1. It just stands there and takes damage when a mob attacks it without fighting back. 2. I tell it to attack and it does nothing, should it not have a castable taunt? 3. I can debuff the mob with con debuff and the mob can come up to me and beat me to death and this verd pet does nothing and its on defense.
this is triggered as soon as the pet is hit in melee combat one time.
Pretty much these pets are supposed to melee if I recall and not have a ranged dmg attack.
They cast a ranged taunt and melee.
Here is a note from 1.57
- Put level caps on the Animist Battle Messenger summons in the Verdant Mastery list. Since their melee damage (their primary attack) scales up with level differently from all other turrets, this is a necessary balancing factor to keep low-specced Animists from using full power turrets.
I would assume how that works would be that the ranged taunt would increase aggro for the pet and pull. Probably in pvp it would do nothing except interrupt.
Once in range the verd pet is a melee pet. Certainly it would slug it out with other mobs and not do nothing.
Here is a note from charplan:
Turret which acts as a pet, controllable by the caster. This turret casts spells which attempt to 'taunt' creatures to it, where it will then engage them in melee.
Yeah that's right they melee, I forgot that. The verdant pet doesn't cast a damage spell only castable taunt and then melee hit it when they are in range.
Verdant has always been buggy here, and I'm not sure what has changed since I last tested it (mine is arboreal). It's possible the 10/12 patch might have helped (it mentions pets not targeting themselves, which was perhaps the problem)? But in any case, what I had done before was rotate the pet from defensive to aggressive after each MOB/group was killed.
On the other freeshard, the verd does appreciably more melee damage in exchange for zero ranged damage. The problems I've had on both freeshards is that the taunt is extremely weak at drawing aggro. Arboreal mains on the other freeshard are really good at taking and holding aggro, but here it's no better than the verdant's weak taunts.
Arboreal has been bugged in the past with zero melee damage instead of simply low damage, and me as a player not being able to hit MOBs in melee with a staff if they were attacking my controlled from melee range. I think these have been fixed, but my playstyle also differs greatly farming in my 40s instead of leveling in my teens, so I haven't verified this.
On the plus side, if you're having trouble drawing aggro to your main (verdant), just pop some creep FnFs less than 700 units away. All aggro they draw will automatically transfer to your controlled pet. Verdant does well with just drawing groups and PBAOEing them, as the PBAOE keeps aggro on your main and doesn't draw it on yourself, unlike any arboreal spells. (On the other freeshard, arboreal bombers draw almost no aggro, though the lifetap does.) Just keep your controlled alive and you should be good.
I've found a good farming pattern with arboreal is controlled and a deep stack of FnFs about 650 units apart, then AOE bomber a group of MOBs a few times, then run back through your shrooms to transfer off the aggro. All aggro will (eventually) transfer off of you and onto your main, so get them as low as you can on their approach, keep yourself out of melee range, and keep your main healed, and you can do some serious farming.