No sadly not there is a bug with Pet AI right now and that is part of the problem. For the most part tho they've always acted like a bunch of school girls on crack with guns.
Captain Den'Rath 53* Merk/Traps MM, Rivona 50Energy Blast/Time Cor,Victoria Von Heilwig 53* Dual Pistols/Traps Cor, Crab Spider Webguard 53* SOA, Accela 53* Bot/FF MM,Valkyrie's Executor 53* Broadsword/Shield Def Scrap. On FREEDOM! @Knight Of Bronze
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I have a Merc/Dark that is one of my favorite toons. This Rocky Marciano AI behavior is present in all of the sets, its just much more annoying in the mercs and bots sets because they are supposed to be strictly ranged.
As far as I know, you can't shut off thier punch ability. All you can do is wrangle them as best as you can. Also, I recommend taking a blasterminder approach with mercs. Individually, thier dps isn't that good (xcept for the commando's occasional flashes of brilliance). If you keep all six guns pointing in the same direction at all times though, things move much faster. This of course means you can't stomp around in BG mode but it doesn't matter. Difficult stuff can still be solod, it just takes more strategy and active playing. My secondary is /dark though, which is phenominal with mercs because of the controlliness.
I got side tracked there. What were we talking about? Oh yea, merc punches... nope can't do sh*t about it really cept pull em back over and over.
I read somewhere that someone took team teleport and would periodically tp everyone back out of melee range.
YMMV - never tried it, personally, but it sounds like a quick way to get everyone out of melee.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
The AI is terrible on all pets. They have guns and yet they run in to punch enemies. Is there a way to force them to stay back and shoot without mashing "goto" commands ? Can you remove punch from their command list?