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Dear fellow mages, a new feature in the pet window appeared a couple of years ago, the Pet Stop button. I highly recommend hotkeying it (on Adon's layout it's "P" like "pet" because I use it so often). Pasting and updating what I posted several months ago on the DBG forums. Be yourself a Pet Stop mage !
• The Stop button in the pet window acts as a minor form of /pet hold long before the /pet hold AA exists and allows for powerful ooc regeneration.
From classic to Velious : your very own private Pet Hold !
It's not as good as the "real" pet hold (from Luclin onwards) as from what I tested, pet can reaggro in some circumstances (when hit by non-melee, it might reaggro for example), but it works. Once Luclin is released and you have /pet hold, it is still very useful as it suspends without canceling position or movement commands : a held pet will come back to you (/pet follow mode) or to his park spot (/pet guard) when you back it off, whereas stopping it will “freeze” the pet which will just stand there. Once the pet is destopped, pet will either continue fighting if it’s opponent is still there, or go back to you/to park spot according to which movement mode is active.
• Pet Stop Tanking (or Parking an add) : a mage pet heal over time for zero mana
When pet is already meleeing a mob, Stop will make it stand still, not fighting back, and go into ooc regen mode after one tick. I use it often as a mana free heal over time. The higher your pet / the better your pet focus is, the ooc regen per tick can reach very high values ; PoP Ritual Summoning focused pets regen for over 1500 hp/tick !
That way, you can often hold an add without spending mana healing your pet, it’s “pet parking” literally. To give you an example, my water pet ‘Stop Tanked’ a PoV trash mob at HoH zoneline (after AD event) yesterday without any slow or healing support : its ooc regen was higher than the mob’s dps, though it was a Ritual Summoning focused one, lower foci will give less powerful ooc regen.
Now, if you duo with a melee class, you could aggro the mob with pet and pull it to you, let pet gain some aggro, and then press Stop. Mob will continue beating on the pet and be burned by the DS, while melee partner hits the mob. After a while, your partner will get aggro back, de-Stop (Pet Stop is a toggle as is the Pet Hold AA, by unstopping your pet it attacks last target it was on if it’s still alive), rinse and repeat. See the usefulness ?
• Pet Stop + Summon Companion (spell or clicky) : a positioning tool
As opposed to the Pet Hold AA, the Stop mode forces the pet to stands still, it will not move, suspending follow or guard here mode (pet will not go back to you or to its parking spot) till you destop, thus you cannot use it for pet pulling. But you can use Pet Stop in combination with Summon Companion to position your pet and move it around. We used to do this on live with /pet sit, but the Pet Sit command seems bugged, pet won’t stay at the last spot it was fighting anymore. Press your Pet Stop toggle hotkey as soon mob dies and reposition your pet with Summon Companion right next to your group tank.
You can also use the combination to rebuff a pet which you parked at a spot too far away to be in spell range. Stop your pet, Summon Companion it –it will stay where you summoned it-, rebuff, destop and pet will go back to his guard spot.
Summon Companion is a Velious spell, and when Cazic Thule becomes a level 60 zone, a nice SC clicky drops there, Silverflank Belt from named gorilla. I bought mine 2kpp during Velious era, so it won’t dry your bank account.
• Pet Stop helps keeping the pet alive when raiding
At the cost of losing some dps, and especially in Kunark and Velious era where aoes can be bad (dragons, NToV), you can save your pet’s life by Stopping it during a fight and destop it once regened, it will resume fighting. However, don’t forget the ooc regen starts only one tick after you activate Stop ! Useful on many Velious fights, less in Luclin where aoes are less dangerous. In PoP era, once LDoN unlocks, you’ll get the Calliav line of spells which makes Stop regenerating less needed during raids.