Pets aggroing more now?

[Ra Ra.9423]

I've been playing my ranger through PoF maps & story. I've played ranger a lot, and it seems like the pets aggro everything now. It can really be problematic when in the already aggro-heavy PoF maps. Has any other rangers noticed this?

I recall an update long ago to help prevent the pets from aggroing foes, and I've not noticed it to be an issue (much) since that time. But now it's an issue. My pet runs off and attacks something that i haven't even targeted. And, in moving through the map, when no on mount or Soulbeast form, I'm in combat a good portion of the time because the pet is fighting something.

Thought I'd ask the community and the Devs. Sorry if this is in the wrong place, it just feels buggy to me that the pets appear to be acting differently -- though to be sure, there's a heck of a lot of foes for them to aggro on. :dizzy: I've gotten a lot of practice soloing PoF large groups these days....

[Llethander.3972]

This might have to do with pets operating under "defend the player when attacked" rules paired with mounts. If the Ranger is attacked whilst mounted s/he will be flagged into combat and, if combat has not been cleared prior to dismounting, the pet will attempt to "defend" the player from whichever mob it was that hit him/her.

This pet behavior is one that I have wanted changed since the game launched. Instead of Active and Passive as being the only options for selected pet behaviors we should have the choices of Defend, Assist, and Passive. Defend should operate as the current iteration of Active in game. Assist should forego the defensive behavior of the current Active setting and, instead, only attack if the Ranger makes an offensive action (ie. attacking an enemy). Passive should remain unchanged.

This would give Rangers a full spectrum of choices with regards to how they want their pets to react. Folks who like the way pets currently act would simply need to leave their pets on Defend. Players who dislike the pet running off to attack something every time they are hit by an attack while they are running regardless of whether they are going to stop to fight whatever it was that hit them would have the option to set their pet to Assist. And passive would still keep the pet from attacking both when the Ranger is hit or when the Ranger initiates an attack unless s/he specifically tells the pet to attack something using the "Attack Target" pet command.

[Ra Ra.9423]

Sounds reasonable. In the meantime, i've started keeping my pets on avoid, until i'm committing to combat. Seems to help, just annoying if i forget to click it to active, and wonder why my pet is standing around. Thanks!