MOB AI improvments since last update.

I play a W/N speccing in axe and curses, so my main killing combo's for pve are flurry + barbs for single targets and flurry + Mark of Pain for groups.

If the mobs bunch up nice and tight MOP + flurry will drop them faster than any ele nuke I've seen. Though since the update I've noticed the mobs will often run away from the enemy hexed with MOP instead of staying close and dying really fast, I think its awesome tha they have a little more intelligence, has anyone else noticed mob AI improvments lately?

yeah they are sneaky! They target my healer first every time lol, can cast hex skills with ZERO recharge time, not to shabby for them. I think I found out who was crying NERF! It was THEM!

Seriously though, now that we can see what skills they are using, casting... I'm confused at their skill recharge. And yes they are smarter...

Not only is their recharge time dubious, but they have practically unlimited energy. Not that anything about PvE is difficult... I just find it annoying when developers have the mob/AI break their own rules just to try and make things harder. :P

So I am not the only one that noticed that. Its really weird. I think the same nerf that effects us should effect them using the skills to. Where is the balance in it otherwise? They spam the same skills over and over, limitless energy/recharge time... Sure 70% of PvE is a breeze... but that doesn't mean they should be allowed to "cheat"

This is exactly why I don't play racing games anymore. I find it utterly rediculous that you aren't rewarded for playing well. No, if you do well, then the AI compensates by driving better and faster then their vehicles should be capable of.

And the energy thing has been around for as long as I've been playing, it wasn't new to this update. Now you can't even Diversion spam mob bosses anymore. :P

I wonder where this "near limitless energy" thing comes from. I hear it all the time, but back when I still had a PvE mesmer (before I beat the game with her and started a PvP character in her place) I used to energy deny some select enemies who were annoying (particularly those dual monk boss combos) with no trouble.

They seemed to run out of energy under my denial spells as quickly as any player in PvP. The real difference was that unlike players, they were somewhat lacking on the energy management and so your denial meant more... I will admit though, that this was before the patch allowing you to see the purple numbers of the energy so I used how much I was getting back from my steals as a gauge.

They don't have unlimited energy. I've run e. denial in PVE just to see what happens and the enemy will stop doing any casting. Also energy burn, at this point, does 0-24 damage.

I did say "practically". Yes you can fully deplete their energy, but it recharges very quickly. I've hit a Mursaat monk with Energy Surge, come up with -0 damage, and have him cast a 10 energy skill a second or two later.

Mursaat are mursaat, I think they mostly all have insane regens *cough* seal *cough*. Never forget they are powerful alien spellcasters. So leave them be. Everyother mob can easily be denied and will sit there wanding/shooting/hacking you until they gain the energy.

Yes AI has improved, now if the AI would only use strategy >_>

You sure about that? What spell was it casting so soon? ...because I've done E Denial against Mursaat bosses as well. After a few seconds they'll cast 5 energy spells, which is exactly what you'd expect. 10 energy spells take a bit longer, but if you do the math, it should only take approximately 5 seconds for anyone with 4 pips of energy regen to go from 0 to 10 energy.

When you're in a heated battle, 5 seconds feels like nothing. So, it would be easy to think, "I JUST had him at 0 energy? WTF is going on?" when indeed nothing is out of line.

I didn't say anything in my last post, but I can't hold back any longer. The skills you use are the same ones the enemies use, subject to the same exact balance changes. Recharge times are the same for you and enemies, even if it might feel like enemies get things back faster (the grass is always greener on the other side). The only thing which makes bosses special is that hexes cast on them only last half the duration they would on anything else.

Sometimes I see casters walk out of Maelstrom - but I doubt it is patch, could be just random movement, since it doesn't happen often enough to be considered common AI tactic.

Maelstrom - Spell
Create a Maelstrom at target foe's location. For 10 seconds, foes in that area are struck for 10-22 cold damage each second. Maelstrom interrupts Spell-casting when it hits. This Spell causes Exhaustion.

If they're walking, they aren't casting spells.

I have noticed an improvement of "stupidity casting" such as casting in maelstrom or with backfire on. They seem to wait or simply cast less with it on... oh noes the backfire cookies will soon crumble!

As far as I've played this game, I've never really seen a monster do something outside of the rules. Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention or something though.
My only guess would be that if you find that something is being spammed on you, like a hex of some kind, then you're probably facing a bunch of different enemies with the same hex. The 2nd monster is smart enough to recast the hex on you when the 1st one wears off, and so on. Something that players could never do without extreme communication.

woot. when mobs walk out of AoEs, they will finally be useless in PvE as well. Missions will take 5h because ANET creates mobs that can do the healing ball, or glyph of sacrifice + light of dwanya.

I saw improved AI while farming griffs. When you attack a boss griffon, there are 2 griffons standing next to him. One will attack you and the other stands aside. The moment the first griffon has low health, the other one takes his place, like a tag team.

the griffons have always done that, one of them is 'stupid' until another one gets low or dies. I have noticed enemies walking out of AoE spells and moving away from the Mark of Pained target.. sometimes when playing my interrupt Ranger it seems like they're actually (Summit Taskmasters in SF especially) waiting for me to fire off an interrupt before they use Conjure Phantasm..

Bosses have special "rules" - hexes cast on them have half duration, and I'd not be surprised if they have double energy regeneration compared to other mobs.
It's not like it's hard to drain them dry if you try, though.

The main difference in AI that I've seen is that a) mobs wont chase you as long any more (e.g. you can't round up griffons & leave the rockshots behind by using sprint any more), and that b) the henches have grown a lot dumber, notably wotshisname the necro and Alesia. The necro will spend all his time giving blood ritual to the warriors, and Alesia will always try to resurrect fallen henches in the midst of battle, which usually means the entire team dies (because 8 seconds of no healing in a hard fight just to get Dunham back on his feet = bad idea).
On the up-side at least Alesia doesn't tank as much since they replaced healing touch with healing breeze in her skill-list, but the necro is now as useless as Dunham used to be (he's somewhat useful now, since he will now cast other spells than just Ethereal Burden).

"On the up-side at least Alesia doesn't tank as much since they replaced healing touch with healing breeze in her skill-list"

What? When? She always had both of those skills, and still does.

KaPe: Perhaps you're right, I haven't seen her use healing touch since the update, and I never saw her use healing breeze before. The typical MO of Alesia before was to run up to my warrior in the middle of the heaviest fighting, use healing touch, AND STAY, firing with her piddly little wand. It was extremely frustrating having the mobs go "huh? wtf? lol!" and switch their attention from me to her, frequently killing her. Now she'll pop healing breeze on and stay away, and doesn't die nearly as often as she used to.