Crazy Agro AI

yeh i noticed that
when i go of to fight i suddenly realise i'm standing there alone in the front and my henchies stay behind

You don't think I know how to use flags? Nice reading comprehension there.

During Abaddon's Mouth, I got REALLY mad at heroes. I got a very unlucky spawn - necro + monk bosses. I was a stance tank R/W with knockdowns. I have spent about 15 minutes because THOSE STUPID NUKERS DIDN'T WANT TO NUKE MONK BOSS!! They were instead trying to kill necro, even if he had a self-heal, hex for regen and monk's healing. Thanks.

Or I noticed that Devona ignores my calls and goes after a non-squishy target...

VERY annoying. I've died and been kicked out of too many missions and quests because of that bug.

Another point: ranged H/Hs don't care about the aggro bubble. If you have a ranger hero with a longbow and he's on top of a rise, he can hit patrols well outside the aggro bubble and if he's on guard he'll happily do it whether you like it or not. I've gotten into the habit of ALWAYS flagging my H/Hs as far back as I reasonably can because of this.

It sucks though because when you combine the "flag them way back" with the problem I quoted above, it's easy to get hit by that non-movement bug they have and run too far into a patrol to get back out without dying.

For awhile there the H/Hs were actually getting kind of smart, but now we're back to the Prophecies days where it's like herding cats with them sometimes...

You should have locked them on the monk then...

No, i'm saying you had none set, therefore it's no wonder she did a marathon. Flags set = (pretty much) obediant H/H.

^Usually.

I noticed during vanquishing Marga Coast that the H/H would run to the group of Kournans if we were spotted by a Spotter. Even with panic flags they'd still charge in and pretty much go boom.

And let's not forget those lovely instances where, Devona or Koss decides to leeroy in and aggro, you go "aw shit" *place flag*, *he/she runs back to flag, huge mob hot on their tail*.

Lately I'm seeing both out of the AI on the NPC side as well as heroes and henchies. I set my hereos/henchies way back and pull and somehow someway another mob futher away comes and enters the fray in some battles. Where all those griffons are and Avicara birds when you come out of Camp Rankor into Talus chute. My gawd everything agroed and I wasn't anywhere near the griffons.

Then in the Consolate Docks mission Kormir runs all over the place even backtracks to areas we've already been to and taken. And the hero AI for attacking has gotten rediculous. I've watched NPC's/mobs shake hands with my heroes and henchies before even anyone fires a shot and used to I could just stand there and watch the battles between the heroes and mobs, but, now they stop in the middle of the fight and DANCE or YAWN and the NPC/MOBS do the very same thing. It's almost laughable to see them stop and do a dance step and then go back to fighting.

Anet needs to take a serious look at ALL the AI lately, it's not doing like it used to and is even WORSE now than before. All this running around for no reason, dancing during the middle of a fight or not even fighting at all.

Oh an another thing Heroes STILL will not Blood Ritiual my MONKS!! This is annoying as hell since MONKS need ENERGY too. They will blood ritiual each other (necro and elementalist) like there is no tomorrow, but, you let Dunkoro get low on energy and they act like he's not even there.

The other issue is Dunkoro wasting his energy healing MINIONS with single heal spells. I like him to use Heal Area when all the minions are around him but, healing Minions during a battle is rediculous, especially when my necro is setup to use Death Nova on them. Please fix this Anet. Put a very low priority heal percent on minions like 1% or 10% max and have them (the monks) save their energy for ME and my heroes.

I love when Tahlk wastes 10 energy to use Prot Spirit on an almost-dead minion. If they can improve the AI for stuff like Holy Veil and BHA, why can't they fix other stuff like this? :/

Hey Stolen SOuls try Divine Intervention when I'm dying and Dunkoro casts it on a minion. lol

Nothing more annoying than having Devona rush in a mob even though ALL the party is flagged miles away from it. I've had this happen a few times and I don't get the AI she has... anyways, whatever it is, it's horrible. I remember having a friends' heroes running to a target, 3 mobs past us, when he had "Targeted" (I'm targeting <whatever>") and not "I'm attacking <whatever>".

Spirits seem to greatly confuse our dear heroes and henchies. They stand at least half an aggro bubble from one and stay there. If I wand it, suddenly it's all hands on deck for about five seconds; back to normal until the next spirit.

i've seen this and felt this way too recently. its really hard to just generally control the aggro nowadays.

(h/h's not keeping up)
Sounds like you guys have a minionbomber. They lag behind because they stop to cast their enchants on ALL their minions before they go into battle. Also, that behavior may draw your healers back from you, as the necro sacrifices health.

Solution: pop down a flag. A fresh flag cancels the necros current action. Also will stop a charging Devona and make her come back.

My Master of Whispers (I've taken to calling him Master of Whiskers now) has been out of control lately. I was helping a guildie with Abaddon's Mouth yesterday, and I brought Whiskers... Once, we were standing somewhere waiting for a guy to come back from afk, and a mob wandered nearby... Whiskers just runs off, out of our aggro circle, and aggro's them. He was flagged next to me, set on Guard.

I was going to post something about this but thought it may just be my imagination. I can't seem to get the H/H to attack my called targets anymore, running my necro through the torment areas yesterday I had to just sit and watch the mobs use Call to the Torment over and over while the group set off to attack a quickening zephyr spirit or two...

At one stage I ended up figting six Arm of Torments and four Rain of torments when I only had one group aggroed. so much fun....

I don't mind the less than perfect AI normally as I want to have to do some stuff myself but the past couple of weeks both the heroes and the hench have been awful.

Why are you people still bringing Devona. I was thinking that by now, everyone knows she was trained by Stoneskin.

Because of the lovely idea that we can only use 3 heroes - one needs to either use moronic hench like Devona or use hench that are in no way compatible with certain team builds.

HERO AI is slowly become worse, and worse, and worse.

Please fix anet. I can't stand hero battles anymore.

Good lord, I stopped using Devona ages ago. Too many deaths in the Ring of Fire finally made me say "screw it" almost 2 years ago.