Any tips on making hirelings more reliable?

[Amorais]

After dying yet again due to my hire inexplicably stopping healing me - in an explorer area no less - I was wondering, anyone got any tips to make hirelings more reliable? So you can at least put a miniscule amount of trust in them?

I find if they are on attack mode they tend to heal you. Any other mode and they may possibly sometimes heal you...if they are feeling that way out.

 

[rabidfox]

Follow the basic rules of healing hires:
Once AoE damage hires become available, only use them (so at the least, they do decent damage before they die).
Never use hires that have mass cure/mass heal (they cast too slow).
If the Cleric/FvS hire at your current level doesn't follow the above rules then use a lower level hire that does.

Park them and use them just for the raises/heals if they're dying too fast.

 

[seph1roth5]

Hireling (and pet and summon) ai is awful. They charge up and melee with you, throw out nimbus/searing light when you need heals, and will stand in lava healing themselves and chugging sp pots until they die. Your best bet is to keep them on passive/park, and only summon them to you to heal you between fights. If you get in a lot of trouble you can summon them to you and hope you keep aggro long enough to get a heal.

 

[saekee]

You died in an explorer?

honestly there is no good solution. Just assume they will fail and, should they succeed, you got lucky. Low expectations leads to customer satisfaction.

Remember that when they teleport to you, there is a timer countdown on their heals so that will prevent them healing you. Players move very fast now with so many enhancements that it might cause some catchup lagging.

Outiside of HC I use healers as summon to me--heal--put in place.

 

[DBZ]

Larafay only one worth using not big on heals but i do love cometfalls to the face

 

[rabidfox]

Larafay only one worth using not big on heals but i do love cometfalls to the face

There's a bunch beyond her that are quite good.

These are all pretty solid for both killing and healing.

 

[DBZ]

She can instakill sharn trash in reaper thats better then most pugs

 

[vryxnr]

Sometimes Hireling bug out and become unresponsive or act strangely (like after being told to attack, the run up to the enemy, then run back to you and stare at you)

When I use hires (I try not to, so I don't become dependant on them), and this happens, the first thing I do is toggle them to defensive then to offensive again. Most of the time this makes them act normally again, at least for a short while.

If that doesn't work, I summon them to me (even if they are already on me). This teleports them ontop of you, and doing this will usually fix them as well. Sometimes a teleport to you command followed by a defensive-offensive toggle will be needed to fix this.

99.99% of the time this will fix their buggy behavior, at least for a few seconds.

 

[badmofo]

when i complained once about the hires many people responded you have to learn to ( micro manage them )

 

[Fhrek]

One tip a saw somewhere (don't remember) is to constantly change their behavior to active/passive to avoid them to get unresponsive.

 

[Amorais]

You died in an explorer?

Yep...Griffons in Stormhorns, although I was only 24 at the time and the area is 27. I got literally torn to pieces and they would not deaggro, no matter how far I ran....

 

[Mary]

sometimes turning them from active to passive to active or active to guard to active wakes them up.

Also, if you are using a healer, some are coded more like caster DPS and others like Melee DPS - always better to use a cleric/fvs that is coded as a caster DPS - example Larafey is way better than her fellows. There are many; this goes too for other hirelings, such as dps help. It is always better to use a paladin, say, than a fighter, because the paladin has layhands and will use them on you like a cleric. If you are a warforged you can benefit from the sharn lvl 15 comp who casts reconstruct, and its a gold seal.

Another tip, while the hirelings do not scale, sometimes using a lower level hire is better than using one at lvl. Example is, rather than using Wyoh at lvl 20, larafey is still solid. Into epics you can still use larafey she will just have a lot less hitpoints. All of the epic clerics and favored souls seem to be coded as melee dps unfortunately so they are all dumb as rocks and will wade in swinging rather than heal, but there's a good lvl 20 paladin who has a solid layhands, etc.

 

[Baconator]

I use hirelings all the time from lvl 2 up to epics (reliably)*.

Hires that come from starter packs & expansions appear to have better? ai.
I NEVER use a cleric (except lvl 3 Elieri for DV's) . They get buggy on protect, passive & attack. They have a tendancy to break from where you park them.
Favored Soul are good on attack mode, but use SP way too fast, Heals are decent sometimes very slow though.
Best overall hireling lvl 2-24 Bard. Leave them on defend, you'll be healed and get decent crowd control.
After lvl 10 they raise you. Great at sp management. Only one I've ever had a problem with is Lvl 11 Beguile. He get's crate madness when parked, runs out, smahes and returns.
Lvl 24 & above, most hires don't (or can't) perform well. Again, Bard seems to work well, DC's lack on higher difficulties like most 25 & up. (like ALL hirelings)
Casters are good if used right, (park & hide them asap, (except reaper, ((spawns)).
Put on attack & summon to you, cast aoe, or put on passive to control it's hot bar.

 

[Sholekar]

TL;DR hotkey the heal and keep them on passive.

The best I have experienced is to hotkey the main abilities my hire has and get accustomed to self targeting and telling them to heal me during combat, keeping them on passive or protect (me or an ally). While this never makes them truly reliable, I am able to get healed when I want / need even in a fight. It also tends to keep the hires off of aggro since they do little else and so, barring enemy AoE, my hire stays alive.

 

[seph1roth5]

Hirelings really need coding like dungeon helper's auto-follow, where you can tell them to stay 10ft away. Or maybe it can be worked up to have them charge 20ft ahead if you see an enemy or something.

 

[Careall]

After about level 10 or so, hires, pets, and summons start to lose their general usefulness but often retain some specific useful purpose (trap detonators, meat shields, lever pullers, and so on). Choose hires after level 10 that fill a niche other than combat healing. As a general rule, the further over level 10 a quest is, the less likely a hire is going to be able to save you. I usually pull clerics with Divine Vitality as mana batteries to be parked until needed, if I bother at all. Some hires can deal a lot of DPS but also run out of mana quickly. Others have nifty abilities that are worth checking out.

 

[GrayJedi AntiProPaladin]

I mean...
it almost feels like hirelings are bad AI bcuz it might encourage actually partying with real players in a group for adventures....ya'kno like old school D&D or something....

 

[GrayJedi AntiProPaladin]

oh what the... just realized this thread is in the HardCore subsection....LOLz wellllllp, next hardcore then.... heh