Hero/henchie AI bites...

Wow...before anyone says that line "the heroes are only as stupid as the person controlling them", know that I was controlling them and they did just the opposite of what I told them. Observe:

• With the whole party at at least 80% health and mine dropping rapidly, monks at full energy, I'm the one they don't heal and ends up dying. And I was even controlling their skill bars.
• I ping a target rapidly and Gwen still runs off and pulls a whole other mob that wasn't even within range, causing my party to wipe because of two huge groups of dinosaurs.
• No matter what build I give Vekk, he's always the first to die. And he always drops meteor shower on a spirit of all things. He just sucks in general.

There are more things but I just can't think of them all at the moment. But I believe, like many others, that the AI has gone way down since the release of GWEN. And again, don't give me that "the hero is only as stupid as the controller" part because I know it's happened to lots of other people, and this is always the case with me, no matter what the build is. I think this should be fixed ASAP. Some have even said the monster AI has gone up while the hero's has gone down. This needs to be fixed majorly.

I find that Margrid aggroes random mobs completely at random, randomly. Also Zhed Shadowhoof likes to stab people with his staff while yelling "two legs". Hero AI is pretty low, but it's bearable, and won't matter in NM. Healer selection is pretty bad but they have quicker reflexes.

There's a glitch (since GWEN) that causes heroes and henchmen to sometimes ignore flags (and disposition instructions in the case of heroes) and just go tearing off. It's a real problem, and I hope Anet will fix it soon.

My biggest complaint about the AI is what they do after you die. Of course the stupid healers will try to rez you WITH A HARD REZ, midbattle, but that's not what pisses me off. I could have the entire herohench group more or less focused on one target while I'm alive, and the moment I die they scatter like idiots and pick targets at random, and no matter how much I target a single foe and try to lock target with the heroes, they ignore my command and continue running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

I see it going like this- hero/hench AI is constantly getting worse, monster AI has always been pristine and it's only getting better.

I've used h/h nearly everywhere and although they're hardly Einstein's, they not as bad as some PUGs I've seen. At least they use good - great skills (LoD/BHA FTW!) and know how to semi use them

my vekk doesn't die easy. my MM heroes however, like to doze off away from the party. when i forget to flag him into a battle, his minions usually join the battle midway when enemies are already all over me. must remember to spy on him more. he might be casting death nova on his minions behind while the rest of the group fights. i just wish he'd stand with the whole group.

no, my monks are always dozing off, and my vekk and gwen always tank, so i decided to make them both water ele with mist form. so at the end, only devona, cynn and i always die, tahlkora, lina and mhenlo are standing (well except tahlkora, i saw she dancing in mid-battle while im dead... that b**ch), vekk and gwen are fighting X groups to the bitter end depending how many they decided to aggro while in mid-battle. yep, thats works out perfectly

You have to be joking. Monster AI started of brainless. Remember the AoE-scatter buff? That happened because it just stood there in a Fire Storm and slowly died. They removed it, then put it back in when HM was released, to give a sense of dumb AI for NM. It still is dumb, for the most part, but it has improved slightly.

Look, when you can prot up a 'dedicated tank' and bunch up mobs by properly aggroing them, then nuke the hell out of them, the AI is dumb. When you can slap Empathy, Backfire, or SS on mobs, and they continue to attack and cast with the same vigor as before, the AI is dumb. When the AI basically kills itself by wailing on a sin who has Shadow Form and Sliver Armor cast, the AI is dumb.


Still, I agree with the hero/hench AI appearing dumbed down a bit. Would be nice for the hero/hench to have at least comparable AI as the enemies.

QFT.

Countering their skills is one thing, though sometimes that can be difficult in a mixed mob. Quite another it is to counter their flawed behaviour patterns.

Take Wardens for example.
A Warden of Earth will almost invariably start casting Churning Earth early on. It is a nice, slow-casting skill and very easy to interrupt.... even for a totally incompetant interrupter like me. Find a Warden mob with an Earther in there, and he is guaranteed to start casting that spell within the first few moments. Shut that down with a single interrupt and you have removed most of the threat from the mob.
Wardens of the Trunk... or indeed any warrior Wardens.... will generally charge toward your party, then beeline for the nearest low-HP target and mob them... then persist in following them around unless somehow another one comes closer. Keep them occupied with minions and they aren't likely to pose any threat to the party at all.
Wardens of the Branch love to spam their spirits. Kill one of the spirits (far too easy) and one of them will start casting another. Provided there aren't too many of them this is the perfect time to wail on them without any threat of retaliation. They will quite happily continue making that spirit while you kill them. Watch out for the traps though, as they are generally surrounded by them (and you'll be crippled and bleeding if you're in melee range).
Wardens of the Mind love their Cry of Frustration.... but we know they can't use it often. Run ahead of the rest of your group and activate a long and otherwise useless spell and they will waste their interrupt on it. You're then free to obliterate them entirely while they're entirely helpless to do anything about it.


Heck.... even the occasional scatter from AoE (and it does happen sometimes) can be exploited....
Just slam movement-reliant hexes (Enduring Toxin and Shameful Fear come to mind, as a Sin-player) on a mob then drop a cheap AoE in the middle of them.... and watch them scatter and trigger the hexes like crazy.


If anything... that is how I can tolerate stupidity on the part of the herohench. They have at least one organic mind on their side; the monsters don't have any at all.

I can't really complain about H/H AI too much. It's all good as long as they follow my flags.

But I feel the "flag" goes something weird than before as well....

Why do we need 45543574398754395 threads about this? Yes hero/hench AI sucks and yes Zhed is becoming the next Leeroy. All we can do is report, report, report and maybe someone will finally get the message at NCSoft that it needs to be fixed...

Well it will take Anet getting a ****Ing clue that dumbing the HEro AI isn't going to do anything but piss off players instead of forcing them to PUG.

OOORRRRRR

It could be your fault since my H/H teams kick ass and you could try to actually adapt.

^
i lol'd

my henchpeople seem to do ok. usually keeping them on defense setting will keep them from running off like fools to the slaughter.

once you get used to hench AI, you'll learn which skills to bar for them, resulting in fewer "bang head: here" moments.

BTW: Herta is hottest wench...*ahem*....hench.

ty

Weird. If anything is reliable about monk heroes, it's micromanaging them. I've had Tahlkora cast thousands of spells on me since I started vanquishing with H&H, without fail. She did a flawless job in Slaver's Exile as well, as recently as yesterday.

Only problem i've been having with Acolyte Sousuke, Zhed, and Olias. They just runs out of the group and pull group of enemies from way far. This is just really week AI. i know i could flag them but when i do not even see them run out there pull something from out of know where, its ridicules. and they do this on random like a 12 year kid is controlling them or something

Ive found Lina to be fine as far as monks go, it's Mhenlo who likes to out tank other meat shields. Dunkoro and Talkora are fine for me, Ogden is just stupid. If I have my backline to far back from the warriors in front, Ogden runs back and forth unsure of what to do while people die in droves around him.

Like a previous poster said - Zhed is the new Leeroy! That or he has joined Al-Qaeda (or the monster equivalent) as a suicde bomber.

Olias drives me nuts constantly casting Death Nova on myself and my other heroes and hench instead of casting it on his expendable minions.

MoW using Arcane Echo for enfeeble instead of SS.

All I can think of for now.

Thats part of your problem. I found out a long time ago that heroes don't know when to use meteor shower and it has such a long casting and recharge time that it is pretty worthless on them. As for Gwen, I have her set up as full interrupt, and never had her run off, if anything she likes to hang back a little bit and only comes into the battle after the mobs have already used their worst spells.

They seem to like to cast it on stationary objects. Nothing more stationary than a spirit I guess but when I bring Ele hereos with mshower I usually disable it and cast it manually when things bunch up or on the occasional boss.

Cynn seems to use Meteor Shower pretty good. Weird!