Faunabond Cancelling

[GreatCatatonic]

Faunabond's wiki text:

In addition, for 1 AP and 10 MP the Lightspeaker may activate the Faunabond status effect for 15 minutes (which will autorenew for another 15 minutes for 3 MP if not canceled). While this status is active, pets will not target the Lightspeaker. The Lightspeaker's own Pets receive no such protection. If the Lightspeaker makes any attack action except Keepers Crook, the Faunabond status will be removed.

My no-offensive-skills Lightspeaker thought this would be great; he could wander in to a petwall with a petwall of his own, activate the status, and watch the carnage without having to worry about being shredded by the other guy's pets. Not really so, in practice.

I noticed today that activating the status puts all your pets into a Defensive stance. Okay, I guess it's in-theme, but if that's not a bug it's a pretty big omission from the skill documentation and in-game text. Next, the wiki states that the status gets removed if the Lightspeaker makes any attack action (except Keeper's Crook, of course). However, it seems setting your pets to any aggressive stance will remove the status for you, as well. Again, if not a bug, a big omission.

I never expected my pets to get the benefit of Faunabond, but it seemed reasonable to spend 10 MP to be able to walk into a stronghold and let our petwalls duke it out without getting one-shot myself. I thought it a nice raid alternative to requiring a tank. And sure, if they're on defensive, I think they'll pick up targets when they individually get attacked, but you might be left with several pets just standing around if they didn't get chosen.

So, are these behaviors intentional?

--Great

[Klapaucius]

Won't this still work, so long as the enemy pets are set to some flavour of offensive?

Agreed though, I thought this was one of the key use-cases of faunabond.

[SaltedSalmon]

Won't this still work, so long as the enemy pets are set to some flavour of offensive?

No because the moment your pets retaliate you lose faunabound, according to the post.

[Klapaucius]

Pets defend each other as well as you, albeit not as a retaliation.

Edit: I use this all the time to make my pets focus fire, and also force enemy pets to target my beefiest pet during pet battles. You forgo first attack, and 1 targeting attack after each enemy pet dies, but get a significant targeting advantage in exchange.

[GreatCatatonic]

Won't this still work, so long as the enemy pets are set to some flavour of offensive?

No because the moment your pets retaliate you lose faunabound, according to the post.

No, the moment you set your pets to aggressive to something you lose Faunabond. Your pets can presumably retaliate to attacks on them without issue.

I use this all the time to make my pets focus fire, and also force enemy pets to target my beefiest pet during pet battles. You forgo first attack, and 1 targeting attack after each enemy pet dies, but get a significant targeting advantage in exchange.

How does this work? Let's say I have ten pets out, a Wheel and nine Judgemasters, and I walk in to a square with that has ten pets, a Fossil Monstrosity and nine Skeletons. I have Faunabond up and the Lich pets are set to aggressive to me somehow. Their pets randomly choose their targets from my pets (I assume it's random; correct me if I'm wrong), so those ten attack, say, seven of my pets. The other three are going to sit around waiting to be attacked, no? How do you focus your pets' fire without being able to set them to aggressive in any way?

EDIT: Just saw the "pets defend each other" part of your post, and I wasn't aware of that functionality. As such, the other three in my scenario won't sit on their hands, but I'm still not sure how you get focus on your beefy pets or focus your pets on theirs.

--Great

[Klapaucius]

It doesn't play nice with fauna bond - it relies on setting your tankiest pet to aggressive. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure it will work as well now that all pets aren't on defensive by default. I'll have to play with it.

What I was doing is to set all pets to defensive except the tankiest one. When the tanky pet attacks, all the enemy pets will target it. It will collect them all if the enemy is defensive, and should collect average ~50% even if they aren't.

Your pets should then go one by one through the enemy pets, starting with the first one that attacked your pet. It does get a bit hectic though, so it might not go exactly like this every time.

I'll update if I get a chance to figure out whether it works well.

[Klapaucius]

EDIT: Just saw the "pets defend each other" part of your post, and I wasn't aware of that functionality. As such, the other three in my scenario won't sit on their hands, but I'm still not sure how you get focus on your beefy pets or focus your pets on theirs.

This approach doesn't play nice with fauna bond - it relies on setting your tankiest pet to aggressive. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure it will work as well now that all pets aren't on defensive by default. I'll have to play with it.

What I was doing is to set all pets to defensive except the tankiest one. When the tanky pet attacks, all the enemy pets will target it. It will collect them all if the enemy is defensive, and should collect average ~50% even if they aren't (but I'm not 100% sure how the targeting works in that case).

Your pets should then go one by one through the enemy pets, starting with the first one that attacked your pet. It does get a bit hectic though, so it might not go exactly like this every time.

I'll update if I get a chance to figure out whether it works well.

[GreatCatatonic]

Sounds like that could work, but it's a risk since you have to walk in without Faunabond on so that your tanky pet can attack. Of course, unless the defender's pets are on defensive, they can target you at the same time. If you manage to survive the first volley you could activate it, then all their pets would only target your pets and the fight would be on, but I don't think you could ever guarantee that they focus on your tanky pet.

--Great

[cat]

As someone that built around Faunabond and ended up refunding it I have mixed feelings on the skill.

I think it's great that Faunabond is a mechanically/flavour supported way of dealing with pet aggro versus stuff like pet tick dodging/sniping. However due to the current mechanics of Faunabond, some mentioned below, it still requires knowledge of the more obscure pet and pet tick mechanics to not end up splatted.

So while Faunabond is a great step in the right direction and gives more viable ways of dealing with PMs I'd really like to see pet mechanics and pet ticks simplified and made more transparent overall. They're a prime example of "mechanics that are super abstruse to newer players and the wiki only begins to cover it" that only add to the newbie vs veteran power imbalance.