SMN pet not responding 100%

[wereotter]

I stopped trying to command my pet when I was still using Topaz Carbuncle, and I'd tell him to go get an enemy, and he would, and then he'd bolt off in another direction after pissing it off and dissipate because he got too far away leaving me alone with a pissed off marbol and whatever else he pulled on his run away from it. I'm basically the Tataru of in game summoners and now just let my pet do whatever it wants since it doesn't listen to me anyway.

[Drasyra]

Something weird I've been noticing with Garuda:
If she's attacking target A, and I tell her to Contagion target B, she'll pretty much immediately do it where she could lag a second or two with target A.

Yes; that's because changing targets interrupts her current action. Using Heel or Place will do the same. Hence the interrupt macros SCHs are so fond of. With contagion, it's not such a biggie as you'll typically be using it on DWT-buffed DOTs and you have 15s to do it, obviously with healer pets the need is often more urgent.

[MicahZerrshia]

First, if you're contagion baning, you're dealing with trash and your single target opener goes out the window. Start with shadowflare instead of popping it after bio like in your normal opener. Painflare should be used in that GCD after bio while you're waiting for contagion to go off and while you're running in for miasma 2/blizz 2. Those are NOT situational in trash; they are optimal.

Not 100% true. You can contagion bane bosses with multiple targets if there is an instance where they are near each other for a brief moment while being pulled apart if you timing is on par. Oppressor for instance, Garuda sisters (although not really anymore, but at one time), contagion bane levi tail off an orb for that added boost to dps, among others. There are many instances where you can contagion bane non-trash, if your timing is right and you're not hurting your dps by sitting on timers.

Also Bliz2, while optimal dps is situational. If you are sitting in the middle of 10 or even 4 mobs all doing aoes that overlap and are bound to kill you or interrupt, than no, bliz2 is not optimal since a dead smn is not a contributing one.

[giantslayer]

The biggest problem is that there is no ability queue for pets. That would solve the unresponsiviness (ditched smn for mnk due to it's unplayable in 2.3 and haven't missed that abomination at all.

They fixed that a long time ago. Sometime either at or shortly after the release of Heavensward. I was the one who first spread around the macro with multiple wait lines someone else posted up here. I've ditched it and just use the regular action with no macro now. Been doing it for a while. Haven't messed with SMN a lot in 3.2 yet, so not sure if it is all working right in the current patch.

Note: technically the fix was that if your pet automatically started casting something, then you could queue an ability for afterwards. If you had manually commanded the pet to cast (e.g. Embrace spam), then the queue doesn't work. Since manual spamming of Wind Blade isn't a thing, Garuda was effectively fixed. Eos was hit and miss, so I kept my macros for her.