Bio Engineer Archive

I did some experimenting with Pet Specials last night:

-If you tell your pet to Follow the Target before you give the special command, they will do the special. Otherwise, it seems, they dont do it at all, ever.

The simplest way I found to deal with this is to train the "follow target" command the same for all pets, then add it to a special attack macro that looks like:
/tellpet follow target;
/tellpet use special 1;

-Babies have a horrible chance to hit with specials, that seems to get to 'reasonable' by 3 or so growth steps. So if you're using BE pets, dont expect them to do much till they get older.

-As for the special name flashes:
1) I dont think it shows if the pet misses. I had a baby gurcat try to KD my sparring partner, and I never saw the flash, nor did my partner ever get knocked down.

2) If the pet hits, the name flashes regardless of the effect. I had a gurcat 'try' to dizzy my partner, and the name flashed a few times when the attack had hit, but my partner had resisted the dizzy.

How do you get pet specials to stick? I have a pet that i want that has no specials, but i want to give it some. In the dna process, which slot determins the specials?

The main SA slots seem to be (IMO) Aggression (SA1)and Psychology (SA2), though you will get the odd one pop up from another slot on occasion.

I notice its hit or miss alot of the time... used the same DNA in the same slots about 15 times tonight.... about 1/3 of the SA's didn't come through the same as the others.

Mental slot = Ranged or not

Psychology= Special 2

Aggression= Special 1

(This recipie has a dependability of approx.80%)

the main slots are right (mental/psycho/agress)

it also depends on teh quality of the sample

low quality sampel in agressen+very high quality in prowes/health slot usualy gets me no special, or one from the other slots

If you tell them, they will try to stick the special. It may stick or not. If you wanna stick both, trust me, giving the command will get them there much quicker. I include the SP1 command in my /tellpet attack macro after a pause. If my pet sticks that strong poison, that creature just goes nuts. It doesn't matter if I was 20 mind from incap.. that creature is ON my pet. It is a Gurreck, so it can easily keep up with what is going on. They seem to stop when trying the specials. I just keep tapping the attack button till it sticks.

Verbatim from one of my other posts. Try this and see if it helps:

There is a macro you can create to get them to work on command. The trick is that specials only work if the pet is not in combat and within melee range (melee range may not be necessary; I need to do further testing). Your pet may still randomly use them, in which case they do work at range.

/tellpet follow
/pause 0.1
/tellpet special
/pause 0.1
/tellpet attack
/echo Special Attack

- Follow: Can be the follow or follow other command. This disengages the pet from combat.
- Pause: Commands seem to flow better and tellpet breaks less (for me at least).
- Special: Re-engages the pet using its special attack.
- Attack: In case one of your pets doesn't know the special command.
- Echo: This is for your benefit, so you know the command was executed.

It has been my finding that only special attack's that are displayed above a pets head can be used on demand. So thigs like, stun, dizzy, blind, intimidate, etc, I have gotten to work without flaw, every time commanded, and it usually has a high success rate sticking wise. Where as specials that arent displayed above a pets head, mild/medium/heavy poison/disease, AoE poisons and plague strike to name a few, are not working on demand. And I have had no kind of success with the "follow trick" either. Poisons and the like are not used anymore when I command them than when I just use the attack command, leading me to believe that the command is just not connecting with the pet, IE, it's borked.

Can anyone else confirm this? I have done extensive testing both pre and post patch(obviously much more pre patch, but significant post patch).

I know what you mean - I have a Graul; listed in swgcreatures as having special attack one "unknown" special attack two "stunning strike" I can teacha command for special one and execute it but it doesnt do anything?

The area effect specials do work on demand unless they broke with the last patch. (I haven't been able to test due to a broken computer.)

If you wish to test them, find a group of durni or other low level critter. Having a lair nearby will also help. Command the pet to use them and if you are close to the pet you will see combat spam hitting (or missing) everything for around 30 damage, with the lair being missed.

This is for poison spray, open wounds and plague strike.

Message Edited by ravingbantha on 08-21-2005 01:47 PM