Teamwork
I've had a proper chance to play with Hunter, Pet and Priest.
Here is the preferred attack:
- target foe with Maezyn
- send in pet
- serpent sting and drop into autoshot
- switch to Sissle
- target foe
- Mind Blast
- Wand to death
Normal fights last seven or eight seconds.
The Pet is an Elder Crag Boar called Cedric. As soon as he was tamed he was trained in Growl and he never seems to drop agro, he can hold on like glue. He has a lovely charge ability and zooms into fights. I can already pull a mob with Maezyn and intercept it with a charge from Cedric once the mob is away from his mates. Sweet pulling. Sissle is free to Mind Blast, Heal or whatever, she doesn't seem to pull agro from Cedric. The trio have killed both level 11 elites in Dun Morogh, just tank with cedric, the girls blast and Sissle casts lesser heal and renew on Cedric. I think Hunter/Priest is actually a good pairing, we have two lots of ranged dps, a healer (two if you include Mend Pet) and a tank. The Hunter herself is easy to control in a fight, just leave her on autoshot and concentrate on the priest, Mind Blasting, Smiting, Wanding or Healing as appropriate. The pet is on defensive and will largely take care of itself. The Priest can cast Power Word: Fortitude to boost everyone's stamina, including the pet.
I've had some spectacular fights, usually they turn into chaos with at least one character standing doing nothing. It needs another order of mental dexterity. I've had all three of them in one-on-one fights at once. The group seem to be able to handle pairs of adds, something a solo player may have trouble with.
Maezyn has died once, Cedric went crazy and agroed a whole camp. I made Sissle run away, let Maezyn die and have Sissle resurrect. When Maezyn dies, Cedric is automatically dismissed and so he won't die himself. Resurrecting Maezyn seem quicker than Maezyn resurrecting a Pet, Maezyn doesn't need feeding to make her happy again. However, letting Maezyn die will incur the 10% durability loss.
There is one thing about it that is really getting annoying: having to put Sissle back into follow mode. She keeps dropping out and it is getting to me. Sissle follows about five yards directly behind Maezyn which leads to a few problems:
- sometimes Maezyn starts a fight with Sissle out of range
- if Maezyn is in range to loot a corpse, Sissle is sometimes a little too far behind
Correcting these is easy enough but it breaks the follow and I have to engage it again (and again and again). I need to bind it to a key.
Her following is buggy, going through doors she can get stuck in doorways etc. I've seen her refuse to stop climbing steep hills and stop dead. I don't understand why the hunter pet works fine but follow doesn't, don't they use the same code?
Peter's Moblog
The hunter pet will attempt to follow/reach you using the line of least resistance, i.e. there's intelligence involved (that's why they sometimes aggro the entire instance when attempting to reach you after you have jumped down onto a ledge below - they don't jump, they find a path). A 'follow' is effectively one char being pulled along by another on a straight line between the two regardless of obstacles between the leader and follower - if something gets in the way, the follower is trapped and the 'follow' breaks.