Magician: The best tracker in the game.

Requiring targeting the mob is something I could live with (as it would prevent macroing in Unspeakable Software for afk botting), but not the requirement of having line of sight, that would mess everything up for mages, including for raiding.

Beside that, mages (well, I do and I suppose other mages too) use pet pulling a lot "around the corner" in combination with Eye of Zomm clicky, please don't nerf that which is essential to our gameplay. When I set camp for grinding, I use the pet to bring mobs to me, not other way around. And the range of pet commands has already been nerfed years ago to avoid auto-aggroing by just running around, just to remind you.

This also ignores the fact that pet attack will only move over a very limited range, but rangers can track across entire zones, so saying it is 'better' is pretty disengenious.

Yes, pets obey roughly in standard spell range command, they won't add something on their hate list beyond that even if you target a mob and issue a command.

At first I liked this idea but then I realize it would kill tradeskill farming, quest farming, etc.

Even as a mage you must admit that /pet attack soandso is broken.

A hot key app or a programmable keyboard makes it flawless. I've never heard of anyone being banned using these techniques as long as they were at the keyboard to answer tells.

Some of the accusations seem unbelievable to me. Makes it sound like a Magician can target anything in a zone with /target and the pet will go after it. It just doesn't work that way on so many levels it is laughable. A more likely scenario is the pet was attacking the MOB in normal fashion, then followed it when it bolted. I could understand the mistake since some of the 'new' MOB AI caught me by surprise too. Used to be MOBs would wait until ~20% health before they bolted. Now, you just don't know when a MOB will go get help, could be almost instantaneous.

Pet tracking better then a Ranger? HA HA HA! Anybody that makes a post like that should be required to level a Magician before they make a statement like that so they can issue an informed apology. I run both Magicians and Rangers. Path finding on my pets in dungeons is ludicrous. If the MOB flees, half the time they get away and start a train. Sometimes it takes maybe 20 seconds of random moves by my pet before they finally blunder into the MOB they are attacking.

You do get some benefits in that a pet will see what you can see. This allows you to send a pet in where the spell LOS are insanely tight. i.e. if are in a room with a MOB the other side of a counter or table, you can't always hit it with a spell but you can get your pet to attack. Worse thing about a Gnome Magician is you have to jump on a box to get LOS over a table.

I'll gladly take that nerf as a mage player I never use it since I don't afk bot farm with a macro.

It absolutely works that way in Runnyeye because the zone is small and most of it is vertical. The /pet attack command seems to ignore the Z-axis.

Mash /target a_pickclaw_slayspell

If one is in range it targets it

Mobs running is based on level in relation to the highest level on their hatelist.
With a threshold of HP set for when they run based on the level attacking it. Worst case is 50% IIRC.

Your welcome

So one zone in the game where the pet can actually path find to a target and the target still has to be within spell range. Can you see how this doesn't seem like anything other then a overblown and an exaggerated crisis?

I am considering making a video of other dungeons like The Warrens just to show what pet path finding is really like. Much more believable to think the mage was just camping the MOB and if they weren't why weren't they? I mean think about it, a Magician is camping away from a MOB spawn where they potentially could lose the MOB? It's possible but so unlikely it is questionable.

There are MUCH bigger fish to fry then complaining about an event that probably never happened the way the original poster saw it. Level 50 players camping level 3-25 MOBs needed by lower level players for instance. Using multiple computers to circumvent what was probably intended to be a one PC per person intent by DB.

So if I hit a db MOB with a spell that brings it to 49% health, how is this not virtually instantaneous? BTW: It also depends on how many friends they have in the fight but only up to a point. Sometimes you can keep two mobs at below 20% in a fight until one of them dies, then the remaining bolts.

Your welcome

It is very real and not just some "made up" story. Runnyeye is the obvious place that it occurs now due to BAM farming. The mobs are 20's with a couple named low 30ish. Even if you are sitting in the room where something spawns multiple mage pets with SoW can show up extremely quickly and take out almost any mob in the area before some people can win the DPS race.

Runnyeye is a bit unique due to the zone layout, however you can use /target and /pet to your benefit in many other zones as well.

Throughout the life of EQ pets and eyes have been used in exploitative ways to pull. I don't think it was ever the intention in EQ to be able to aggro something from range and cause it to warp on top of your raid, pulling giant raid bosses solo. Vox at the zone in, TOV eye of zomm exploits, the list can go on.

In the case of sending pets off to farm low level items? That is unique to the RMT/Krono/Farming nature that many people seem to enjoy. Personally I couldn't live with myself if I knew I was ruining the experience of others. To each their own.

Only social mobs though

It's one example, yes. The rest is pretty easy to understand: There is a range for /pet attack. In Runnyeye it's basically the whole zones. In any other zones the range is some percentage of the zone size but it still works the same regardless.

No, it's not a percentage of a zone, it's a set distance, standard spell range. If you are at the limit of your bolt spell which has a longer range (300'), you'll see that pet will not react to your /pet attack command.

The fact the Z-axis is bugged and mobs are weak as in Runnyeye should not lead you to a global theory, that's induction based on an atypical example... you are welcome to try /pet attack a jord-brann-vann-whatever kriger in BoT (even with a charmed elemental if you like) to spawn nameds and farm ornate, I'll send summoned flowers and sincere condoleances

Fully agree.

First, I must add that runny is a case study due to the z-axis, i really saw mage on level 1 killing stuff on level 3. The zone which should be a playground for mid 20 group is disrupted by farmers. Wish we had trivial loot rule (at least for non quest items).

Second most mages i met,on phinny, indeed all but one where not really afk and they either shared the spot or left me and we even shared buffs and chatted a bit. 3 times at the ice giants, around 42 the mage (3 different ones) just left, i was about to ask him to tell me when they will leave or to share the spot but they just left me since mob were blue to me and grey to them ... actually they went to farm inside.

Much ealier, back in 2015, in my mid 20 i wanted some focus from the evil eyes and the mage there just let me the spot telling that he already had the item and that he was just farming for an alt.

Last i never witnessed a mage army or a mage stealing a camp or stealing mobs in Lower Guk, what i saw very often were mage/chanter and headshooting rangers (probably all level 60+) disrupting the hill giant hill ... nad yeap enchanters at sea furies too ... but at least they were usually grouped.

Guys, cool down, there is no pet class tracking. Typing /pet attack <name of mob> works only at standard spell range and it will get you killed in any 45+ zone. Have you ever wondered why the hated gnome botters (these mages are gnomes, I am sure...) stick to Runnyeye ? For selling BAM in EC tunnel in classic or Kunark ? You realize your server (Agnarr I presume) will soon have a level 60 and rather soon a level 65 population ?

Honestly I hate this argument. Just because it existed on other TLPs doesn't make it right. There are some definite problems in the game that need fixing and DBG only has the manpower to chose to tackle a few of these issues at a time. This seems like it could be an easy issue to fix but who knows.

This really is a problem though what I see is instead of 1 mage sitting in the middle of RE now there will just be 1 mage at each spawn point which would just enforce the point that the low level item having a BIS effect is a huge contributor to the problem here.

Just for reference, the chardok named that absolutely annihilated other mobs in the zone being charmed by enchanters was in the game on all other TLPs too but that was updated today. Devs are working thru the problems. If an enchanter grouped with a cleric went after Drusilla who has mitigation of the mighty, they could duo this raid boss; that's how powerful this pet is (or how weak Drusilla is; you pick)