Pet Auto Assist... how is this supposed to work?

So I rather like the idea of Pet (and merc) auto assist and silly me assumed that it meant the pet would assist me WHEN I ATTACKED (not just got attacked). But it doesn't do that. Many times tonight on raid, my pet went running off to attack a mob I hadn't cast a spell on. In fact, I hadn't been casting anything at all when I saw it happening. My pets have had defend me/defend yourself turned off pretty much since I started the character back in 2004.

So, if I can ask, how exactly is this pet auto assist supposed to work? Because if it is supposed to assist me after I begin attacking, it is not doing that. If its just supposed to attack whatever I have targeted once I get locked in combat, then you need to revisit the code as this is about as useless as "protect me" on raids.

I don't think it even remotely works
I too thought by selecting that on the pet bar, that it was an auto assist to what I am targeting. But it NEVER works that way. Its best to go back to using macros on your spells / abilities for them to attack.
Hell its worse that the "protect me" because it never actually assists you if there is more than one mob in the encounter / pull.
After the first mob, it just starts fighting anything and not your current target.

Yep, i've noticed the same thing. In solo zones it isn't a big deal usually, but on raids this is becoming more of a nuisance than a help.

Agree completely.

Here's how I think it SHOULD work.

It should start attacking whatever I start attacking. Nothing more. But currently, it's not doing that.

It seems as though if I get attacked, it decides to defend my honor and goes tromping off to attack whatever attacked me. But we already have settings for that: Defend Me. We also have the setting for Defend Self.

This new Auto Assist has great potential when mixed with those other two settings. But right now, it looks as though it's acting like Auto Assist includes Defend Me and Defend Self. It doesn't need to do that. Those didn't go away.

Any chance of getting this changed so that Auto Assist actually "Automatically Assists", rather than "Automatically Assists and Defends Me and Defends Self"?

Let's not forget mobs do their own bit of taunting. There are mobs that will even steal your focus for a bit.

I believe that it is working. I have not had any issues. I am positive that it's working on my mystic's dog and although I have most of my attacks macro'd on my conj I have tried this new option with success. What I am noticing is that they protect me and protect yourself buttons are setting themselves every time I zone although I never use those options. Now I have to remember to unclick them after every type of zoning.

On my Coercer, any time I zone or die, I have to grab a new pet. Protect Me and Protect Self are turned off. Pet stays standing around til I send it in.

Once I click the new Pet Auto Assist button, that behavior changes. I can be standing there not doing anything when the tank pulls and the pet goes running off. I pull them back which turns off Auto Assist, and the pet will behave itself until I turn Auto Assist back on.

That's the behavior myself and one of our guild conjurors was witnessing last night.

Exactly what I was seeing last night.

Did a tad more testing tonight with a training dummy and a guildmate. Since the training dummy doesn't fight back, the pet didn't go running off. I'm guessing it only does that if the mob is attacking the group and fighting back.

I should add that I have not raided with this new option. This has only been based on my group experience.

Based on my group experience, auto assist is worthless.

And it's funny this thread popped up now... Perhaps it used to work??? Wasn't this option put in with GU66? So it's been live for like a month? I didn't mess with it until Monday when I updated my UI and the option was there.

But as soon as the tank pulls - the pet jets off to save my honor. Which I guess is noble - but my raid leader would not be happy with me.... Luckily the group tank is more forgiving

But we already have the protect self and protect me toggles which work as intended. The Auto Assist should have the pet attack anything I am currently attacking - not anything that sneezes in my direction (that's for protect me).

Protect Me - pet attacks anything that does damage to me
Protect Self - pet attacks anything that does damage to the pet
Auto Assist - pet attacks anything that I am attacking (not that the tank in my group attacked, but me, the owner of the pet)

Each of these should be independently toggled.

Then I would love it, and hug it, and squeeze it and call it George.

Exactly, Caela! I think when it first came out, it seemed to work like that, and I have used it on raids with no problem, but this week it has been really wonky and my husband laughed at me cuz my pet kept running off on suicide missions any time a named was pulled and managed to put me in combat, even if I hadn't cast anything.

Working on a fix for this one.

Awesome!

Fantastic! Thank ya!

Thank you!!!

Please give us the ability to keep it turned on (default or otherwise). My conj pets and even my ranger hawk have to be toggled on every single time; it is a major pain in the butt.

Right click on your pet, and choose pet options. In that window, set what default behavior your pet does. This window includes the new auto assist button. If you can't see it, and you are using a custom UI, you need to update your UI.

I see that there was fix for this in the patch yesterday. How's it working out for everybody? I'm going to test it on my Mystic today.

Logged in my Necro, Illusionist and Beastlord and auto assist is not working on any of them. Did the fix go live on Friday? On the off chance I didnt get it I repatched and still no auto assist when I attack a mob. Anyone else experiencing this?