Curse

SotiCoto · Oct 23, 2007, 01:26 PM // 13:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saraphim

Lol, that happens to me as well. Guild Wars - the game that plays itself.

Admit it: sometimes cycling through the attack sequence over and over again for enemy after enemy and trying to react to their occasional threat can get tiring.
Sometimes I prefer to split the load by bringing a build capable of soloing.... and running to attack one group myself while flagging the herohench to another. It gets the job done so much more effectively.
I also used the herohench the same way when I was doing Elonian Cartography. Since I was using a running build, I'd just flag the heroes at any groups of enemies in my way or likely to get into aggro range and ensure that my wall-grinding went off without a hitch.
And that is without mentioning the joys of starting a fight, then going to get a drink from the fridge and coming back to find the enemies conveniently dead.

quickmonty · Oct 23, 2007, 01:31 PM // 13:31

My philosophy is that heroes and henchmen are only as good as the person using them. If you don't know how to pull, target and control aggro H/H aren't going to do it for you. With heroes, if you don't know how to play the various professions you won't know how to set up your heroes to do the job. In general, if I want to have fun and be social I go with guild/alliance groups, but if I want to get something done I go with H/H.

Esan · Oct 23, 2007, 01:32 PM // 13:32

The AI is not retarded. It kites better than nearly every PvE-only player I've ever seen. Claude and Eve are absolutely amazing with BRs - better than 80% of human BiP necros. Lina can outprot any human playing the same bar as her. Olias is a better tainter than your average garden variety r9+ (who iwayed all his fame anyway).

The real deficiency of heroes and hench is that they cannot strategize. Luckily, the human(s) controlling them have flags. Team wiping to massive AoE is a fault of the human doing the positioning and pulling more than anything else. But then strategy is hard and humans are just as likely as AI to fail spectacularly at it.

prism2525 · Oct 23, 2007, 03:48 PM // 15:48

As much as I see the benefits that Heroes have brought to the game I also see that, in my opinion, it has become less fun. Pugging may have its risks, but there's some conversation going on there and you might have a couple of laughs. Heroes are just fancy henchmen that will do anything (die too) for you except jumping.

=HT=Ingram · Oct 23, 2007, 11:48 PM // 23:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_jos

I'd like to comment on =HT=Ingram who said:
"What I am saying is H/H makes for a lazy player."

Yea Like I said I meant it in a more kind way then it sounded when quoted out of context. I just couldn't think of the right word. A better description may be too dependent player then lazy... I think that is more in line with what I was meaning.

And trust me guys I agree. Heroes have the advantage of sitting server side so they react faster then ANY player with even minimal lag can. Hell my ranger heroes can interrupt Impossibile Odds!!! I can't even do that on my ranger with a short bow and megabane shot while in active Drunken master with booze. Not on purpose. So I understand it. But then when you group up and you end up with player that lag a little and they can not interrupt anything except the long casting things. Which is pretty normal. Then your build falls apart because of that. That there in is the problem, and why some people get so nasty with pure H/H players that come into a PUG because they need help, then they do not know how to play with others well. I'm not saying that everyone. that just seems to be a lot of H/H players is all... I have been just as bad. I used to be a really good monk. but lately I have trouble keeping up with the energy because I got out of practice because of heroes... I mean if it got bad I would flag them to hold up a sec. its hard to do that in a group. I ping my energy but others have no idea what that means when I flash I only have 5 energy left and the warrior goes off to charge into the next group... Then he starts dieing and is like WTF monks heal you fing n00bs... then it just gets nasty from there...

I tend to avoid my monk unless its with friends that I can talk to on TS now. BUt my ranger, necro, and Mesmer. No problem... Getting PUGS to take you on the other hand. Not always as easy, I have to admit. My paragon seems to be the hardest to get players to group with. So I play it almost exclusive to H/H... The other that is H/H is my ele... Mostly cause I have bearly touched it in thet last 3 years... Its my new profession I am focusing on with paragon outside of GWEN. Course I went and got the GWEN PvE skills ASAP and it seems like that makes the other campaigns alot easier. BUt that may just be me...

bhavv · Oct 24, 2007, 12:10 AM // 00:10

Heroes are fantastic when used right. Henchmen in GWEN are pretty decent. Henchmen in the main campaigns are retarded. Pugs and 90% of the PVE community are worse then henchmen.

Skyy High · Oct 24, 2007, 12:18 AM // 00:18

Meh, the henchie hate was very big around Prophecies, but it's died down increasingly as the game ages. Nowadays, it's very very rare that I see someone say, "Don't bring a hero, they suck," if you can't find a PUG player to fill up the group.

Alexandra-Sweet · Oct 24, 2007, 12:27 AM // 00:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by myukis

So my bottom line is this: Why is it that so many people think that heroes/henches are retarded and worthless, and that players are better at everything? Healer Heroes/Henches can PREDICT when damage will happen, specific to how much damage so that they use the correct heal to the timing of a millisecond so that there's no wasted overheal, and they do this on the server side which means lag doesn't stop them from keeping the whole party alive, whereas one spike to even the best healer can wipe the group. Interrupter Heroes/Henches KNOW when the spells/skills are coming, and can time the interrupt better than a player ever could.
There's a few good arguments as to why heroes/henches don't do it right. There's certain skills they're programmed to not use for one (maintained enchants for example). They are sometimes not quite understanding of combos you give them for another. And finally they don't get the +20% customization bonus to damage you do. But aside from that, Heroes/Henches are as smart if not smarter about the build than we are.

No one and nothing can predict damage, Henches and Heroes aren't phsycic.

And their AI DOES overheal pretty much all the time, their way of using Regeneration spells and spells that heal for more then 100 Health. (just let your health drop by 10% and they will heal you with overheal)

Henches and Heroes also don't know how to use Hex removal, they simply use it when they see a hex on an ally, regardless of it's importance.

Henches and Heroes don't know how to manage their energy properly, They will use Zealous Benediction without recieving the bonus from it which is pretty vital for a Monk.

When you kite, Heroes and Henches happily kite along, even if they were casting something and will even cancel any other attacks.

It takes way to long for Henches and Heroes to get out of AoE damage.

They use Protective Spirit on Minions as they degenerate. (where's the logic in that?)

But sure, they have some advantages.

Warskull · Oct 24, 2007, 12:36 AM // 00:36

Best way I have ever seen it described is that Heroes and Hench are stupid, but they are stupid in predictable ways. Thus an intelligent player can tear through everything with Hero/Hench with ease. However, for a bad player they will make their heroes bad and use their hench wrong and end up wiping. I know how to build Heroes so Heroes are more useful than other players to me. However, other people may do bad things with their heroes and unknowlingly sabotage themselves.

myukis · Oct 24, 2007, 08:58 PM // 20:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexandra-Sweet

No one and nothing can predict damage, Henches and Heroes aren't phsycic.

Well, let me rephrase. They don't necessarily predict that damage will happen, they predict how much, and are quickly winding out the correct heal associated with the damage. And perhaps it's not prediction, just more of that millisecond reaction time. But speaking from the perspective of a former healer, predicting damage spikes to the degree of how much and when is not an easy task, and I was one who could do it in WoW. This game... the speed of a fight is considerably faster, so the reaction time becomes shorter and the difficulty just increases.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexandra-Sweet

Henches and Heroes also don't know how to use Hex removal, they simply use it when they see a hex on an ally, regardless of it's importance.

I'll grant that, but then again most human healers can't make good use of it in general either. This isn't necessarily the human healer's fault though, I'd be more apt to blame the game itself. In WoW, you could see what debuffs were on who, and as a result it was easy to know who needed dispel/abolish/etc, and who was affected by something that didn't matter. You can't tell even by selecting the person in this game, you only know they have one of the few hexes available to the current bundle of mobs. And players could indicate they have it by ctrl+click but usually by the time you can process that while watching healthbars while watching your position to avoid aoe, it's kinda not needed to be removed anymore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexandra-Sweet

Henches and Heroes don't know how to manage their energy properly, They will use Zealous Benediction without recieving the bonus from it which is pretty vital for a Monk.

They know how to manage energy as well as your understanding of their concept of energy management is, and the degree of thought you put into their build. In other words, there's better elites for heroes than that one, like Word of Healing or Light of Deliverance, or in protection SoR or Restore Conditions. It's a matter of tweaking to figure out what they'll use best. Sometimes they'll use a build better than you, sometimes they'll screw it all up. I'll admit they're not always able to figure out the combos, but if you work on them, it isn't too hard to find a setup they can understand and get them to use it right. And well, if you're too lazy for that, just go to pvxwiki and look at great hero builds.

The rest of your statements I can't disagree with (though I'm sure the PS on minions thing was as a result of them taking damage outside of the degen, either that or the divine favor heal bonus perhaps if you didn't give them a normal heal?). As has been said here, heroes and henches are pretty dumb, but they are predictably dumb, so much so that if you set them up right you can make them play smarter than the average player (barring the whole AoE thing, that's a non-fixer until the developers add individual flags for all of the henches too).