Engi pets and agro holding nerfed?

[Juggernat]

Not played my engi alot since 16.3 hit live, mainly tskilling or teaming[if lucky enough to get one] but usually I'd do solo Pen missions as no-one wants a engi in the teams at Ado hecks.

So pre 16.3 my pets could hold agro quite nicely, I could solo Pen Hards and stand next to them healing with blind running with 2 mobs on my slayer and not get agro most of the time. Disruptive Void Projector rarely lands, Intrusive Aura of Sloth rarely lands.

Now I can't even do a Pen Medium without getting agro every other second like I would with MP pets.

So are Trimmers borked again, as Im only using them Once in the mission and they have No noticeable effect? Namely QL200 Trimmer - Increase Aggressiveness and Trimmer - Divert Energy to Offense


Nanos running on pets:

Boost Aggression Subsystem
Entropy Weapon
Aegis Barrier
Intrusive Aura of Sloth

184 Tskill engi with no dmg to speak off, using a 210 Flux Pistol and leech MTI B-94

[Telcea]

Trimmer - Divert Energy to Offense only works for 5 minutes then you have to use it again to keep it's effects going

[belle2]

it just seems to be that mobs in sl mishes agg far quicker now and from a greater distance, i noticed this while pulling on the last few team mishes i did in pen.

[Juggernat]

Trimmer - Divert Energy to Offense only works for 5 minutes then you have to use it again to keep it's effects going

Meaning the zone bug removing the effect and yes I have a refresh script running in hard missions when just the main trimmer isn't enough so I know when I need to refresh the 5min trimmers

[Rustybolts]

I haven't noticed any appreciable difference in bots holding agro or not personally.

The situation you've described sounds like one in which you should be getting agro. You need to use a Positive aggressive - defensive trimmer also to increase the attack speed of your bot for starters. Secondly, healing and using blinds has an inherent taunt effect to it. Your bot shouldn't be holding agro on the adds as it's doing nothing to taunt them when it's killing the other mob.

[Novafox]

Its all totally random as it is. It doesn't matter what you do or don't do, you will get aggro at some point.
However, I do know there are some times when absolutely nothing you do or your bot does will get aggro off of you. A few days ago I went after Notum Trainee solo. I soloed it with not too many issues, kiting my bot when it got low on HP, but mostly just a stand up fight with me shooting, blinding, perking and the bots holding aggro with random agg swaping, but nothing serious. Afterwards hopped over to Obediency Inspector kill him, same tactics, then back to Notum Trainee again. But for some reason, after the second Trainee was about 3/4 dead, I got aggro from Notum Trainee and simply could not get it off of me unless I went out of visual range, but coming back into range, the Trainee immediately goes after me once more. And this is doing absolutely nothing different from the first go at it, and using the same tactics on OI. I had to run constantly for the last 1/4 of the Trainee's life that time, and I have no idea why. My bots killed it eventually, but it kept chasing me endlessly till it died.
So the point is, I have no idea whats up with aggro. Sometimes its 'normal' but sometimes it just goes haywire, which seems to me to be a recent issue, not something I remember.

[rubera]

Must be the xp pistol that draws agg

[zartosht]

Afterwards hopped over to Obediency Inspector kill him, same tactics, then back to Notum Trainee again.

Can you share how you can solo the Inspector at which lelvel, I would like to do it too? Thanks.

[muha]

I don't experience any change.
This supposedly "bug" is popping every second patch, and usually it's mob pathing changes, or new mobs with new behavior.

[Amickson]

Can you share how you can solo the Inspector at which lelvel, I would like to do it too? Thanks.

220 engi can solo Obediency inspector/enforcer easy, just take some time. They have almost no AR and crappy AC, so blinds work very well on them. Only problem is their HP, enforcer has around 3M HP and it takes me 1/2 hour to kill him.

[zartosht]

220 engi can solo Obediency inspector/enforcer easy, just take some time. They have almost no AR and crappy AC, so blinds work very well on them. Only problem is their HP, enforcer has around 3M HP and it takes me 1/2 hour to kill him.

OK so it's at 220 then...? Because I tried at 185 and later at 195, with a 200 slayer and an Upgraded M30 Predator. Both times the Inspector (even the lame Order Automaton come to that) chewed through my slayer's HP faster than the time it took me to hit the A Maker's Touch button... In fact even with spamming A Maker's Touch, Slayer would get killed in less then a minute...

At 195, I had all three trimmers, Intrusive Aura of Humble Servant, Omni-Pol Pacification, Entropy Weapon and Aegis Barrier running on both bots. On top of that I had Sympathetic Reactive Coccoon and Disruptive Void Projector running on myself.

Am I doing something wrong or is it not possible to solo them at this level, period?

[muha]

Compared to the SL bots, the 200 slayer is made of cardbox. It is useless for any serious soloing.
I couldn't do these even with the 217 bot, but without Mechanic I'm not a good soloer. I'd say the chicken is probably needed.

[Rustybolts]

I don't know that it requires the Chicken, but it definately requires Mechanic for the 9k pet heal.

[Novafox]

I'm 217 and have mechanic, gadgeteer, and bioshielding maxed, so I have all the pet heals I can possibly get. OI was real easy, and usually misses with blinds, only had to kite him once I think. Notum trainee was much harder though, lots of kiting with the bots on follow because even all my healing simply can't keep up with how much damage the trainee does, so you kite and both stop the mob from dealing damage to your bots, and the bots' super heal delta kicks in. But yes, very high level is necessary, or at least GSF+wolf, because kiting without speed is asking for trouble.

[DragonShade]

Don't blinds break if the mob takes damage? And as such, won't they only be usefull for adds?

<-- only has a level 106 engi.

[Amickson]

Don't blinds break if the mob takes damage? And as such, won't they only be usefull for adds?

<-- only has a level 106 engi.

Normal engineer soloing tactics is beat mob till pet is almost dead, then stop fight, put pets on wait/follow, spam blinds. Mob debuffed by blinds hit nothing, so its time to heal pet and wait for perks recharge. Then again /pet attack and continue.
Obediency enforcer i can kill with this tactic face to face without any kiting. Possibly doable with lower pet than chicken and without 9k pet heal perk, but much slower.

[DragonShade]

Ahhh, ok, so it's only usefull for soloing something then, running blinds in a mission when there are no adds would be pointless I guess. :-/

I'll likely never use it, as a shade is a bit better (or at least faster) then an engi at soloing stuff.