disappearing slaves in the air

[heyaz]

I'm having a big issue with my followers disappearing in mid-air whenever I'm flying through a zone and the area name changes. It's especially bad in Icecrown where you "zone" about every 30 yards into an area with a different name. At each point all of my slaves will disappear and break follow. I have to move them forward manually and wait about 5 seconds and then they reappear, then I have to reset follow.

Is there any way to prevent this? It's almost unplayable at times. I'm on slow flyers if that makes the difference

[mmcookies]

complete all zone quests on all your guys

i remember losing my slaves a lot when i first stepped into ice crown
but by the time i got the quest achievement, it was only happening over malykriss and the citadel

i believe blizzard designs their zones to keep the number of phased subzones minimal once all quests are completed

this might be to optimize server resources, assuming phasing takes up server resources, and that majority traffic will eventually complete most quests
or it might just be how blizzard decided to build their zones, start with the final product, and then add the quest lines that require phasing

[emesis]

If you do a search, there are lots of post/complaints about this. As you mention, it happens in the zones where phasing is used. Epic or normal flyers doesn't make much difference, I think epic are actually worse because things happen faster. You've also pretty much figured out the solution, there isn't much better except as previously mentioned, completeing zone quests to reduce the overall amount of phasing.

Some of the things people do (these all requre you to be aware of the phase boundaries; there is no simple/perfect solution here that I'm aware of that lets you act like you normally can in non-phased zones):

1. Slow down or go tap-tap-tap through these transitions. You will still have to hit your follow key but hopefully your toons will be close enough together that you won't have to go back to collect them.

2. Use Jamba, which supports follow strobing. You'll still have to be cognizant of the phase boundaries, but won't have to hit follow key.

3. Use the push forward method, like most people do at instance entrances. Use follow to get close to the transition, making sure you don't change heading on your main for a few seconds before the boundary. This will ensure your followers are pretty closely aligned with your main's travel vector. Then hit your "all five forward" movement button to push all 5 through the phase boundary together. If done correctly and with a bit of luck, your guys will make it through the transition and stick close enough that your follow key will bring them back together. This last method is what I have been mostly using with increasing success. This actually works better without the auto-follow strobe function (because the auto-follow strobe will tend to regroup your followers and change their heading a bit).


None of these is great. Phasing just sucks for follwers.

[Hachoo]

I think you're talking about 2 different issues here. First of all, your followers disappearing in the air does NOT mean you lost follow. Please get a mod (like multiboxer v2) that shows your slaves follow status and you'll notice that most of the time your slaves disappear they're still following you. This is because you're moving too fast for the game to keep up with the drawing, so your followers will "disappear" until the game figures out where they are again at which point they'll reappear. On your minimap it will look like they've fallen way behind, but if you keep flying eventually they'll "snap" back to you again.

I can personally fly from one side of northrend to the other and the only place I will "actually" lose follow is crossing through phased zones, which is mainly just icecrown and a couple areas of storm peak.

So the first thing you have to determine is whether you're actually losing follow or whether you just think you're losing follow, I'd be willing to bet most of the time its #2.

[GizmoxLoW]

I'm having a big issue with my followers disappearing in mid-air whenever I'm flying through a zone and the area name changes. It's especially bad in Icecrown where you "zone" about every 30 yards into an area with a different name. At each point all of my slaves will disappear and break follow. I have to move them forward manually and wait about 5 seconds and then they reappear, then I have to reset follow.

Is there any way to prevent this? It's almost unplayable at times. I'm on slow flyers if that makes the difference

this happens to me when i have crusader aura on and are on my epic flying mounts. and its mostly during the phase areas like in icecrown. turn off crusader aura and that will help a little

[heyaz]

Thanks guys. I will try the suggestions - turning off crusader aura, jamba, etc.

I know they are in fact breaking follow every time, I'm using the "Oh noes" mod that flashes red when follow is broken and they are definitely breaking it. I hope this can be remedied easily, I imagine I'll spend a LOT of time flying around icecrown in the future.

Thanks again

[Hachoo]

If its mostly just Icecrown then you'll learn eventually which areas to avoid flying through. Mostly the area right south of Ymirheim is bad cause theres a couple phases there. Most everywhere else is safe.

[puppychow]

i pretty much use taxis in icecrown/storm peaks (and really just try to avoid ice crown totally), its completely retarded and frustrating to have to constantly stop, wait, refollow, and move forward again. If you taxi around you can get pretty good at avoiding the phase crossings.