The Shadow "knows"

[Crystalion]

She will fire blast when in melee range.

If you walk your minions walk, so making sure to toggle back to walk in combat slows her down and she will start trapping and bombing for me.

These kinds of observations are good to hear, as we begin to build a picture of what makes these girls tick.

I will have to look at it again, but I don't seem to recall her using melee attacks unless she got hit.

I can assure you that her ai will make her run into melee even when nothing has hit her, she is at range, and I have both mouse buttons set to Fire Blast.

I don't recall being able to get her to retarget if she has gone into melee without doing a disengage move.

The Shadows do "fixate" on targets. If something happens to them or to their target to cause a new decision, however, they will suddenly take an interest in what you've been attacking.

IIRC this means there is actually a difference, with skills that attack with a target and those that don't, in what you "communicate" to your shadow about priorities.

I suspect this also means, with an AoE spell like Mindblast, that there is a difference between you targeting the ground and targeting a monster (i.e. in what the Shadow thinks in response).

As for the AB thread (last post specifically), I didn't think that shadow traps counted in the limit.

Well, I've seen that issue raised before, and I tested it myself... and then forgot the result! :D I don't think either Blade Fury or Fire Blast count as traps for the trap limit (not sure of course) but I can believe that the shadow shares your trap limit. If someone tests these issues it would be nice to know for sure. My recollection is that (disappointingly) Blade Sentinel does count toward your trap limit. As such, what with NextDelay, pumping that skill for duration and spamming them is probably relatively ineffective.