Puppy Control Guide - by Telorea of Firiona Vie

[Shammy 101]

Here is a copy of a puppy control guide created by Telorea of Firiona Vie Server, I think it is extremely useful.

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Puppy Care 101 for Shaman
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Guide coming soon.

But in the meantime your homework is:
(a) get /Pet Hold
(b) get /Pet Focus (Level 1 of Advanced Pet Discipline)


Important things to know about puppy commands.

1) /Pet Hold - This command ONLY stops puppy from attacking. It does NOT clear the puppy aggro list - only /Pet Back Off clears the aggro list. Therefore you MUST do /Pet Back Off after doing /Pet Hold - or you may find that your puppy goes off and attacks the previous target he was angry with instead of the targte you want when you break the /Pet Hold command with an attack order.

2) /Pet Sit - This command is a little missleading, since it actually means: (a) Do not follow me, and (b) Do not move anywhere except to attack.
The result of this is that it will make your puppy corpse camp instead of following you and you may get separated from your puppy. Your puppy will ONLY move if it attacks any something or you issue a /Pet Follow order. Orders like /pet Back Off or /Pet Hold will make your puppy simply hang around at the spot he was at when you gave the command, they will not make your puppy come to you unless you also say /Pet Follow.

3) /Pet Follow - cancels /Pet Sit and /Pet Guard orders.

4) /Pet Attack - adds your current target to your pets aggro list - NOTE this does NOT mean your pet will attack this target right away, if puppy is angry at another target he will attack the one he is most angry with first.

5) /Pet Attack XXXX - Not many people know about this pet command, since they confuse it with command (4). This command will make your puppy attack the closest monster whose name matches XXXX.
This enables you to tell you puppy to attack targets that you cannot see or target yourself. It also allows you to use your puppy to clear all mobs of a particular type in the local area.
For example: when you are around Vox's Lair in Permafrost, the command "/pet attack an ice" will make your puppy attack the clsoest ice giant of ANY type or name (since "an ice" matches against "an ice giant", "an ice giant magus" and "an ice giant diplomat" )

6) /Pet Focus - makes your puppy keep the last target you told him to atatck at the top of his aggro list.
Note (a): RESETS the /Pet Hold command.
Note (b): Command only lasts until you zone, you must re-issue the command after zoning if you want puppy to continue doing this.

7) /Pet No Cast - This is Level 2 of the Advance Pet Discipline AA and has ZERO effect on shaman pets. There was initially a hope that this command could be used to tell your puppy to stop procing DD's caused by puppy weapons or Panther/Leopard - but testing has shown that it does NOT stop procs, so it is totally worthless for shaman.


Pet Hotkeys

It can be extremely valuable to use hotkeys to control your puppy instead of the buttons on teh Puppy Window due to some of the issues described above.

Pet Attack Hotkey
This hotkey was created before I got pet focus, it gives you more control over what your puppy is attacking by the Back-Off command clearing puppies aggro list.
/Pet Back Off
/Pet Attack

Pet Hold Hotkey
This hotkey gives you more control over your puppy by the Back-Off command clearing puppies aggro list when you issue a /pet hold command. See "/Pet Hold" details above for why this is important.
/Pet Hold
/Pet Back Off
/Pet Hold

Pet Dance the Fandango Hotkey
Coming soon.... :rollin

[Bed]

[Scowls]

[Caanus Grey]

[Ginormus]

[Shammy 101]

[Jaraman]

[GheffGutterbrains]

[Jaraman]

[Shammy 101]

To add to Jaraman's very good guide to Pet Pulling:

When using a "green-to-your-target" puppy to single-pull it is VITAL that no-one engages the monster or heals the puppy until the monster has actually reached you (or at least is well out of aggro range of the other monsters you were spliting it from).

Just a single arrow from an impatient ranja who sees the monster coming and fires instead of waiting can undo all your hard work and turn your perfect single pull into a massive train. So if you use this technique in a group - make sure that everyone understands this.

The same thing will happen if someone tries to heal your puppy whilst he is running back to your camp. It if often very tempting to fire off a heal if you see puppy getting very low on health during the run back - but you MUST wait it out. If puppy lives just long enough to pull the monster out of assist/aggro range then your single pull is safe - if you heal puppy before then - then it will have exactly the same effect as if your puppy had died and you will get the adds - so it is pointless to try and heal.

Note that regen and HoT cast BEFORE puppy engages are safe, and so these are good to use - but once puppy has teh mobs attention, then no direct heals, no HoT until the monster is at your camp.

[Jaraman]

[Veril]

[Samanna]

[Grokii]

[Samanna]

[Ginormus]

[dohrian]

[Grokii]

[Ginormus]

I wasn't aware of that but it really seems like an exploit.

[Samanna]

The other mobs don't want to help this one mob kill a greenie. Makes sense to me.

[Lickity]

I'll have to dig up the thread, but the Mages asked if it was considered an exploit, and got a vague "no," again, doesn't mean it won't be fixed, but they more or less said it wouldn't be punished.

[Ginormus]

Go hug a red mob (for wich you are green) and see if other mobs arund don't give a hand to your target

[Grokii]

I think it's a feature right now... meaning the developers know about... haven't fixed it... aren't telling people not to do it. This has been around for a while and is well documented in any pet class' board (mage, SK, necro one before it poofed/moved). The developers know about it and either don't care or approve of its use.

But, that doesn't mean it's around to stay. That said, I wouldn't run around saying exploit or cheat unless you have documentation from Sony saying so.

[Jaraman]

[Jaraman]

[Ginormus]

[Jaraman]

[Brohg]

[Jaraman]

[Vigdis]

[Shammy 101]

[Jaraman]