Familiar keeps pausing

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

The Familiar seems kinda derpy. I’ve noticed that it seems to pause about every 2 seconds. Sometimes, it will fire off 3 shots super quickly, and sometimes it won’t, but the 3 shots always seem to be directly in between pauses. And it applies to moving around as well, it doesn’t follow consistently, it keeps pausing every two seconds or so.

What’s going on? Why is that pause there? Is it some unfortunate byproduct of the pet mechanics, or is it a glitch that can be fixed? None of the other pets seem to do this.

2

Here’s a close-up of the Familiar that might explain everything:

3

Fixed your image link. I always imagine it more as:

4

It will only focus-fire on something if you command it to or if you use the pet attack button, yes.

I think this might have something to do with its target acquisition/aiming/survival AI or something. The familiar really hates it when something get too close, going nuts when that happens.
I think it should just have a different AI setting for defensive/normal/aggressive. Defensive means it values survivability (and moves away when something gets too close), which works well for people who use the Familiar mainly for buffs and skills. I’m not sure what normal should do, but aggressive should definitely just be “attack whatever’s in range until they’re dead” mode.

5

I’m not sure when it happened, but the familiar’s “pause” bug is gone! It now feels really good to use. If I had to guess, it was fixed with the Ashes of Malmouth release.
Now the only issue is that it won’t reposition if there’s terrain in between it and its target. But honestly, that’s not even really an issue at all, because that’s what the “pet attack” button is for - repositioning. With the pausing, not even spamming pet attack would help.

I’m happy, familiar is viable for damage now :smiley:

6

Hmm, hard to tell with my Cabalist in the sea of Skeletons what the birdie is doing. But with my Conjurer it always worked fine. Never seemed to fire into walls either. Then again I have all my pets on Agressive and move them around manually with Pet Attack so maybe that’s why.
But MAN, why did no-one tell me the Familiar gets extra storm orbs at higher levels? I would have focused more on the skill then… :smiley: Now that I can summon 2 of them with the Mythical Will of Bysmiel, I am pouring a lot of skill points into it.