Heroes VS Enemies

I wiped in the mission Gate of Pain today, in nearly seconds due to meteor shower. Kind of unexpected, but I beat it nonetheless.

Constant updates are put into place to nerf our elite area speedclears such as the recent nerf to RoJ, because the enemy didn't scatter that significantly. Anet, why do you work so hard in hindering players from completing things with skills such as RoJ, Firestorm, SH, by making the AI scatter so badly? What is the point of putting skills such as that into the game? Why not change their description entirely?

It's quite hard to use these types of skills in Hardmode because most of the time the enemy scatters anyways. Yet, when the enemies use aoe skills such as those, my hero/hench backline get dominated like no other. So what kind of game are you trying to play? Anet always makes the enemy AI run out of our aoe, but when it comes to my own hero/hench they dont do jack when it comes to standing in AoE. If you're going to make changes and updates to my skills, you sure as hell better keep the AI constant throughout the game. Heros and Enemies alike. Because I'm getting tired of seeing this BS.

those skills didnt have the scatter effect way way back. OFC this gets abused by people farming like mad.

And wouldnt it be stupid of enemies to stand still in aoe skills like most players do?

Meteor Shower KDs, those other skills you mentioned don't. Once the henchmen get up their first reaction, in case of the monks, will be to throw out a spell before moving. However they won't have time to move after the cast so they'll just get stuck for the full nine seconds...

... if you don't simply set a flag before the first damaging meteor hits three seconds after being successfully cast. Concerning the other area of effects skills I notice my hero/henchmen kiting out of them far too much to the point where they're running out of earshot. The deaths I usually take come from the AI running too far away to the point where my passive defense (shouts mainly) and spells simply can't reach. However I don't blame the AI for being dumb, I blame myself for not setting a flag and taking advantage of that tool knowing full well what the AI will do in those scenarios. It's a learning process like everything in PvE. Repetition is the best way to get better as it allows you to better prepare yourself and your skill bars for the task at had.

As far as the enemies scattering from AoE effects, bring a snare.

No no. The point is, the AI isn't even.

Meteor shower KDs are one thing, because they knock down, but say, using a skill such as RoJ.

Heros and Hench blatantly stand in the center of it, when youre fighting those afflicted monks. They get burned to hell and take damage, they dont die, but nonetheless, they stand inside it and try to tank it.
What do the enemies do? First reaction? Run. That should be the exact same reaction of my heroes and hench. Simply put, its not about not being able to kill enemies due to scatter etc etc etc, its about my heroes being too stupid to react in the exact same manner that enemy AI do when we drop some bombs on them.

I flag regularly against aoe enemies, draw the nukes onto my tank and move, but I shouldn't be expected to do something like that when the enemy runs out of my own teams aoe without warning on their own.

HM monsters are much better about scattering from AoE than NM ones. Wouldn't surprise me if hero/hench are using the NM level of tolerance.

That is because people like Dreamwind kept complaining to ANet that Heroes kill GW. So ANet has to make it more difficult for H/H teams, so that you would be forced to find human players.

Those of us who are used to micro managing heroes know how much harder (i.e. more skills needed) it is, than to party up with a good human team.

They can't make heroes too smart for the same reason why heroes cannot use pve skills and you would never get your full party of heroes. ANet doesn't want heroes to be too popular, over human players.

Before the scatter was introduced it was mass apocalypse, one tank balance of team was a monk and elementalists. That was all you needed for all areas. Tank would hold the line the monk kept him alive and it was nuke-a-thon. Also back then there was a terrible hate for all classes but the proven 3. It is much better now. More variety and less class hate. I take the nerfs / buffs in stride with out them the game would get real boring.



PS: take a mesmer with some disruption turns the metoer shower casters into mushies

PS to the PS: A-net we need a scatter tab so we can camp an area and have henchies move and scatter when told to.

Don't forget the difference in level/attributes/armor between monsters and heroes.

I agree with this. Some standardization in intelligence would be good to see in this game.

I noticed this alot when I was vanquishing, imo heroes should only have to be flagged when you meet targets with single pulse aoe rather than something like sh, which heroes will just gladly stand in it and die

yeah 60 dp cuz my hero/hench team stands in maelstrom is funnnnnn

^ nuff said.
And remembering to 'un-flag' them is convenient too..

"QQ, my heroes don't move in AoE, but my enemies do."

Solution:

1. Don't use AoE in PvE, especially in HM, because it's bad.
2. Flag your heroes.

I remember the good ol' days of how insanely dumb enemy AI was. Enemies chasing you for an infinite distance so you could pull tons of them, no fleeing from AoE and no melee scatter response.

*sigh* i vaguely remember my Minotaur/Griffon farming build even now. Pull every single mob on the way to and in the area where Kephket now is. Gladiators Defence, Symbol of Wrath, Balthazars Aura, Bonetti's Refuge, Cyclone Axe. So many numbers...

Theres a reason nothing kites from these AoE skills usually, thats because they hit for so much they are normally dead... and the response is usually spastic. The monks, yes, even the enemy monks, tend to stand in AoE and continue to heal until all there skills are recharging before they attempt to run.

And yes, you can flag. If your facing a mob you know has a lethal DoTAoE skill with H/H its your own fault for letting it own them. Any sensible player (i know i'm asking alot here) would immediately move if they saw they were about to get owned by Savannah Heat or Ray of Judgement, a Hero will never do so. So if either you complain they don't move at all or you put some damn effort in and move them yourself. If you want enemies to move BEFORE an DoTAoE hits then this game would need some serious reworking of skills.

How do you flagers concentrate on the fight at hand if your flagging heros out of aoe?

Do you have the flag entire party command bound to a key? then just click anywhere on the ground when you see aoe happening?
When i play caster i can flag a little better on the fly but in usually busy casting/calling. Especially if im playing melee.

Admittedly im not a super amazing player but i work well in a group of humans, have experience and common sense.
I just always seem to be way too busy to flag on top of microing prot spirit/strength of honor/splinter weapon/boon of creation/painful bond and calling/re-prioritizing targets and then running my build.

Granted i dont have to always do all of those. So, how do u guys do it all? Is there a more elegant solution than i'm doing?
I dont mind some microing but it seems a little like rts on top of mmo when i do all these thing.

Like RTS players, RPG players (and really, any players of any game) benefit from higher APM. The more you are able to keep track of, and the more commands you are able to issue, the more successful you will be. To be honest though, flagging your heroes out of AoE doesn't even take much attention, time, or effort, especially with as glaring a visual indicator as MS gives you; you should be aware of what all of the enemies are doing at any given time anyway (several classes, especially rangers and monks, require you to do this to play effectively).

The funny part about this though, is that most players will stand in the AoE also. So really, having the hero AI move out of AoE would be unfair to PuGs, amirite?

Shure you can plant flags, but still I'll think Hollabackgirl has a uge point.. if you are changing the way of Foe AI.. more like improvements.. improve the AI of hench and hero's to

Don't rush in and THEN start flagging. If you face a dangerous mob, flag first then aggro. It can be more difficult for some "busy" types of character, but even so, you get into a routine and then you hardly have to think about it. Keep an eye on the most dangerous enemies during the fight in case you need to interrupt or move flags.

eg. Lately I'm playing a Channeling spirit spam ranger, with a Communing spirit spam Rit, a heal/prot Rit, and a Curses Necro. Then usually Ele and monk henchmen. For nasty groups, I make a diamond formation with me at the front, Communing spirits behind/left, Curses behind/right, healer prot well back. Henchies in the centre of the diamond. I drop some spirits and grab aggro...

The nukes will usually target me, so I can draw them away from my spirits, or with Pain Inverter I can instantly remove one nuker by staying next to my spirits. Then I cast some fresh spirits. I survive because Shelter goes down, and Xinrae's weapon... (and Rangers have high elemental resistance).

I hardly ever have problems. I did Gate of Pain hard mode like this myself last night - no problem, party was never in any real danger.

Similar tactics work with other teams, but if they don't, it's not rocket science to come up with something that does. eg. with Sabs heroes I'll often grab aggro then immediately flag the whole team back. The enemy nukes will usually be ineffective and the minions will rush forward. Then I unflag - the enemies will have spent their first round of nukes and be busy with the minions... while the team unloads their skills on them. Calling targets FTW.

The game would be too boring if you could just move around as you please, button mashing whenever you meet anything... I think the AI is fine as it is.

And this.

I see what you mean Burst and agree with you but the heros responding to aoe poorly is more of a game function than a microing function. imo

Doing all the pre-buffing and microing hero skills in battle that i mentioned in my previous post, are optional player battle mechanics. These are the kind of things im doing before/during a fight(forgot Pulling!)
+ im completely out of keys for my left hand. Having heros move backwards zig zag, whenever they are in aoe for 3 sec until they're out would be nice. Players can move at 0 sec aoe so 3 sec for heros doesn't sound op to me.

@ Hissy
Those sound like very solid tactics. I guess if i was pre-flagging everyone before battles also, i could collapse the party flag as a way of "springing heros" to new locations.

yay more pre-production

This. Heroes and henchmen are already far too powerful. Even in HM you have like 5 seconds between seeing the enemy start casting MS and the first knockdown to flag heroes back. Or you could just drop a prot spirit on yourself and take the aggro for a bit. Not too tricky.

Hardly rocket science.

It makes sense that the enemy AI is better than hero AI. Enemies get typically smaller groups and worse skillbars, they need some sort of tactical advantage besides stupidly raised stats.

If they made hero AI perfect it could just roll the game by itself.

H/H parties need the options to set battle formations plain and simple. It's silly and we always run around in a tight little ball.

I think there are several good reasons for heroes reacting slightly different from enemy AI.

First of all henchies and heroes seem to position them in formation around the player.
And when you flag them with the party flag they all stand there.
Enemies are not tied to one single point (human player or flag) and because of that scatter somewhat easier.
Disabling this mechanism will lead to other very annoying stuff like heroes kiting all over the map aggroing everything in sight (that also happened at some point).

On top of this A-net implemented a scatter mechanism on HM foes (it also used to be on NM foes for a while) for taking repeating AoE damage. That includes but is not exclusive to the skills you mention.

Now this is no problem when doing a single cast on a tank.
Cast and move back before AoE scatter turns on. No problem at all.
It gets problematic when you echo the cast or cast with several others and can't do a clean 3-2-1-spike cast. Foes scatter and the last caster is most likely targeted instead of the tank. So it's annoying but also mainly manageable.

The reason why the behaviour of heroes should not be a problem is because you know what's happening.
Take Gate of Pain for example. Sure those foes hurt when they hit you. Or should I say if they hit you? Because they move in groups of mainly two and maybe three (I think at one point). And there are four at the bonus guys (well, bonus should be a little harder).
Easy solution? Daze and epidemic. That's two skills on a bar and almost complete shutdown of the foes. Bring some additional caster hate to make them hurt more.
Doesn't have to be your own skills. But if you bring your own interrupts you have even more power. A water ele can also do some nice things here. Or a mesmer....

It's not like this is any different elsewhere in the game.
Most of the time simple caster shutdown works and you have roughly 12 skill slots available for that without compromising utility too much. You could find a way to abuse that I'd say.

Sure, yesterday me and a guildie got almost wiped at Ice Caves HM. Wrong aggro and nothing to shut down the elementalists while standing in choke point. That's the risk of using heroes. Or better, not paying attention. But in general AoE never has been a problem and foes go down easily.

I do flag my heroes against aoe opponents constantly. I am R6 KOABD so ive been around the ups and downs of this game throughout my 4 years. Whilst I COULD flag and strategically destroy my enemy without any problems why should I be expected to? Especially when the enemy AI groups scatter themselves as soon as theyre confronted with aoe, but mine....dont.

The What:

1. Flag/unflag your heroes or

2. Have you heroes setup for the map/mobs/area so that they don't need to run out of AoE or they don't even allow the mobs to get off any AoE skills to begin with.

The Why:

ANet doesn't want heroes to be too effective as they believe this could discourage people from playing with others and unfair for people playing against heroes (PvP)

I think someone in the thread already said that PUGs don't scatter when hit by AoE, so why should your heroes? Frankly, I think they should force all heroes to be like players. To achieve this, anet should implement skills that heroes must bring, namely:
warriors : defy pain / dolyak signet
monks : healing breeze / orison / UA
necromancers : blood renewal
mesmers: conjure nightmare
paragons: nothing here, paragon bars are just good by default as long as they bring save yourselves!
dervish: avatar of balthazar
assassin: shadow form
ranger: barrage
ritualist: wanderlust

sounds good? sound good.

Even if they scatter I find them to be quite handy if used correctly. All you need to do really is is find a spot like a wall or something where you can lock your enemies and nuke them with the AoE spells. Even on HM they take a while before scattering. Besides even with only 2 seconds in the AoE they take that damage and if there were a lot of them then the monk of their party suddenly is busy healing that little amount back on it's allies, not to mention that that specific area is off-limits for the duration of the spell.

Just my opinion :P

One NPC AoE problem I see commonly are heroes running back and forth in AoE attempting to get out of it.

That being said, flag.