I wanted to add some in-era material to this discussion.
There was a patch in 2001 that briefly made pets aggro demons, so to speak - they would pretty much always hold aggro off the caster. It was then changed back a few weeks later.
This thread discusses the way things were, the way they briefly became, and what they went back to being, so it tells us what in-era pet aggro felt like:
Quote:
7/11/01
Subject: Pet aggro: 7/10/01 Patch
Looks like the pet aggro is back to the way it was before. <Sigh> It was
nice for a couple of weeks to be able to nuke the snot out of mobs that were
engaged with the pet and not have them come after me. Now if I just sneeze
in their direction they start bitch slapping me and making me cry.
-Ray
---
> >Looks like the pet aggro is back to the way it was before. <Sigh> It was
> >nice for a couple of weeks to be able to nuke the snot out of mobs that
were
> >engaged with the pet and not have them come after me. Now if I just
sneeze
> >in their direction they start bitch slapping me and making me cry.
>
> Odd thing is, I never saw the mobs stick only to my pet with my necro.
> *shrug*
Yep lying sacks of sh^t . Before the patch casting a slow spell would aggro
the mob onto me for about 4 rounds of combat before pet taunted it off .
After the patch its back to just using tash and letting pet whack it in the
back while it chases me through the countyside .
It wasnt broke they just felt like stealth nerfing pet classes back .
---
From a 39 magician - It was BROKEN. Big time. When
a minor water conjuration (max level = 29) can out taunt
mid 30's rangers, sk's and warriors, and the mob sticks to
them regardless of what they do, it's broken. In order to
keep my pet for more than a few combat rounds (a sabertooth
tiger can pound a focused water pet down in a very short
time) I was chain casting renew summoning. No nuke, and
way more mana than I should have been spending.
Granted, it was nice for the soloers, but for grouping mages
it was a serious bug. When soloing, I can still manage my
aggro well enough to only get hit a little, it's one of the skills
you learn soloing as a mage, unless you insist on using the
earth pet for a bit of root and nuke.
---
I don't think it's changed much, Ray. As a 52 mage (with no alt and 93
stinkin playing hours...gotta lub running a guild) I am very aware of that
pet. Some mentionables:
- Mages who exclusively use earth pets live in a different world than all
other pet classes. Since the pet roots constantly and (most) mages use
their malaise series, those things stay in one place. Period. They don't
have to deal with the aggro stealing.
- There was a big nerf in that mobs prefer to hit the sitting mobs. A quick
adjustment (which, IMHO should have been made before anyway) to wait till
the main tank/pet builds up sufficient aggro before sitting is in order.
- Multiple mobs still tend to stick to your engaged-pet-with-mob. Evidently
seeing their friend die still holds more hate for them (don't siddown
though).
So if you're a mage, try switching pets to see the adjustment (and discover
the joy of what those other 3, lil elements can do. =D)
-Grim
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/al...9-k/discussion
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From a read, it seems to have been the case that:
- Pets were never 'aggro demons' in-era, this was probably a Luclin- or PoP-era tweak if it ever was
- Nevertheless it's possible that things aren't quite right on P99, especially in terms of behaviour like that last bolded bit above, there were aggro quirks that might not be fully replicated here. Proximity aggro bonus should apply to the pet, does it?