How do you guys deal with this...

[KC4800]

Consider. You're in Bodyguard mode and you initiate attacking a group. You focus on the hardest target. A few minions are ignored and attack you and your henchies. Once the initial target is eliminated your henchmen will run back to you unless they are personally attacked. There is maybe one minion left. Decides to run. You immobilize it. Once you have control on that one target, your henchmen wont attack it unless you issue an attack order again. Is this a result of being in defensive stance? Do you switch to offensive stance at some point to stop this from happening? This is maybe the one thing that infuriates me the most. Just kill that guy! Why do I have to order you again? Grrrrrr...

[TygerDarkstorm]

30 minutes ago, KC4800 said:

Consider. You're in Bodyguard mode and you initiate attacking a group. You focus on the hardest target. A few minions are ignored and attack you and your henchies. Once the initial target is eliminated your henchmen will run back to you unless they are personally attacked. There is maybe one minion left. Decides to run. You immobilize it. Once you have control on that one target, your henchmen wont attack it unless you issue an attack order again. Is this a result of being in defensive stance? Do you switch to offensive stance at some point to stop this from happening? This is maybe the one thing that infuriates me the most. Just kill that guy! Why do I have to order you again? Grrrrrr...

If you are in defensive mode, then your pets will attack so long as you are being attacked. If you get a runner, or otherwise mez the mob, then yeah, you're not being attacked anymore and the pet AI tells them to go back to their master. So yes, I have noticed this happening, and no, it doesn't bother me I guess (I have something like 20 different MM's, lol). I mean, part of playing an MM is pet management, so yeah, I stance dance between defensive, aggressive, and occasionally passive and I make excessive use of the "attack my target" command. On my bots/nature, I like to throw out the little ground patch, command my bots to "go-to" it and then throw them on aggressive.

[Meknomancer]

Its a mastermind your supposed to be giving orders 🙂 When i'm lazy i play an ill troller, problem solved.

[tidge]

As @TygerDarkstorm wrote: I'll simply toggle the stances/shift orders for those times where the enemies are controlled and not seen as a threat.

[Arbegla]

I run provoke, which makes things target/attack me, so in BG mode, even if the mob is mezzed, its going to be wanting to smack me, which triggers the pets to smack it back.

[TheMoncrief]

Also, you can order your minions by type. For example, with Robotics something like 90% of the damage potential is in your Assault Bot. So tell it to attack high priority targets, leave your Battle Drones and Protector Bots in BG mode. Other sets may be less lopsided or just favor different pets, but the point still stands - you don't need to remove all your pets from BG mode to send some of them out to attack something that needs attacked.

[TheSpiritFox]

On 3/4/2021 at 6:54 PM, KC4800 said:

Consider. You're in Bodyguard mode and you initiate attacking a group. You focus on the hardest target. A few minions are ignored and attack you and your henchies. Once the initial target is eliminated your henchmen will run back to you unless they are personally attacked. There is maybe one minion left. Decides to run. You immobilize it. Once you have control on that one target, your henchmen wont attack it unless you issue an attack order again. Is this a result of being in defensive stance? Do you switch to offensive stance at some point to stop this from happening? This is maybe the one thing that infuriates me the most. Just kill that guy! Why do I have to order you again? Grrrrrr...

I generally open up in defensive mode and switch to offensive as soon as everything is attacking the pets instead of me, especially in groups where other players can also be aggroing enemies. Solo I stay in defensive more, stuff tends to keep attacking. 

 

I would say don't focus on the hard targets until the end most of the time. I don't tend to like burn down bosses until most or all of the other mobs are dead. Early in the fight, with more enemies up, giving up bodyguard can easily get you killed with random aoe attacks and such. 

[RedekerKane]

I run with Provoke to make sure everything is attacking me for the Alpha, then once the major threats are down, most of the stragglers are down due to AOE.  For any runners or remaining enemies I will just send my pets after them as I don't need BG mode anymore.  Once everything is dead, they return to BG mode.

[Crysis]

On 3/5/2021 at 6:41 PM, Arbegla said:

I run provoke, which makes things target/attack me, so in BG mode, even if the mob is mezzed, its going to be wanting to smack me, which triggers the pets to smack it back.

 

One reason why “Tankerminding” became a thing, for this QOL reason.  Does require either Provoke or running something like This mes Juncture and entering spawn first.....some of those AOE rebuffs generate crazy aggro.

 

But honestly, this is why the numpad macros should be mandatory “drivers permit” for playing a MM.  I change henchmen stances all the time, pre/during/post engagement with a spawn.  As someone else said above if I want auto pilot I just play a Controller.  The nature of a MM is the tactical deployment of henchmen and moving rapidly between Defensive (for BG bonus) and focused fire for Max DPS.  On a steamrolling team it may not be all that useful (I am almost always in Aggressive mode with those), but on smaller teams or soloing it’s a very different play style.

 

[Riverdusk]

On 3/5/2021 at 4:57 PM, TheMoncrief said:

Also, you can order your minions by type. For example, with Robotics something like 90% of the damage potential is in your Assault Bot. So tell it to attack high priority targets, leave your Battle Drones and Protector Bots in BG mode. Other sets may be less lopsided or just favor different pets, but the point still stands - you don't need to remove all your pets from BG mode to send some of them out to attack something that needs attacked.

 

Especially once I get all my pets I do this a lot and honestly you can keep them that way most of the time you are walking around.  Keep the big hitter(s) in aggressive mode, keep others in bodyguard mode (usually the tier 1 pets at least).   Even with just 3 pets in bodyguard you still get the majority of the damage resistance benefit.

 

Your aggressive pet(s) start the fight, get attacked, and that gets everyone else to jump in.  Also prevents the "problem" I have with some sets that a few last straggler enemies end up so slowed or controlled that your defensive pets eventually lose interest (or like the original poster's problem).  If everyone is in defensive you all kind of sit there staring at each other until you realize you need to tell your pets to start attacking again.  Splitting pets stances I find is an easy way to still play "lazy" if you aren't into constantly switching stances and you aren't going after super tough content.

[Decaying Rose]

An alternative take:

 

I don't usually use BG mode myself--that stems from learning the MM trade without it back on Live, not because I'm a masochist.  I'll certainly swap to it if the situation warrants it, like when I know ambushes are inbound or there's just huge AoEs flying all over the place.

 

Most of the time I let the pets handle their own targeting, as I tend to run debuff secondaries.  That is, I'll give the pets a GOTO order while they're in Aggressive stance, and I'll make sure to move them such that the first thing they're likely to attack is also a good aim-point for their various cone attacks.  This frees up a lot of attention for my secondary powers, and it lets me land debuffs/controls right as the pet attacks are going off, which usually serves to break up the alpha nicely.

 

If there's a drawback to doing it like this, it's that I need to remember to collect the pets after a battle.  I usually do this by giving them explicit attack orders on the last critter in the group, so that when it dies they automatically revert to Follow status.  Or I just give them a Follow order.