I am running a 6 box consisting of Enchanter, Cleric, Druid and 3 Magicians (currently all 33ish on Lockjaw). I pull with the enchanter and all the others are sitting and meditating. Pet taunt is turned on for all 3 magician pets. There are a couple of scenarios that I would like feedback on: 1) I pull 1 mob with tash back to the group. As soon as I return to group, I send the pets in to engage the mob. The mob makes a brief pause when the pets engage, but then makes a bee-line to the nearest sitting mage and whacks him, then moves to the next, whacks him...usually before the third it finally turns to the pets. 2) I pull multiple mobs by tashing the target mob. As soon as I return to group, I send the pets in to engage. What happens here seems to vary a little, but the most common outcome is that the target mob stops and fights the pets while the additional mob(s) make a bee-line to the sitting mages and proceed to whack them all in sequence and then return to the lowest health one until I get them all mezzed. So, how can avoid this happening other than to have the mages stand before they send the pets? In my opinion, this is a poor option because I want them medding when not casting. I would miss out on quality med time while the pets beat on the mob and gain enough aggro to then nuke them into oblivion. I used to run a box group years ago with a bard pulling with bellow and multiple mages and I don't recall either of these scenarios ever happening. As soon as I sent the pets all the mobs stopped at them regardless of the number of mobs. Has sit aggro rules changed in the recent past? Is sit aggro different on TLPs? (I seem to doubt this as an option). Is there something different about pulling with tash vs bellow? Is there a level of aggro that the enchanter needs to have initially to prevent this? Is there a better pulling spell than tash for an enchanter? Thanks for your input!
1. Some Aggro from pet goes to the pet's owner and not just to the pet, so owner has pet aggro + sitting aggro = smack from mob until pet gets a successful taunt and keeps the mobs attention. So when doing your /assist Enchanter /pet attack macro, add 1 line before /pet attack and do /sit. If you are standing you will sit, if you are sitting you will stand. Should stop them smacking the mages. Also you can root the mob when / where you want the pets to engage but root has a high break chance on dmg.... 2. Same as 1. Sitting / and low health aggro are decent ways to get the mobs attention. They changed the way pets work awhile ago and that is probably where it is from.
If you are using additional software to facilitate boxing, you should pass through a command to /stand on all characters when you engage. I have mine bound to one of the NumPad keys, with a separate one to /sit. I find it's better to have two separate keys because if you have it set up as a toggle, you could end up in a situation where your standing characters sit and things get all out of whack. If you want your mages to sit down in combat, use mounts. That negates the extra aggro. There used to be an excellent post on The Steel Warrior about how aggro works and it should be mandatory reading for all players, not just tanks. It may be possible to find on archive.org - I think it was in The Library section. Does anyone out there know which thread I'm talking about and have a working link? Edit: Hah. I guess I was the last person to link it here on these forums and the link is still valid. It's post #7 (by Brabble). It's from 2005, but the basic mechanics remain the same, and many new and returning players are unsure of how aggro actually works in EQ and what they can do to manage it better as a group. https://web.archive.org/web/2011010...steelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13856
Also, the way that I have things set up in my group (2 pets) is that my engage hotbutton is set to target separate mobs. I think they're doing it by the use of /xtar 1 and /xtar 2 and then /pet attack. So if I have the pull plus one loose add, the second pet jumps on that add by default and gives my enchanter time to mez it, or give the healer time to adjust if the mob is not mezzable. I have a second hotbutton to just / main, and I'll push that if there turns out to be only one mob in the camp. Pets will not attack mezzed mobs, so they should never break mez. Having the second pet look out for the possible add kind of acts as a speed bump to get things in order and it makes things easier for me as a boxer.
If outdoors, consider mounts for mages. Though not sure what min level required for mounts. Mounted us considered sitting for medding but standing for aggro. Put mages a bit away from group. Have them park pets ( pet guard) at the fight site, and sit in a safe spot some distance away. Consider using druid to pull with snare. And set a chanter macro: /xtar 2 /cast (whatever your mez spell)
So much the better. I seem to have a vague recollection of original Luclin horses requiring lvl 50 but I figure I am wrong.
