Zenmai experiencing difficulty with chain attacks

a not entirely uncommon attack string for an assassin is...

Seeping Wound (Hex), Black Spider Strike(off-hand), Twisting Fangs (Dual).

One can easily achieve -10 degen with this combo. Seeping wound satisfies the Hex requirement for Black SPider, Black spider activates the extra degen given by seeping and the off hand requirement for twisting, Twisting throws an extra 3 degen along with deepwound to end the suffering sooner. All in all, a sound synergy of skills.

Problem... Zenmai wont use seeping wound unless the target has a condition, she may or may not (only does so sometimes) use blk spider on a hexed foe. And she will only use the combo as intended if specifically told to begin with seeping wound (against her lesser judgement).

EDIT: I should point out that the end result of arming Zenmai with these three skills means that she wont use any of them, and will simply attack as if she had no skills. I actually included Malicious strike in this set, and as a result, she wont use it either, as her regular attacks do not inflict conditions (req for Mal Strk).

My guess is there is something in her understanding of the skills that tells her to only cast that hex if someone is bleeding/poisoned already, and not as a precurser to bleeding she will soon cause. Would it be possible to have that adjusted?

As an experiment, I dropped jagged strike infront of the other three...

Zenmai's actions...
Jagged, Seeping, string of normal (non-skill) attacks until bleeding and hex wear off, Jagged, seeping.

I found this odd, as both a lead attack, and hex requirement had been met to satisfy and call for use of black spider. I would think there would be little reason for her to not use the skill (she had ample energy). Rather, she hacked away endlessly, pointlessly. When bleeding expired, yet hex still remained, did she instigate bleeding once again... no. Not until both condition and hex had expired did she think it wise to start with Jagged > Seeping > Normal normal normal...

Perhaps someone might find time to look into this. This experiment was conducted on Isle of the nameless with the armor dummies by the entrance.

Many thanks.

The Hero AI is very bad at conditional stuff in general.

I usually just make sure the appropriate skills are right next to each other. Though sometimes that doesn't matter. I sometimes have Conjure Phantasm at the very end of Koss' skill bar(its to distract Mesmer and Monk MPCs into not attacking) yet he'll cast it before attacking or even spam it instead of attacking. *shrug*

Heros don't seem to be able to understand how skills interact. I tried setting up master of whispers as a FoC nuker, and he won't even cast some AoE hexes, and rarely uses FoC...

I don't know about programming, but it seems that setting up the AI with conditiona; IF/THEN would help alot... so for example the AI understands that the IF conditional for FoC is hexes, and the THEN conditional is damage/health gain, he is programmed to know that damage and health gain is a good thing, and should then try to satisfy as many IFs as possible.

I think the Assassin in general is a hard thing for the AI to grasp. Period. The attack chains and strategic shadow stepping to remove oneself from combat just isn't something the AI does well...

Vermin and Panaku are great examples of this...its just more apparent in Zenmai because we can see her using her skills.

Hand of Ruin also brings up a good point with FoC...the AI just doesn't understand skill combos very well.

As well as the AI being incapable of using skills combos well, the assassin hench/heroes just act like any other melee character (ie warrior), so there isn't really any situation where they're likely to output more damage than a warrior hench/hero. At least that seems to be the general gist of it all.

Be happy you didn't give her Aura of Displacement. I gave it to Zenmai first time I used her.

She will never cancel it until she's at low health. Then she teleports to the other side of the map and dies walking towards you.

My Necro Heroes also dont know how to use skill with reqirment as well.
Giving them Vile Mishma my favorite Necro skill to them they just spam it on target without conditions.

I have an sin vicariously build set up for Zenmai (Live vicariously) and canceled that skill for her.. I usually make her cast it when i step into an area so that she has the skill on her at all time (she won't cancel it herself). Then I have a nice combo set up --> Golden Lotus Strike, Palm Strike, Repeating strike, Horns of The Ox, Falling spider, Death Blossom.. She has had no trouble finishing the combo by herself. No trouble at all

I can't remember the exact skillbar of my Zenmai, but Koss and Goren are applying conditions and using their skills as per spec. Koss uses the standard warrior build with bleeding, deep wound and pure strike along with hundred blades. Goren uses triple chop, whirling axe, executioners and makes deep wound too. Jin also uses poison/burning/bleeding as one would expect. I'll have to check Zenmai tonight.

Hero AI in regards to skills is one of the major flaws of this game. I ended up giving my heroes simple skills that work on their own, because they have no understanding of synergies and combinations. Even then, it still doesn't work very well; Koss happily uses "You're All Alone!" while standing knee-deep in a group of enemies, Magrid will only use barrage once in a while even if it's the only attack skill on her bar, and Morgahn likes to use Energizing Finale on Koss because he has low energy.

I use enduring toxin (degen hex, 1/4s cast, 5 energy: sweat) and black spider on Zenmai and she starts her chain correctly...

Its true you have to make straightforward builds for you heroes...
For instance Norgu will not understand that he can shatter the hex that interrupts on end to interrupt a second time.

The problem is that they are not "real people." Heroes are henchman for whom you can select skills and micro-manage in battle.

Heroes work best with a simple set of skills from their primary profession. If you want to get more creative, you need to trigger the skills yourself.

I dont mean conditions, i mean conditional.

Some skills work better under certain conditions, but that doesnt mean you cant use it otherwise.

Seeping wound is a hex. The hex's effects activate on Bleeding or Poison.

However, you can put the hex on a target, regardless of wether they have poison/bleeding or no conditions.

The A.I. cant see that "If i used these 2 skills together, id activate both".

really its because of the two way relationship between the Lead and the Offhand.

Seeping Wound (Hex that needs bleeding) + black spider (Bleeding that needs hex)

The A.I. can only understand 1 way conditional combinations.

Jagged Strike (Lead attack that activates bleeding) + Seeping Wound (bleeding is fullfilled, so hex is activated).

If you used a normal, non-conditional hex, black spider strike would trigger.

I have this problem too. I put some skills on Zenmai's bar in the order she should use them. She uses an offhand attack that requires a hex, then instead of a dual attack (the next skill on her bar), she uses the other offhand attack. She sometimes uses a dual attack without an offhand attack and misses.

She seems to select the skills much like a warrior would select his attack skills, in any order. She doesn't grasp very well that assassins have to chain attacks or subsequent attacks miss, so I often see her just using opening attacks over and over. You have to give her only 1 lead attack, 1 offhand, and 1 dual attack, and make sure they aren't conditional like requiring an enchanment or hex. Then she can manage to use them correctly most of the time.

The heroes in general are bad at using any build that requires some thought, that goes for all of them. The best monk build I've found is Glimmer of Light, because they can just hit this skill for a fast, cheap, quick recharging heal. If you give them full skill bars, they give no thought to which skill they use.

For example, Dunkoro has Orison and Dwayna's Kiss, neither is recharging. He uses Dwayna's on a target with no enchantment or hex - it will heal for less than Orison in this case. What was the thought behind it? Just random selection of a heal?

They must have some requirements for when it is good to use a skill, but I don't know what they are. For example you can randomly find a monk henchmen has put a Prot Spirit on you when you don't need it, but if you have 60% DP and hardly any health and get hurt, no Prot Spirit for you. Alesia seems to use Healing Breeze on any target with degen, even if you are barely hurt and just have some bleeding. Against pressure teams she really spams it around and ends up with hardly any energy. Healing Breeze is actually a 160 point heal, and not an efficient way to counter small amounts of degen since it costs 10 energy.

The AI for sins in general is terrible as it is for trapping. Itll eventualy do something then wait a long time then maybe do some thing else where as an actual player would spam the combo then run off or drop the traps when it can. The AI has a long long way to go.

I got my Zenmai to run a shovesin fairly well, she'll actually use shove and follow it up with falling spider + twisting fangs.

I gave her something simple-lead, offhand and a dual, and she seems to handle it easily enough.

My Zenmai is on my herobar way more than any other hero is besides talkora. She uses a charge/burst of aggression build i have for her flawlessly and is far far far more reliable than koss at using a skillbar properly.

Ya but thats a one way conditional.

shove is required for falling, falling is required for twisting.

She makes a great Critical Barrager.

I have her currently with a pretty rubbish skill set, invloving jagged strike, temple strike and exhausting assault. I basically just use her for the Dazed. (Since I don't have a ranger hero). She usually manages to pull Temple strike off, but rarely gets on to exhausting assault. Its also hard to tell where they are up to in the combo, so If i order her to use exhausting assault, she might not be on that stage of the combo, but she will use it anyway, even if it fails.

And the OP's example isn't?

"Seeping Wound (Hex), Black Spider Strike(off-hand), Twisting Fangs (Dual)."

A hex (in this case seeping wound) is required for black spider strike, which in turn is required for twisting fangs. But the OP seems to have it down, its not that she can't use combos, its that she doesn't cast hexes unless the hex will actually do something right then. She can't see that her hex will only be ineffective until her next 2 skills apply conditions, which ironically she can't do until she casts the hex. But this is why you can cast the hex for them, simple click on the skill bar never killed anyone

None of the henchies understand synergy. They see that seeping hurts targets that are bleeding, so if a target is bleeding, they apply it. I don't understand why, as the OP posted, Zenmai will NOT use jagged strike again until the hex has worn off. that sounds unintended, since jagged is a lead attack, and spammable.

I often have to tell Olias to cast soul barbs on the target BEFORE he lays into them with the rest of his hexes, or get my ranger henchies to apply poison just before an engagement, so they dont' stop in the middle to do it. The henchies can run simple, straightforward builds, but the more complex the synergies and conditionals, the less effective the AI is with it.

I make it a habit to check what preparations and enchantments heroes have on them before every fight, and force them to use what I want them to. Micromanagement has its place.

Give the henchies very simple skills that do alot without being conditional. The henchies simply don´t grasp the concept of skill combos. For example my ele refuses to cast dual attunements until it has only 10 energy left and then its too late. A gambit system like in Final Fantasy where you can define how skills are used is desperately needed to get heroes to do something more complex than spam orison of healing while he has better skills charged.

wait....what?

Standard warrior build? Standard in who's books....?

Triple Chop and Whirling Axe are both elites....


As for the assassin, it doesn't surprise me that there are bugs, it's pretty easy to have a few mistakes because the way the combo's work is complicated.

It is pretty hard to make AI able to chain skills of any kind, but that really doesn't excuse a number of their problems.

That's why people are tempted to use cookie cutters, they aren't very conditional. Lol