Do as i say, not as i do. Hench hero thread

The New friendly AI (hench and heroes), work on the idea of "i will attack what you attack." Problem is, as a monk, i don't spend a lot of time focusing on targets on the battle field. I try to busy myself with healing the team. (Not to mention the difficulty of clicking a target when 1/4 of your screen is taken up by the party window - a common monking practice).

So, here we go... We begin to engage, i hit a target once, and the party rushes that target... good. I click on a character suffereing damage and some of the party continues to fight, while others stop, to see if i've changed my mind... not so good.

Things become even trickier when dealing with torment creatures. The AIs other attack protocol is to attack something that attacks it. When bad guys start using call to torment, they stop attacking. So three torments, one is peaten down to the point where it uses CALL, and the others continue to attack. My friendly AI stops attacking the CALLer, and focuses on the torments attacking. If I'm not watching the mob carefully with an eagle eye to catch this, i could end up fighting a group of 5 or 8 torments, instead of the original three. (just as an example)... thing is, as a monk, i spend most of my time watching friendly health bars, and very rarely glance over the physical battle field.

So here's the suggestion:

Do as i say, not as i do. if we could get the AI to follow this concept, things would run a lot more smoothly. THe player (my cute little monk) would call a target. The Friendly AI would attack that target until it was dead, or i call a new target (not attack a new target, but actually CALL one). This means that after i call a target, i can either choose to attack something else while my hench focus on the target, i can focus on healing the party, i can practice tai chi, anything, and until the target is dead, or i call something else, they will not break from that target.

I already suggested this as a footnote idea in another thread, but now that i've been presented with the monk obstacle, i see this alteration to the AI as essential. If you agree, please sign below.

Um, if you call a target, they attack it.

I've taken my monk through most of Factions with just henchmen, and all I had to do was call the target I wanted them to kill.

Also, if you are getting so annoyed with them not killing stuff, why don't you change to a smiting monk?

AI will never know how to properly prioritize targets.

Not because of GW, but simply due to computing constraints. In most cases, they do ok, prioritizing healers or casters, going after already wounded ones.

But too often they would need to make a judgement call and choose a different target.

The reason why your proposal can't work, is because of all that would target a warrior, and then watch team slowly die, since they didn't bother to kill the monk in the back. AI takes all of that into consideration, and even apropriately switches target (not ideally, but still) to interrupt, or to finish a creature off. Locking onto one target is often the worst possible case. Trying to gank a monk can be a disaster scenario, if you don't put even some pressure on the rest of the group.

As far as playing a monk goes, PUGs are just waiting for you. They only class where you have the luxury of choosing.

Overall, when playing with henchies, the player always carries the group through, no matter which class you play. As a monk, you don't have that luxury. When monking heroway, I simply put all heroes as offensive, get devona + 2 healer henchies, and I go as support monk to offset the killing power with healing. It worked for all the RoT, inluding various elite caps. Let AI do what it wants, it'll manage most of the time, although it can be annoying.

For everything else, real players are better.

I made it through factions with my monk too. And prophecies. But the AI started behaving differently with the introduction of nightfall. At present, the hench will not continue to attack someone unless you continue to attack them. Or atleast, they wont be as dedicated to the target as when you continue to attack it. I've asked other monks about this, and they have experienced the same problem.
Try it. If you switch your focus to healing, at some point your hench will stop attacking, while still standing in the middle of an aggressive mob.

Monk was, as always, the first class to get Protector title in Nightfall. And playing it wasn't anymore annoying than elsewhere.

There is an issue with tormet creatures, where henchies stop attacking when they use Call to the torment. But that's a bug, not an AI issue.

When heroing, my build was: Zhed (the SF spammer/warder), Margrid (R/P, with GftE and SyG and Olias), with Mhenlo, Devona and Kirin for the rest. Margrid was set to agressive, Zhed to guard, and Olias to Avoid combat.

I've used the same build for everywhere in RoT, including a bit of LB farming, and some quests, and never experienced any trouble. The only combat action I did use was gaze to agro the mobs, but nothing else. Then I just watch them duke it out, healing as needed.

There might be something in a particular area, but I don' remember anything out of the ordinary, at least not any more than usual annoyances when monking. For missions I almost exclusively do PUGs, so I can't tell there.

Vaguely related, but it'd be nice if they stuck to the same targets. They seem to "break aggro" whenever I die, and go off attacking random enemies. And spamming calls while you're dead doesn't seem to affect them at all.

I came across this TONS while on my mesmer. I use a sword, you see, and I REALLY do not want to be on the front lines...

/signed

You may have not have noticed, but if you look at the Hero interface.

On the far left hand side, next to the skills, there is a small white box with a cross in.

If you select a bad guy, or a good guy by simply using the tab button (without calling the target) to get their name in the red box at the top.

The select the cross in the box and turn it yellow. The Hero will target that person or creature.

This works with capturing pets, attacking creatures, healing or mending allies.

It should also mean you dont need to loose target with the guy your healing and you set a target for a Heroe individually.

The henchs should hopefully follow the Heroes.

Plus they keep that target even if they die and res and even if you die.

Or they did the last I knew.

I hope that helps your problem.

It means that you need the Hero interfaces open most of the time though, which can be a pain when you dont have much space.

You shouldn't be just staring at your redbars anyway.

Battlefield awareness is a big job for monks. Sure in PvE you won't get adreno spikes but still, why practice something that is substandard.

Or, you could drop IW, and do what mesmers do best. Melee fighting is not one of those things.

lol that was funny Error 7 said "If you wanna be able to fight, use smiting" or something like that.

Apparnetly hes a healer monk. And whats the point of playing the game smite if you wanna Heal. Thats like saying you should beat the Game as a 55, go to a High end mission and advertise yourself as a proffesional Healer.