Talk:Hero

Archived discussions
 * /Archive 1 (Hero Panel to +41% weapon damage)

Maintained Enchantments with Heroes
Is it me or do Hero's AI just simply refuse the use of Maintained Enchantments. Each time iv had one cast a maintained enchantment such as Mending or Life Bond, it Immediately canceled it. Most times you dont even see the enchantment go up on you before its canceled. Raisu 21:53, 8 December 2006 (CST)
 * You're right, they will only use most maintained enchantments in combat, and will end them as soon as combat's over. In order to get them to maintain an echantment you need to disable it and then manually order the hero to cast it on someone. -- Gordon Ecker 22:21, 8 December 2006 (CST)
 * With exceptions. Such as Healer's Boon.--Silk Weaker
 * And Divine Boon. -- Gordon Ecker 21:24, 10 December 2006 (CST)


 * Nuh-uh. I've had to have my Tahlkora disable Vital Boon cause she was using it on randoms. Wouldn't use it more than once, I believe, but I didn't want her getting the energy degen, and I forced her to use it on me after I got DP. But anyway, she would use it without prompting (granted, not too well, but it would be used). She's ph34r with Divine Boon, though. I'm thinking maintained enchantments that can only target the caster (read: Healer's and Divine Boon) they use just fine. --Armond Warblade (talk) 00:40, 12 December 2006 (CST)
 * I just tested all the maintained enchantments. Heroes will cast and maintain Blessed Aura, Divine Boon, Healer's Boon and Recall outside of combat, and will maintain Recall outside of combat, but only cast it in combat. They will not maintain any other enchantments, including Healer's Covenant and Unyielding Aura, outside of combat. -- Gordon Ecker 22:36, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

Item spells
It is impossible to direct your hero to drop an item created from an item spell. This effectively makes many ritualist skills useless. Perhaps these things are why Anet decided to screw us by not really providing us with a ritualist hero attainable by the common player (and taking away the variable hero for elite players). --71.253.59.67 23:17, 11 December 2006 (CST)


 * These sorts of hero features are either hard to implement or have been forgotten. This is just one example. Go and try Raisu Palace with heroes. There is no way to hav ethe heroes take the celestial skill. I hope all of these things will be fixed sooner or later. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 07:58, 12 December 2006 (CST)

Does redoing missions give XP to heroes who haven't done the mission yet?
Basically, do heroes gain mission XP only when you gain mission XP, or on their first run through the mission? My Tyrian character just got the newb heroes from Elona, and I want to level them up in the most painless way possible. &mdash;Tanaric 17:47, 16 December 2006 (CST)
 * Dunno, but here's two words for you...Nolani Academy....>.> --Blastedt(Talk) 17:48, 16 December 2006 (CST)
 * Only when you gain exp. I ran my heroes through the first five Prophecies missions and (because I was Factions char) received no mission xp. Heroes didn't level up either. Entropy 23:41, 11 January 2007 (CST)
 * I stand corrected. Just did Chahbek Village last night with the same Canthan character. I got the message, "You are about to relive events in Istan prior to your arrival in Kamadan." so I figured no exp. Got Master's Reward, and guess what? One of my Heroes leveled up, and I got 3000xp + 3 skillpoints or whatever the Master's reward is. So I guess the rule only applies to Prophecies missions...?
 * Further tests - I'm going to go back to Shing Jea and redo Minister Cho's Estate, Masters. I know I won't gain xp, but I want to see if heroes do. 24.6.147.36 10:56, 14 January 2007 (CST)
 * BTW, the only way you'd be able to get all missions complete on nightfall is if you'd be able to do all the missions, so of course you'd get xp from a legitimate mission, kinda obvious -_-' --Relyk 03:55, 19 February 2007 (CST)
 * Not at all, Canthan chars (and I assume Elonian ones too) get no experience for completing Prophecies missions before Lions Arch (ie. Northern Wall to Gates of Kryta). RossMM 16:15, 27 February 2007 (CST)

Unspent Attribute Points
Koss, at least, screams at you if he has more than 15 unspent attribute points in a mission in Team Chat. Amusing as I farmed Charr in Nolani for him. >.> --Blastedt(Talk) 18:06, 16 December 2006 (CST)


 * Interesting. I had Koss, Tahlkora, and Dunkoro (in that order) as my heroes. All of them got around three or four levels (they were newb heroes >.>) and yet only Dunkoro complained about it. And he was the last one in the line, too. You'd think it'd go from first to last, but no... Armond
 * It appears to a random thing when you enter an instanced area. I've seen such reminders for my Koss and Dunkoro, but did not for my Melonni or Jin (despite an underspent Melonni being in the same party as an underspent Koss). -- Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 22:45, 17 December 2006 (CST)
 * I've had all three of them bug me when they had unspent points. I guess it is either random or...well, random. Heh. Also, they will poke you if you enter an explorable area with no skills equipped and/or no weapon equipped. Entropy 23:40, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Zoning
If you command your heros to zone, they go through, then reappear on top of you, then move into formation, sadly. They do not follow the flag again until you reset it. &mdash; Blastedt(Talk) 19:58, 22 December 2006 (CST)
 * Not exclusive, that happens to regular Henchmen as well. In The Dragon's Lair, though, you can actually send them through the portals ahead of you. >.> Entropy 04:22, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Hero Equipment Template
I don't know how useful anyone will find this, but since it is already created, might as well make it public.

User:Queen_Schmuck/Hero_Inv

I created a hero eq template, because, depending on the number of PvE charactors you have, keeping track of what hero needs what (weapons/insginias/runes) is likely to give you a headache. With this template, I can keep track of everything a hero has, including the pet. If I then find something that might come in handy for a hero, I can quickly look up the hero on the page and tell if any of them need it (say, a shiny new Ghail's Staff). At this time, the template is just a table with all heros built in.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to make this easier to use and wiki friendly (no javascripts, right?), I am very open to suggestions. The ideal change to the template would be to just click on a cell and enter the new information in. I am not a web dev, but I would assume this would take a script and a cookie, or at least some kind of server side code.

This is how I have set up a user page with my charactors and their heros. It is nowhere near completed. User:Queen_Schmuck/Hero_Inv

Use it freely if you want it, ignore it if you don't want it. Queen Schmuck 17:18, 26 December 2006 (CST)


 * This is a GREAT idea! Your idea of the clickable boxes might be doable with javascript, but you should ask someone more familiar with the wiki and javascript compatibility. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 17:24, 26 December 2006 (CST)


 * I changed the table a little, adding a customized option for the weapon, along with greying out the spots for elite armor for heroes unable to get it. I might have changed some other things too, not sure.  Check page history for details (all done in one big edit).  I was also thinking about seperating the Hero class as a different column, but it works as it is for now.  If requested, I can make that change too.  All in all, I am 80% happy with the table.  Editing it isn't as hard as I thought it would be, once you get over being cross-eyed from all the "|| " in there. LOL  Queen Schmuck 02:06, 27 December 2006 (CST)
 * Wow! That's a huge table... no... tableS... how much time did you spend on it? Heh, I remember when I was mucking around and learning about tables and templates. Wasted a couple of hours setting things up for my unlocks. Would you mind if I play around with it (I'll make a copy when I get around to it)? I'm thinking that setting up some templates would help alot. (Warning: Template amateur :P) -- Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 02:49, 27 December 2006 (CST)


 * Yeah, the table is huge. I just finished adding everything except for pets for my Emonk Ia charactor (and got many more minutes of drunk time in while doing it).  If you put something in the wrong cell, it is easy enough to preview the page, then move it back or forward to where it should be.  Play with it all you want. The only table that you need on that page is the last one, labeled "Template".  Tables are not that hard to get used to, even for a network admin like myself.  :P  The problem is filling them in (normally which scripts/programs do automagically).  It only took a few minutes to create the table itself, but I have updated it a few times now, so maybe 15 minutes total work on it.  By far, entering in the information takes the lion's share of the time spent on it.  Queen Schmuck 06:02, 27 December 2006 (CST)

Since the hero change (start with level 15s)
Anyone work with the heroes and the NF path you take since the levels boost (foreign chars)? Seems to be a lot of logistic problems with that IMO, like characters who already had the low level heroes but not progressed in the game further now slam into missions that well surpass those heroes in tow. But beyond that, the damage... I gave a new (foreign) character's level 15 Koss the better weapon and shield (you're handed better stuff) but he does absolutely pathetic damage when doing any at all. I plan to do some tests, I'm not sure what is going on, he took a very long time to kill the level 2s in the tactician quest, and other low level riff-raff =b --CKaz 16:19, 27 December 2006 (CST)


 * I don't know about the change in damage done. This might be because I quickly swap out the starter gear they get, or that all my heros were acquired before the 2006-12-20 update.  I did find it highly annoying that on my charactors that had not powerleveled the heros up yet, my low level heros are still low level.  Queen Schmuck 16:28, 27 December 2006 (CST)


 * Just for future readers, this bug was fixed in the January 11th, 2007 update. The weapons given by Kormir no longer deal 0 damage. Prior to the update, no matter your rank in the weapon's mastery, they would always deal 0 damage. However, attack skills still caused some damage due to the way the damage formula worked. Entropy 23:39, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Unlocked Armor
Quick question on this part since I haven't gotten to unlock any armor for my heroes yet. Does this unlock work for the entire account or just for that character? Like if my Necro unlocks a Koss armor, will it also be unlocked for my Monk? I figured probably not but might as well ask. --RabiesTurtle 23:50, 8 January 2007 (CST)
 * Since the proper term is upgrade rather than unlock, it's not account-wide. -- Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 00:22, 9 January 2007 (CST)
 * From the Hero page- "In addition to the default appearance, each hero has an additional armor style that can be unlocked." On top of that, most other things you get for your hero do call it Unlocked despite only being for the current character. Notice that you "unlock" each hero for each of your characters.  However, I am not asking for what the terms refer to though, I am asking for someone who has actually done it and what it did for them. --RabiesTurtle 00:34, 9 January 2007 (CST)
 * Oh, I thought they used the same terms, sry. It was "upgrade" on the individual hero pages. And I was saying that getting an upgrade is not an account-wide change, it's character-based. -- Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 00:48, 9 January 2007 (CST)
 * No problem, but I do know what you mean. What I am saying is I want confirmation based on testing and not just on which term is used. You might have seen it in another page or tested it yourself, but I basically just want someone to say Yes or No depending on an actual test --RabiesTurtle 01:05, 9 January 2007 (CST)
 * Umm... Yes, they're character-based. I thought I mentioned that in all my previous responses. :) And that's very much confirmed and tested. -- Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 02:03, 9 January 2007 (CST)
 * I second the confirmation the hero armor is character based, not for the entire account. And another thing, you need to get to the elite mission location just to change their armor.  So even when you "unlock" the upgraded armor for your current character's hero, you have to go back to the armor upgrade guy if you ever decide to change the hero armor back to normal (why?).  There isn't a button or switch on the hero screen to say "use this armor".  Queen Schmuck 04:18, 9 January 2007 (CST)
 * On a related note, if you apply a rune(/insignia) to a hero's armor, and then switch to a different style, does he/she retain the rune(/insignia) on the new style? - Lord Ehzed 08:42, 9 January 2007 (CST)
 * Yes, Runes and Insignia stay. Hero armor styles are just like dye in that aspect. You can change them as often as you like, it's just the looks that are changed, not actually a new set of armor. --84-175 (talk) 08:52, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Hero skill bar prioritization
"The hero AI prioritizes the left-most skills in their skill bar.." - has this been tested? How and where are the results from the tests?


 * Easy way to show it. Put both Heal Area and Karei's Healing Circle on a monk (dup skills).  From what I saw, the monk will use the left-most skill (say to heal minions), and rarely use the right-most one (Heal Area was to the left with Healing Circle just to the right when I tried it).  One thing I didn't try was to swap the skills left-to-right, so there is a possiblity that the AI prioritizes certain dup skills over others, but I do not believe that is the case.  Queen Schmuck 15:09, 9 January 2007 (CST)


 * I don't think you did enough testing. I took Dunkoro out with nothing but Heal Area and Karei's Healing Circle, and used Blood is Power to sac my health. Dunkoro showed no preference for one skill over the other. At first, it appeared that he was showing a preference for the leftmost skill (Heal Area), but then he used Healing Circle several times in a row. Reversing the order of the skills made no difference. I then took Dunkoro out with two different skills, one of which has a conditional bonus -- Orison of Healing and Word of Healing. Orison was the leftmost skill. On the first sac, he used Word of Healing, even though it was not the leftmost skill and he could not make use of the conditional bonus. He continued to use the skills in a seemingly random fashion to heal me at varous levels of health. I think this proves that the leftmost theory is just an illusion. -- bcstingg (talk • contribs) 11:49, 18 January 2007 (CST)


 * You're probably right about not enough testing, as I only did my above test for about 5 minutes. Here is a new test I did (nothing about left-right priority, but more to do with conditional skills. I have Dunkoro Orison of Healing, Words of Comfort, and Dwayna's Kiss (and in that order left to right).  I then went to the Isle of the Nameless.  When not fighting or getting attacked by the enemies with conditions, Dunkoro would only use Orison.  If I was fighting or getting attacked, he would only use Words of Comfort.  While hexed at the -1 regen Torch of Hexes, Dunkoro would only cast Orison to heal me, completely ignoring the fact that Dywana's Kiss would heal for more health (90 vs 67). Dunkoro would ouly heal my character when the health was down by 58 HP, which happened to be 10% (which is probably the health loss required to trigger AI healing). **  Interesting Note #1 ** I then changed the skills order right to left (Dywana's was left, Orison was right).  He used the skills the exact same manner as he did before, so order on skill bar had nothing to do with it. **  Interesting Note #2 ** After a few minutes of fighting the Student of Disease, Dunkoro started misbehaving.  Even though Words of Comfort was not recharging (hadn't been used for over 8 seconds), Dunkoro started using Dwayna's Kiss.  The only thing I had on my char was Disease, no hexes or enchantments.  A few minutes later, Dunkoro then started to randomly pick a spell to heal me with, with no pattern appearing.  This was with reversed order of the healing spells, with Dwayna's Kiss on the left.   BTW, I had Dunkoro flagged away from the allies with conditions. My conclusion now is that order on bar does not appear to make a difference, and that at least the monk hero AI isn't always smart about which conditional healing spell to use.  Queen Schmuck 18:16, 18 January 2007 (CST)


 * I did the same test using the hex torch, and noticed that Dunkoro would only use Orison. He also used it when I'd lost 10% health (44 HP for me), so I think you're right about that being a threshold. However, if I sacced my health below 10% using BiP, Dunkoro would usually, but not always, go for Dwayna's Kiss first. But what's interesting is that he also did this when I wasn't hexed or enchanted, even though Dwayna's Kiss heals for less in that case. Thus it seems they've programmed the AI to understand "Dwayna's Kiss usually heals for more", but it doesn't understand the conditions that need to be met. -- bcstingg (talk • contribs) 17:22, 19 January 2007 (CST)

I also tested this on my elementalist heroes Sousuke and Zhen - I gave them both the exact same water build; with the result that Sousuke used Aura of Restoration first and Water Attunement second (bad case) while Zhed used it the right way using Aura of Restoration to cover the fragile Water Attunement.....both had the same skills in the same order - its exasperating...-- 15:26, 2 May 2007 (CDT)

The article
At the moment this article is a real mess and is in need of a lot of work. Is there any rason to keep the parts directly copied from the official guide for example? I will improve the article part by part over time if no one else does. -- (talk) 03:07, 11 January 2007 (CST)

The order of W chars
I put Koss first, as he is the Warrior you get first. I didn't think about list being in alpha order. I didn't put Olias first in necro line, as you need Prophecies to get him, and I guess Master of Whipspers is also first in alpha order too. lol Queen Schmuck 22:38, 11 January 2007 (CST)
 * If (when) future campaigns include heroes, we need to rewrite a lot of this article, an dchanging them to abc order is easy to do then. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 22:49, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Healing Pets
"Hero monks will heal pets, which is annoying if they are needed for corpses." - ...duh? Why wouldn't someone with healing skills heal an ally? They heal minions and others that aren't even on the party menu as ally. Removed because it's both a pointless note and extremely biased. (I for one am HAPPY of such a thing. Lousy pet haters...) Capcom 05:24, 12 January 2007 (CST)
 * It deserved to be removed. :) --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 05:25, 12 January 2007 (CST)
 * No it did not. Reverted comment (without opinion). Altough it is good that hero monks heal beastmasters, and your NPCs (especially if they have to survive to  complete mission goal), healing minions is  a total waste of energy. In addition, if you are trying to run a B/P team (one of the most effective team build in PvE) healing the pets is not only useless but definitely harmful for the team (they ARE minion fodder!). --130.101.48.108 14:04, 5 February 2007 (CST)
 * B/P teams can be done even MORE effectively if you keep the pets alive. I hate when people think their only use is "minion fodder". As for the note being added back in, whatever, it's obvious as hell unless you've just never used an AI healer before, but I'm at least changing it so it doesn't say Monks. Monks don't have to heal and are not the only damn healers in the game, kthx. Capcom 18:03, 6 February 2007 (CST)
 * I actually went ahead and re-wrote it with more information as well. And I didn't know if this was worth putting since it's just what I've noticed, but I'm pretty sure I've only seen heroes use healing skills on allies not on the party list (IE minions) when they've had full energy. Capcom 18:16, 6 February 2007 (CST)

"Heroes will spam Comfort Animal when their pet gets attacked regardless of their attribute in Beast Mastery." - I've not experienced this at all, in fact they don't heal them enough! Telboy007
 * I have not noticed any prioritization, well, yeah, they dont heal minions too frequently but I am not sure about pets. I will look after this.

As for the B/P pet: the reason why pets are minion fodder is the following: - pets have the same armor and HP as a lvl 18 minion - pets have LESS damage than a lvl18 minion at low BM attrib. Since I did not find any reference on low BM pets, I counted myself: (I hope you do not decrease your own damage by putting much more than that into BM, and less into markmanship!!!) -pets can body block with ONE body, minions can body block with 1+x bodies, depending on how many times the pet dies. If this is not enough for you Capcom, go and check B/P threads on forums.--Vazze 12:02, 8 February 2007 (CST)
 * BM=3 pet: avrg dmg on lvl60 target: 10.8
 * BM=6 pet: avrg dmg on lvl60 target: 14.8
 * lvl18 bone: avrg dmg on lvl60 target: 27.5 (the minion master guide here on Gwiki is correct)
 * Level 20 pets have 80 armor and 420-540 health (depending on evolution), level 18 horrors have 72 armor and 440 health (and the degeneration). You're also assuming one uses really low Beast Mastery as far as attack strength goes; guess what, you don't have to do that. (Their attack also depends on their evolution, btw.) Just because something's popular doesn't make it "right" or better. Also note that the "popular" build choice on this Wiki places Beast Mastery at 9 even, not 3 or 6. I don't use Wilderness Survival, I have plenty of points to put into Beast Mastery. While minions might be able to block more than pets once you get enough of them, you're going to have at least 5 pets, not "ONE"... and how do you suggest blocking before getting minions? Oh yeah, the pets do that. I much prefer using pets and minions in tandem, rather than using one like crap you only need to create the other. Please don't try to assert yourself as being correct or better. Capcom 18:47, 8 February 2007 (CST)
 * This discussion doesn't need to take place here. To each his own. There's never only one way to do something, and subjective things like this simply won't produce one perfect strategy. -- Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 19:48, 8 February 2007 (CST)

see talk:Team - Barrage/Pet (Tomb Ruins) --Vazze 10:43, 9 February 2007 (CST)

Salvaging Heroes' Armor
I'm a little; okay I'm flat out hesitant to attempt to salvage my heroes' armor (I.E. to change the rune in their headpeice). If it gets destroyed... does it never come back? I don't think this is too widely tested, but perhaps new characters could be tested and deleted? ZellMurasame 01:18, 24 January 2007 (CST)


 * ...Well, it's about the fourth time it's been asked, but yea it's not actually on the page itself now that I check. >< Nope, you cannot destroy Hero armor. That means any Expert Salvage is 100% successful always, and you can't normal salvage. Good deal if you ask me. Entropy 01:33, 24 January 2007 (CST)


 * Thanks, and I just realized (as I was thinking of adding it to the page) that it is indeed there, right under the chart in the Armor section -_- ZellMurasame 07:02, 24 January 2007 (CST)
 * That's coz I added it after I answered you. :p Entropy 07:04, 24 January 2007 (CST)

Hero interupt reflexes
Was the speed at which heroes interrupt nerfed because it was too awesome? I used to have my power drain on nearly every hero not using a secondary, and it was almost always used within 5-10 seconds of its recharge. At the same time, I could force them to interrupt a spell and gain energy by forcing them to cast it. Now it seems it is never used at all, or only used on very slow spells (barely managed to interrupt Meteor Shower). At the same time, if you force them to cast power drain, they just cast it on the nearest enemy ignoring if or if not the enemy is actually casting a spell, basically wasting it 99% of the time. I have tried changing the mode from fight to guard and tried repositioning power drain nearly everywhere on the skill bar. Can anyone else confirm that the interruption isn't godlike anymore? The Meth 19:10, 6 February 2007 (CST)

Strange Exepctions
I have been doing the Vizunah Square mission with team including me with 3 heroes and players, which one have another Hero. The player with one hero disconnected quickly, so his hero was listening to leader now. At the end of mission all of party should die at cutscene. So I died, rest real players died, my 3 heroes died, Flesh Golem survived and... Hero of that disconnected player survived as well! It1s kinda strange... Looks like heroes w/o masters aren`t treated like common henchies by game. --DragonLord 15:46, 7 February 2007 (CST)
 * I think that the cut scene death is triggered for players and player death triggers the hero death. Wont affect anything else. Cutscenes just have a lot of bugs. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 16:33, 8 February 2007 (CST)

Table Note #3
Note #3 (Olias and Zenmai can be gained by non-Nightfall characters even before travelling to Elona for the first time.) does not apply/is incorrect after the Feb 14th update.


 * Replaced the "Gain Olias" and "Gain Zenmai" Hero quests. The new quests "All for One, and One for Justice" and "Chasing Zenmai" are now received in the Consulate Docks in Guild Wars Nightfall. Those who have already completed these quests will be unable to take the new versions.

Both these new quests require you to travel to Elona.

Gorfax Silverdale 15:45, 15 February 2007 (CST)

Gaile: getting rid of hero pets happening no time soon
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2569646&postcount=3 &mdash; Skuld 07:02, 22 February 2007 (CST)


 * Good, we wouldn't want the game to work. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.184.249.239 (contribs).
 * Are you actually bitter and resentful just because of something as trivial as not being able to change your hero's pets? -- Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 20:34, 18 March 2007 (CDT)

It's supposed to be a part of the game (assumedly) and they dropped the ball. Yes, I expect my games to work, especially with an easy patching system. Btw, I'm not the OP. DavimusK 02:56, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

Duplicates
What happens if four party members bring the same hero? Do the second and third copies have other generic names? Do they have the same generic names with numbers after them? Do they have the same generic names without any way to distinguish them? -- Gordon Ecker 19:21, 27 February 2007 (CST)
 * If you will not try, then you will never know!! :p Foo 21:37, 27 February 2007 (CST)
 * I've thought about this earlier, but I just supposed someone has allrady tested it. Well, I'll go in game and ask for two random nice players to accompany me for a minute. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 05:38, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * Two nice fellas joined me with their Dunkoros and we went to the Command Post where there is also one Dunkoro. All of our partys Dunkoros called 'Sunspear Monk'. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 06:09, 28 February 2007 (CST)
 * Thanks. -- Gordon Ecker 20:25, 28 February 2007 (CST)

Hero profession AI
For the heroes that have the same professions (Koss/Goren, Sousuke/Zhed, Jin/Margrid, MoW/Olias, Dunkoro/Tahlkora), do they behave the same? Like, if you save Sousuke's build and load it (and perhaps his weapon) on Zhed, do you get essentially a "duplicate" or is the AI different for each hero? I've seen unsupported evidence of this (like someone will say "Hero X is better for Y than Z"), but I've never tested it. If they're different, it'd be nice to know who makes the better MM, fire ele, healer, etc. And if not, it'd be nice to know that, too. -- Peej 07:54, 16 March 2007 (CDT)
 * I'd even bet that if you set up, lets say, a Mo/E and an E/Mo with the same hp, energy, bar and attributes, they'll act the same. should be no difference. Foo 09:04, 16 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Actually the AI seems to know the profession, though I don't have anything to back up my claim, it's just a feeling. Atleast the game AI acts in a certain way against characters of certain professions, but I'm pretty sure it also acts differently based on it's own profession, not only the skills. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 17:18, 16 March 2007 (CDT)
 * I bet that the game's AI acts in a certain way against a certain skill bar... and so on. Foo 17:52, 16 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Bets, feelings...got any ideas for how to test any of this? Setting up Dunkoro and Tahlkora exactly the same (attribs, skills, runes, and weapons) and taking them out one at a time with a necro, you could sacrifice health and see if they always use the same skill to start healing you, see how long it takes before they start to heal you, etc., maybe. Or take any of the two matched pairings out (1 at a time) into the same area and count exactly how many times they use each of their skills until you have enough data to see if they look approximately the same (I'm sure they differ somewhat based on randomness and enemy spawns, etc, but theoretically the data would converge on some sort of "favored" skills. I know Jin's talk page has the suggestion she is more "aggressive" than Margrid, but again it's a "feeling".... -- Peej 18:12, 16 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Just make perfectly sure you are giving them the same conditions, and if you see a difference, verify it by testing it more then a few times. Foo 18:53, 16 March 2007 (CDT)

How do you know the actuall age of some heroes is it by looks and a guess or what? - Chrisworld 00:12, 24 March 2007 (CDT)


 * I think it's in the manual. -- Gordon Ecker 01:00, 24 March 2007 (CDT)
 * If you're referring the age listed in the "Lore" sections for each hero, just click on the quoted official website link. -- Ab.Er.Rant (msg Aberrant80) 01:48, 24 March 2007 (CDT)


 * Anyone else noticed that the ranger heroes all follow a target for a long time if you call it? Jin and Margrid always follow a target if I call it, then move away. Anyone else noticed? --Frvwfr2 14:58, 26 March 2007 (CDT)
 * The ranger heroes act weirdly imho. I've set them up as touchers and they d´jsut don't want to change their target even if I call a new one and lock them to the new target. They jut keep touching the old target. Such a pain. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 15:27, 26 March 2007 (CDT)
 * I've noticed that Margrid and Jin are quite aggressive, even when on guard duty. I nearly have to flag them to back of aggro circle behind my group if I pre-call a target at edge of radar in front of me.  The caster heroes are not that aggresive (while on guard), and the Ranger heroes do not have long/flatbows (usually recurve/composite).  I've also seen other allaince members with same aggressive ranger behavior.  Maybe I should quit whipping them and start using constructive criticism, seems to be making them mean...  Queen Schmuck 18:30, 26 March 2007 (CDT)
 * possibly because even the shortest range bow reaches just beyond the range of a wand, and the rangers are, therefore, within attack range when you call --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 21:04, 26 March 2007 (CDT)
 * I'll have to check if Zenmai equiped with a bow does the same. I've never noticed this behavior from her, but I also don't use her much.  Queen Schmuck 21:47, 26 March 2007 (CDT)
 * Zenmai does the same when equiped with a bow, so the AI must "guard" the area within the range of their flag, plus the range of their weapon. Koss will keep running back and forth from flag to the foe, never attacking, but ranged weapon equiped heroes will plug away at the foe.  Queen Schmuck 15:23, 4 April 2007 (CDT)

Elite Skill Caps
Do heroes gain XP whenever you cap an elite skill? I had 3 non-20 heroes with me, and none of them leveled up, but it put me half way to my next skill point, and gave me another. Anyone seen their heroes get XP from caps? --Frvwfr2 20:07, 26 March 2007 (CDT)


 * Heroes don't gain any XP from your skillcaps. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 20:15, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

Hero target lock and buff/heal skills
So I know you can lock a hero on to a target with the target lock button (missed reading about that on the article page can soemone point that out to me?) and I was wondering if you can lock a healer/buffer on to a friendly as well (would be very helpful to lock my monk onto a NPC that must live)? Can you force your heroes to use a skill like Splinter Weapon on you or on themselves? I tried this last example and they kept placing it on the monk hero which was useless. Help! --  Vallen Frostweaver  11:40, 4 April 2007 (CDT)
 * You can't force a hero to only use skills on an ally, as you can't lock target on ally, only foes. You can force them to use skills one at a time on an ally.  To do this, click on the ally, then click on the skill you want them to use.  Queen Schmuck 15:23, 4 April 2007 (CDT)

Unlocked Skills
I've been wondering. I have a character which i want to delete, but it has unlocked quite a few elites and other skills. Will the heroes of my other characters still be able to use those unlocked skills, or will they be locked again? Maybe a stupid question, but i couldn't find the answer anywhere around here. &#91;Dreadly] 03:44, 9 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Unlocks are per account. -- Gordon Ecker 04:05, 9 April 2007 (CDT)
 * So, once unlocked, it stays unlocked on the account and is thus available for heroes? &#91;Dreadly] 10:46, 9 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Yes, deleting a character will have no effect on what you have unlocked. RossMM 10:55, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

Hero AI, and Hero Builds That Work
The whole issue of Builds is up in the air at the moment, I know. But at some point, the dust will settle and (being a hopeful person by nature) I'm sure that we'll end up with a substantially more useful build databank --- a wonderful resource!

Hero builds have an added complication, namely the double whammy that (i) the effectiveness of a hero build is at the mercy of hero AI, which presumably is being tweeked by Anet all the time, and (ii) at the current state of hero AI, heroes really have little to no clue what they're doing, as their skill activation is close enough to random to be considered effectively random. Most of what we see as their "logic" is actually a necessary constraint created by the skills we configure, and not an understanding of their profession.

This creates a huge disconnect between builds that work for human players and builds that work for heroes --- the correlation between the two is partial or minimal at best. You can see that by controlling a hero manually (all skills disabled), which in many cases can produce a dramatic many-fold improvement in performance. Indeed, hero AI is so poor that sometimes you seem them just crouching in battle mode and doing almost nothing, despite having full health and energy bars and no hexes. Really poor.

What this means is that the set of good hero builds is very different to, and much smaller than, the set of good human player builds. We tend to be able to recover from a bad config as soon as we realize what we've done, but heroes have no such insight. This raises the bar on "validated" hero builds a lot. By the standards of current hero AI, the vast majority of "validated builds" for human players are completely unusable. :-)

So, in summary, I would like to see a link off this Heroes page to a dedicated Hero Builds page, with very tight validation standards, greatly exceeding those for human builds. While this will have to await the new discussion on Builds in general, it has its own very particular requirements, and given the huge importance of heroes in GW now, it should not be ignored. Morgaine 19:55, 16 April 2007 (GMT)
 * We could possible benefit more from a Hero AI usage section in each skill page, just a note saying how heroes use the skill, from that we could extrapolate which builds would work. I usually give my heroes very simple (which does not mean ineffective) builds, their simple AI does not get bored, Barraging or Searing Flames is very effective but too boring for me to play (mashing one key), the AI uses builds around these (direct|simple) skills very well. --Heurist 16:27, 16 April 2007 (CDT)


 * --- No Heurist, this is the exact opposite of what's required for heroes!


 * The problem is that if you add individual notes to skills pages, then that will work for human builds but not for heroes at all, because unlike humans they don't have the insight to use a specific skill only at a time when it makes sense, whereas humans do. What this means is that a working hero build has to be considered from the top down in design, not from the bottom up --- ie. not starting from an individual skills page, because it's the time-relationship and interaction among the 8 skills that matters.


 * The only time that a human build works well for a hero is when either all the skills do roughly the same thing (eg. healing skills), or when long recast times provide a constraint to force heroes not to do senseless things. In almost all other circumstances they either end up with an empty energy bar, or else just cast skills at random, so you end up with an average result.  An average result is not the mark of a "good build", but the mark of an "average build".


 * This is why hero builds are in a somewhat different category to human ones. We can "grasp the idea" behind what's intended in a build, and cast the right things at the right time to give it a chance of working.  Heroes can't do that (at the current state of their AI).  And that's why hero builds need to be considered as an entity in their own right, based on a design that pretty much forces them to work correctly on the basis of individual skill constraints.


 * This is very much not a "bottom up" design issue at all. Just the opposite.  Morgaine 21:58, 16 April 2007 (GMT)


 * How will notes in skill pages about how hero AI handles skills not work for heroes? Whether Monk heroes use Blessed Light or Contemplation of Purity for healing, condition and hex removal or both is useful information, as is the trigger condition for AI activation of Blood Ritual. -- Gordon Ecker 20:26, 16 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I agree, a simple note or an icon in 3 varieties (red, orange, green), together with a note if not green, would be the best way to tag skills for hero usage. For example, heroes know how to use Signet of Lost Souls correctly, so this skill would get a green icon. BiP, on the other hand, is almost never used by heroes, so it would get an orange or red icon with a note explaining why. --[[Image:Roland_icon.png]]Roland of Gilead (talk) 05:09, 2 May 2007 (CDT)

Rewrite?
Most of this article is still just copied and pasted from GW.com. If we can't come up with our own text, I'd rather have nothing (having text copied wholesale is dubious legality at best, anyway). --Fyren 20:02, 26 April 2007 (CDT)
 * I've been planning on rewriting this for a long time, but haven't gotten around to do it. I'll try to take the time sometime soon if no one else does it first. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (gem / talk) 01:21, 27 April 2007 (CDT)

Renameable?
Any way to rename your heroes? That would be so neat, if not, feature request to ANet :D? --Phoenixfire2001 07:14, 28 April 2007 (CDT)
 * Not possible. Feel free to request it, but I don't see it coming. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (gem / talk) 11:15, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Annoying behaviour with Arcane Mimicry
If I let a Hero use Mimicry (which is disabled in the skill bar) to copy a maintained Elite enchantment, cast it, and Mimicry wears off, then the hero will treat that enchantment as if its skill slot was not disabled, i.e. it will cancel the enchantment at will. That means, it will cancel Life Barrier and Healer's Covenant immediately but not Healer's Boon. Either the Hero AI needs a change WRT maintained enchants or players need more fine-grained control over hero skill usage. --Roland of Gilead (talk) 04:57, 2 May 2007 (CDT)

skill trainers
proof, in order, that skill trainers always train the player: --Honorable Sarah 16:09, 5 May 2007 (CDT)