Help with arty dog

[Morrissey87]

Hi, I'm playing Artificer for my first time and I'm finding very frustrating dealing with my pet AI. It seems to bug at every moment, if I leave it on agressive mode in won't even follow me but I can summon it and will attack mobs normally. If I put it on passive or defend it will follow me but on defend most times it will move and chase mobs but won't attack them. I noticed that every level I take the AI seems to bug differently, for example at level 4 it was performing pretty well on defense mode following me and attacking mobs normally even using trip and generating threat. As soon as I leveled to 5 it bugged and won't do anything but follow me or or mobs on any stance doesn't matter.
I searched everywhere how to fix this and tried dismissing and resumonning it but it won't work.
If anyone knows a way to deal with this until they fix it hopefully some day please let me know. Also about the enhancements for my pet is there a guide to build it properly? are the alignment enhancements any useful? I took off the chaotic alignment because dog would go desperately to smash barrels through traps or smash exploding ones every time lol. Haven't seen any change on taking evil or good alignment.

[C-Dog]

Dogs are not strong combatants to begin with, so having them follow you to aid you in misc combat is often just asking for them to get killed before the end of the quest.

What I do is this:

1) Put on passive, and park at start (or anywhere deemed "safe").
2) Call them only if/when I need them for:

• Lever pulling
• Self-rescue of Soul Stone
• A (usually short-lived) distraction, often at end-fight, or if I have to get by something really unpleasant. (This is, typically, the only time I put them on "aggressive".)

[Enoach]

The AI has its flaws (I include the Arti dog, Druid wolf and PM Skeleton)

I agree they need to be micro-managed.

Now feats, enhancements and gear do make a difference in survival for these. As an example I purposefully built/gear my artificer dog as an aggro magnet/tank. As a Xbow type I don't want them hitting me .


With that being said because I micro-manage I do switch between passive/defensive/offensive modes constantly - You can "hot key" these UI elements.

Now some have found that the enhancement "hunter of boxes" is a contributor of both the dog going unresponsive/frozen looking as well as it running off when you don't want it too. So one thought is to forgo this enhancement.

I have also found that quests that have several load screens as you progress also tend to make the pets seem frozen/unresponsive. I've come to a point where I will dismiss and recall a pet between quests. It is not 100% fix but I do see less unresponsiveness (which may be more anecdotal)

[Morrissey87]

Thanks. Yes, gear and the right enhancements seem to help a lot. I won't take augment summoning or any personal enhacements for the pet though since I only want it to tank, I am using a xbow build too. Right now it seems that putting o def mode to follow you and switching to aggressive is the only way although sometimes it won't respond even on aggressive and resummoning it doesn't help but later it fixes on it's own.
I really hope they fix the dog ai, I have played a lot of wizard with the skellie and it works really fine even better than hirelings, he takes all the aggro and comes to defend you. Druid pet didn't test much to be honest.
They seem to be fixing lots of stuff from time to time, there's a lot to work so I hope some day soon they will fix ai.

[Discpsycho]

I rather enjoyed having the dog when I played an artificer.

It helped having low expectations - my previous life had been as a druid and the wolf pet was similarly terrible. Besides the obvious lever-pulling, etc, I really enjoyed the chaotic alignment enhancement that would drive it to break boxes. Sure, it bugged occasionally, but I could dismiss it and re-summon it at any point. It was particularly helpful in the Harbor, where there are several quests with lots of breakables, low base xp and your attack rate is abysmal.

[cdbd3rd]

... I won't take augment summoning or any personal enhancements for the pet though since I only want it to tank, .....

As a shooter Arty myself, I have found Augment Summon to be quite handy. It works on the dog, any hirelings/pets, and charmed mobs. As a soul-stone retriever, with mine fully augmented and feated for survival, it has rarely failed to land in the middle of whatever I died in and escape with my stone. (In Heroics.)

I do let mine run with me thru quests despite the fairly frequent 'brain dead' bugging out. Even without attacking, he can still draw agro.


edit: Late typo repair.

[LOOON375]

Dogs are not strong combatants to begin with, so having them follow you to aid you in misc combat is often just asking for them to get killed before the end of the quest.

What I do is this:

1) Put on passive, and park at start (or anywhere deemed "safe").
2) Call them only if/when I need them for:

• Lever pulling
• Self-rescue of Soul Stone
• A (usually short-lived) distraction, often at end-fight, or if I have to get by something really unpleasant. (This is, typically, the only time I put them on "aggressive".)

This

[SillyWallaby]

Climbing ladders almost 100% breaks the AI and causes it to freeze up/pose funny/float and no longer interact. Have it hold place while you climb then teleport it to you.

Enhancement wise you should get the Homunculus Adamantine Plating, Homunculus Reinforced Armor, and Homunculus Danger Avoidance before others, they give it survivability. I've never bothered with alignments for the same reason people go true neutral. Capstone wise it's probably better to go for evasion/imp evasion, you get survivability and it is less actions it can do instead of attack (just bluff, not trip & sunder)

You can make the dog use the old 30 resist shrines in the cargo hold, in addition to it getting the buffs when you use the amenity bar while it is summoned.

AI

• To hotkey its hot bar (I use alt+numpad#) you need to set up Hireling hotbar #1 (the bar for the 1st hireling you summon). You need to dismiss and resummon it when you level because it will change hotbars when the 'new' one is summoned.
• The bluff, intim, sunder, & trip all cause it to pause it's attacks; not taking them will make it attack more consistently.
• When defensive it seems to only attack once you need to be 'defended', if you're kiting and not getting hit there is nothing to defend you from.
• Another handy hireling trick is that if you have it hold place near an interactable and spam 'use' it will try to use what's near it, such as the lever to let people in in VoN 4, or soloing the crucible maze (make sure you clear out the enemies so they don't kill the defender)
• The edit actions (right click its bar icon) doesn't do much, it seems to reset every time you open it, and if it does succeed in disabling the fire breath it will still use acid breath...

Healing

• T3 Automated Repairs in Arcanotechnician does an excellent job of healing it between fights.
• The default hotkey to target your dog is ctrl+f1 , If you have a mouse thumb button set to this it makes it a lot easier to target for healing

Survivability armors for the dog

• http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Heartwood
  
• http://ddowiki.com/page/Itemreadcursed_Defender or http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Kindred_Spirit
  

[Morrissey87]

That has been most useful. I hotkeyed the select pet on x and arm use on z but it didn't occur to me to use the other mouse buttons. I have a simple gaming mouse with 2 extra buttons plus the middle one which I'm not using. I can hotkey hireling bar too to change modes/faster then.
Thanks for the help, what it seems weird to me is that I haven't been doing quests with ladders yet but I noticed that the quality of the AI of the dog changes with every level, maybe because every level the pet resets but resummoning should do the same and sometimes doesn't work. Well at least it works for pulling levers and grabbing soulstone if he can survive. Thing with augment summoning is the feat slot, maybe I can take the arcanotechnician enhancements instead and now I also get why the pet sometimes doesn't get aggro or attack if I'm running and kiting mobs.

[Enoach]

That has been most useful. ... Thing with augment summoning is the feat slot, maybe I can take the arcanotechnician enhancements instead ...

Keep this in mind...
As an Artificer you do have bonus feats at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 of which Augment Summoning is on the list

Next the Augment Summoning feat comes on gear - so one consideration is to take the feat and if not wanting to take the Epic Augment Summoning feat later you can switch this feat out once you have worked in the gear.

Heroic
Kindred Pendant (ML 10 Ravenloft Necklace)

Epic
Epic Roderic's Wand (ML 20 - but not practical in that it is a wand you need to hold in main hand)
Legendary Kindred Pendant (ML 29 Ravenloft Necklace)
Necklace of Mystic Eidolons (ML 26 Haunted Halls of Eveningstar)

Now additionally the Harper Tree has enhancements for pets/summons. This tree synergizes well with an Intelligence focus Artificier. Spending 11 AP in this tree would get you +4 for your pet (same bonus as Augment Summon but stacks) as well as Know the Angles adding your Intelligence bonus to your damage as well as also taking Strategic Combat I so you use Intelligence for your To Hit and then use the Insightful Damage vs Insightful Strike spell allowing you to basically double dip your Intelligence for damage while KtA is running.

[C-Dog]

Those are some great docents! Anything lower ML than 10?

[b][*]Another handy hireling trick is that if you have it hold place near an interactable and spam 'use' it will try to use what's near it, such as the lever to let people in in VoN 4, or soloing the crucible maze (make sure you clear out the enemies so they don't kill the defender)

This is an important trick.

I'd add that first you need to hit "Esc" (Escape) to clear your focus orb, so your dog (or hireling/etc.) doesn't think you're asking it to run and use what you're currently showing. Then just spam "Use" (the "gear" icon) and it should use the closest object.

I hotkeyed the select pet on x and arm use on z but it didn't occur to me to use the other mouse buttons. I have a simple gaming mouse with 2 extra buttons plus the middle one which I'm not using...

If your mouse has a top wheel that "clicks", bind that to your best Healing spell. Easy panic button if things get tough while you're running/fighting.

[SillyWallaby]

Those are some great docents! Anything lower ML than 10?

Looking at the wiki page for Docents, the Blademark Docent seems to be the only useful one for the dog. You can also keep an eye out for random gen repair amp docents or craft a vitality & repair amp docent (buff it with bear's for +4 con, +6 con starts at min level 10, vitality adds more HP/level than crafted con at lower levels). If you craft on a blue slot docent there are a number of defensive augs you can slot

[kmoustakas]

I'm playing main artificer. I am now in the process of getting the 3rd druid past life to improve my dog. I found the dog to be extremely powerful and useful while the druid wolf to be terrible.

I equip it with don't count me out and toee collar. I give it chaotic so it will run and break things and all the enhancements that improve its hp, damage reduction and armor class. It's important to give your dog fortification. At level 16 I make sure to have it equip somewhere the +3 to all stats augment. I take augment summon as well and tier 1 of the harper pet enhancement. For heroic because I find aoe sla to make everything go a lot faster, I also gave it the dog heal aura which assists me as a warforged and makes it extra sturdy. If it dies, well you have 3/rest to bring it back to life and you can have it use rez shrines as well. Nothing happens if the dog dies nowadays anyway! Feel free to use it as cannon fodder like a summon.

The dog can literally solo elite korthos. I made for it a fearsome/invulnerable docent and lucked out finding vorpal/keen collar although any vorpal collar will do until toee collar. I wish I had thought about in with the old cannith crafting I would have made a bodyfeeder collar. If you want it to dps you want a level 16 cormyrean collar because it gets spelltouched aka 6 abilities. With ship buffs, it can solo harbor as well (it's those kobold shamans and forked lightning bolts that give it trouble). I do not expect the dog to ever solo eda for me but it can and will activate all buttons/levers including the str lever in legendary tempest spine.

Edit: If you don't have ravenloft for 'don't count me out', toee docent is you best option for dusk+fortification. Also, gs ooze collar because reasons. And dragontouched docent can be amazing for a dog too but it has no slot and you want that dragon blood augment.