I‘m slowly becoming more and more frustrated with these Sorc and Warden pets that just body block every attack. Ranged combat in PvP becomes an absolute nightmare, though melee combat isn’t much better.

Compounding the issue is the Engine Guardian monster set. It spawns a Dwemer construct that basically acts as a pet. This means that any class can have their own personal living shield. People will recommend Engine Guardian on builds solely because it blocks hits. And the Engine Guardian is actually worse than any other pet because it’s designed to stay close to you at all times, unlike bears and daedra who at least run off to attack stuff.

I played a battleground two nights ago where one team had a Warden with a bear and two Sorcs with Engine Guardian and both pets. When I say 75% of my attacks didn’t get through, I’m not exaggerating. And one of the Sorcs had 16K health. He survived multiple engagements by virtue of having pets to block for him alone.

I know pets die eventually, and re-summoning them isn’t easy. But I don’t want to waste proc effects on someone’s flappy boi daedra. I don’t want to have to play the shell game just to kill someone. So here are some potential solutions to this issue.

1. Most obvious solution is to make it so pets can’t be targeted by effects that don’t specifically state they affect pets. That way, they can’t block attacks. Only problem is that pets will be left to act as annoying little sources of chip damage and healing.

2. Change the tab targeting system so that pets can’t be highlighted. While tab targeting isn’t perfect, it definitely helps. But not when pets can be tab targeted, too.

3. Introduce a toggle option under the settings that allows us to opt out of targeting pets with our attacks. Similar to option one, but with the ability to choose.

What do people think? Am I just blowing things out of proportion or are pets more annoying than I think even ZOS intended for them to be?