Hero Skill Placement

C R A F T

C R A F T

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Nov 2005

The Citadel

R/

I searched for an existing thread, but didn't find a good answer. So, sorry if it's been posted a million times and I missed it.

Here goes:

Does skill placement in the hero skill bar have any affect on which skills have priority?

I have a good team of hero Barrage/Pet, but they dont' spam barrage like I thing they should.

Any suggestions?

jiggles

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Sep 2007

N/

No they dont.

Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: May 2005

At an Insit.. Intis... a house.

Live Forever Or Die Trying [GLHF]

W/Me

To get your hero to spam barrage, remove the normal attacks.

Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: May 2005

At an Insit.. Intis... a house.

Live Forever Or Die Trying [GLHF]

W/Me

To get your hero to spam barrage, remove the his other attacks.

dilan155

dilan155

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2007

living room

N/

or disable the other skills, heros are incompatible with skill priorities

Flightmare

Flightmare

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Nov 2006

NL

Infinite Omega Negatives

N/

Well, if it comes down ty my heroes, they are incompatible with spamming aswell, even with all other skills disabled.

Washi

Washi

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2007

They seem to prefer the skills from the left.

TheodenKing

TheodenKing

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jun 2008

DoA

Dark Order of Retarded Knights (doRk)

N/Me

Heroes.... two words.... "mentally challenged."

However, you can keep it simple for them and get more predictable results. Having just the important skills on the hero bar will force him/her to only use those skills.

Regarding skill order, there have been theories ever since they gave us heroes about whether left-to-right, right-to-left, or neither had any impact on hero AI. I've spent a decent amount of time testing builds with heroes and changing up the order. I've seen no difference in the hero AI, regardless of the skill order.

Heroes do what they are going to do based on their mode (attack, defend, avoid), energy available, cost of skill, priority of target, distance from enemies, and whether they have dead allies. They don't properly skill-chain except for certain popular chains that the developers have specifically addressed the AI to incorporate. Also, if you put a spirit on a hero bar, they will generally try to keep it up 100% of the time, regardless of common sense and location.

You, of course, can disable and manually cast anything you want. Not that long ago they gave us access to hotkeys for hero commands. I haven't bothered too much with them except for in Hero Battles. They can make things easier though. In your example with a barrage hero... you could have a hotkey (like "1" on your numeric pad) assigned to Jin's [Barrage]. Then as you fight, you can tap that key as you do your own thing, and Jin will keep trying to Barrage.

Abedeus

Abedeus

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Jan 2007

Niflheim

R/

Heroes will spam things you don't want (prots, heals), but not those, that SHOULD be spammed (orders on necro or dervish, adrenaline skills, necro in general). The best would be if you assigned your skills to 1-8, hero nr 1 to q-i, hero nr 2 a-k and hero nr3 z, ,. Or if last skills are maintainable, auto-casted by a hero or it's a rez (attunements, Faithful Intervention, Aggressive Refrain and so on), then it's q-u, a-j and z-m.

AcousticMeanie

AcousticMeanie

Academy Page

Join Date: Jul 2008

Rt/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Abedeus
The best would be if you assigned your skills to 1-8, hero nr 1 to q-i, hero nr 2 a-k and hero nr3 z, ,. Or if last skills are maintainable, auto-casted by a hero or it's a rez (attunements, Faithful Intervention, Aggressive Refrain and so on), then it's q-u, a-j and z-m. lol..................

-Lotus-

Jungle Guide

Join Date: May 2008

some people think heroes use skills from the left, some think placement is irrelevant... no harm in prioritizing from the left


and heroes suck at barrage, thats a problem with the AI in general about that skill, not skill placement.

Whirlwind

Whirlwind

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Aug 2007

Wolven Empire

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Abedeus
Heroes will spam things you don't want (prots, heals), but not those, that SHOULD be spammed (orders on necro or dervish, adrenaline skills, necro in general). The best would be if you assigned your skills to 1-8, hero nr 1 to q-i, hero nr 2 a-k and hero nr3 z, ,. Or if last skills are maintainable, auto-casted by a hero or it's a rez (attunements, Faithful Intervention, Aggressive Refrain and so on), then it's q-u, a-j and z-m.
You know you should really type out what you mean because putting it like that is really confusing. I figured it out after a while though but most people would probably just move on to the next post like i did the first time i looked at it. Anyway heres what i 'think' it means..

I'm guessing nr q-i means keystrokes Q to I left to right on the keyboard (nr = number row ???) Anyway what your saying is to set skills 1-8 on all 3 heroes to basicly all the keyboard strokes on the keyboard, seems like a crapload of work to me, and way too much micro-management during fighting. Not to mention WASD is for movement, Q and E are strafe, X is turn around,C is look behind, F is target yourself, R is auto run, and whatever else i am forgetting...

Not worth losing almost all keyboard functionality just for some hero skills. How about this, map the 'important' ones to a few keys on your numberpad, or take off skills you don't want them using.

Quote:
Originally Posted by -Lotus-
and heroes suck at barrage, thats a problem with the AI in general about that skill, not skill placement. Yeah they do but there is any easy fix, just don't give them any other attack skills, you don't want them using them anyway right? Other option is disabling other attack skills such as interupts and enabling it if you really need it on a annoying healer or w/e.

-Lotus-

Jungle Guide

Join Date: May 2008

Quote:
Originally Posted by Whirlwind
Yeah they do but there is any easy fix, just don't give them any other attack skills, you don't want them using them anyway right? Other option is disabling other attack skills such as interupts and enabling it if you really need it on a annoying healer or w/e. you would think, but then they just auto-attack for a few seconds in between each barrage.