HERO builds and the AI how did it respond?

What skills did you give your HERO monks? For those that traveled with Tahlkora and Dunkoro what skills did you giver them?

I quickly discovered that the AI was unable to use concept builds (Boon Prot and others) however if you give them a simple build concept they work far better then anything I have yet experienced from GW hench Healers. Vipers Defense was actually useful as it protected the monks well from enemy Dervish and Warriors quite well.

Tahlkora
Aegis
Mend Ailment
Mend Condition
Protective Spirit
Reversal of Fortune
Shield of Regeneration
Viper's Defense
Res Signet

My Party was essentially conditions free. I also noticed the SoR was always cast on the appropriate person. I did not give my Healer HEROs a res skill because they would res to early in a fight. The Res Signet simply worked better.

Dunkoro
Scourge Healing
Smite Hex
Zealot's Fire
Word of Healing
Dwayna's Kiss
Orison of Healing
Viper's Defense
Res Signet

Donkoro used Smite Hex on the first Hex that appeared and made good use of Zealot's Fire. He managed to always have Zealot's Fire up and running.

So what builds did you use and how effective was it.
How did the AI respond with your builds?

NOTE: I just added this because people are posting their Koss Builds, If you notice all of my HERO's had Vipers Defense. This proved very useful as the poison was spread through enemy ranks. It also confused the enemy AI because the enemy AI had to constantly change primary targets. I gave no Heal sig to Koss because he kept using it at inappropriate times. Thus now I had a focused AI who was ALWAYS on offense.

Koss
Triple Chop
Penetrating Chop
Dismember
Sprint
Tiger Stance
Signet of Strength
Viper's Defense
Res Sig

Give them power drain =D That alone should be enough to interrupt opponent caster AND regain energy to spam.

Then again, I am not sure... I hope they don't use it as their first skill when combat start. But, I think the recharge is good enough.

Power Drain worked very well on my monk heroes. In the other hand, some strategies that didn't work...

Koss -
5 Adrenille Axe Skills
Wild Blow
Healing Sig
Res Sig

He keeps spamming wild blow and thus never builds the adrenilline necessary for any other attack skill.

Elementalist -
Earth heavy aoe build. He never moved close enough to the enemies to make aftershock, shockwave, and the like work.

Dont use Revealed Enchantment/Hex on your henchies, they will cast the acquired skills.

Interupts are awesome, especially concussion shot/skull crack/power drain.

Dont try a touch ranger. All they do is Throw Dirt! Wand for 45 seconds! Throw Dirt! If you take away their wand, its Throw Dirt! *stand still for 45 seconds* Throw Dirt!

I heard from a PUGer that the ele henchie did use Arcane Echo with Meteor Shower, though. Thought that was pretty leet.

Bonding doesn't work - they refuse to maintain more than 4 enchantments.
Live vicariously on Koss - I tried to give him LV and VS, but he kept casting LV on me every time he had enough energy.
Hammer/Aftershock doesn't work - Koss wouldn't wait for the kd before as'ing
Hammers in general - Lose all adrenaline skills are all but useless.
Meloni did a good job with scything with apply poison.
Trapping does not work.
Boon port works just fine.

And echoing again - powerdrain/leach sig rocks on monks

Damn. And here I thought I could set up a small army of 55-monks =b

I bought that new cheap healing elite from Nightfall for my NPC monk and gave it orison and it came with another 5 e heal that worked better on ppl with conditions... all in all I would say he did alright, I gave him healing seed once and he used it properly a couple times, that was nice.

I gave the Dervish my PVP Dervish build and kept all her enchants on her by hand and she was doing very well, but I had to keep the enchants on her manually for the most part.

yeah, 8-man bonding doesn't cut it but for 4-man they're awesome.

i actually was playing around with dunkoro and wound up making a wack build to test him out that for some reason seemed to work. i had him bonding and on passive with...well

think it was like:
RoF
Guardian
Blessed Sig
Channeling
M of Recal (e)
Resurrect
Life Bond
Divine Boon

talk about expert energy management. i started posting him back at the edge of the agro bubble but saw him channeling and remembered that i put that on there . he actually stayed alive and though his energy was always low he chucked a rof and guardian at good times. he kept the mantra and sig going and i thought it was awesome. almost makes me want to try it with my monk but really don't think i want to work that hard to keep the energy coming in. my koss had healing breeze which he hit someone with every minute or so. didn't mind his bar either, if i recall:

Dismember
Penetrating Blow
Disrupting Chop
Distracting Blow
Healing Signet
Primal Rage (e) (originally Whirling Axe)
Rebirth
Live Vicariously

That worked pretty well. i didn't do much with the dervish because the list of unlocked skills was depressing so i tried different secondaries. did a heavy tactics build first with i don't remember what (um...watch yourself, skull crack (e), distracting blow and i forget what else). mesmer iinterrupts worked pretty well but the moment i had the 2 toons using distracting blow x2, skull crack and dusrupting. last thing i tried which i really wanted to see was mm so i did:

Animate Flesh Golem (e)
Animate Bone Horror
Blood of the Master
Bitter Chill
Taste of Death (not used once)

and some other stuff i don't remember (maybe some dervish stuff...probably more necro stuff i forget). kept it to 2 15e summons for no soul reaping and she did ok (at like 9 or 10 death) keeping 5 to 6 minions going for a while. obviously a necro primary at 20 would have a better chance at this but i was pretty impressed overall. generally her golem upkeep was a little excessive and she could've kept a bigger pack if she'd have stopped making so many golems. on the bright side, that's an excuse to add more summon skills. would be weird but it would thin out the use of golem i'd hope.

there's a few things that don't seem to work like trapping. a frined of mine tried this on koss for some reason. he had like barbed and healing spring i think and koss really went for the gold. he'd be trapping away like a nut when we finished loading and when we'd stop before attacking a group, he'd start trapping our little planning area. he'd run up to us fighting and jump in late. well, long story short, trapping wasn't practical.

anything that should be spammed seems to not get spammed. that's probably a big drag for making a touch. i would think with a touch ranger you'd also need to equip a melee weapon though their still not going to "spam appropriately" per the touch genre.

The Ele I got worked very well, I gave him meteor shower and searing heat and one or two others and he nuked like a trooper.

Very impressed.

double post....deleted.

Tahlkora

Animate bone minions
Animate bone horrors
blood of the master
death nova
taste of death
offering of blood
blood ritual
resurrection chant

raised 8 minions/horrors and kept them alive. she even cast death nova on them all. i don't know if she ever used taste of death.

Dunkoro
word of healing and 2 other low cost heal spells
mend ailment
remove hex
signet of synergy
mending refrain
resurection chant

spammed WoH and other heals. seemed a little bit slow on the hex removal although it might have been recharging.

with a bit improvement... PuGs will be a thing of the past. woooot

Koss

Cleave
executioners
penetrating
distracting blow
watch yourself
endure pain
healing sig
rebirth

he chopped things up. distracted when he could.

Jin

fav winds
barrage
distacting shot
savage shot
troll
remove hex
rebirth
mend ailment

awesome hero. barrage helped a lot as most enemies where grouped up

Sousuke (i think that was the name) (had this on other char)

fire attunement
elemental attunement
immolate
incendiary bonds
rodgorts invocation
something embers
flare
ressurection chant

i can't remember the dervish or paragon properly as i can't remember the names.

Koss

Yeti Smash
Mighty Blow
Earth Shaker
Watch Yourself
Flurry (Or Frenzy)
For Great Justice!
Healing Signet
Res signet

It worked out great, Koss was laying Earth Shakers every 10 seconds. Very good for keeping the mob in a restrained position for the Dervish.

Jin

Meteor
Fireball
Meteor Shower
Rodgort's Inovaction
Aura of Restoration
Fire Attune
Ele Attune

Once again worked great, lots of KD. I think you're starting to get the idea of my party set up.

I put Inspired Hex on Dunkoro and he never used the hex he inspired unless I made him, quick to the punch too. Sousake never seemed to precast Elemental Attunement, but he always did precast Fire Attunement, I'm not sure why exactly. Koss was awesome with his interrupts as I had hoped.

I didn't think about making one of them a minion bomber, but that's really cool that she was so good about death nova, makes sense though I guess.

I discovered a beautiful build for Dunkoro...since I was playing as monk I had no need for another, really....so this is what I gave him:

Flesh of my Flesh
Mend Body and Soul
Ritual Lord {E}
Pain
Bloodsong
Shadowsong
Recuperation
Painful Bond.

Worked a treat! ^^

If you came up a load of monsters that were too hard you could just have him spam his spirits and lure towards them!

Maybe since he can't have attributes in Spawning Power I'll replace Ritual Lord with Wanderlust or something...just haven't captured it yet.

had my dervish hero try out tainted flesh (e), plague touch and soul feast since she got herself into the thick really quick and it turned into a circus

once outside the outpost at keys she began casting and maintaining tainted flesh (e) on the entire party and had absolutely no energy left over for anything else.

she was pretty effective using virulence (e) instead.

Trapping wasn't too bad for me. I would just place a waypoint where I wanted the traps dropped (sometimes using individual waypoints to bring the traps closer together or line them up). Once they were aligned, I would click the number next to their name and have them start the trapping. Then I would just back the henchies up a bit while I pulled the mob into the traps.

There could be some interface improvements to Heros. I'm thinking a series of checkboxes for each skill loaded on to a hero (hidden in the interface so that it doesn't confuse and frighten newer players.)

* "Spam this skill", meaning use the checked skill as often as possible, unless a higher priority arises (such as low health or a dead ally). I noticed, for example, that my Koss would rarely use Hundred Blades. Others have stated that AI touchies won't spam their touch skills.
* "Use this skill after the prior skill", for example aftershock after a knockdown.
* "Use this skill only on yourself", for example, Heal Touch
* "Use this skill only on me", for example, Brutal Weapon
* "Never use this skill", for example, the Glyph of Sacrifice, Frenzy, an elite form skill, or a rez on a monk. These are skills you'd want to invoke manually, never by AI fiat.
* "Use this skill only on a spike", with a method of calling a spike

Pick one or two spellcaster heroes, give them a collector/preview item with tons of energy (like the Factions ritualist staff), and a very simple MM build. Don't confuse them with a golem, horrors and or other stuff they just can't deal it with, simple is better. Your minion steamrolling machine is ready to go. By the end of the WPE content, one hero can consistently sustain 7 minions (lvl12+) and two heroes up to 12 minions, which is basically more than you need to kill anything on the island. Once you've killed the first low level monsters (or animals) you can relax and enjoy the scenery. Just attack everything on sight, and your minion factory will be working 24/7 for you. Even if necros sacrifice a lot of HP, your monks will be on steroids thanks to a permanent BiP.

Mo/N + D/N with :
- Bone Fiends,
- Blood of the Master,
- Blood is Power,
- Resurection Signet

Nothing else. If you have only one MM, just replace BiP by OoB.

Alternatively, you can choose W/D + D/W with Wild Blow. If you're playing a reaper with WB too, you'll have 3 x 3 scary criticals every 5s. More than you need to steamroll painlessly clusters of dumb monsters.

Here's my "set up"

Koss W/mo ( lol )
Penetrating Chop
Distrupting Chop
Eviscerate [E]
Exe
Succor
Purge signet
Healing Signet
Resurrection Chant

D(r)unkoro
Rof
Guardian
Mantra of Recall [E]
Gift of Healt
Signet of Devotion
Resurrection Chant
Mend Condition
Revealed Hex

Tahlkora
Restore Condition [E]
Smite Hex
Prot Spirit
Rof
Channeling
Resurrection chant
Revealed Hex
Gift of Healt

Gave Koss mending and healing hands.

Used healing hands pretty well, but had to make him stop using mending on me and put it on himself.

Silly wammo.
=D

heh, yea, if you make the dervish a D/Mo and give her mending she casts it on everyone before doing anything else! Personally I'd make her a D/N and give her Vampiric Touch and Mark of Pain...have her cast Mark of Pain before her and Koss lay the smack-down.

probably depends which stance (or whatever it's called...aggressive/defensive/passive) you use on him. i kept my bonder/boon prot (still amazes me that worked...with the 8-man group's healer hench and melloni doing smite/heal it was like a hospital up in there)) on passive. it's probably for that reason he didn't use leech sig when i tried it (didn't try him on defenseive to see if that would work)

Have you tried forcing them to cast?

I didn't get a chance to play NF this last weekend. I can't wait to try out the new HEROs. I didn't see any ranger builds posted. How did a standard Barrage/Interupt work?

I gave Dunk Expel Hexes, and it worked a charm

did not get a ranger yet.

LOL... the AI definately does lack inteligence...

keep that in mind when picking your skills...

I ran Koss with...

Barbarous Slice
gash
Silverwing
Galrath
Final Blow
Live Vicariousely
Bathazar
Heal Sig

All you have to do is cast Vic and Bath for him... boom bam done...

he will on his own use his adren skills as they become available...

dont try to get all fancy with the AI.... Smart heros rely on smart players to manage their skills correctly for them to understand them

I noticed the AI does not use Elites well at all and not as often as they could be used.... tried giving Koss Battle Rage and he hardly ver used it...

Am i seriously the only person who gave Koss a hammer???


Anyways, I originally gave him Dwarven Battle Stance, but I think he kept cancelling it early by using other skills... maybe its just my imagination, as Im used to having a 13 in str as opposed to the 5 or 6 I was able to give Koss before the event closed down.


Anyways, my Koss build was a W/A with a hammer and shadow arts. It was glorious. Especially after I noticed his inability to deal with DBS, and threw on some Primal Rage (worked much better(

Koss will never not be my hammer buddy.

Yup, if they have 0 regen then you get a green tick on the skill, but no action.

I don't know if it was coincidence, but I noticed my heroes did not spawn Shield of Judgement and Protective Spirit until I manually started to cast it for them (did any of you try the battle setup where your own chr. is tanking and you put your heroes apart (passive) with their skill bars open so you can cast spells on yourself from there?).

That's not entirely true in my case...although I've never played a warrior I'm not sure if warrior elites work differently to elementalist ones. I made my Koss a W/E and gave him Glyph of Lesser Energy and Shockwave {E} - he always used Glyph of Lesser Energy before Shockwave and it worked beautifully!

I do understand when people say that the heroes work better with the simpler builds...Sometimes my Dunkoro forgot to use Ritual Lord before spamming his spirits, and sometimes Dunkoro would neglect to cast Painful Bond on the enemies, and would just spam mend body and soul instead.

I like the idea of giving one of them Expel Hexes. I did notice a lot of hexes used in Nightfall. I started as a Mo/P...found Paragon to be a pretty poor secondary for monk, so I think I'll start as Mo/Me for the extra energy management and the extra hex removals.

I wasn't really that impressed with the henchmen AI.

Koss was more ... above average, and even so he's still like a black version of Stefan.

The "Holy Henchmen" is particularly a problem. In the plains, she proceeded to literally... run off in the opposite direction of the group, aggroing about 3 or 4 groups of plant things as she ran back to me.

bottom line, the AI is still dumb as a post... but to be honest, I'm not that suprised at this. Heroes sort of compensate, but at the end of the day, a REAL player will always be better imho.

this, or at least the never use this skill especially, is covered in Sardelac in this thread
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10050632

I actually found that Koss was awesome with Grenths Balance. I gave him the following build:

Sever Artery
Gash
Final Thrust
Watch Yourself
Plague Touch
Grenth's Balance
Heal Signet
Rez sig

The only time he ever came in danger was when he was targeting a foe with low health and was being attacked by others.

I ran my ele hench as wards with Unsteady Ground, and it worked pretty well. Also, as long as the monks were on passive they never used an inspired hex.

Boonprot worked great. I put inspired and revealed hex on for energy management, as well as energy drain (MoR works fine too).

I gave my second monk Draw Conditions and it used that effectively. I'd also tried (instead of having Draw Conditions around) giving Koss plague touch and he uses that appropriately also.

Koss did not use Dragon Slash that effectively. I found he did better with axe builds, I gave him triple chop, cyclone axe, and distracting blow. All worked great.

A lot of this is going to be figuring out which skills the AI knows how to use effectively.

Admittedly I gave the AI some complex builds to begin with and failed miserably. I then begin using builds any noob could use and moved up from there. Defense was a big issue to start with that was why I changed one skill to Vipers Defense. That skill alone solved almost all defense issues the Monk AI's had. In essence they could not tank or stay toe to toe with a dervish or warrior because they would be auto teleported away from danger. Also by limiting what enchants I gave and avoiding enchants with heavy costs, I limited any failing that could occur.

For example when I gave zealots fire to Durk he consistently kept it up. The AI could see its an enchant for the AI only so it must be for the AI to use. Thus the AI kept it up when combat started. This could only benefit anyone in the party he healed of course. When I gave Balthazars Aura to Durk he would cast it on anyone making it useless. The AI could not understand that Balthazars Aura was only ment for the fighter or for defense from enemy warriors or dervishes. I then began to see how the simple AI thinks and adjusted my builds accordingly. The AI can only respond to situations not make proactive decisions that require advance casting.

For example here is what I noticed the AI would do in combat. I then set my builds according to how and what the AI would respond to.

1 Cast zealots fire enchants when entering combat because it is for me; recast when it is down.
2 When someone is injured cast Orison of Healing.
3 When someone is injured and is running an enchant or is Hexed cast Dwanas Kiss
4 When someone is below 50% health and in need of Healing cast Word of Healing.
5 Cast Scourge healing on enemy AI when attacking because it’s a Hex I can cast on him.
6 When someone is hexed cast Anti Hex spell (Smite Hex was the anti hex)
7 When someone is dead cast Res Signet if not healing.
8 Use Stance when entering combat: (Vipers Defense was the only stance I used for them)

Anything else that required any type of thought was simply be misunderstood by the AI; Because of this you should only pick spells & skills that require no thought whatsoever. Simple to understand builds with limited options. If you don't want you AI useing Healing Touch in combat don't give it to them. Its that simple.

I had a lot of fun with Koss. AI interuppts and removes conditions/hexes like a deity, right? Stick Empathatic Removal + Distracting Blow on Koss and the word 'wammo' becomes more associated with terror and destruction than noobiness. He also did great with a build I borrowed from Stone Summit - "For Great Justice!", Cleave, Exec Strike, Pen Blow and he kills just as fast as I did.

Dunkaro was an alright boon prot, but an even better Blessed Light monk, though he never touched his energy management skills except Channeling and occasional Inspired Hex. Drain Enchantment (and later as I got desperate Energy Tap) were never used.

I tried to make the ranger one into an Enraged Lunge ranger, but there was a problem that the pet would only remain in one instance. Whenever you zoned she needed to cap a new one. I hope Anet can fix this, and Dunkaro's refusal to use his mesmer skills.

One thing i noted, that i don't see mentioned here, is heros don't get the degen from vamp as i managed to find a 4/1 gold vamp hammer . When i got Koss to use the thing he still got health every hit (could tell due to the glimmer effect on hit) but suffered no degen.

From this I wonder about afew things> Do they suffer from the -1 energy degen from zealous and what about the -1 from 15% always -1 energy/health weapons? Maybe this could be reason for people to actually keep those type of mods.

I set one monk up as boon prot, she was good at it too, though she seemed to have this disturbing habbit of not healing herself. It was actually quite strange. Had nothing to do with recharge, I checked that let me assure you.

Set the ele up as a renewal nuker. He only used glyph before meteor shower about 50-60% of the time :S

The other monk I had on pure heal, that worked just fine, though I did find that he tried to res in the middle of the battle, which was annoying...