Heroes & Chaos Storm

It seems that my mesmer heroes never cast chaos storm...
Is it an AI fault? Someone else noticed this?

mine use it just fine... never had an issue with this

Is ur hero on Guard, Attack or Avoid?

I was using something like this team build (with chaos storm instead of wastrel's demise on both mesmers and an ER Prot Hero instead of the healer) + Lo Sha, Eve, Mhenlo and Lina in Alcazia Tangle (HM). Mesmer heroes were in Guard mode and ER in avoid mode. Me with asura title on.

The AI only uses Chaos Storm on casters.
This is why it's popular for many casters to carry martial weapons instead of staves and wands.
If you yourself were directing fire on melee and ranged targets, then it would make sense that the heroes may not use it.
I have no proof of this, but if you were cycling between different targets (melee to caster, and back to melee) they might not use it either

i have the same issues. my hero either uses it to much or doesnt use it at all.

The weapon used by the hero seems not to affect the decision to cast it: I tried giving a sword to Gwen and keeping Norgu with a staff. No way.

Now I'm travelling around the tyrian continents to test it against the first few mobs in some random explorable areas and what I've found so far is:

Yatendi Canyons (starting from Wehhan Terraces)
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Skree Tracker: no
Skree Rider: no
Skree Singer: no
Rain Beetle: no
Rock Beetle: no

Vloxen Excavations (starting from Umbral Grotto)
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Initial room mobs: no

Wajjun Bazaar (starting from The Marketplace)
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Jade Brotherhood Knight: no
Jade Brotherhood Mage: yes
Jade Brotherhood Mesmer: yes
Jade Brotherhood Ritualist: yes
Lian Dragon's Petal: yes

Talus Chute (starting from Camp Rankor)
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Azure Shadow: no
Blessed Griffon: no
Grawl Crone: yes
Grawl: no
Avicara Brave: yes

I've just aggroed the mobs without casting or attacking. When heroes casted it, they did it nearly spamming it on skill recharge.

I Have noticed that the AI only uses it on enemies that you can activity see a staff if they are a caster but they dont actually hold a staff the AI wont cast it on them. I dont have much proof to back this up mainly just from popping dream riders in various areas and noticing when i see the -2's start popping up since its not a very common sight so i try to remember what it was they casted on.

Something like a human target that holds a staff it will cast it on but say a shadow beast even though at attacks with what seems to be a wand since you cant see it hold one i suspect the AI dos not recognize that its using a wand so it wont cast it on them.

the nightmares in the deep on HM will 100% prove, regardless of whats on your bar, if you hold a staff or wand the ai will use CS, no staff/wand no CS.

100% of the time

Quote: Originally Posted by Aria Frost

The weapon used by the hero seems not to affect the decision to cast it: I tried giving a sword to Gwen and keeping Norgu with a staff. No way. He wasn't talking about the weapons on your heroes, he ment the weapons on your target (or in the case of foes, whether it's a caster or not I suppose). Enemy AI will hardly/not cast chaos storm on you if you're wielding a martial weapon, it will not recognize you as being a caster. It works the other way around as well I suppose, your heroes not using it on enemy melee.

So, it's true that heroes use CS on casters having visible caster weapons. But what about the Avicara Brave? It's a sword warrior...

Maybe it is also related on how much foes are "static"? Avicara Brave seemed so to me. Obviously it would makes sense to cast it only on foes that are not constantly moving around.

Another factor could be that Avicara Brave has only energy fueled skills and no adrenaline skills.