do SOMETHING about Alesia

timmo567

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: May 2005

E/Me

The key is controlling the hits your taking. If you run into a group of 10, sit there, you will die. If you take a few hits, run back, run back in your fine.

One thing I absaloutly hated about all the henchmen is that they run away from you. Hmm, I would say, Orion seeems to be on low health, I'll run over and help out with a healing spring. When I finish casting he runs away and dies.

Xonic

Xonic

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jul 2005

Mo/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aera Lure
As a warrior, she dies all the time. Not so on my casters. She hardly ever dies when playing them. Sort of hard to change your strategy as a warrior, since she follows the lead player, or you if you are alone, and hence ends up tanking. If you arent a W/Mo, she dies. No two ways about it.
do you use a bow to pull as warrior so you don't get more mobs than necessary?

Xonic

Xonic

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jul 2005

Mo/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by Howling Wind
You know selecting the skills on the skill bar sounds like a decent idea, I can see good benefits but the AI will need some tweaking to use skills more efficiently or rather intelligently. If its possible.
henchmen are already better than 50% of the human players.


if they are any more skillful/intelligent they'll be better than 90% of the human players, which will be a bad thing... or... a good thing?

John Bloodstone

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jul 2005

Requiem Lords

R/Me

They need to tweak the healers to stop them wasting time firing at the enemy and instead to put themselves in a position so that the player is between them and the enemy.

Whenever I get a chance to see what the healer hench are doing, 9 times out of 10 they're sat there firing at the enemy instead of healing. Useless.

Rieselle

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

Melbourne, Australia

E/Rt

When I was playing a warrior, in PvE with henchies I keep aware of my surroundings, especially Alesia. If she's being attacked, if I go and overlap her and attack whoever's attacking her, she usually moves out of the way after a while, whether to heal someone else or just to stop overlapping me. The monster usually switches target to me if she moves in the right direction. If not, I repeat. Also, if the monster is attacking alesia and not me, it's a good time to frenzy that monster, which usually gets its attention.

When playing with henchies, even as a warrior, you need to pay more attention and support them, rather than relying on them to support you whilst you're doing your own thing. It's probably a good lesson to learn for other times too

Jhyphi

Academy Page

Join Date: Aug 2005

R/Me

Not sure what you're talking about. Alesia and Lina are awesome. They never miss heals except when low on energy. Only problem is they value party members over that 1 important NPC who can't die or mission fails.

Bring Claude, he helps give them energy.

If you see Alesia's health dropping, run over right up to her and try to "squeeze" yourself in between her and enemy. She'll run a bit and enemy will switch to you.

Phades

Phades

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jun 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jhyphi
Not sure what you're talking about. Alesia and Lina are awesome. They never miss heals except when low on energy. Only problem is they value party members over that 1 important NPC who can't die or mission fails.

Bring Claude, he helps give them energy.

If you see Alesia's health dropping, run over right up to her and try to "squeeze" yourself in between her and enemy. She'll run a bit and enemy will switch to you.
I dont know what you are talking about. Alesia spams more heals out of combat than in combat while im clinging on to a thread of life. If her energy was shot in combat, that wouldnt let her suddenly become full energy the moment the last creature dies and she spam casts orison 8-9 times immediately afterwards. Also, if i can run through a buff cycle or 2 stance cycles and be under half life and not see 1 heal spell out of alesia something is wrong. Lina seems to do her job fine though. Sometimes more than fine as she stacks buffs after im no longer in danger (targets are dead and moving to the next).

Bringing claude doesnt help the situation much as ive seen alesia chase his skinny rear all over the place as he can get into a life sacrifice cycle, which effectivly burns away all alesia's healing as she spam casts healing touch on him over and over and over again. All the while im stuck in combat wondering wtf is going on with the 2 green dots running in circles behind me, until claude runs into the fray to "help" me out with my energy "problem", which brings alesia in close persiut and they both promptly die. All the while thinking, great no one to heal me but myself and this blood ritual is really helping my warrior or elementalist with ether renewal active.

Javias

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Aug 2005

Natural Born Slayers

R/Me

I seem to remember playing a game where you had a choice of fighting script for your henchmen. I don't remember exactly what they were but, they were something like:

1. Attack on sight
2. Attack when P/C attacks
3. Attack only when attacked
4. Defend only

If you could have an individual fighting script for each npc I would be a very happy little Ranger.

Red Sonya

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jul 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Javias
I seem to remember playing a game where you had a choice of fighting script for your henchmen. I don't remember exactly what they were but, they were something like:

1. Attack on sight
2. Attack when P/C attacks
3. Attack only when attacked
4. Defend only

If you could have an individual fighting script for each npc I would be a very happy little Ranger.
Ahh Dungeon Siege origional has henchies like that. Though even they didn't follow them to a tee, but, sufficient enough in most cases. You could tell each one independently too how to handle a battle. I thought that was unique for a computer AI. Much better than Baldur's Gate henchies.

Kamatsu

Kamatsu

Moderator

Join Date: May 2005

Australia

Well I think all they really need to do with Alesia is edit her script so that she doesn't run in front of the player and aggro everything on herself..

I have to say thats one of my biggest issues with her is that she has a terrible tendancy to run way in front of me when I'm moving around. This is especially bothersome if there is a group of enemies ahead which she aggro's by running right to the edge of my aggro circle... And yes, she's down that more time than I can think... whenever she tries that I immediantly move back trying to pull her back my way and saway from the enemy before she aggro's everything on her... works I'd say 50%.. the other 50% she aggro's everything then stands still trying to out-heal 6-8 critter's attacking her... pffft!

Yes I know how to send in Thom & Stefan to get aggro before me.. and I do that every fight... but that does *not* help if you've stopped a full aggro circle away from the enemy and Alesia decides to run ahead to the edge of your aggro circle... which usually results in her getting all the aggro.

That is my only real complaint about Alesia - apart from her stupidly standing still taking damage doing nothing .. while the rest of us are attacking.. and she has plenty of ways of moving away from the enemies.. but does she do anything? nooo.... pfft! But even thats somewhat manage-able.. but having her run in front of me constently.. .. only eway to deal with that is to run the other way and hope you can get her behind you.. pfft!

Red Sonya

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jul 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xonic
do you use a bow to pull as warrior so you don't get more mobs than necessary?
I myself use a flatbow I've had since early game it's only 9-13 (no requirements) but it has the longest range and I can pull outside the radar agro range. Thus the 2 warriors rush ahead just as the mob(s) enter the agro range and me and the casters are in the rear while the two warriors kick butt. I even help heal sometimes or go rez if one dies. Been working great. When things are less intense then I change to my melee and charge in to finish off the rest. It's all in the skill of pulling when using henchies. If some mobs bypass the 2 warriors which is rare, then I just turn on balthazar's aura and that takes care of them without pulling off my 2 warriors from the frontal assault.

I know everyone doesn't play an mo/ or /mo as a secondary, but, well you should. You can always change your 2ndary in a second just by jumping to one of the areas where changing your 2ndary is possible eventually. E/Mo are simply death machines I think.

Also something I rarely see in PVP is when your monk is in trouble, coming to help them. It's also something I do if Alesia is getting attacked, if you don't protect your monk, you deserve to die.

lana

lana

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2005

Manila

Council of Iris

Mo/Me

I'm a lot less frustrated when playing with henchies than when I quest/mission with PUGs. My primary character's a monk so I didn't have much experience with Alesia but when I started over with a necro, Alesia kept dying -_- The two monks are a good combination though (one for prot and one for healing). The one thing I noticed with Lina is she loves casting Aegis (lasts only nine seconds) when the enemies are 2134457 feet away. LOL! My guild and I usually bring Alesia along for missions while I fill in as prot monk. It works

coolsti

coolsti

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2005

Denmark

Henchies are actually very good if you know how to use them correctly. Its important to know how they follow you, and how they react when you lure, retreat, etc. You can lure quite effectively with one human and the rest henchies - you just gotta know when to run away after getting enemy attention, and how far back to run. Takes some practice.

With Alesia and other healer/mage henchies, its important to know how they follow the human players. Alesia and Lina will stay back out of range if you do. That means they may be more difficult to keep alive if the only human player is a warrior. But if you are not a warrior, keep in mind where Alesia is in relation to the enemy. You may have to retreat or move around a bit to draw Alesia out of trouble.

Remember, playing with Alesia and similar henchies means you have to take their movements into account when you decide your battle strategy. Barging into the middle of things and staying there may be good for you if you are strong in defence or healing, but think about your henchies also!

I have tried several missions with henchies only and with human players, and I find in general things go more smoothly with henchies. I can control the henchies in most cases, and so have control of which mobs I take on, when I retreat, lure, etc. With humans, this seems next to impossible (unless its a good team).

However, I must admit I like better playing with humans if the team is nice, friendly, and has some humor ;-)

Red Sonya

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jul 2005

The problem I have with human groups these days is everybody just seems to want to run or if you do the bonus then the person that wanted to do the bonus just quits on you cause he got what he was after. Same with capping groups, many buttholes will quit as soon as they get their elite skill. This makes grouping with humans bogus many times.

Solution: Give experience for completing the same mission if you have completed the game already. Give bonus experience for killing boss mobs in after ascended areas. Most elite captures that are hard come after ascension. If they want to streamline the game then these would be two ways to do it and possibly keep teams intact and together longer if there's a reward for everyone for every part of the mission or adventure like skill capping. If you could get 1000 experience points for every boss mob you killed after you finished the game wouldn't you stay in a group longer?

Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: May 2005

At an Insit.. Intis... a house.

Live Forever Or Die Trying [GLHF]

W/Me

1) To all: there is no way in hell to get Alesia to not tank if you're a warrior and actually do melee combat. She _will_ rush into melee to heal you. If you try to body block she'll run around you. And then stand there firing her piddly wand at point blank range. You can almost hear the minotaurs go "wtf?! omg!!! lolololol!!!1" before they kill her. Again.
Yes, it sometimes helps to run in between Alesia and the monster. About 1 time in 5 Alesia will then run in a random direction, which MAY get her out of harms way. Otherwise your best bet is to rig the mobs priorities by putting an enchantment on Alesia (they'll then target Orion, Claude, or maybe, if you're lucky, you).

Once you got Lina it's no longer a problem, as lina spams protective spells & enchantments. Alesia PLUS Lina is actually a fairly good tag-team.

Red Sonya: start a group and advertise that you a) don't want to rush but will take your time exploring, b) welcome any builds, and c) are doing mission|bonus|both and don't want any quitters. Engage all who reply in a short discussion about what you intend to do, to judge if they're good recruits. And don't accept anyone who replies along the lines of 'u doin miss 2?'. It'll take a bit longer to get a group together, but you've then done what you can to avoid the asshats.

Pauci sed boni.

coolsti

coolsti

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2005

Denmark

To Numa Pompilius: regarding Alesia with a one human as warrior only party, I was wondering if a tactic would be to run in to a mob, pound on somebody til dead, then back off, run in again, etc. I haven't played warrior yet, but maybe that would keep Alesia moving?

To Red Sonya: know what you mean. The real problem is in finding a good group that won't be selfish and egoistic, and the only real way to try to do that is to advertise for it when looking for a group. I rarely join a group; these days I only form a group, and I advertise wildly for "team players only, no bullies, no egoists" etc. etc. There is no guarantee that this will give you only good players. But there is a higher chance, as other players that want what you want (e.g. doing a bonus AND finishing the mission) are more likely to ask to join your party.

I play a lot with just henchies because often I am tired of the effort of getting a good group together. But I most enjoy playing with humans when the group is good. The satisfaction is enormous when it clicks! And its even funny if the good members of the group begin to mob the one or two idiots.

I once formed a party of "FOW newbies" (being one myself) but the monk we got a hold of apparently didn't realise this. After some time struggling down there our monk began to voice his dissatisfaction with "---- group" etc. Well, I just told him to leave if he didn't like the group, and he did, leaving us without a monk. To my happiness and surprise, the rest of the group thanked me for that instead of kicking me in the butt for losing our monk!

Phades

Phades

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jun 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by coolsti
To Numa Pompilius: regarding Alesia with a one human as warrior only party, I was wondering if a tactic would be to run in to a mob, pound on somebody til dead, then back off, run in again, etc. I haven't played warrior yet, but maybe that would keep Alesia moving?
There is no guarentee that alesia will move once she is stuck in melee combat. Sometimes she will, other times she spam heals and doesnt budge or uses wand attacks and dies. There is also no guarentee that she will move if you try to do similar things to "pull" her out of an aoe spell attack (she will try to chain cast through things like malestorm, meteor shower, concussion, choking gas ect). She has a assist the part priority over follow the player. If you are on the edge of death and the only one injured, she tends to follow you more responsivly (illusion of weakness works nice to create that situation). Most of the time though she will either die no matter what you do in terms of positioning or drag every monster in creation all the way back to where you are, because she stops to heal, and doesnt change the previous situation at all..

Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: May 2005

At an Insit.. Intis... a house.

Live Forever Or Die Trying [GLHF]

W/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by coolsti
To Numa Pompilius: regarding Alesia with a one human as warrior only party, I was wondering if a tactic would be to run in to a mob, pound on somebody til dead, then back off, run in again, etc. I haven't played warrior yet, but maybe that would keep Alesia moving?
Well, in a way - it'd mean that I'd be drawing the mob to the other casters (who tend to keep back), so the aggro would likely be divided over Alesia AND Claude or Orion. Basically it might save Alesia, but at the cost of Claude.

Normally I try to get the monsters trained on me (e.g. by standing by a corner they have to pass), and really don't want to move out of my chosen position.

I do note, however, that since the last update yesterday, Alesia seems to prefer healing breeze over healing touch, so perhaps the problem has been fixed.

EDIT: Oh, and good job of kicking that monk!

Rook Parcade

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jun 2005

The Kansas City Hotsteppers

N/E

Quote:
Originally Posted by John Bloodstone
They need to tweak the healers to stop them wasting time firing at the enemy and instead to put themselves in a position so that the player is between them and the enemy.

Whenever I get a chance to see what the healer hench are doing, 9 times out of 10 they're sat there firing at the enemy instead of healing. Useless.
I'm beginning to wonder how many of the people in this thread are stuck with alesia because they've pissed off to many player monks?

Yes, monks are allowed to wave our wands at enemies, it's the only fun we get!

Xonic

Xonic

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jul 2005

Mo/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by Javias
I seem to remember playing a game where you had a choice of fighting script for your henchmen. I don't remember exactly what they were but, they were something like:

1. Attack on sight
2. Attack when P/C attacks
3. Attack only when attacked
4. Defend only

If you could have an individual fighting script for each npc I would be a very happy little Ranger.
Baldur's Gate II and I think Neverwinter Nights?

Xonic

Xonic

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jul 2005

Mo/Me

I played a monk, and finished many quests and missions with henchmen team.

I played a warrior, and finished many quests and missions with henchment team, now the war is up to thunderkeep.

Aera Lure

Aera Lure

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Aug 2005

In Baltar's head

Bring Out Your Dead [BOYD], former officer [LBS]

Mo/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius
Quoted for truth. Thing is, Alesia uses Healing Hands. If you're a melee warrior, that means that she'll run in to the heaviest combat to heal you. And after she's used Healing Hands, she'll stay there.

And die.
Re-quoted for truth. ^^ Someone saw the plight. Really all I was looking for was maybe Anet might think about helping her a bit. As others have said, its fine once Lina is on board, more or less. Maybe she could drop Healing Hands for Healing Seed, or just learn the sense to run away after she uses it.

Did change strategy specifically for her and it was a pain. And she still died. And there was needless mission ends due to the fact no one could res her after all signets gone, but yes, you do eventually make it anyway to the desert and find Lina. It just doesnt have to be quite that bad. Alesia could be smarter as a healer. Really.

In any case, Numa, you made my day with the post quoting the Minotaur's response to finding her *in-between* a tank and said Minotaur. And staying there. Hah. ^^

Warskull

Site Contributor

Join Date: Jul 2005

[out]

Alesia really is a pathetic healer. She does sufficient through most of the game, but taking her against high level enemies shows how woefully inadequet she is. She has the skills but doesn't know how to use them. The henchmen are downright pathetic, the sad thing is even in their flawed state they are far superior to most other players.

Night Daftshadow

Night Daftshadow

Banned

Join Date: May 2005

In the forest

Hidden Shadows

R/Mo

ANET should modify Alesia and Mehnlo to only heal. This mean no attacking for them. What's the point of them attacking since their damage is pathetic. Secondly, whenever the enemy goes for either healer, please make them run away and not just stand there while taking damage until they die.

Xonic

Xonic

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jul 2005

Mo/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by Warskull
The henchmen are downright pathetic, the sad thing is even in their flawed state they are far superior to most other players.
so we should stop complaining. if the henchmen are any better, they'll be better than 99% of us.

Vorlin

Academy Page

Join Date: Jun 2005

Night, as an elementalist the -last- thing I want Alesia to do is run, she keeps drawing the enemy out of the radius of my AoE spells. This is why it would be great if henchies had a setting screen like Fallout 2, because some humans will want Alesia to run if she's being attacked, some won't, etc. With a settings screen you could have a 'Default' mode (which would be the way they behave now) and then add options like 'Always stay close to me', 'Always run when attacked', 'Stand your ground when attacked', 'Always immediately rez me', 'Never rez during combat', stuff like that.

***************

On a seperate note, I've noticed something that at least several other people have noted in this forum: under some circumstances Alesia simply will not heal you. It has nothing to do with her available energy or whether she's healing anyone else, I've seen this problem show up immediately upon the start of a fight when I was the one eating all the aggro. Fortunately it's quite rare (I'd say for me it shows up maybe 1 time in 20 fights or maybe even less) but it's also very frustrating because it usually isn't till after you die that you realize she's not going to heal you. My dialogue with her goes something like this:

"Okay babe, could use a heal now"

followed by

"Alesia, wake up, need a damn heal"

followed by

"Alesia you stupid #?!$ I'm freakin' dying here, heal my ass!!!!"

followed by me floating in a tunnel of light with Grandma while the rest of the team stumbles around trying to salvage the situation.

Zazoo

Zazoo

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2005

Johannesburg

Boere Mag

W/Mo

Ive tried having my henchies kill opponents and what I noticed is that they take forever to kill anything. Unless u r guiding them.

if I have 3 henchies left when I die and they r 3 opponents left, say 3 minotaurs. The henchies lose more often than win.
Dunno why exactly but that seems to be the way of things in their current state.

I will say that if you guide them they can drop opponents VERY fast.
My R/W tends to work better with henchies than humans for some reason.
But my E/Me works far better with human players.

LOL I think it has to do with the style of play that each character uses.

What i will say is that to get the henchies to be really effective in all situations would not be easy. (I know Im a programmer) Just thinking about the variable information that you would have to filter to get the henchy to do the right thing OUCH.
There r too many different situations to cater for but Im sure a bit of tweeking wouldn't hurt.
Like 3 variantions of her with different skill sets. something like that.

snepp

Academy Page

Join Date: Jun 2005

E/Mo

I'll add to the henchie bash/praise/discussion.

Lina likes to use Aegis between battles.

Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: May 2005

At an Insit.. Intis... a house.

Live Forever Or Die Trying [GLHF]

W/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vorlin
On a seperate note, I've noticed something that at least several other people have noted in this forum: under some circumstances Alesia simply will not heal you. It has nothing to do with her available energy or whether she's healing anyone else
Yeah, it happened to me a couple times yesterday. This is also a fairly new thing, isn't it? I don't remember this happening to me ever during my first time through the game, or with my present avatar before yesterday...

They've made her use healing breeze more instead of healing touch, so perhaps something got screwed up there (so that, for instance, she doesn't heal at all when she would've used healing touch).

Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: May 2005

At an Insit.. Intis... a house.

Live Forever Or Die Trying [GLHF]

W/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by snepp
Lina likes to use Aegis between battles.
One thing is that the henches can detect hidden enemies (e.g. scarabs and devourers). I actually use Orion as a 'scarab-detector', because he casts some spell which sounds 'whoosh' (fire attunement?) whenever we're getting close to hidden enemies... Could be the same with Lina.

Red Sonya

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jul 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rook Parcade
I'm beginning to wonder how many of the people in this thread are stuck with alesia because they've pissed off to many player monks?

Yes, monks are allowed to wave our wands at enemies, it's the only fun we get!
Lol this one made me chuckle. haha You mean you don't get fun out of "just healing" the rest of us? I sorta wish monks were more like clerics in DAOC, mano mano did I ever have fun playing a cleric in DAOC. Before they nerfed the crap outta us, mez was a killer, 3 clerics and you could keep a whole army mezzed. lol Those were the good ole days, I sure miss my DAOC cleric. The monk in DAOC suked though, never liked playing one of them. ANd I really like the way you could make your character unique with skill points to add to a horde of a list instead of just a few like this game has. I'd sometimes spend hours deciding how to build my character (using one of those online create character websites it was fanstastic).