Create Custom Hero Builds

I hope they keep these heros like they are now... I really like dual "Charge!" and life bonders really early...
http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/2572/gw042di1.jpg

What builds would want when this is released?

(I was thinking a real interupt hench you can control /droll)

frenzy-healsig ?

Succor Life Bonders lol.

Thats Unique.

I had fun with Koss, He started as a Whammo Noob, but he wanted to cast Mending on everyone...so that went out the door.

Now He is a Hammer Warrior, but with no combos, just +dmg stuff and knockdowns like counter blow. works well. I'll think about Succer though.

I tried to make my own build for Dunkaro...its bad...thats why I don't play a Monk...

On the other hand, Koss just tears through everything with a decent Warrior build, compared to his old one...

Evicerate as koss elite seemed to work well for me and I was gonna make dunkaro boon prot but i dont know how to change him to /mesmer is it possible or not?

i jjust kept my build simple since i didn't know how much a hench A.I. could take.

my koss
enraged smash, res sig, essence bond(for me and the Davenish), to the limit

monk
just a pile of healing stuff and rof

davonish was a MM
Golem, horror, consume corspe, blood of master, res sig

did decent work.

My henchmen are only lvl 12 at this point so I have limited attribute points to work with but I'm just set as:
Koss = flurry (yes flurry don't have attributes for anything else), and 7 axe adrenal attacks.
Monk = healing light, kiss, comforting, orison, leech sig, drain enchant... he has 8 skils but these are all he really uses.
Dervish = Illusion of Weakness, Faithful INtervention, Mystic Sweep, heart of holy flame, vital boon, rez sig, that attack that does more damage per adjacent foe and something else.

Its not so much the build that is hard, its stretching the AI. For instance: the monk uses comforting over light when its target has no conditions. Derv doesn't use faithful intervention unless you make her. The war just uses skills randomly... like he doesn't adrenal chain or maintain flurry... just completely random.

BTW, do the hero henchies ever get the 30 attribute points that are usually aquired from quests or in this case sunspear ranking?

1) Give Koss "Watch Yourself."
2) Check "Watch Yourself"
3) You now have 20 additional armor forever AND you don't have to personally spam it. GG

I stuck Backbreaker on Koss earlier on, but the group was annihillating the mobs too quickly for the 'breaker to charge.

using all preorder items, playing p/w

koss- war pick hammer w/a dwarven battle stance

healing guy (?) factions rit staff, healing breeze, party, nightmare and splinter weapons mo/rt


good times. deleted to try a different class..


-anyone disagree that the male derv dance is christopher walken in that one fatboy slim video?

Setting both monks up to Boon Prot works phenomenally well.

...I'm not kidding. I geared them up, filled the party and went for a walk around the Keys. Even with intentional over-aggroing (for testing purposes), I would've cleaned the map without a single character dying if that third mob I triggered hadn't contained a boss!

(even then, I was at no risk at all of a wipe. One monk went down, someone burnt a res sig, and we walked right over the mob)

I kept the full-control window open at all times (to monitor their energy usage) then just C-spaced my way through. They coped exceptionally well with pressure (the Ward Against Melee henchie helped, mind) and their survivability was heaps better than any healing build I tested.

I ran a pretty standard GvG build fuelled by Energy Drain (I assumed they wouldn't be smart enough to use Mantra of Recall efficiently). No energy problems at all, and they kept Boon up pretty much continuously:

{e} Energy Drain
Reversal of Fortune
Guardian
Protective Spirit
Mend Ailment
Inspired Hex
Divine Boon
Resurrect

...Contemplation of Purity became a hard res partly out of my PvE-player superstition, but mainly because I suspected they'd be a bit too trigger-happy with it and debuff themselves unnecessarily.

[edit: I tested at levels 12 to 14, which worked fine. I doubt you could go much lower and keep a decent attribute spread, though. Certainly L10 at the absolute lowest]

Other zany adventures in Hero testing:

Koss:
Not much to add here. Shock worked well, but exhaustion became a problem with the lowbie energy pool. I stuck in Bonnetti's Defense just because it's made of PvE awesome, and that let him cast Shields Up! pretty much on recharge to frustrate enemy Paragons. Really, give him a defensive stance, an attack speed stance and a deep wound and you can't go wrong.

Oh, one extra piece of technology: With the new hero AI the gap between the frontline henchies and the casters is now significantly greater. Since that means your frontlines are more distinct and protectable, I found that None May Pass! on the warrior worked very well to prevent breaches.


Monks and Inspiration:
"Self," I said to myself, "henchies are perfect at interrupting. So why not equip the monks with Power Drain and Leech Signet for free energy and timely interrupts?"

...I'll tell you (me?) why not - because they burn it on the first skill any enemy uses, no matter what it is or how full their bars are. An interrupter hero may yet be a good idea (I've got some Psychic Distraction AI theories I want to test), but as a way of getting energy for your monks, it's hopeless.


Blood is Power:
...Yeah, I went there.

OK, there's no necro hero available, so I tried it out on a monk. And even then I've been too scared to have a field test, so I did some dry runs instead.

Doing my best to empty my energy bar at all times (under no aggro), I've found that you can get a BiP hero to reduce themselves to around 1/6 remaining health, but they'll never kill themselves outright. If you don't count going down to 1/6 health while under fire as "killing themselves", of course!

Basically, they're still willing to cast BiP if their health is as low as 2/5, but no lower. You can still consider them a viable option in a low-risk set build (following a monk in a b/p team, say), but otherwise they're not worth taking unless your environment is very controlled.


Still on the testing table: Ether Prodigy E/Mos, automated minion bombers, and ritualists!

I ran boon on monks as well, but instead of Prot spirit (I didn't trust the hench to toss it out effectively) I ran hex breaker (they do refresh it swiftly). Also, I went without res on them, instead using power drain (superb net gain + hero AI reflexes = delight!).

I found the heros tended to use eDrain mid or late fight (often with prompting) rather than at the start. I didn't have much trouble with pDrain either, unlike paperfly.

word of warning: never give your hero prot spirit if there are minions around. they spam it constantly on your minions and run out of energy like nothing else. i was forced to change my monks to heal, at which they do a little more decently. theyre still too stupid to use energy management efficiently though, but you get by. shambling horrors = awesome. its like a wall of minions... that turns into another wall of minions!

I was running a MM as my character and let's just say Healing Hands and Healing Seeds have no use on my minions or me >.>
He also likes to spam PS on me when I am saccing in between battles.
As for Koss, he ripped everything open with Hundred Blades.

The Monk is nice when you use a full bonding build on him. All you have to do is spam Blessed Signet, which isn't all that hard.

While the heroes are very cool, you simply cant expect them to be creative enough to use most skills.... I tried using Holy Veil on my monk, then wondered why noone was getting healed... riiiight.... you are trying to maintain Veil on everyone... erk...
A very basic scripting system would be so nice, llike "use this skill when under 50% energy" or "when ally is hexed". alas i suspect this would be hard for ANet, and so will probably never happen.

It would take about a hundred years to get it all scripted out. I think skill-chaining and such on hench is a little too much to ask (unless the user is the one setting it up, IE linking a kd to aftershock).

I found shock to work very poorly on the warrior hero. He'll use it on rechagre untill he's fully exausted, and then he'll use it as soon as he gets the energy.

I'm wondering how the heros get their Max Attrib points??? Cause when I did the Attrib quests they didnt get a boost too... SO just wondering how they reach 200 attribs...

Prob a special quest just for them later in the game I would guess...

And another thing that came to mind. Since the interface has changed games wide... will your heroes be able to come with you to other lands? Interesting possibilities I see...

I put a spike sword build on the warrior,

For great justice+dragon slash and other sword skills.

I'm hoping for a necromancer hero which I can abuse as my monk's personal battery... up to now it's quite fun to command these buggers around.

I was wondering about taking the heros to tyria and cantha as well. It would make it much easier to get a group in some of the outposts noone is ever in.

How do you get your heros a secondary profession? I just realized after almost getting through the entire preview event that koss is just a war...

Gaile Gray said last night that we will not be able to take the heroes to Tyria or Cantha.

When you go to "skills and attuibutes" switch to your hero's skills.

There will be this panel with the name "Warrior" on it. Click on it and you'll be able to switch to any secondary (even assassin and Rit if you have factions).


I'm thinking of giving Koss Savage slash for interupting

Just when I thought we were going to have a fix for the decreased population in the older chapters...

I got done reading the chat log about an hour ago, all she mentioned is that she did not know whether we would be able to bring our heroes into Tyria and Cantha..I didn't see her mention that we WONT be able to, just that she wasn't aware if we would.

if the Heroes are smart enough. I would propably get a ranger and make him a lame toucher :P

I have the solo Spider Farm build (the one made by racthoh) on Koss. I swapped Dolyak Signet for Res Signet though ofcourse.

For the Monk, not sure of his name, I put a WoH/Prot variation that works very well. I'm thinking of maybe Infuse on him, but I'm afraid he might spam it to the death.

As for bringing Elonian heroes to Tyria/Cantha, why? I would much prefer Tyrian heroes for Tyria and Canthan heroes for Cantha. Anyone else think regional heroes would be 'better'?

Today's testing results, the short form:

(all tests done on the Ele hero)

Minion Bombing: Doesn't use Soul Nova aggressively enough for my tastes, just performs like a bad MM. Interestingly, he'll only ever Nova one of the two Animate Minions minions and not the other. Novas both the Shambler and his Jagged version, though. Still, not often enough!.

Rotting Flesh was pretty good, though.


Minion Mastery: Got a lot of potential, even with the handicap of being a level 12 E/N. The most important thing is that he didn't over-spam Blood of the Master (which is what I was worried about).


Blood is Power field test: It looks like the AI is set to always BiP you if you need it, but the other henchies got a lot less love. With both BiP and Blood Renewal he managed his health fairly well, but since my Ranger didn't need the battery all that often it felt like he wasn't worth the slot.

Oh, and don't put Well of Blood on a hero - they'll insist on casting it on every corpse and never do anything else!


Spirit Spammer: Yeah, spirit spamming with a low level ritualist secondary doesn't do sqat. Particularly since he wouldn't use Ether Prodigy unless I told him to.