Volatile Familiar does not hold aggro anymore

dpencil

So, I've been playing pet sorc for a long time. When I take my pets into a dungeon or something, the Twilight Matriach will usually be the first one to aggro the boss, but as soon as the Volatile Familiar hits the boss, aggro shifts to the Familiar and remains on him through the fight as long as the Familiar stays alive. At least, that's how it used to work before Homestead. Now, doing the exact same fights (take Infernal Guardian from CoA1 for example), the boss just completely ignores the Familiar and goes straight for me as soon as I hit him. Since this wasn't a nerf to pet aggro spelled oit in the patch notes, I'm inclined to call it a bug. I reported it, but wanted to let others in the ESO community check it out for themselves. If you find yourself having a similar experience, please bug report it and comment here.

Waffennacht

dpencil wrote: »

So, I've been playing pet sorc for a long time. When I take my pets into a dungeon or something, the Twilight Matriach will usually be the first one to aggro the boss, but as soon as the Volatile Familiar hits the boss, aggro shifts to the Familiar and remains on him through the fight as long as the Familiar stays alive. At least, that's how it used to work before Homestead. Now, doing the exact same fights (take Infernal Guardian from CoA1 for example), the boss just completely ignores the Familiar and goes straight for me as soon as I hit him. Since this wasn't a nerf to pet aggro spelled oit in the patch notes, I'm inclined to call it a bug. I reported it, but wanted to let others in the ESO community check it out for themselves. If you find yourself having a similar experience, please bug report it and comment here.

thanks for the heads up.

Gorilla

Why the familiar over clannfear?

dpencil

Because Twilight is a better healer then dps pet and because the Familiar's pulses are amazingly strong, stronger than Liquid Lightning in terms of dps when attacking a target with Daedric Prey on.

I will say that the Familair did hold aggro for me today against an Air Atronach at a Craglorn Focus Point. There were a couple times he didn't, but one time for sure he did. So, findings so far have not been 100% conclusive.

SmalltalkJava

i'm having the same issue. I had both pets out earlier and the familiar never took aggro from the matriarch.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

dpencil wrote: »

Because Twilight is a better healer then dps pet and because the Familiar's pulses are amazingly strong, stronger than Liquid Lightning in terms of dps when attacking a target with Daedric Prey on.

I will say that the Familair did hold aggro for me today against an Air Atronach at a Craglorn Focus Point. There were a couple times he didn't, but one time for sure he did. So, findings so far have not been 100% conclusive.

my familiar is hitting for 6k non crits, and that is what LL hits for with crit on my toon. the familiar out dpses LL a lot. even with only 42k magic on my sorc. so this is an understatement.

RavenSworn

it might have been a ninja change. My clannfear has been holding aggro as usual. If the familiar is not, then i think they might have changed the pet mechanics abit since the familiar is not meant to be a tank.

Waffennacht

RavenSworn wrote: »

it might have been a ninja change. My clannfear has been holding aggro as usual. If the familiar is not, then i think they might have changed the pet mechanics abit since the familiar is not meant to be a tank.

I'd agree, as sad as it is, I think this is how they intend it. Familiar and Dmg matriarch for dps, clan for tank, other bat woman for heals... too bad the bat woman aggros so well lol

BlackSparrow

Yeah, I noticed this too. Even making the familiar pulse doesn't reliably catch or keep aggro. Sometimes, it does, but it seems a lot easier to pull aggro off the familiar than it used to be.

A pity... I liked that little guy, but if this is a purposeful change, it means the vol familiar can no longer serve the purpose I used it for. Guess I'll need to unmorph it and switch to Clannfear.

Dracane

Many changes happen unnanounced, that's no surprise.
And also, pets can not aggro all bosses.

SmalltalkJava

Has anyone filed a bug report on this?

SmalltalkJava

I submitted a bug report on the forums. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/320781/volatile-familiar-is-not-holding-agro/p1

BlackSparrow

SmalltalkJava wrote: »

I submitted a bug report on the forums. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/320781/volatile-familiar-is-not-holding-agro/p1

That's not the same as an actual bug report. In the game, type /bug. The devs don't frequent the forums, so that's the best way to do it.

olsborg

Also noticed this.

dpencil

I did bug report it in game, but everyone else should do that too. The more reports, the better visability.

@Dracane I know they don't aggro everything, but the same stuff they used to tank reliably before they do not anymore. It's also more likely this is unintentional, as this was not called out in the patch notes and probably would have been given the kind of change it is. Not surprising this broke with the patch since so much other stuff did too.

Dracane

I just can't find the opportunity to test it.
But I just did the Imperial City Boss Amoncrul with my BF and this boss was always crazy with his aggro.
But my Twilight tanked him for the entire fight. He instantly focused her and didn't let go of her. So this worked as it used to.

Have yet to test 1v1 vs other bosses.

dpencil

Ok. I did some controlled testing in CoA1 today. It appears that the problem is with the Familiar TAKING aggro from me, not establishing aggro himself. Example, the fire dude at the top of the south platform. I sent the Familair in first, let him actually whack the guy with his normal melee attack, then began to fight. I was not using the Twilight at all during today's test, so dunno if she would have stolen aggro from him. The Familiar held aggro through the fight. Then I reset the fight before killing him and this time I just went right into attacking him. Normally this is what I would do pre-Homestead and as soon as the Familiar would hit him, he'd forget about me. NOT THIS TIME. Boss kept attacking me and ignored the Familiar. So I just stopped attacking and kept shields up. 5-10 seconds later, the boss switches to fighting the Familiar and stayed on him after I resumed attacking.

In trash pulls, the Familiar was only aggroing the target he was melee attacking. His damage pulses do not count as aggro for him. If I sent him to tap every mob, they would stop attacking me and start attacking him. I believe that pre-Homestead, sending a pet in to fight a pack of mobs, they all would aggro him. Now, just the one he hits aggros him and the others come to me.

So, until ZOS confirms this is intentional behavior or fixes it, SEND YOUR FAMILIAR IN FIRST AND WAIT FOR HIM TO ENGAGE BEFORE ATTACKING if you care about him holding aggro.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Any input would be great.

I encourage others to test with the Clannfear and Twilight in the same way and post your results here.

Waffennacht

dpencil wrote: »

Ok. I did some controlled testing in CoA1 today. It appears that the problem is with the Familiar TAKING aggro from me, not establishing aggro himself. Example, the fire dude at the top of the south platform. I sent the Familair in first, let him actually whack the guy with his normal melee attack, then began to fight. I was not using the Twilight at all during today's test, so dunno if she would have stolen aggro from him. The Familiar held aggro through the fight. Then I reset the fight before killing him and this time I just went right into attacking him. Normally this is what I would do pre-Homestead and as soon as the Familiar would hit him, he'd forget about me. NOT THIS TIME. Boss kept attacking me and ignored the Familiar. So I just stopped attacking and kept shields up. 5-10 seconds later, the boss switches to fighting the Familiar and stayed on him after I resumed attacking.

In trash pulls, the Familiar was only aggroing the target he was melee attacking. His damage pulses do not count as aggro for him. If I sent him to tap every mob, they would stop attacking me and start attacking him. I believe that pre-Homestead, sending a pet in to fight a pack of mobs, they all would aggro him. Now, just the one he hits aggros him and the others come to me.

So, until ZOS confirms this is intentional behavior or fixes it, SEND YOUR FAMILIAR IN FIRST AND WAIT FOR HIM TO ENGAGE BEFORE ATTACKING if you care about him holding aggro.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Any input would be great.

I encourage others to test with the Clannfear and Twilight in the same way and post your results here.

So you're saying console is SOL as we cannot control the pet and must always initiate the fight ourselves, or at least shield up for to 10 seconds after initiating combat.... cool...

SOB

dpencil

@Waffennacht Looks that way. Sorry, bro. Hopefully they get it reverted back soon.

STEVIL

dpencil wrote: »

Ok. I did some controlled testing in CoA1 today. It appears that the problem is with the Familiar TAKING aggro from me, not establishing aggro himself. Example, the fire dude at the top of the south platform. I sent the Familair in first, let him actually whack the guy with his normal melee attack, then began to fight. I was not using the Twilight at all during today's test, so dunno if she would have stolen aggro from him. The Familiar held aggro through the fight. Then I reset the fight before killing him and this time I just went right into attacking him. Normally this is what I would do pre-Homestead and as soon as the Familiar would hit him, he'd forget about me. NOT THIS TIME. Boss kept attacking me and ignored the Familiar. So I just stopped attacking and kept shields up. 5-10 seconds later, the boss switches to fighting the Familiar and stayed on him after I resumed attacking.

In trash pulls, the Familiar was only aggroing the target he was melee attacking. His damage pulses do not count as aggro for him. If I sent him to tap every mob, they would stop attacking me and start attacking him. I believe that pre-Homestead, sending a pet in to fight a pack of mobs, they all would aggro him. Now, just the one he hits aggros him and the others come to me.

So, until ZOS confirms this is intentional behavior or fixes it, SEND YOUR FAMILIAR IN FIRST AND WAIT FOR HIM TO ENGAGE BEFORE ATTACKING if you care about him holding aggro.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Any input would be great.

I encourage others to test with the Clannfear and Twilight in the same way and post your results here.

This matches the behavior i was seeing today in spindleclutch and crypt of hearts. the pulses do not create aggro at all as far as i can tell and a lot more bosses stayed on me over and over again which was drastically different than soloing them before homestead. And you are correct it seemed the twilight gathered aggro more often than the scampi.

May have to rethink the AoE scamp option if this is confirmed and going to stay...

aku666

I also reported it. I heard it's because pvp'ers cried about the sorc pets breaking stealth or something and the've ruined them for everybody else. We'll see if there's anything in that patch tomorrow.

BlackSparrow

STEVIL wrote: »

dpencil wrote: »

Ok. I did some controlled testing in CoA1 today. It appears that the problem is with the Familiar TAKING aggro from me, not establishing aggro himself. Example, the fire dude at the top of the south platform. I sent the Familair in first, let him actually whack the guy with his normal melee attack, then began to fight. I was not using the Twilight at all during today's test, so dunno if she would have stolen aggro from him. The Familiar held aggro through the fight. Then I reset the fight before killing him and this time I just went right into attacking him. Normally this is what I would do pre-Homestead and as soon as the Familiar would hit him, he'd forget about me. NOT THIS TIME. Boss kept attacking me and ignored the Familiar. So I just stopped attacking and kept shields up. 5-10 seconds later, the boss switches to fighting the Familiar and stayed on him after I resumed attacking.

In trash pulls, the Familiar was only aggroing the target he was melee attacking. His damage pulses do not count as aggro for him. If I sent him to tap every mob, they would stop attacking me and start attacking him. I believe that pre-Homestead, sending a pet in to fight a pack of mobs, they all would aggro him. Now, just the one he hits aggros him and the others come to me.

So, until ZOS confirms this is intentional behavior or fixes it, SEND YOUR FAMILIAR IN FIRST AND WAIT FOR HIM TO ENGAGE BEFORE ATTACKING if you care about him holding aggro.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Any input would be great.

I encourage others to test with the Clannfear and Twilight in the same way and post your results here.

This matches the behavior i was seeing today in spindleclutch and crypt of hearts. the pulses do not create aggro at all as far as i can tell and a lot more bosses stayed on me over and over again which was drastically different than soloing them before homestead. And you are correct it seemed the twilight gathered aggro more often than the scampi.

May have to rethink the AoE scamp option if this is confirmed and going to stay...

Yep, Even if you send them in manually, the Twilight gets aggro first, because its long-range attack hits first.

What's worse, I was fighting some 3-enemy groups today, and waited until the familiar had hit each mob at least once before using my standard AoE opener. Immediately after using the AoE, any bad guy who was not currently being attacked by the pets turned and started coming at me. This is very different from what it was pre-patch.

This seriously messes up pet play. They gave us a patch buffing them, only to make them stop doing what we were using them for in the first place.

Can anyone confirm whether Clannfear has functionally changed, or is it just the Volatile Familiar?

aku666

All pets.

esotericist

BlackSparrow wrote: »

Yep, Even if you send them in manually, the Twilight gets aggro first, because its long-range attack hits first.

What's worse, I was fighting some 3-enemy groups today, and waited until the familiar had hit each mob at least once before using my standard AoE opener. Immediately after using the AoE, any bad guy who was not currently being attacked by the pets turned and started coming at me. This is very different from what it was pre-patch.

This seriously messes up pet play. They gave us a patch buffing them, only to make them stop doing what we were using them for in the first place.

Can anyone confirm whether Clannfear has functionally changed, or is it just the Volatile Familiar?

For what it's worth, I run Volatile/Matriarch, and I've found the Volatile Familiar will often (although not reliably) pull aggro from me and my matriarch when Daedric Prey is running, especially if I've fired off the familiar's PBAoE at the same time.

But yes, the Matriarch always gets hit first, due to that leading lightning attack.

Though the daedric prey 'solution' (such as it is) does nothing for the scenario of enemy-not-attacked-by-pets running straight for me as soon as I engage.

DragonBound

dpencil wrote: »

So, I've been playing pet sorc for a long time. When I take my pets into a dungeon or something, the Twilight Matriach will usually be the first one to aggro the boss, but as soon as the Volatile Familiar hits the boss, aggro shifts to the Familiar and remains on him through the fight as long as the Familiar stays alive. At least, that's how it used to work before Homestead. Now, doing the exact same fights (take Infernal Guardian from CoA1 for example), the boss just completely ignores the Familiar and goes straight for me as soon as I hit him. Since this wasn't a nerf to pet aggro spelled oit in the patch notes, I'm inclined to call it a bug. I reported it, but wanted to let others in the ESO community check it out for themselves. If you find yourself having a similar experience, please bug report it and comment here.

I do not recall this pet being anything but a dps/stun pet and usually for pvp but offers something in pve as well.

CaptainVenom

Volatile Familiar never taunts its target, tho I noticed Unstable Clannfear is able to hold target's attention to it, so the Sorcerer can safely attack. But I think it's because of distance and the target always prefer to chase whoever is closest to it, but Clannfear doesn't taunt.

dpencil

@ZOS_GinaBruno Can we please get some dev response to the OP? The Volatile Familiar's threat priority was clearly changed in the Homestead update. Whether this was intentional or not, it needs to be confirmed one way or the other. Please revert the change!

Kozai

I ran into this with my Sorc as well, just playing her again for the first time in over a year and I was expecting the Volatile Familiar to do some kind of aggro holding from the builds I'd read about. Nothing, as far as I could tell, other than the usual "I'm fighting 5 NPCs, so a couple of them happen to go after whatever targets are around" that comes with spawn AI.

On a tangential note, how do you send the pets in to attack first? If I use Y then left mouse, which I understand to be the "pet attack" command, the left mouse fires a light staff attack and aggros the mobs.

greylox

Twilight always gets aggro for me. Last night my twilight matriarch tanked Maw in banished 2 vet, never died cos i kept shields up and it tanked on the spot. Lol

dpencil

@Kozai You have to keep Y held down while you press the mouse button. Left click sends them to attack the target in your sights, Right click makes them go passive until you send them to attack again. You can change the key bind for the command button as well.

FrancisCrawford

I'm having similarly confusing experiences. When I generally run around node farming or whatever, the V. Familiar takes little or no aggro.

But then I carefully soloed Shadowrend with a weird build -- no Matriarch, resto staff back bar. He held aggro beautifully, the only exceptions being Shadowrend's rare random-player attacks.

Frankly, I've never had the Clannfear -- who I always played with over the V. Familiar -- reliably tank more than one mob. So I'm not sure how much of a change or difference this is in practice.