How much do you micromanage your pets?

[Gentoo]

With Macros, and when Solo on a Mastermind, I sometimes go way overboard on micromanaging my pets. Do you do the same?

 

I'll do things like pull with a single minion, but keeping the rest of them behind a corner, or keep some but not all of them on bodyguard mode (Merc's medic mostly). I've heard some of you have such a good feel for your pets that you get them into particular ranges from enemies so they will use particular attacks?

 

Whats the most hardcore micromanaged thing you've done with your guys?

[chigiabelo]

I've done things like send two to the right, two to the left and keep two with me then attack from three directions. Binds and macros + a good multibutton controller and/or mouse make MM's hella easy to use.

[Tamorand]

I have 3 goto macros on LSHIFT, LCTRL AND LSHIFT+CTRL

 

/bind lshift petcom_pow "Soldier" goto defensive stay

/bind lctrl petcom_pow "Spec Ops" goto defensive stay

/bind lshift+lctrl petcom_pow "Commando" goto defensive stay

 

I"ve experimented with using Aggressive instead of Defensive but if "anything" hits or looks at them funny on Aggressive, they just turn right around and keep shooting or punching.

 

Though on the flip side of that, If I am no longer getting hit I'll have to use an All Attack Defensive to get them to re-engage

 

I use it the same way to spread them out and since I play Mercs / Storm I use it to get them back inside my hurricane where it's warm and safe.

 

[Chuckers]

Since I work all my powers from the number pad, using ctl and alt to access the extra trays, I have a macro made for each bot that has them attacking my target. I will assign each bot a target and got to town.. switching targets as necessary. I also have a "go to" macro to gather my bots in a single space. It makes them stay there until I either change there stance, make them attack something, or move far enough away it triggers a respawn.

During large fights, I'll be doing a lot of micro-managing of my bots and their targets.

 

[Warden]

As a necro, I do it quite a lot. Not sure if it's the same for other MMs, but my pets have pretty specific niches and I try my best to make use of their skillsets when engaging enemies (when i'm soloing, team play tends to be more relaxed/casual).

 

Zombies are more or less fodder that does ok damage. I'll send them in to tie up groups of enemies i don't care about, but don't want beating on my face or my other pets.

 

Grave knights are the big damage dealers. They have cc and tons of dps, so i put them on priority targets to take down ASAP and primarily focus on supporting them.

 

Lich has tons of debuffs and CC, so that's what I primarily use him for. I'll set him in the direction of enemies that, while not fodder nor currently priority, can/will be priority once my grave knights clean up whatever they're currently killing. He usually keeps them locked down, and will blast them with dark damage which helps debuff them and get them ready for combat with the GKs. He's pretty good at staying alive, himself, so there's usually no issue letting him deal with 3-4 enemies by himself.

 

 

I think it just depends on your playstyle though. Sometimes brute-force sending all of your pets to attack a single guy is totally worth doing and possibly even optimal. But for solo play I like to strategize.

[lunawisp]

I rarely bother with all that messing about with my MM's unless the situation is unusual. I just target a single mob, usually the boss or a lieutenant and burn that down with all the pets concentrating om it then swap them to another if there is one, or just let them do their own thing if there are only minions left. Micro-management sounds too much like work to me ;)

[Warden]

I rarely bother with all that messing about with my MM's unless the situation is unusual. I just target a single mob, usually the boss or a lieutenant and burn that down with all the pets concentrating om it then swap them to another if there is one, or just let them do their own thing if there are only minions left. Micro-management sounds too much like work to me ;)

 

It's really not that bad if you have good keybinds! I personally use http://web.archive.org/web/20120904222729/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=117256 and it works like a charm, making it really easy to select groups of pets and tell them to do exactly what you want. In particular having quick access to pet command binds makes it really easy to swap in and out of bodyguard mode, reduces the chance that your pets will run off and aggro other mobs on its own, and can improve the speed at which you set priority targets or just spread out your forces. I don't think you HAVE to do it to be viable or anything, but it smoothed my gameplay out a lot and made it very enjoyable to manage my personal army :)

[Generator]

IIRC from live, I initially set up my Robots guy to have separate commands for Minions, and the Lts, and the AssaultBot, and a fourth command set for All Robots, then found that in 99% of situations I was just using the "All Robots" set of commands, so I left those as the commands I had bound and ditched the group-specific ones.

[Glowman]

I couldn’t figure out how to translate the link to robots.  :-[

[merrypessimist]

I don't bother too much.  Primarily I'll set up a Bodyguard bind and use the "attack this target" default bind.  I have the pets murder something then put them into bodyguard to stop shooting while I have them then kill something else and repeat as necessary while hitting them and the enemies with buffs/debuffs.

[ParaBruce]

I started off doing all kinds of complex fiddly things with pets, then gradually realized that - for me, as opposed to some much better player - it wasn't really paying off. Five or so commands do it for me.

 

[Force Redux]

I started off doing all kinds of complex fiddly things with pets, then gradually realized that - for me, as opposed to some much better player - it wasn't really paying off. Five or so commands do it for me.

 

Parabruce pretty much summed it up for me as well. My main goal is to keep my pets from being annoying to groups and prevent random aggro when not attacking. Sometimes I fiddle with the Lich if I'm on necro. If I'm on bots its just 'go get 'em boys'.

[kelly Rocket]

For Mercs, I end up doing a fair amount of micro, because I need to keep the Medic on Passive while the other two T1 pets are on defensive/aggressive/whatever, or he spends too much time attacking and forgets he has heals.

[Catgoyle]

I keep it simple, five commands for missions, two for travel/vendors (I park them when near trainers), and a dismiss.

 

Go/Stay/Get/Come = Defensive+Goto/Stay/Target/Follow

Nuts = Aggressive + Follow

 

Wait/Heel = Passive+Stay/Follow

 

X = Dismiss