Controller pets controls not for me

[Spectre7878]

Ok. I may be the only one that does not like this. I wish there was an opt out option for this. If I wanted to control pets I play a mastermind. Which I don’t play because I don’t like it. I have enough to do during battle rather than telling my pets to attack and stay etc etc. I played my illusion dark controller who use to be fun but now I have to micro manage my phantasm. Worse yet when I spawn him he automatically goes to follow me/passive. I don’t want to be clicking pet window to make him passive and or aggressive. Please give players options to have pets do what they use to do. 😢

[...]

You can just make a macro to set him to follow/aggressive.

 

But yes, it is an extra step that didn't exist before. 

[Psyonico]

I'm going to throw together a suggestion post in regards to this concern.

[Epistasis]

I agree totally.  I chose Gravity (ever since live) not only because it's cool to hoist things and choke the life out of them, but because I wanted the Singularity to function as a 'fire and forget' defensive measure of last resort - I have zero interest in controlling it (I have a Thugs/Kinetics mastermind for that!).  I'd like to see some of the primaries reverted, or at least the option for it.

 

Sincerely,

Epistasis

Torchbearer/Everlasting

[Maelwys]

/bind KEY "petcom_all aggressive follow"

Summon Pet.
Press KEY.
Done.

No clicking of pet trays or any other horribly difficult UI interactions required.

And if you are the sort of person that doesn't need the kids to set up your streaming box (that's the modern equivalent of "program your VCR", right?) you could even append the petcom command onto the end of the same button you press to summon the controller pet in the first place.

[Heatstroke]

While the new controls can be somewhat annoying at first if you are not used to them, what I did is what I learned to do was summon the pet and then drop and drag the different Icons into a power tray. This allows me to use the button to easily change behavior. One of the most useful is the " Goto " command. I can use that command to make the pet(s) engage first,  drawing inital aggro and then follow up with holds. debuffs or attacks. Very very useful. Especially for pets like Singularity which has a habit sometimes of staying slightly out of range. 

[Riverdusk]

Need to change their stance out of defensive every time you zone as well.  Not saying it is that hard, but it isn't just at summons.

 

Personally I'd still be for controller pets defaulting to "follow aggressive" if being able to set our own default isn't doable.  It is the closest to what they were before.   Defensive is not a great stance as it leads to wonky behavior.   On a controller even more than a MM.  A controller often quickly ends up....controlling....the enemy so they end up not attacking.  Which leads to the pet to stop attacking.  There is no 'bodyguard' benefit to having them in that stance like a MM has either.

 

Aggressive or passive is really all I need for a controller pet the vast majority of the time.   It isn't a big deal, but it defaulting to the least useful stance all the time is still an annoyance.

Edited 18 hours ago by Riverdusk

[Zombra]

On 7/21/2025 at 7:20 AM, Maelwys said:

/bind KEY "petcom_all aggressive follow"

 

I like /bind w +forward$$petcom_all aggressive

Don't even need to worry about the thing changing attitude between zones which seems to happen sometimes.  Any time you move, your pet becomes aggressive again 🙂

 

[Six-Six]

My feeble brain can't micromanage pets either. I just place a button to attack my target on the tray, then a few keybinds to goto, stay while on defensive stance, and follow while passive (heel). so during a tangle, the button click acts like a regular attack.

I personally like being able to exert a bit of control over pet(s) as opposed to dom and arachnos VEAT epic pets that just do what they want and end up dead or getting me in trouble.

[tjknight]

I double checked this for myself, because it seemed odd to me. All my pets on various controllers are in default Defensive - Follow mode not Defensive - Passive. I haven’t even used the controls on the pets at all. I wonder what's going on?

[Zombra]

9 hours ago, tjknight said:

I double checked this for myself, because it seemed odd to me. All my pets on various controllers are in default Defensive - Follow mode not Defensive - Passive. I haven’t even used the controls on the pets at all. I wonder what's going on?

 

It's no secret.  This was changed recently as part of the Issue 28, Page 2 update.  Search for the string "trollers in" to jump to the relevant patch note.

 

So now Controller pets behave just like Mastermind pets, defaulting to Defensive/Follow instead of the usual Aggressive behavior we've been used to for so long.  (They were never 'Passive'.)

 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Zombra

[Riverdusk]

10 hours ago, tjknight said:

I double checked this for myself, because it seemed odd to me. All my pets on various controllers are in default Defensive - Follow mode not Defensive - Passive. I haven’t even used the controls on the pets at all. I wonder what's going on?

 

You can't have a pet in both defensive and passive.

 

There are three main modes - Aggressive, Defensive, Passive. 

 

Aggressive = attack anything nearby.  Defensive = attack if you or the pet is attacked recently, Passive= never attack. 

 

Then there are movement modes you can add- Attack (current target), Goto, Follow, Stay.  Those tell it how to move/target.  The default is currently defensive follow and it resets to that every time you zone.   

 

Problem with defensive is there is a time limit so if an enemy attacks you or your pet, you mez it, then your pet will only attack it for a set amount of time.  If it doesn't kill it in that time your pet will stop attacking as it hasn't been attacked in a while by that enemy.   Then you end up with your pet and the partially damaged enemy just sitting there staring at each other.   I've actually had that issue even from just slowing an enemy enough, not even full on mezzing it, but a mez will often do it for sure.

Edited 5 hours ago by Riverdusk

[tjknight]

4 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

 

You can't have a pet in both defensive and passive.

 

There are three main modes - Aggressive, Defensive, Passive. 

 

Aggressive = attack anything nearby.  Defensive = attack if you or the pet is attacked recently, Passive= never attack. 

 

Then there are movement modes you can add- Attack (current target), Goto, Follow, Stay.  Those tell it how to move/target.  The default is currently defensive follow and it resets to that every time you zone.   

 

Problem with defensive is there is a time limit so if an enemy attacks you or your pet, you mez it, then your pet will only attack it for a set amount of time.  If it doesn't kill it in that time your pet will stop attacking as it hasn't been attacked in a while by that enemy.   Then you end up with your pet and the partially damaged enemy just sitting there staring at each other.   I've actually had that issue even from just slowing an enemy enough, not even full on mezzing it, but a mez will often do it for sure.

Ooops I mistyped. But regardless thanks for the help  but I have 10 Masterminds, & 7 controllers and have been playing this game since live. So I know how all that works. I'm mor curious about what bug the OP is running into that's defaulting their pets to passive/follow. 

Edited 1 hour ago by tjknight

[Zombra]

7 minutes ago, tjknight said:

I'm mor curious about what bug the OP is running into that's defaulting their pets to passive/follow. 

 

Probably they're simply mistaken in thinking they're set to Passive.  Pets now default to Defensive instead of the Aggressive the OP is used to.

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Zombra