wasn't sure why my air pet was gaining aggro immediately, in theory if the first pet was using its stun DD then after it was gone all of that threat should go to me and the new pet shouldn't gain it so fast.

[Nycon43]

I mean it was working the way it was supposed to a couple years ago when I last played. Came back and it's been changed again.

[NPC]

So when your pet dies or dismiss it, any agro that pet generated transfers to the caster. That agro should go away the second the pet does. The agro was going away when the pet did for the 1st 3-4 months of Teal, just change it back. EASY to fix.

[Vermineux]

Bump for attention. Really want to play a Mage, but this seems to be a nail in the coffin for the class.

[PatChapp]

Originally Posted by Lich [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Bump

Originally Posted by Vermineux [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Bump for attention. Really want to play a Mage, but this seems to be a nail in the coffin for the class.

It really isn't, just use earth pets for chaining and they grab aggro with the first root. Cam level just fine never needing to chain multiple pets per mob as well.