Henchmen AI and AOE spells...

Ok, we ALL know about the infamous AOE nerf, but why didn't this carry over to the henchmen AI?

The enemy will run out of an AOE spell cast, right? How about making Pets, Minions, and Henchmen do the same thing? I've never noticed it so badly until I started my assassin, when I had to realllly start using them due to no one trusting an A/* on their team. It's quite annoying to see half your team all die to a simple Churning Earth that could've been avoided with 3 footsteps.

Am I the only one who notices this?

Basically, just add this to the henchies and all will be well.

/signed

The only reason I can see why not to do this, is if it was done this way intentionally in order to make the game somewhat more difficult.

It'd be nice if they used their ressigs as well. Henchmen can be smarter than monsters.

Right?

right? =/

I've seen henchmen bodyblocked by a (straight) wall and a single monster more times than I care to think.

It seems that the henchie monks have a higher priority set to healing than they do for fleeing AoE, this runs into peoblems when the maelstorms start flying. I've taken to using at least Power Drain, and sometimes Power Return on my casters (including monks) when I hench areas with nasty AoEs, just bcause they dominate henchmen so utterly.

/signed

i thought monsters are suppose to be stupid...thats why they are monsters. so why are my human hench even more stupid???

/signed

The res sig thing would be really nice too.

/signed

I think the nerf of the AoE spells came shortly after people were creating eles to farm with. I've seen a few videos and it was dirt simple. Cast one or two defensive skills, run into the mob then cast three or four AoE spells like fire storm and eruption. The mob goes down in a few seconds. Now this can't work because as soon as you cast an AoE spell the enemy runs from it. By the time you are able to take them down by the AoE spells, your defensive spells have worn off. Even if you can maintain the defense the nerf still served it's purpose. What used to take a few seconds now takes longer. Long enough to make it not worth doing anymore. What ANet needs to do now is carry this AI behavior over to the henchies and party allies.

/signed, also please fix the henchman love of environmental hazards.

Dammit Mhenlo, get out of the lava!

/signed

Unfortunately people dont know that dmg Rt can be very good in some missions, so i take henchies instead and mission is very easy. However there's one problem in certain areas, yes, AoE.

It is very very SAD to watch ALL henchies keep getting hit with AoE, and still they DONT spread.

/signed for henchies to get the #@%#$^ out of Churning Earth's AOE churning radius so I wont get party wiped

Something I've constantly wondered as well...

/signed

PS. If it ever does get fixed, I will miss the laughs at seeing the henchie group hug as soon as an aoe is cast (they seem to flock to it).

My personal favourite was when Mhenlo cast 3 heals on himself.... but didn't seem to care that Cynn was still standing in lava. In fact he could've survived standing in lava for another 10 second.... Cynn just died after 5 seconds of no healing.

And yes henchman LOVE to get body blocked by single enemies. Ever tried running past the first group on Iron Mines? All 7 henchman get stuck behind 1 Herder and eventually just die. Utterly pathetic.

And of course the best i've seen yet. Fighting 3 Ice Imps and a Seige Golem. 7 seconds later, Little Thorn, Devona and me left alive. Why? The casters do seem to enjoy trying to heal standing in 3 Maelstroms... The exact same goes for Ignite Arrows. It causes people to scatter doesn't it, well they do run. Its just a slight problem that they ALL run in the same f*cking direction, then ALL return to the same f*cking spot! 6 Avicara Fierces drop henchman so fast its ridiculous. Lina is absolutely useless against em, Prot spirit does nothing, RoF is just negated by the Ignite Arrows spam w/ Dual Shot.

Its why Meteor Shower is the most deadly AoE that can be cast in PvE. Like Wasaguest said... they seem to be attracted to it. I know exactly why Mhenlo stands in it, he goes to cast Healing Touch, but why do the other 3 casters follow!

/signed

As an Assassin, I find myself doin a lot of the Pve missions/quests with henchies (mainly cause i dont want to spend 2 hrs lookin for a group only to have people ragequit just because of 1 death, lag out, or go afk for a free ride). Its kinda hard though since the henchies have very stupid and rather random skillbars, they use the wrong skills at the wrong time and yes they dont bother to flee AoE. Also when u wanna retreat from a group of monsters, u get out of the aggro range but the henchies stay for a long time in the aggro range and like 5 of them get killed. And why do they always stand around and take like a minute to rez u?
Maybe Anet made the henchies like this so it would encourage players to play with other people instead.
Whatever it is, I'm sick of those lazy hobos that make up Anet. Why, just because there is no monthly payment for this game, they think they can do a half-ass job with everything?

Everything to do with AI in this game is inexcusable. The henchmen are perhaps the most amusing example. My personal favorite was Alesia standing in a Maelstrom trying to Orison herself over and over until she died.

The pathing is similarly terrible. Why, when a target is down a ledge just 4 feet out of range, when I try to attack, does my character try to run 100 yards out of the way to go down the ledge? Why can't the automatic pathing avoid lava?

My favorite is, as a caster, all the hench casters like to be within touch distance of me. I move, they all follow. Guess they want me to get hit by that meteor shower too. Gotta luv em.

/signed

lol. I cant believe henchies are dumber than monsters... omg..