Info Needed pets in missions

Pets won't hold threat against a raid mob if there are real players in melee range of the mob, but if you put your pet on a mob that's still being pulled or is being kited then there's a good chance there is no player in melee range so the mob will stop to fight your pet. Inattentive pet users also have a tendency to let pets and swarm pets run wild and dps mobs that shouldn't be dps'd yet, bringing them into summoning range, etc.. There are a lot of reasons a person could be told to control their pet on a raid.

I, like pretty much every other player in this game, always assumed this was intentional. I understand the desire to make pet classes not be full on group tanks for missions, but the fact is that this pet caveat actually just makes it more beneficial to just scratch melee and tanks altogether and just let pets tank while people do range damage.

I don't know what the correct solution to this is, but I don't think further pushing people away from playing melee classes is it.

If you wanted to force pet classes to group more or get a tank class, you could use the 'face me' code from PoWar names (pets can't have aggro, all aggro generated from pets is transferred to pet owner), but this just seems brutal and would be universally hated.

Removing the no pet tank tag entirely would make Mages and Necros even more popular than they are, but wouldn't punish melee classes.

Obviously, there's the idea of weakening pets, but I do feel that people in general are happy that pets can actually tank and take hits since RoS.

So in conclusion, I think that it is not an ideal solution, but the other options are at least equally bad.

Knock-knock.
Any word from a dev - is that intentional, is that a bug, is that a feature?

It would certainly add options and make pet tanking more viable if this was just something missed for the last few years, and could be re-enabled for group missions. I know in raids people have appreciated Laser not taunting and holding proximity agro a lot more, but in group content it is trickier when tanks aren't present for group missions. (Sorry rogues, zerkers, monks)

Most of these are just restatement/confirmation of what others have said, but these are a few of ther situations I've encountered this behavior:

- All mobs flagged as raid, both in static and instanced versions of zones of every era (my impression is this is working as intended)
- All trash in raid instances (my impression is this is also working as intended. There might be a few that don't behave this way in some instances or static zones, but I've never met one.)

- Vex Thal 2.0, static zone: Kaas Thox Xi Ans Dyek
- Ka Vethan, Shei Vinitras group instance: Shei Vinitras
- Shadow Haven, When One Door Closes instance: A Mutable Monstrosity
- Shar Vahl Divided, Under Seige instance: all mission-related NPCs. Haven't dropped down into the pit to test random trash.

Shar Vahl, Divided, Mean Streets. The mobs in the pit definitely behave in this way.

Just a bump here.
Can we be enlightened about this issue: is that bug, a feature, an oversight, actual intention?
Please, please, please, I am very needy, I have to know.

Yep, I'll reiterate what others have asked for: please let us know if this is intended behavior. If so, please consider changing it.

It's hard to group with melee friends on missions, or to save the day with pets if a tank goes down. This doesn't make tanks more desirable for grouping (I would prefer a real tank any day, with our without this behavior), but it really messes with people who have a hard time getting groups.

Hey TrueNorth !
Any news about this issue?
It is literally a defining feature for my team - what classes to play in mission, what alts to focus on, what tactics to use.
Groups with plated tanks or with pet tanking without melee dps (such as mage + range dps) do not even notice this issue of mission mobs ignoring pets if a player is within a melee range.
Meanwhile pet-tanking groups with melee members (such as pet tanking with melee dps like rogue/berserker/bard/beastlord/monk or mercenaries) get affected in critical ways.
It is not about missions requiring real plated tank to win, since a group Mage/necro/wizard/ranger/bard (i.e. range dps) can and do successfully win missions with pets tanking.
It's about the melee classes without a plated tank - significanly degraded performance if a pet is tanking.

Mobs in the missions ignoring pets while a player is within melee range simply renders berserkers, rogues, monks, beastlord essencially useless in missions if no plated tank is present, meanwhile has no effect on other classes.
It is not balanced, and it is not reasonable. Mission mobs should follow group-level aggro rules, not raid aggro rules.

Can you help us with what a real group looks like for the European crew?

I'd say a real group is one with mostly real players that is also fairly well rounded. You'd want at least one tank, healer, dps, and utility type class.

So if there's no warrior, paladin, shadow knight available at 3am, and we all know mercs don't cut it, then the mage/necro players are just sht outta luck?

Missions are mini-raids and shouldn't be easy to beat. Are you saying that mages and necros should have special treatment that other non-tank classes don't get?

They're not mini-raids, they're group content. Pet classes have been pet tanking group content for decades. If they want to remove that from the game then that's up to them, but the fact that this thread wasn't outright closed as "not a bug" kind of suggests that it may not have been intentional.

It is literally part of their class definition. I'm sorry that you chose a class which can teleport, root, but not have a real pet to tank for you.

If we take away cleric heals and rogue sneak/hide then I suppose we can consider this thread officially resolved by Kizant.

well it's good thing your say has no bearing. /grin

When devs go down the "play our way" path, bad things happen. Personally if a tank isn't better at tanking than a mage pet, they shouldn't be forced into groups by using "mechanics" to sow disfavor on pet classes.

also, it's NOT just pet aggro. I can hit a mob with a low level dot and have it chase me until I pass another player and when thet player is closer, mob attacks them too even though they have ZERO hate. This is an issue with pets everywhere, not just instances. Likewise, the pull will aggro an out of combat autofollower when mage has hard aggro at 100%

This is working as designed.

I wasn't suggesting taking anything away from anyone.

I wasn't talking about heroic adventures or group tasks. Just the missions that the raids are based on.