Assassin Heroes: Making them better.

Oh hi!

Today i have been testing some really weird builds to use with my heroes and i came up with a considerably decent one for my assassin hero.
While i was testing it at the Zaishen training grounds i was looking at the assassin's skill bar and i noticed that when they get into battle, they start using their combos and etc (wich is good).
I gave Anton some quick spammable skills like Unsuspecting Strike, Wild Strike and Death Blossom but at the time he ended the combo... he just would take about 20-30 seconds to start the combo again.

And there were similar skills that acted the same way, but should be acting differently: Critical Defenses and Flashing Blades.
From what i noticed, these both skills are used by the hero when he starts getting hit a lot.
While for Flashing Blades this is good, for beeing a stance and therefore instant, Critical Defenses is a Enchantment and takes 1 second to cast, WICH MEANS, its most likely going to be interrupted because, if you are beeing hit, there are melees, ranged and casters aiming on you.

Resume:
*Make assassins use theirs combos A LOT more frequently.
*Make assassin heroes use critical defenses when getting into battle (at half way of the target, so it wont go away before getting into the enemy)

i turned mine into a rit healer. works decently, but not as well as an n/rt healer.

The problem here is Anet's mistake of not letting us have an AI-tree.

From the beginning, we should have had a small panel, in which we can explain the skill usage of the bar for the Hero.

This would go from very simple to more complicated "guidelines" for the Hero to follow, e.g.:

Arcane Echo => Savanah Heat (So you won't have to manually disable/use both skills, this line will "teach" the Hero that after Arcane Echo, SH needs to be cast)

The tree could reach VERY far, as far as Anet allowed us to smarten our heroes... (E.G. the "more" you played with your heroes, the more "guidelines" you would eventually add and the better he gets)

Assassin combo's would have been easy to pulll off then

@jhu, I don't even want to know why u have a A/Rt Healer

The Assassins heroes have a LOT of problems.
Most notably, they seem to only understand lead > offhand > dual attack combos.
Giving them Mobius strike and they won't use it properly. Give them golden phoenix strike, and they won't cast an enchantment on themselves so it can be used. Give them a hex and black lotus/spider strike and they won't use them.

Hmm, yes, big problem which makes them near useless.

A/D does work good though.

~Super Igor ~

i posted this some time ago but a.net obviously didint took it into consideration
it would solve your problem, my friend
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10246060

Melee heroes all have problems. For example warriors not spamming dragon slash every hit with FGJ on, but instead autoattacking for 10 seconds before hitting it again. Dervishes are amazingly dumb at stuff like wearying strike, even in Melandru form.

An FFXII style system for when to use each skill and which ones should have priority is needed. Then we might see decent hero AI if we can program it ourselves.

Melee AI in general needs to be made better. Right now all melee heroes and henchies are crap.

So what's the best way to improve it? Watch how the best players would run a bar (maybe let ensign or some other top player design the henchie builds) or use a skill and try to pattern the AI off of them?

AI has nothing to do with how human players play. AI will never be able to play as a good player.

Anyways, the way they use skills is the main thing. They use their skills horribly, which makes them, well, horrible. There are also other minor problems that I'm too lazy to think of right now.

scythesin heroes work well enough

use those ^_^

Yeah, Melee heroes need to use their attack skills a bit more often. I've found Warriors are a bit better than the others, but even then, they aren't great.

AI tweeks are rough, so I doubt we'll see something, but it would be nice.

/signed.

I dont run with melee heroes unless its required (screw you koss). As for the sin heros. make them crit barrage. They use it very well. keep up all the enchants and spam barrage like mad. I use c/b with a pet to add in a melee attacker thats smarter than the heros.

/signed to smarten up ALL melee heros though

~the rat~

/agree. Sin hero ai is terribly afflicted with lolcats.

Assassin attack chains must be tricky for the AI to figure out. And I think ANet have tried to tell Zenmai to attack and run (which is really what a sin should do because they're not a tank!) because I have given her a very simple lead->off-hand->dual strike - only 1 of each - on her bar, and she doesn't execute it correctly!

She will run in and use her lead, then either run away or wait to spam it again. She seldom uses her off-hand - and that may be my fault for giving her [wild strike] even though it doesn't have to break a stance to do the +damage. But, I have also given her [blinding powder] plus [death blossom] and she almost never uses them! Mostly, she is running in, hits with her lead, then runs away and will stand there for about 10-15 seconds and run back in. ??

I hate to micromanage, and Koss usually works better as a Quivering Blade W/N for me. So, I've begun to use Zenmai for interrupts using [disrupting accuracy] with [critical eye]. (I could use her for critical barrage, but I like to interrupt a lot.)

If only they made Hero AI at least as "smart" as mob AI - that would be something!

ALL AI should be redone.
ALL AI is incredibly retarded.

can only agree on this, heroes should have received from the begin on a Gambit System, like in FF12, this way to tell the AI what it should do in different situations is just perfect

Simply make them follow the chain as you build it would be good, I have seen some cool warrior builds and derv as well but heros just are not smart enough to use them.

~the rat~