MM noob question

Ok, so i FINALLY decided to run with a MM after several yrs of playing. I decided to roll a Bots/Traps. How do I keep my pets out of melee?? What exact commands do I need to use? Goto? Heel? Follow? Any other commands that might help out? Or do I let them close to melee range? Please, please, please help out a MM noob... Any and all help will be greatly appreciated..

Brakkus

You can't, really. They'll run in to melee when the AI decides that they should.

For bots, I just roll with it. Their melee attack is actually decent and it adds a bit of damage especially when solo. However, if you feel you really need to move pets around, they respond to a Goto command most of the time.

This won't prevent them from running back into melee, but it will usually move them around at least. And sometimes they do stay out of melee.

Something like:

/macro Move petcom goto

Then select a pet, click this macro, and you'll get a white "bullseye" cursor that you can click on the ground to move the selected pet. You can move groups of pets with petcomname or petcompow if you don't want to move them one at a time.

Supposedly there is a bug causing ranged MM pets to close to melee. I haven't run into it myself, because I gravitate towards the melee pets anyhow.

There are a few binds you should have. If you notice, you should have 3 default macro buttons: Attack my target, Follow (which you need to fix), and Heel (follow/passive stance).

Starting out on robots, I use attack my target frequently to focus fire on desired targets to knock them out one by one. This is NOT suggested during boss fights.

The default follow power is broken, as it default to follow/aggressive stance. You should right click on that macro button and make it follow/DEFENSIVE so that you are in body guard mode. This means when attacked, your bot will attack until dead the attacking foe. As long as he does not aggro another attack, he will return to you and guard against further attacks.

You should also have a GoTo macro. Petcom_all Goto Defensive is my preferred macro. This sends the bots to a specific point and will guard you if in range, and also that location.

Sometimes the bots overaggro. They get in over their heads. The quickest way to regroup is click the Heel macro, even a couple times. Once you see them coming back to where you are, click the bodyguard follow (follow/defensive stance) since it takes a few seconds for them to engage bodyguard mode. If you try to reel the bots in with just the bodyguard follow, it won't override them from defending themselves from attacking spawns.

You can also program macros and binds for individual bots/pets. I suggest you look at Sandolphan's keybind guide for further binding.

I suggest reading and using this

Sandolphan's Revised MM Numpad Pet Controls

It has made my MM life so much easier.

Outstanding info everyone, exactly what I wanted, Thanks!!! I thought i was doing something wrong when my bots closed to melee after a few shots, or I was misguiding them with my noobness. Very much appreciated, and will stick the binds in too!!

Thanks again

The ironic thing about this whole melee AI bug is that now all the ranged pets are getting screwed when before all of the melee pets were being screwed. Melee pets used to commonly sit at range and throw rocks (bruiser) or shoot arrows (genin). Having to use elaborate goto binds just to get the ninjas or bruiser to use their melee attacks was almost as frustrating as getting bots and mercs to fight at ranged now. Maybe there's an upside to the current AI behavior. Maybe the devs just want us to employ more melee minions. For example, I'm currently loving my Dark Servant who, with his chill of the night aura, now runs right up the enemies and wraps them in his dark embrace!

/bind shift+lbutton "petcom_all Goto Passive"

/bind shift+lbutton "petcom_all Goto Aggressive"

/bind shift+lbutton "petcom_all Goto Defensive"

i like it simple - choose one

I'd really love to see them add a third behavior variable for pets, call it Combat Preference. Options would be close to melee, stay at range, and use all attacks.

Yes, many of us have asked for something similar to that. It comes down to how difficult it would be to implement. I'm thinking it would be more involved than many of us realize. If it were simple, I think it would have already been done as most MM's I know, including the ones that never post on the boards, have been clamoring for this since CoV went live. I can't imagine the mentality at NCsoft being, "It's an easy fix, but MM's already have it so good we can afford to let them suffer." Then again, what do I know?

if the AI is smart enough to know my ninja stars are range and jump kick is in melee range then all you should have to do is fake out the pets into thinking you removed those abilities temporarily