Weird behavior from pets - wiping my group

[tehshamis]

My warlock pets have now wiped my group about 20 times. They have some very bizarre behavior that I can't figure out:
Pets are on passive, by the way.
1. I constantly find them running the complete opposite direction, targeting mobs I never targeted. sometimes as much as 30 yards away. I lost track of how many times I look behind me and there's a warlock pet with like 12 mobs aggroed onto him
2.They sometimes have their own separate target, I'm clearly targeting someone right in front of me, I tell them to attack, and they decide to attack a completely different mob
3. Really weird one today - I tell them to attack a mob directly in front of me, and they will turn around, run the wrong direction towards another group of mobs, aggro them, and then turn around and attack the mob i originally wanted. It's almost like the call for help machanic that humanoid mobs have, but it's my pet doing it. This one wiped me several times.
Again, they're on passive, so I don't know what the deal is. The pets are on my alts (not my main), but they seem to attack different targets than the warlocks.
I'm using the following macro for the attack:
/assist party1
/petattack
Could it be this macro? I've actually quit using pets altogether for now. Harder to kill stuff, but this pet targeting weirdness has cost me several hours.
I also have tab on the do not pass list, so I'm sure that my alts aren't acquiring different targets when I press alt. They should all be assisting off party1
Thanks for any help

[Knapenburger]

It could be your do not pass list is not setup to block the keys being passed.

For example, if you have CTRL + 3 on your main bound to a spell or a command, it might not be done on your alts. Either rebind their keys or add all combinations to the do not pass list.

Also could be your tab button and the added interference from Line Of Sight. Make sure you have a button that everyone uses to assist your main character and hit this a couple of times before doing anything.

[shaeman]

I think you need to set the pettarget specifically. Something like this

/pettarget=party1target;

/petattack;

[ElectronDF]

Just guessing, but it might be a macro. Imagine you tell your alts to /startattack or pets to /petattack and you don't give them a SPECIFIC mob to do it, guess what, they pick their own. I would specifically tell them who to attack so they can't ever choose on their own. Try:
/petattack [target=party1-target]
/cast [target=party1-target] DPSSpell

If the alts don't know who party1's target is fast enough, then when you do /assist party1, they just get nothing, then when you do /petattack, they pick their own target. So, for me, I would never do a blind /cast, /petattack, /startattack, etc.

Hope that helps.

[SuS]

There is a pet target function cant remember it (at work) along the lines /petattack [pettarget=playertarget] or along them lines, google should help I think.

[spudstar99]

as far as i know ... petattack is like assist pet owner.. (if you stand in a grp of mobs the pet knows which target it has to attack, your target, else the pet were not the usefull for hunters und wls)

so the problem is when your alt shortly has nothing in target ...

so the voids go crazy

maybe try with direct targeting .. like mentioned abouve or bind a key for passiv mode of the pets .. and call them back if needed

[blast3r]

hehe..having the same problem. it has created some very exciting situations! i'm going to play around with some of the advice given in this thread, myself.

[Steph]

I would suggest to keep an eye on the target that your secondary characters have. The default target for /petattack is the pet master's target, iirc.
If you have tab still keybound on your secondaries and not blocked from broadcasting, then they can have fairly random targets, causing havoc.

[Sun]

one thing i do for my alts..../assist focus.../startattack

you can preselect a target THEN hit that macro and the alts will all bring that target up THEN i would guess that the pets will target what ur alts have targeted

I put that macro on the 1 spot in the action bar(forget which bar..the one with numbers assigned) which normally has ATTACK in the spot. this way nobody decides to attack something without me knowing about it. ;(

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Sounds like you're suffering from Standard Pet Behavior. Note that /petattack will automatically target the nearest enemy. When making pet attack macros, always account for that. I do as follows:

/assist focus
/stopmacro [noharm]
/petattack
/etc.