New to heroes

1druid1

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Nov 2007

W/R

Hi All

Just got myself Guildwars Factions, was playing an Elementalist in Guildwars for a while and decided to try out other characters, the one I have just started to play is a Dervish in Factions, and I have just encountered my first Hero, Koss I think his name is. After playing about with him, I noticed that I can change his skills and attributes a bit like my own Character can, along with weapons and Items, I did notice that armour wasnt upgradeable though. What I want to know is how does the Hero know what skills to use and in what order and when to recast, ect..

Cheers

D

distilledwill

distilledwill

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2006

Blighty

The Legion of the Blue Blade

R/Mo

Well... first of all, i think you are talking about Nightfall. GW Factions does not include heroes.

On the subject of the skills, and which order to use them. Your hero will use the skills when the situation needs it, much like a player would. Meaning that a monk hero will not just randomly cast Orison Of Healing on a player with full health, I know thats fairly obvious, but its best to clear that up.

It is thought that Hero AI favours skills to the left of its skill bar. Meaning that if you place a skill on the left of the skill bar, the hero will use it more often than the skills placed to its right.

Heroes such as Koss often do not need you to manually recast spells as they are fairly simple combination of attack skills and stances. If you are using a build such a Conjure X warrior, then you may have to cast the enchantment if it is shattered but in my experience the hero will precast the enchantment before battle on its own.

The caster professions are often a different matter. Sometimes you will need to manually cast spells for them and choose a target. This is called "Microing" or "Micromanaging", for the moment, you won't really need to worry about that, and I found you can play the whole of the Nightfall campaign in normal mode without having to Micro any skills at all.

Microing is useful when a skill requires a very specific situation that the hero AI won't pick up on. For example, it is often required that you micro a Broadhead Arrow ranger hero when facing a large boss as they will fire off the arrow as soon as you target the enemy and, due to the slow pace of the BHA shot, the arrow will often miss. It is often useful to disable skills and cast them yourself. Im not sure which button it will be on your version as ive swapped the shortcuts around a bit, you may have to look it up on wiki.

Anyway, hope that helps.

Wow, thats quite long.

1druid1

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Nov 2007

W/R

Hi

Thanks or the reply, yep I got it wrong I did mean Nightfall, I started playing when phrophicies came out now I have lost track of the versions, lol. I actually own all of the chapters but just really starting the game over again. Thanks for your reply it was very informative, I was a little lost when you were talking about "Microing" and casting the heroes spells until I found that I could bring up their skill bar. Hmmm I have trouble managing my own skills nevermind another 3 players, lol.. Anyway thanks for your reply.

D

cyberjanet

cyberjanet

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Feb 2007

The Netherlands

Rich Mahogany

N/

Certainly I cannot micro heroes, I play around and adjust their builds until it is compatible with AI. AI does things that humans just can't, and vice versa. I don't even watch how they use their skills, my main thing is how well do they and the party survive. If they keep dying, the build needs tweaking.

Your hero armor automatically upgrades with their level. However, there are some challenge missions you can do that give you pieces of hero armor upgrades. These just change the look of the amor, not the stats.