Curse

Sectus · Oct 19, 2006, 01:15 AM // 01:15

This is a guide about how the AI in Guild Wars uses their skills. It's supposed to be used as reference for making builds for Heroes, so you know what skills to avoid and what skills the Heroes are able to use well. Most of the info in this guide is based on tests fighting against the doppleganger. It's made before Nightfall, so the AI might be vastly improved and this guide might become quite redudant. Although I'm personally thinking the AI will mostly stay the same and I'm betting most of the info in this guide will hold true for Hero AI.

First of all some basic info about how the AI uses skills. I've heard a good deal of people state AI uses skills based on the order they're in their skillbar, but from my tests I've seen absolutely no indication of that. From what I gather most skills has a native priority setting which controls how likely the AI is gonna use that skill compared to his other skills.

The AI seems to put less priority on skills which requires the target to be in touch range, but be ware the AI has no sense for his position in comparison to where the enemies are or any dangerous areas (lava, enemy wells or AoE spells), so an AI can rush to his doom so he can use one of his touch spell. If you want to make sure your monk hero attempts to stay back, don't give him any touch heal spells.

The AI seems to generally categorize skills into 2 brackets. Spammable skills and conditional skills. For instance, the AI will never use Healing Breeze as a spammable healing spell, they'll only use Healing Breeze to counter degen. On the other hand, they'll happily spam Orison of Healing (and other normal healing spell) on any ally with less than ~85% health. I'm pretty sure 90% of all skills in the game fall into the "spammable" bracket.

When making a skillbar for your Hero you should try to avoid setting up skill combos where the AI needs to use certain skills in succession with eachother. Chances are the AI just won't use the combo in the correct order, or there's the chance they won't even use all the skills in the bar because they waste all their energy on a few spammable spells. Combos such as Spiteful Spirit+Reckless Haste should work fine since the order those spells are cast doesn't really matter. On the other hand, a combo such as Phantom Pain->Shatter Delusions->Fragility->Virulence will work very badly with Heroes, since they won't understand the proper sequences they should use the spells.

Since the AI will just continously spam whatever spells are recharged it's important to make sure they have good energy management, otherwise certain powerful spells will be left unused because the Hero doesn't have energy to use them. Fortunately we'll be able to see their energy bar so tweaking their build should be easy if you see they don't use all the spells.

I don't have this confirmed, but I get the impression the AI gives higher priority to offensive skills than defensive skills. So if you have a Monk/Warrior with 7 healing spells and Wild Blow. I got a bad feeling he'll use Wild Blow most of the time. Of course, no one would want to equip a monk Hero with Wild Blow, but you should try to avoid equipping a monk with any spammable offensive spell. (I did however test using a Mo/N in the NPE with Animate Bone Horror and the result wasn't pretty. He was very willing to spam Animate Bone Horror in fights even though half the party was dying)

So just generally be wary of equipping skills which are easily spammable, because the AI will spam them. Conditional skills however is something the AI will use properly, and there's little worry when equipping those.

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And now for the actual list (since many skills share the same type of usage I'll start by grouping many of the popular types of skills):

Spell/skill steal skills: (Arcane Mimicry, Arcane Thievery, Thievery, Inspired Enchantment, Inspired Hex, etc)
Absolutely useless. The AI doesn't check their attributes when using spells. So if you have a monk Hero with Inspired Hex, he'll start to spam whatever hex he steals even though he has no attribute for that hex.

Anything which removes enchants or hexes: (drain enchant, shatter hex, hex eater signet, etc):
These are conditional, so the AI will only use them if there's an actual hex or enchant to remove. Although as far as I know, the AI won't give priority when it comes to what enemy to remove enchant from, or what hex to remove.

There's some exceptions here. Shatter Delusions has a nasty downside if you remove a hex you want the enemy to keep having. The AI doesn't understand this, so avoid Shatter Delusions for Heroes. It's the same with Shatter Hex, the AI doesn't understand you need to use Shatter Hex on allies close to enemies.

I recommend you keep a hex removal on yourself (or be ready to use another Hero's hex removal skill). Since the AI won't stop casting or attacking if he's hexed with Backfire or Empathy. So removing those from your Heroes will be crucial.

Interrupts: (Savage Shot, Power Drain, Power Spike, etc)
We all already know how godlike the AI can be with interrupts, but they also have a few downsides regarding interrupts. They'll spam interrupts as soon as they see a foe start to use a skill. They'll even try to interrupt even if the interrupt obviously comes out too slow. For instance, enemies will happily try to interrupt Shatter Delusions (casting time of 1/4) with Distracting Shot even though it'll never work, since the arrow can't possibly reach the enemy within a 1/4 second. (on the other hand, a Mesmer AI with high Fast Casting can easily catch 1/4 spells with his interrupts)

The AI does not understand interrupts with rather specific uses. They'll happily use Wail of Doom as a normal interrupt, ignoring the fact you're supposed to use it against fighters. They'll ignore the downside of Psychic Distraction and let their entire bar remain disabled. Signet of Disruption is one of the few unique interrupt skills the AI uses correctly. He'll use Signet of Disruption to interrupt spells, and use it against skills if the target is hexed.

With all that said, the AI is still simply godlike with interrupts. So having at least one hero with a few fast and cheap interrupts will be very very helpful.

There's another exception though. The AI doesn't understand you're supposed to use Overload the same way you use an interrupt (they treat Overload as a normal attack skill, completely ignoring the important conditional bonus for the spell).

Assassin Attack Combos:
I believe this is just about the only type of skill combos the AI is able to do with ease since the sequential attacks will remain disabled until the first ones are executed. So I believe any assassin skill combo will be performed flawlessly by the AI (unless you have multiple lead/offhand/dual attacks, then the AI will decide what to use based on the order of skills or if they're conditional (hitting a kd'ed foe for instance))

(This isn't related to Heroes at all, but while testing I noticed the Doppleganger is able to use his axe with assassin attack skills... and that hurts a lot!)

Skills with negative consequences: (Shroud of Silence, Signet of Disenchantment, Illusion of Pain, Glyph of Essence, Glyph of Sacrifice, etc)
Unfortunately, the AI doesn't understand the negative impacts of these skills. I wouldn't recommend them at all unless the negative consequence has no real effect on his build (Shroud of Silence + only attack skills works well for instance).

Stances: (Hex Breaker, Gladiator's Defense, Distortion, etc)
Anyone here played with Dunham before? That should explain enough how the AI uses stances. They spam spam spam. Even outside combat. They just love to show the entire world their pretty stance.

There are plenty stances the AI isn't able to understand how to use at all. For instance, a ranger with preparations and Practiced Stance will quite happily use Practiced Stance after using a preparation. It's the same with Ritual Lord, they don't understand they should use it before casting spirits. Same with Elemental Resistance (they just mindlessly spam it, even when being attacked with physical damage).

And there's even some stances the AI refuses to use at all. These include Mantra of Flame/Frost/Earth/Air and Physical Resistance.

AI has no problems cancelling other stances, so I wouldn't recommend multiple stances for a hero. Chances are he'll randomly cancel out whatever stance he used first.

I'd recommend being very careful when equipping Heroes with stances. Most stances probably won't work well since the Hero will either spam them too much or use them at the wrong time. Something like Frenzy or Distortion would definitely be horrible for a hero, since they'd just spam it all the time. Some stances should work fine though, I've seen the AI have no problem using Hex Breaker, Mantra of Concentration or Mantra of Resolve.

Any stance which lasts a long time, has no downside, is cheap, and is good in almost any situation is something the AI should use rather well. Every other stance however... expect the worst.

Conditional Counters: (Backfire, Empathy, Ineptitude, etc)
These types of skills should be used fairly well by the AI. Most anti-caster spells such as Guilt and Arcane Conundrum seems to be used only against caster professions. Backfire and Shroud of Silence are an exception though, the AI casts those 2 spells against anyone with a caster weapon. The anti-fighter skills (such as Empathy and Clumsiness) are used against anyone. Inititally, this may seem like a bad thing but in PVE using anti-fighter stuff against casters actually works. Put Empathy on a caster, and he'll still wand while not casting and hurt himself all the time.

Although there's a few exceptions to the anti-fighter rule as well. Spells which causes blind (I don't know if this applies to Ineptitude) such as Signet of Midnight and Blinding Flash are used against anyone with a non-caster weapon.

All this works well enough in PVE, but it can create problems in PVP. People may intentionally equip casters with swords to avoid Heroes using Backfire on them and force Heroes to waste expensive blind spells on the casters.

General attack skill and damage spells: (Pure Strike, Lightning Strike, a few billion other skills)
There's not a whole much to write about these. As long as they're recharged, the AI will spam them in a seemingly random order. Just make sure the Hero have enough energy to keep spamming whatever damage skills he has.

Be ware of spammable skills with Exhaustion. The AI doesn't care about that and will easily get max exhaustion if he has a spammable exhaustion spell.

AoE damage skills/spells: (Meteor, Firestorm, Cyclone Axe, Dragon Stomp, Chaos Storm, etc)
Some of these are treated conditional by the AI. They'll only use AOE spells (with an area range of Nearby or wider) against 2 or more enemies grouped together (that means spells such as Dragon Stomp or Rodgort's Invocation). The AI will not use skills such as Cyclone Axe or Dragon Stomp against one single enemy. AoE spells such as Meteor which has an AoE range of Adjacent will be used against enemies standing alone.

On the other hand, AoE spells which deals damage over time (such as Firestorm or Meteor Shower) is something the AI is willing to use against just one singular enemy.

The AI doesn't understand the consequence of the enemies fleeing after using certain AoE spells. So if you're using a team build where 1 or 2 characters handle the tanking, you need to avoid equipping Firestorm and similar spells to the Heroes. On the other hand, if you have no specific tanking, Firestorm and such can be an advantage. Since it can stop the monsters from bunching up on one of your weaker allies.

AoE spells which has no target (Inferno, Flame Burst, Cyclone Axe, etc) will only be used if there's at least one foe around the AI. So if you want to make sure your Hero spams such no-target AoE spells, equip him with a melee weapon. That way he'll make sure he's always in close range with enemies.

Maintained Enchantments:
The AI treats maintained enchantments the same as any other spammable spell. So if they have something like Mending, they'll cast it on every party member and waste all their energy.

The only maintaned enchantments the AI will use correctly are those which are self-only (Divine Boon for instance).

Hexes, Conditions and Enchantments: (Enfeeble, Backfire, Protective Spirit, etc)
Generally these are treated as spammable spells, although the AI takes care to not cast an enchantment or hex on a target which already has that hex/enchant. In that regard the AI is excellent at re-applying hex and enchantments (if bosses has half hex duration in Nightfall, then Wastrel's Worry would work wonders on a mesmer hero). Unfortunately, they don't do the same with conditions. They'll constantly spam the same conditions on a target even though the target already has it. So spells such as Enfeeble are just about useless for Heroes (especially since they'll use Enfeeble on casters as well)

Spirits: (Edge of Exctinction, Pain, etc)
Spirits works fine with the AI. They'll only cast spirits which doesn't exist already. They won't understand that something like Frozen Soil is rather bad to keep up all the time though. And the AI doesn't try to make spirits spread out. They'll usually cast all spirits in one spot which may make them a very easy target.

Traps:
The AI spams traps rather randomly. They won't try to trap near enemies, or avoid trapping while being attacked. If you want the hero to use traps in a beneficial way make sure to equip him with a melee weapon (to make sure he traps near enemies) and something which prevents him from being constantly interrupted.

Health sacrifice spells:
The AI doesn't consider the health sacrifice of spells at all. So if he has a health sacrifice spell he can spam, he'll pretty much die on the spot. Be very careful when equipping health sacrifice spells with short recharge.

Skills which gives energy to allies: (Blood Ritual, Blood is Power)
The AI is able to sense when an ally is low on energy and will properly try to use Blood Ritual on that ally. Considering how the AI loves health sacrifical, Blood is Power would probably be a suicide spell for heroes.

Wards and Wells: (Well of Blood, Ward against Harm, etc)
Wells are something the AI will spam as long as there's a corpse within range. Ward Against Melee will be used as soon as the AI is attacked in melee. The other wards are considered non-conditional for the AI and the AI will cast them as soon as he's able. Unfortunately, the AI does nothing to stay in wards or wells.

Glyphs and Echoes: (Glyph of Lesser Energy, Glyph of Essence, Arcane Echo, etc)
The AI always gives Glyphs a very high priority when casting. So they'll make sure to always keep a glyph active before casting if possible. But they don't understand any of the Glyphs' uses. They won't try to use expensive skills with Glyph of Energy, or a powerful spell with Glyph of Elemental Power. It's basically completely random what spell they give the glyph bonus for.

Arcane Echo and Echo are treated the same way. High priority, but completely random what spells gets duplicated. And they don't bother to mind the conditional loss of Arcane Echo if they use a non-spell after Arcane Echo.

Condition transfer skills: (Plague Sending, Epidemic, Plague Touch, etc)
Skills which directly transfers conditions from self to foes are used correctly by the AI (although he'll put low priority on Plague Touch unless he's adjacent to a foe). Epidemic, however, is spammed on any target with conditions regardless if the target is close to other foes.

Ritualist spells with Spirit/Item bonuses:
Any spell which has a more powerful effect when near a spirit or while holding an item is spammed like a normal attack skill. I wouldn't recommend spells with item bonuses as well, since the AI is rather random when it comes to casting item spells, and drops them at seemingly random moments as well. Spells with spirit bonuses should be fairly okay, since spirits lasts a very long time.

Spells which requires spirits (such as Gaze from Beyond) are used correctly by the AI.

Specific skills the AI uses in a surprisingly positive way:
Ward Against Melee: Uses as soon as he's hit in melee.
Blood Ritual: Is able to sense when an ally is low on energy.
Signet of Disruption: Understands its conditional bonus.
Shame: Uses it only against targets with Monk primary or secondary.
Mind Wrack: Uses it only on targets with ~15 or less energy.
Death Nova: Automatically uses it on any ally with ~10% or less health.
Divine Intervention: Correctly uses it only when allies are at ~10% health or less.

Specific skills the AI uses in a unexpected way, but not necessarily bad:
Healing Breeze: It's treated as a conditional spell. The AI only uses it to counter degen.
Heal Area: The AI doesn't understand this can heal enemies and may easily use it while surrounded by enemies.
Unnatural Signet: Uses it as a normal attack skill. Doesn't care about the conditional bonus.
Contemplation of Purity: Uses it as soon as the AI has any enchant and any hex/condition.

Specific skills the AI uses in an absolutely awful way: (Never equip Heroes with these!)
Epidemic: Spams it anyone with conditions, even if the foe is standing alone.
Draw Spirit: The AI treats this is a spammable skill. So they'll randomly cast it on any spirit for no good reason.
Protective Spirit: The AI spams as if it was any other enchantment, and they won't give give priority to set this on low armor allies.
Ignorance: Spams as if it was any other hex. Doesn't target foes with potentially large amount of signets.
Shatter Delusions: Will randomly remove any hex with any duration from foes.
Ether Signet: Attempts to spam it like any other skill and renders the skill absolutely useless.
Overload: Spams it like a common attack skill. Ignores the vital conditional bonus.
Death's Charge: Treats it like a healing spell, and doesn't use it for teleporting near enemies for attacking.
Shatter Hex: Removes any hex from anyone. Even if that ally is not close to enemies.
Wail of Doom: Uses it as a normal interrupt. Doesn't consider the important attack skill shutdown.
Glyph of Essence: Will use it randomly and lose all energy.
Glyph of Sacrifice: Random spell will get a really nasty recharge time.

Specific skills the AI absolutely refuses to use:
Mantra of Flame
Mantra of Lightning
Mantra of Cold
Mantra of Earth
Physical Resistance
Assassin's Promise
Second Wind
Dark Escape
(since there's lots of skills I've been unable to test, I'm afraid there's many other skills the AI simply is unable to use)

Short list of the general pros and cons of the AI:

Pros:
Godlike reflexes for interrupts
Excellent timing for re-applying hexes and enchants
Smart use of non-closerange and non-lasting AoE spells
Knowledge of allies' and targets' energy status (for Blood Ritual and Mind Wrack use)
Fast reactions to called targets
Is able to focus attacks very well as a team
Is able to manage multiple targets quite well (Backfire on casters while wanding called target for instance)

Cons:
No sense for how to combo skills besides Assassin attack skills
Thinks Meteor Shower is a nice place to stand in
Has no positional or tactical sense
Thinks spamming stances is the most fun thing in the world
Doesn't understand Maintained Enchantments has a severe energy loss
Have no idea what any wells or wards do, so they prefer to stand where they are
Thinks speed boosts makes you faster at standing still
Doesn't understand passive energy management (prevent using skills to wait for energy to come back)

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As mentioned earlier, most of the info in this guide is based on playing against the Doppleganger. That's not exactly the perfect way of testing all kinds of skills but since Nightfall isn't released yet I didn't have much choice. Certain skills were impossible to test (every "Target other ally" skill for instance). And there's a ton of skills I didn't test either. Since well.. there's thousands of skills in the game! It gets rather overwhelming after a while. So I focussed on testing skills which are very conditional and require careful use.

After Nightfall is released, I'll try to do more tests and hopefully expand on this guide. I'd love to hear feedback and reports from other people about how the AI uses skills.

broodijzer · Oct 24, 2006, 10:07 PM // 22:07

Wow, very nice guide. This will certainly help me setting up my heroes

Rathcail · Oct 24, 2006, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Good job.

Now I was wondering how well the AI uses Extinguish while having single target condition removals in it's skillbar as well.

broodijzer · Oct 26, 2006, 11:20 AM // 11:20

Update:

Improved Hero/Henchmen AI
Heroes and Henchmen now take into account Conditions and Exhaustion when choosing which skills to cast. They also consider attribute levels for stolen skills, and combo states for Assassin skills.
They have improved combo awareness for some important skill combinations.
They have improved knowledge of skills, so that they make smarter decisions about which skills to cast.
They manage their Energy better.
They are better at kiting opponents.
They are better at getting out and staying out of AoE damage spells.
They move in formation around their leader, with melee characters in front and ranged or casting characters in back.
They follow their leader whenever they haven’t been specifically directed to move to a point. The leader for Heroes is the player who owns the Hero, and the leader for henchmen is the party leader.
They also know how to have fun.

I think this update makes your guide quite useless. I feel sorry for you :/

Gorebrex · Oct 26, 2006, 05:12 PM // 17:12

I was thinking(although I dont PvP)it would be cool if you could pit 2 or more tem's AIs against each other. Theyd be built, and sent in to fight while the "builders" were in Observer mode. Could test out builds for use in PvE, or to use in PvP when you cant get a full team(for whatever reason).

Valkyrian · Nov 03, 2006, 04:57 PM // 16:57

I've noticed a couple more things:

Koss loves the energy based distracting blow but doesn't like using the adrenaline based disrupting chop. Probably puts other adrenaline skills as a priority to DC. I have never seen him use Heal Sig unless I do it for him.

Necro hero (Orias I think) I have set as MM right now. Do not give him any offensive spells because he will use them as priority to getting fleshies up. He does use BR very efficiently as well as Ventari's Sacrifice but Death Nova is randomly cast.

Monk heroes LOVE to spam heal, and they loose energy quickly. I have both of mine set up with healing with BL and/or WoH which they use correctly. Do not give your protect monk Aegis, he will spam it to no end even when you are under no physical pressure. they also like to rez in the worst of times.

...Thats it for now, but very well done. Everything he has stated I agree with.

evil.E · Nov 04, 2006, 12:27 AM // 00:27

One thing I'd like to add as I didn't see it mentioned, but don't give your eles Obsidian Flame. They will happily spam this spell because of it's low cost/recharge and completely disregard the fact that it exhausts them into oblivion.

*edit* I'm not sure if ANet has changed this with the last update since I only tested it on release day.

jimmy_logic · Nov 04, 2006, 05:15 AM // 05:15

Great guide... gonna tweak my heroes especially my monk not to have Healing Touch for selfheals since they most probably run off. But then again I can disable and get them to heal themselves... decision decision.

DL Lorre · Nov 06, 2006, 11:55 PM // 23:55

Put a comment here, although ia gree with almost everything in the guide my MM does know when to use blood of the master and veratas aura, and has the sense to use healing breeze, or heal area. Besides that Nice guide

Peka · Nov 19, 2006, 04:09 PM // 16:09

very good guide this will help me alot

Son of Urza · Nov 30, 2006, 07:30 PM // 19:30

Henchies do well at MM'ing. Also, despite the fact that they will disable all their other skills with Psychic Distraction, they will still interrupt everything within a 50 foot radius, so that's not necessarily bad.

Power Drain and Leech Signet are VERY good energy management, even on monks. Henchies have the reflexes to switch from healing to interrupt an enemy spell, gain loads of energy, and switch back almost instantly.

Maintained enchantments are almost more annoying now- they will cancel them immediately out of battle if you do not disable them. If you DO disable them, however, they will leave them up, and they can run a decent bonder build. You'll just have to manually force them to bond the party.

Prot Spirit is still anathema. They like using it as a heal.

Healer's Covenant seems like it would be a good skill to put on a monk hero. It would allow them to spam to their heart's content, and you could also Arcane Mimicry it off of them if you want to use it too, as it's a maintained enchantment and as such will stay even after Arcane Mimicry reverts.

Kumlekar · Dec 15, 2006, 04:03 AM // 04:03

Touch ranger heros end up being fairly good, the hard part is getting them into melee range. Only use it if your melee also. Also they're best set to fight instead of guard.

I've found that olias works well with OOV and BR. with a mix of otehr blood stuff.

Never give monk hero reses, but give them to any others.

in general spike damage seems to be better than AOE with them because they don't target crowds.

Kumlekar · Dec 15, 2006, 04:03 AM // 04:03

Touch ranger heros end up being fairly good, the hard part is getting them into melee range. Only use it if your melee also. Also they're best set to fight instead of guard.

I've found that olias works well with OOV and BR. with a mix of otehr blood stuff.

Never give monk hero reses, but give them to any others.

in general spike damage seems to be better than AOE with them because they don't target crowds.

Riotgear · Dec 15, 2006, 08:49 AM // 08:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sectus

the AI won't give priority when it comes to what enemy to remove enchant from, or what hex to remove.

The AI has some sort of priority. I gave two of my monk heroes expel hexes and they would CONSTANTLY wind up hitting the same target with it. I believe they have a preference for human players, then possibly something as simple as whoever's higher on the party list.

Quote:

The AI treats maintained enchantments the same as any other spammable spell. So if they have something like Mending, they'll cast it on every party member and waste all their energy.

They will actually use Holy Veil strictly as a hex remover. They'll only cast it on hexed targets, and will cancel it immediately.

Quote:

Skills which gives energy to allies: (Blood Ritual, Blood is Power)
The AI is able to sense when an ally is low on energy and will properly try to use Blood Ritual on that ally. Considering how the AI loves health sacrifical, Blood is Power would probably be a suicide spell for heroes.

Oddly enough, the AI loves to cast Blood Ritual, and will hardly ever cast BIP.

Quote:

Healing Breeze: It's treated as a conditional spell. The AI only uses it to counter degen.

This isn't exactly true any more. I've seen the AI use breeze many times when I had no degen. It's only been happening since the AI update of course.

I've had a very opposite experience with Overload as well, I've never seen the AI cast it except on targets casting a spell.

Quote:

Koss loves the energy based distracting blow but doesn't like using the adrenaline based disrupting chop. Probably puts other adrenaline skills as a priority to DC. I have never seen him use Heal Sig unless I do it for him.

The AI won't use disrupting chop unless its target is casting an ability when it starts the attack. Most of the time, it won't attempt to use it unless the target is using a 2+ second ability.

Heal sig, I believe they use it when they're above 50% health and below 75%.

And of course.... The AI just loves Searing Flames. It appears to target the enemy that is near the most other enemies. The BAD news is that it has a weird tendency to Leeroy randomly, like going way out to cast it on something even if you haven't aggrod it. Its use of Glowing Gaze is also sketchy at best.

Orinn · Dec 15, 2006, 09:37 AM // 09:37

For some reason, ranger heros will not use Heal as One to rez a dead pet. I believe they treat it as a self-heal only, and ignore the pet heal and pet rez properties.

Fire_Emblem_FTW · Dec 29, 2006, 07:23 PM // 19:23

I was using Prot Spirit on my Protection Monk, guess I'll take it off now, didn't notice he used it so badly. Thanks for the good guide.

darkdawn · Dec 31, 2006, 03:28 AM // 03:28

Great job on this guide. It helps alot.
I don't think the AI will spam health sacrifice skill tho, my MM hero use Blood of the Master at the right time and i never had a problem with it.

It's sad to see that the AI of hero is actually smarter then some human ppl I've played with (meteor shower on 1 target for exemple, or backfire on some warrior).

FoxBat · Dec 31, 2006, 09:10 AM // 09:10

AI is going to just drop traps wherever they are at the moment, they don't consider positioning. If you want them to run up and trap at the enemy's feet, give them a melee weapon and they generally will.

AI also uses many evasion stances only when their health gets low (lightning reflex, whirling defense, etc.) Not all though (defensive stance).

It seems a lot of skill programming is on a per-skill basis. There might be a general behavior applied to many skills (e.g. most stances are spammed), but the skill must be specifically flagged to do so (e.g. some stances that aren't spammed). Generalizations can therefore be dangerous.

Moa Bird Cultist · Jan 02, 2007, 11:33 PM // 23:33

AI Monks factor in casting time a great deal when it comes to using skills.

For Instance, I'm currently testing out a Mo/Me Blessed Light/Signet based healer. Skill selection includes Mantra Of Inscritions, Signet Of Rejuvenation, Signet of Devotion, Leech Signet and Ether Signet. Other Skills include Blessed Light, Rebirth and either Divine Healing or Ethereal Light or Something Similar. Predictably, SoD's 2 second cast makes it taboo, despite a greatly reduced recharge...

Zenocided · Apr 28, 2007, 01:07 PM // 13:07

This threads shows quite a few of the holes in the Heroes AI capability that bug the hell outta me. They give us better henchmen in theory, but to stop farmers from using them, they made them too stupid to be of any use using skills beyond the simplistic damage / healing skill set. Its like they don't want people trying to solo the game without having them to party up with other "real" people.