My Heroes don't need me :(

Or maybe I don't need them.

(If this is the wrong forum for this, I apologize.)

I thought I would share two funny Hero related tales that happened recently.

Story #1
I recently ran my Assassin from Ice Tooth Cave to Borlis Pass. To do this I loaded up a pre-nerf VSF build and used a couple of cupcakes. I just used the build for the SF, and "I am unstoppable" and I threw a heal in instead of some other skill - the build had no attack skills, of course.
A few days later, Quansong Spiritspeak (in Tahnnaki Temple) was the Zaishen Bounty. So, when it became my Sin's turn, I grabbed SoS Rit, MM, and Interrupt ranger Heroes, plus 2 henchie monks and henchie Mesmer and Ele.
It wasn't until I got to the rez shrine near Quansong that I realized that I still had the VSF build and no attack skills. But there was a Chest there, so I thought I'd grab it before resigning. While I grabbed the chest, my heroes and henchies killed the Guardians. So, since I saw another chest further in, I decided to keep going.
End result - my Heroes & Henchies killed Quansong - in Hard Mode, btw - while I just body blocked the enemies and wailed away with my daggers. Basically, I was my Hero's pet.

Story#2
While doing Bloodstone Fen (Z-Mission - Hard Mode), with my Ranger, I had the bright idea of setting my Heroes to "Avoid Combat" during the bonus part so they wouldn't attack the Guardians. (micro-managing avoid and guard as required) The group consisted of me (Barrage), Vekk (Fire), Zandra (combo DPS/Resto), Jinn (interrupt), henchie monk and warrior henchie. (No MM or SoS that run.)
Well, even though the Hero's were set on "Avoid", the pets plus the henchies managed to kill one of the Guardians, so I resigned and started over, figuring to put the pets on "heal" when I got to the bonus part.
Off we went again. Things seemed to be going a bit slowly, but were going fine otherwise. It wasn't until I was almost at the bonus point that I noticed that my Heroes were still on "avoid".

So I'm not sure if my Heroes don't need me, or I don't need them. I'm pretty sure that Hard Mode is over-rated though.

P.s. I've been playing for 4+ years, these things don't surprise me - I was just relating some amusing stories.

You overrate your own contribution to the team. In a 8-man team you are only 1/8 of a team, that's 12.5%. 7/8 or 87.5% is your party. If you construct a good party of 7 NPCs, one single member player is somewhat obsolete. There exist pictures on the german www.wartower.de forums where people vanquished areas with an empty skillbar.

Now you know how Mesmer primaries feel in PvE. We're pretty useless w/o calling for discordway or two or three other niche roles (esurge, VoR, etc).

And esurge isn't great w/o like 3 of them, and VoR is meh in PvE now.

oh, can i add a story to.

I needed/wanted to travel through Ice Floe with a not Infused char
(the char got a Run to Marhan Grotto).
The char got killed fast by Mursaat but my party managed without me.
The next few Mursaat groups i flagged my party near them, and stayed out of aggro range. They managed without me
I was actually happy about that.

How do you think most speedbooking is done

Wanna bet that they need you?

They can't enter the mission themselves

...or you run sos spiritspammer, as it's usually the best and most versatile you can do with no primairy rit around.

also quoted for truth.



how can you be so sure?
we cannot observe them entering a mission themselves, since they enter it without us. it cannot be checked, but they are capable of doing so and completing the mission without us. maybe they want to fill their HoMs for GW2 as well? when they form a hero-group, aka eight heroes, they may laugh their asses off when they think about playing with a 'player' actually.

3, not 7.

12chars.

3 hero's and 4 henchie there Capt. Math

You can't "construct" hench builds.

I was taking my party to Umbral Grotto and was in the Varajar (sp?) Fells area. I took a break to change the baby's diaper and came back to find my team farmed Asterius' Scythe for me. Nice!

They do get 1/8 take of the loot each. So they do get paid for the help. Only thing I notice is for some reason they give me all the Raven Staffs.

So what's the gripe about? As long as you're winning, who cares whether you're of usage to the NPC team or not? The situation is the contrary even: You need them! You need your heroes to do your dirty work, and do it right. PUGing for players means that you want them to Leeroy, talk trash enough to make you want to rage-kick them (or leave), and steal your high-end drops after the 10 minute rule expires (whenever they drop in your name). Say NO to PUGing 4 LAIF, and YES to H/Hing.

Of course your heroes need you, who else is going to carry all the loot and buy them new things?

btw, my guess is that heroes merch all their drops (even dyes) and work on their drunkard titles, buying alcohol from merchants. that would explain why we have to buy stuff for them even though they get their own drops.

Eating damage is a valuable skill for a PvE party. Back in the Stone Age circa 2005, we called it tanking. You're just used to being able to tank and dish out significant damage on the same bar. Broken skills are broken.

It does work both ways. The other day I wanted to pick up a PvE skill ("By Ural's Hammer") on my Warrior to Raptor farm eggs. I didn't take the quest seriously, went in with a garbage defensive build, and got wiped because the Sabway I was running was too slow to kill. I proceeded to load the usual W/P Dragon Slash/SY abuse and breezed through it. The difference between success and failure usually is not large.

Now there's no real need to tank damage in normal NM/HM (non-elite areas).

With minions and spirits, you have expendable bodies to absorb all the damage for you.

My point exactly, Doctor Scrubs.

I think that's pretty normal. One person isn't necessarily going to be the make-or-break out of eight consistently, but will sometimes have exactly the skill you need to make a difference. (For example, Bloodstone Fen is quite Ranger-friendly. You wouldn't necessarily have had such good luck in a different mission.)

I've had to AFK and found my heroes have killed whatever mobs wandered into the area while I was gone. But I've also occasionally come back to find we've died several times. It seems like a combination of luck of the draw, which heroes you brought, and whether a specific area is greatly affected by a specific skill set.

I have many times had to step away during a battle and found my h/h team had dealt with the angry mob(s) in my absence....that is why they were brought along....and we all know that a sos rit can solo lots of areas as well so sometimes the h/h are just there for the company

I think the reason you actually won was because you were actually calling targets, not because of your build. If you haven't noticed, heroes and henchies tend to focus fire on the same target as you, unless you Ctrl call another one, which can be annoying at times. If you aren't calling targets, however, they tend to spread out there damage, and accomplish little. And since AI healers burn energy so quickly, your team is often dead before they do any real damage against tougher mobs. As they say, a good offense is the best defense.

I've found that my H/H are quite happy if I stay out of the fights - by dying preferably. That means they don't have to be concerned with me and my constantly changing priorities.

This is Mhenlo for me. Mhenlo seems to think my character doesn't matter. He seems to find it less effort to let her die and then rez her than to waste any actual heals on her.

Luckily the heroes don't seem to hold the same hostility.

What do you think they are doing when we sleep???? Lol

To the OP:

Alot of times Heros can manage themselves pretty well but, occasionally they do need your help. And Vise-versa.

I often use the mini map to point my h/h group at some red dots after i have , say, killed a z bounty boss off, if it is in an area where rep pts can be gained. 7 little ai friends usually crush most mobs. They could vq most areas without my help, if only they would move around on their own. But I am needed to tell them where to go next.

heroes are strong.
ive VQd a few maps in nf with my pc having a blank bar.

You do, however, "construct" the team by choosing which of those 4 henchies to bring with the 3 heroes.

He won.

This. Your heroes really do need you (i.e., your brain).