Quote Originally Posted by Korpg View Post
Not always. If the avatar has just a little bit more hate than you, it will obey your command. But if you pull hate from the avatar (usually this happens when you retreat an avatar who's first hit was really a miss) then the avatar will attack the mob to establish hate away from you. This feature is one of the SMN's main abilities and also allows the use of "Carby kiting."

Just let the avatar get a hit in before retreating, or retreat the avatar from a larger distance. Be aware, though, that some mobs have a higher enmity loss than others, meaning that you can shed a lot more hate from being hit on those types of mobs. So you might have to wait for the avatar to hit the mob 2-3 times before being able to retreat it to a safer distance.
I'm familiar with carbie kiting, and avatars natural aggression towards anything that's engaging the summoner. I'm familiar with how to kite a monster using minimal hate (i.e. even if your avatar misses they'll still pull hate), and various other tactics using avatar enmity. I'll clarify this situation even more.
My avatar is fighting a monster. It has hit the monster several times. I'm nowhere close to pulling hate from the avatar. The monster is not severely damaging my avatar (my avatar isn't shedding hate quickly). I command the avatar to retreat (the range at which I tell the avatar to retreat could be anywhere from right next to it, to out of aggro range of the monster, I've experienced this glitch in a range of distances). The avatar comes towards me for about half a second, then turns around and reengages the monster. No matter how many times I perform the retreat command it keeps doing the same thing. During this entire time, I never pull hate from the monster. The monster never moves.