Hunter/Warlock Pet Delay & Aggro Range

WoW Classic WoW Classic Bug Report
1

There is a 1 or more second delay between commanding your pet to attack, follow or passive which causes inherent problems with other features such as feign death, pet abilities, pulling/kiting mobs, etc. It’s almost as if everything the pet does isn’t recognized in the game until after the delay. Even their position in the game world.

Pets are supposed to respond immediately to commands without delay. Thus, a hunter should be able to put pet on passive and immediately feign death to get out of combat and put up a trap before another attack can be made on them or their pet (unless in PVP a warrior taunts your pet precisely at the same moment you feigned).

The delay also causes problems with aggro range. Pet aggro range should be the same as a player of the same level as the pet. However, right now you can send your pet literally right up to any mob, and then pull it back without ever aggroing the mob. It needs to be in that aggro range for more than 1 second to aggro the mob. This makes it much more difficult to send your pet out to gather a mob or a bunch of mobs and bring them to you without your pet taking much initial damage or even without pulling other unlinked mobs unintentionally. If you want to do this now you have to pre-empt the delay, which is near impossible to do consistently.

I noticed a blue post that stated “Pet aggro radius is working properly and as expected. This is to say, it was extremely inconsistent in original WoW, and it remains inconsistent in WoW Classic”. I played beast master hunter all through Draenor and for the first few months of Legion and never had any pet delays or inconsistency with pet aggro radius. There was especially never a time where the aggro radius was zero. Due to the delay, you can literally send your pet 1 yard away from a mob and have it return to you without aggroing. You can do this consistently. That should never happen. Should the delay be fixed, you will find that the pet aggro radius is pretty consistent and most other related problems will disappear.

This delay probably also accounts for why pets do not attack NPCs from behind when they start running toward you, after you’ve generated more threat than your pet. Instead, it appears almost as if they are strafing sideways.

Same delay probably accounts for why it seems like pets aren’t casting their abilities on time.

In summary, the entire game is delayed in recognizing pet commands, abilities and even the pets location in the game world. This severely gimps hunters and warlocks.

I noticed this problem first when I re-subbed BFA a few months before classic. I played the original Vanilla and every expansion through Legion and quit about 3 months into legion. There was never a pet delay until I re-subbed to BFA. It is definitely game breaking.

23 Likes
2

Please fix this issue

2 Likes
3

This and unable to tab target anything not DIRECTLY AND FULLY in your line of sight. Just a fence pole or “blade of grass” as someone else said, will prevent you from even targeting things…but they see, target and attack you just fine.

4

Pet ai is so bad.

5

I wasn’t sure if this was just how it was in vanilla or not, but warlock pet commands are definitely laggy. When trying to have the pet return to me, switch targets, etc. it seems to take at least 1-2 seconds for anything to register.

1 Like
6

Can confirm on Lock. They did something recently which made it worse. About 1 second feels right. I often start a cast as I’m sending a pet off and he usually moves right before the GCD is up.

1 Like
7

There shouldn’t even be 1 second delay. In the original World of Warcraft 1.12 client (which I might add you can still use to play on private servers, whether illegal or not), pets respond to commands instantaneously, as does getting out of combat by using feign death.

1 Like
8

Yeah this was my experience with the old client: FD dropped combat instantly.

It seems that because they didn’t want to “recreate” the old systems, and instead chose to copy-paste vanilla data into the modern client, we are experiencing issues with the modern client’s combat state rules and delay.

1 Like
9

Exactly, Rethumtv. How disappointing it is that they couldn’t just back to the original game code and improve on that, rather than try to turn the mutilated client which is Legion or BFA into something it can never be. Imagine a multi billion dollar corporation throwing out a source code from one of their previous games and then trying to re-create it.

2 Likes
10

Pet agro range in vanilla was always higher then the master. Just the way it worked. The other stuff I agree on. The delay is bad pet commands where instant and they stuck to mobs like glue.

11

Pet aggro range was absolutely not always higher. You might remember it being like this because when you ding, your pet still needs to catch up to your level. While it is 1 level lower than you, it has a higher aggro radius.

However, as of right now ,you can send your pet right up onto a mob and pull it back without even aggroing it. And you can do this consistently.

12

False. The aggro behavior in classic is absolutely bugged in the following ways:

  1. Pets have a consistent 1-2sec delay before any aggro registers on them; if you send your pet near a mob, the mob will only react 1-2 seconds later, while by contrast, the mob would aggro on a player instantly.

  2. Mobs prioritize master over pet: if your pet hits a mob a bit while you do not hit it at all, and then you disable your pet’s attack, the mob will eventually reaggro onto you (master) even though you had never done a single point of damage to it while your pet did.

  3. (effectively cause by 1) Pets have a ‘smaller’ aggro radius in the sense that a mob will pretty much always prioritize you over the pet if you are the same level, likely as a result of the aggro delay on the pet.

13

Just curious. Why did you start your response with “False”? You just agreed with the OP.

14

Any confirmation from Blizz?

15

Hunter pets use claw before growl even if claw is turned off nomatter what position in the bar they seat.

Its not game breaking but its annoying to have the mob run to my dead zone by the time my pet finally growls!

Its like Claw…GCD… Growl…GCD…Bite… Seems like many seconds wasted!

16

Might want to make a seperate post for this. Blizz is horrible at communicating, so best to flood them with new posts so that they don’t overlook these mind-boggling bugs.

17

I rerolled to this mage from a lock because of pet issues. I love to PvP and pet is my utility. When I need to sac or seduce that means I need to do it now, I shouldn’t have to hit it 5 seconds before I need it and that’s IF it even responds to my command.

I got him to 35 I think and parked him, tossed all his gold and bags to this guy and I’m done with pet classes.

This needs to get fixed. Unresponsiveness and unreliability aren’t key components in PvP. PvE sure I’d sac or keep an imp out but I like doing both and I’m not going to roll the dice hoping my pet does what it’s supposed to do when I tell it to do it.

This, feign death, vanish bugs all need to get squished.

Everyone is complaining about layering and streamers but this game is absolutely SLAUGHTERED with bugs.

2 Likes
18

It’s one of the reasons I shelved my lock. If I need to sac, seduce or cs it is usually important and needs to be done when I hit the button.

The whole Pet AI needs to be refactored.

19

Yeah after playing more it is pretty annoying, especially with seduce since it also has a cast time. It’s like pets have a front loaded GCD before responding to commands.

20

I have noticed the strange positioning and such, but not real delays here on their abilities. I wonder if it’s cause I’m on a lower pop server.