Heroes enabled in PvP/Scrims

I would definitely love to see heroes returning to PvP. They were originally removed due to server side advantages such as interruptions from my understanding. I really don't see a point in keeping them disabled at this stage of the game. They really only thrive in HA if anything and the illusion henchman does great rupts as is, so I don't think much will change regarding how heroes function with interruptions.

I believe there could be a lot of good re-enabling them and allowing teams to build their own compositions in a face where the game has seriously lost 90% of it's player base in the player vs player world. As it stands ladder is 99.9999% sync and HA is about 75% sync depending on the time of day. There can be really good matches in HA sometimes while in GvG ladder is completely dead. Yes, teams could opt to participate in Automated tournaments but even then those are not as active as they used to be. And having reliable active players is a serious issue, so teams who would like the opportunity to play are forced to bring a handful of henchmen. (and the henchy builds are very bland / boring leave very little room to bring your own fun builds)

These henchmen may or may not synergize with the teams original build or the teams have to base their compositions based off of the henchmen available to them. Or teams may not directly understand how to build teams based around the henchmen skills. Regardless of the fact I believe to an extent that heroes could help add a nice boost of activity to the game. It may be extremely late and pointless at this point to add them back but I do remember seeing a lot more guilds participating with heroes since they could not find players. But also because it can be easier to micro manage heroes than consistently try to fill your team with whoever you can get.

Currently you can add 4 henchmen to your team and enter guild vs guilds matches. HA has a nice set up although I believe it is too lenient. I'd love to see guilds be able to add 4-5 heroes to their team in GvG and or HA. It would create different games, give teams with lack of players more incentive to play, generate more innovation, and hopefully add to the activity within the ladder or ha game types. I personally have believed this was long over due and never really understand aside from the interruptions why heroes were removed in the first place. Especially when the game was experiencing a rapid decline in players every month. It's not like people are trying to only take heroes over real players. There just is NO players available to them. So, I know heroes are a much needed change this game needs!

I see too many benefits and very little negatives when adding heroes back. As it stands people load up their ele henchies and go in which is absolutely boring. I miss being able to roll up some serious nasty hex way with my heroes, or some pressure oriented builds. Heck, even spiking on the ladder with them to a wide range of success.

I may be all over the place with my suggestion. I didn't really have a plan when starting my thread I just kind of rambled but for the post point this is my summary:

1) Re-enable heroes in gvg-ha
2) Allow 4-5 heroes to be used in gvg-ha
3) Re-enable heroes in scrims (up to 7 heroes here)
4) Make guild wars fun again

To be honest, I think it should have been done right after the release of Guild Wars 2, or at least no more than a year later. Perhaps there were some difficulties with it of which we aren't aware of (and there also are some which were previously explained). Who knows, may be at some point they'll consider the following change as highly-demanded and deserving implementation in the long run.

I was already asking this 5 years ago, and they finally allowed henchmen parties to allow people to play and not let syncers hold, but it came way too late

It would be good today, since you cannot do anything against mesmer + 5 eles, but it wont have a huge impact.. Worse, i suspect actual cheaters would bring pb mesmer hero..

I agree that the current meta is awful and people may take advantage of heroes but with the complete lack of ladder play I would say enabling heroes would do little harm because they should be regulated in this fashion:

1) Guilds can only use heros in ladders, guild challenges, and guild scrims.
2) Heroes may not be used in the monthly automated tournament or daily automated tournaments.
3) Champion points should only be given to teams participating in daily or monthly automated tournaments.
4) If a team does not load into a game their guild loses 25 rating.

What this can accomplish is players to have incentive to play ladder without having to worry about syncers, bots, and cheaters trying to abuse the ladder. This can be for casual players who want to use heroes and have fun. This also destroys the ability to really sync gvg aside from late night at's; however guilds would really struggle to keep rating when suffering loses against their own guilds or others.

That way we can improve ladder games with lack of players with heroes and also remove syncers entirely.

It's very unlikely that this change will interfere with one's ability to sync GvGs anyhow, since the term itself assumes you synchronize entrances into matches within multiple windows on the same PC, meaning your own "teams" will always reside within desired match-up frames. Just telling you in advance it isn't as effective as it seems on the first look to cope with a problem of that nature, and point 3 the way you suggested negates any motivation for real teams to go on Regular Ladder at non-AT times at all.

How does point 3 negate any ladder motivation? Nobody ladders for champ points currently. it's double weekend yet there are zero ladders. I don't understand how that changes anything? And these changes would completely limit syncing more so than it ever has been hit in guild wars. I guess this is kind of off topic as we're more focused on heroes but I just wanted to point out a way to get real matches on the ladder, so perhaps it is somewhat relevant to discuss heroes and teams that currently sync.

People stopped laddering for champ points in 2010. The only reason people even really played during double champ weekends after the fact was because the ladder was the most active during these periods. It gave teams an excuse to go form up and play. But now it's double champ weekend and there are zero games....

But anyways, enough about that. There's zero reason we can't have heroes at this point in my opinion.... I'd love to actually hear more perspective on people who played during the time when heroes were implemented and give feedback / criticism.

People made use of the AI's insane interrupt accuracy, i didn't got nerfed but simply removed from the PvP formats for that reason.

Bringing back the oppertunity to exploit that again times 5 (the amount suggested hero slots u say) is complete madness and will once again flood the forums of people crying its unfair advantage.

As you said, people dont play GvG at all anymore for Champion points (except the syncers), and I dont think opening hero slots will make it any easier or appealing for people to play that format again, due the simple fact that chances are 90% u'll be facing atleast two heroes being able to Dshot or whatever you're Infuse, Patiënt Spirit, Shielding Hands etc etc...

Secretly you (and I, and probably alot more people) just miss Hero Battles in which Anets turn could have forseen and prevented the exploitation of it (Red Resign Day / Xunlai Tournament House).
However those nerfs that are implemented later on (Daily Zkey Cap + Minimal time extend before being able to resign and gain points) did not crossed their minds once and simply just removed the whole format to our despite.

But yeah, as I said before I dont think such changes (adding heroes) wont add anything but frustration again because people will abuse it the same way they did before, they run mesmer heroes, or let atleast their secondairies carry rupt with all the frustration that "bot rupting" brings.

In other words, they just should have implemented the current daily cap and resign restriction while HB was there, but its all to late to change it now.

Just my $0,02

I understand what you're saying about interruptions but I also don't see how people could really complain about that over zero ladder at all? Some people may actually not want to abuse that mechanic. I could see it being a huge problem in HA though, so that maybe I can see being an issue. Though the illusion mesmer already does amazing interruptions, so aside from people already using that I don't see what else they would bring that would completely dominate HA aside from wastrels mesmers on heroes.

At which point even real players could just as easily abuse that bar; however, in a game where players are scarce I SUPPOSE I can see why it would be annoying to see those heroes every game just as such how annoying it is to see 5 eles every game in HA currently. I don't see an issue with it in GVG though as previously stated HA might be a completely different story.

Nobody would really ever roll 5 interrupt mesmers realisticly. I could see 2 being popular but if people were going to do that people could easily create their own hero meta to counter that. (TOO MUCH WORK?). I'd like to see it implemented to see how it changes regardless.

I say go with it anyways.

I don't see a problem with 4-5 heroes. If it's a problem in your eyes make it, so you can't use mercenary hero packs, so you can only use so much of a certain type spread across the team etc. And even in the very least there is absolutely zero reason as to why you can't challenge guilds, scrim people with 7 heroes. Since these are non rated.

I perfectly understand your point of view, but the real issue is that noone really plays PvP anymore because of the number of cheaters

Implementing henchmen to HA was a good idea to allow players to play alone and counter syncers. Thats in theory, but :
- It came way too late, the few players left had already stopped
- It made syncers parties explode, and you had xx parties of second accounts instead of 2 parties of 6 second accounts

Also what happened recently is that these syncers noticed henchmen parties had more issues dealing with an afk players + 4 eles carrying in uw than 8 humans in halls, tous rolled theirselves 4 eles + 1 mesmer, which makes it impossible to win even with à good hench management

Your idea is a good point to create some diversity and more chances to beat these syncers easily, and im all for it since you cant do crap with actual henchmen. But im not sure it will bring people to pvp, and syncers will grab 1 hero with 7 rupts

So, just disable or limit the amount of none projectile based interruptions you can have across all your heroes? It creates more incentive to bring real players to rupt. It wouldn't be hard to code at all... But I doubt anet would spend the small amount of time it would take to do so.

If not that then by the very least there are zero reasons as to why heroes cannot be used up to a maximum of 7 in scrims or guild challenges. It makes ZERO sense.

Not possible for 1/4 cast time spells because of Dshot's ~0.5 sec flight time, until it's done on prediction by a human player or involves a rupting chain where it was put at the end.

They had 6 only at the start, and after Zaishen Battle was done, it always involved 1, and the other 5 just went to outpost to form another "group". It didn't change anything in terms of their life being easier or more difficult, it simply allowed real players to form parties of their own.

Not only this but how practical is it really to have a ranger hero? Or a secondary profession hero that can utilize a bow / preperation to it's fullest potential?

Dshot (Or any hero ranger / ranger interrupt) just sucks as interrupt compared by a 10-12 FC mesmer with Pblock or Power Lock, just saying haha.

But it was just a (bad) example i used to portrait the situation that could occure.

Totally not. If you assume someone got 6 second accounts, and considering you couldnt bring more than 2 henchs in, then it created only 1 party in, and the other 5 wouldnt manage to enter in again after leaving zaishens..

It was common to see someone with 8 second accounts, in order to have 3 parties, therefore 1 uw winner for guaranteed opponents.

All of this required also some job. Now, they got 8 teams and ele henchs carrying for easy ganks+ some wins against poor setups in uw.

No, it didn't, because those weren't even players, most time - the bots which just pushed the main group further by auto-inviting certain set of players on their list, and, what's even more important, is that the format itself wasn't playable at all. It's truly-significant to note that down before we advance this discussion ahead.