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[ShadowHM]

It's a wild guess, but I think it was a bosspack of goatmen chasing you. I've noticed often that the bossminion AI is a bit different, minions will follow the routines of their boss. Usually it's good enough to disturb a chasing monster via some obstacle, and the hireling usually fulfills the role of an obstacle. Along with a bosspack the boss itself must be disturbed, because its minions will ignore any obstacle and try to home at the target the boss determines.

Aha ! That could explain it. I encountered one boss pack and one champion pack of them, before finding the exit and proceeding to the Tamoe Highlands in search of easier prey. :blush:

side note: Prayer aside I have a very similar build. As you may know from Basin readings I'm a big fan of Conversion. Works fine for me, and I even don't have a melee hireling but a Rogue. Her job, killing of LIs aside, is mainly to disturb enemies all the time, so she wears Face of Horror.
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I do have a point in Conversion (just to get to FoH). I will give that a try next foray. Thanks for the reminder. :)

There is a weird bug that might explain it.

Often-to-always if the merc ends up far enough behind you that he has to warp to your location, he'll be ignored from that point forward by most-to-all monsters. It's as extreme as your description, so it seems to match in that way.

I did know about that bug, but discounted it as the problem because it was not in effect once I exited The Black Marsh and encountered Flesh Archers, Skeleton Archers and Fallen. Although I did have to flee err.. execute a rapid tactical retreat from one Flesh Archer Boss Pack, before they were strung out enough to start picking them off one by one. *whew*