kraetor wrote:
#1 Is there a way to make your merc tank attack a mob you target without you doing anything to the target first, like tell your merc tank to attqck, like necro's and mag's have a pet attack button?
I was searching this forum for a thread I began when I first acquired my merc, but for some reason can't find it. At any rate, the advice I was given was that learning how to use the settings on your merc is very important. I am a druid with a tank merc and iirc there is an "aggressive" and a "passive" setting. 99% of the time I use aggressive. It is a "bit" like the tank attacking a mob without me doing anything, but not in the pet type sense. You can't target a mob and then send the tank in, but if I get hit by a mob that appeared out of nowhere, for example, my tank is on it often before I know I got hit...lol. As a caster, I often stand at a distance from my targeted mob, cast some type of low-aggro spell and my tank rushes in while I stand back and either heal my merc or DoT, nuke, debuff, etc. That's about the closest we can get with mercs to your question.
I use the passive mode when I want to pull a mob away from other mobs. If I keep my tank on aggressive mode, he runs in and starts fighting after I cast, which can attract the attention of nearby mobs. (Thinking here of my experiences in Bastion of Thunder.) In that case, I put my merc on passive so it basically follows me around doing nothing, cast whatever on the mob (I have found that a GREAT spell to cast that doesn't generally create aggro from other mobs is the "Nullify/Cancel Magic" line. My Pally uses that in combination with the Calm spell to single pull from a group), pull the mob where I want it, then switch my merc back to aggressive so he can begin tanking.
Something I didn't realize was a GREAT help until recently is to use the group roles and mark yourself main assist. For awhile I was using a rogue merc with my pally before I switched to a wizard and, even set on aggressive mode, they often seemed "confused" - ie. they stood around and watched me get beat up. After talking to a friend who told me to make sure to set myself as main assist (I also set myself as main tank on the pally-main puller on the druid) so the merc knows who to assist - I don't have that issue any longer.
Hope that helps a bit :)