Roflstomp army of hires on HC

[rabidfox]

The state of hires on difficulties one runs on live servers is highly limited, many perform very poorly. But on HC this season (for giggles and since my VIP had expired), I ran a ton of quests (searching every corner for dragon hoards) on normal difficulty (as hard/elite/r+ are locked away initally on non-VIP). I ended up breaking out a gold seal ROFLstomp army to crush any mobs around me (used frogo, muse, teal, shield guardian, and 1 level appropriate non-gold hire). I was amused that frogo kept performing well up until close to heroic cap (at which point he began dying a lot and I stopped using him). The 4 hires below were used in early epics when gathering the final 2 hoard pieces; suprisingly the lvl 5 muse still did decently in early epics on normal without dying.

I still want hires that scale and function well in elite/low skulls, but it was fun to see them shine on easy mode settings even when the quest level range was way above their level.

 

[axel15810]

Yeah we've been running on Hard most of the way in my group for safety on HC and it's been interesting seeing the hires like Teal actually do something. That said I'm in the camp that think it's OK for hires to be underwhelming in elite and especially reaper.

 

[rabidfox]

That said I'm in the camp that think it's OK for hires to be underwhelming in elite and especially reaper.

I find the dichotomy of gold seal hires interesting; those who play a bunch and are likely to toss down the money for all gold seals are likely also the same people who'll be running difficulties where they underperform. When/if they add leadership stuff, it would be nice if it applied to hires too. A minion master universal tree could also add AP cost/reward ratio for making summons/hires viable in harder stuff.

 

[jwel]

The hire army is still helpful in elite/reaper as mean shields if you play ranged or a caster. They are also good for setting off traps lol.

 

[Mokune]

Especially nice for creating wall o' hirelings to block doorways and circle/arc of hirelings to kite mobs around. Works great providing you get and keep aggro.

 

[The Narc]

Especially nice for creating wall o' hirelings to block doorways and circle/arc of hirelings to kite mobs around. Works great providing you get and keep aggro.

Even if you do this or the door block method, which in some cases the mobs switch agro because their path ia blocked, either way the mobs damage to you is delayed and you may go on a slaughter fest of the devs mobs. The devs continue to adjust and tweak the mobs behaviour to try and find a way around this, i think it only leads to more calculations and more lag!!

 

[rish57]

Fodder is good...I really like Teal, seems to live the longest...I use that scarecrow at level 10 or whatever, and sometimes "he" does great, and other times he dies quickly...more than anything I look forward to bringing out the owlbear at level 15 or whatever it is, seems to be more aggressive than most other hire fodder...

 

[Equatis]

I've often wondered why hires don't have the same AI as mobs, or at least in most cases it seems they aren't as well programed as mobs...

 

[PaleFox]

The hire army is still helpful in elite/reaper as mean shields if you play ranged or a caster. They are also good for setting off traps lol.

Exactly this, at the very least they are a distraction / agro magnets and thus enhance your character's chance of survival.
Especially so when you set em on "Active/attack/engage" mode.

 

[Misadventure]

Fodder is good...I really like Teal, seems to live the longest...I use that scarecrow at level 10 or whatever, and sometimes "he" does great, and other times he dies quickly...more than anything I look forward to bringing out the owlbear at level 15 or whatever it is, seems to be more aggressive than most other hire fodder...

Scarecrow is so slow, he cant catch up with you.

Shield guardian just punch mobs, also I need to keep refreshing his buffs, do it yourself!

Frogo sometimes start daydreaming when you want him to open locks or disable traps.

 

[eshadowbringer]

And since xp is not really an issue pulling the owlbear at 15 and the lion at 18 doesn't bother me .. I'm already capped on xp!

But, yeah hires in my static duo have a rough time of it! Glad there is not a hirling union!

 

[PaleFox]

Scarecrow is so slow, he cant catch up with you.

Shield guardian just punch mobs, also I need to keep refreshing his buffs, do it yourself!

Frogo sometimes start daydreaming when you want him to open locks or disable traps.

I do wonder what the intentional design thoughts were behind both the shield guardian and the scarecrow.
I get that their capabilities would somehow be limited because they both are animated, well thematically I would get it I guess.
Still, would be nice if they cycle through their programs a bit faster.
(Without a system wide update to all animated stuff plz, lol.)

 

[Br4d]

Teal has been a star in HC Elite for me. Everybody else has been meh except for whomever the Cleric with Divinity is.

 

[rish57]

Scarecrow is so slow, he cant catch up with you.

Shield guardian just punch mobs, also I need to keep refreshing his buffs, do it yourself!

Frogo sometimes start daydreaming when you want him to open locks or disable traps.

Lol, that is so accurate...I love using Frogo at low levels but it's really hard to keep my composure sometimes getting him to actually disable a trap when he's standing right in front of it...and you are totally right, the scarecrow is REALLY slow...those owlbears though, as fast af and are aggressive, but at that level range I usually forget that I have them. :(

 

[mbartol]

I do wonder what the intentional design thoughts were behind both the shield guardian and the scarecrow.
I get that their capabilities would somehow be limited because they both are animated, well thematically I would get it I guess.
Still, would be nice if they cycle through their programs a bit faster.
(Without a system wide update to all animated stuff plz, lol.)

Imagine if the version we summon functioned like the mobs spawned in the quests.

Imagine also if they scaled based on difficulty being run the same way mobs do.

 

[mbartol]

And since xp is not really an issue pulling the owlbear at 15 and the lion at 18 doesn't bother me .. I'm already capped on xp!

But, yeah hires in my static duo have a rough time of it! Glad there is not a hirling union!

I didn’t think about pulling them out below level.

Does the contact drop into your inventory when you reach the appropriate min level? My white lion didn’t appear at character creation, and I’m only level 7 so far.

 

[eshadowbringer]

The alabaster lioness does not drop on hardcore server i guess. some are saying it will appear when you x-fer to home server.
thoe onyx one does though at least it did for me.

 

[mbartol]

That’s unfortunate. I started playing after update 19–too late to get the onyx panther and the owlbear. All of the mules I transferred off always received the lion after getting to Ghallanda. I’ve only ever run one character to 20 on hardcore, and didn’t remember if the lion dropped at 18.

 

[Misadventure]

I do wonder what the intentional design thoughts were behind both the shield guardian and the scarecrow.
I get that their capabilities would somehow be limited because they both are animated, well thematically I would get it I guess.
Still, would be nice if they cycle through their programs a bit faster.
(Without a system wide update to all animated stuff plz, lol.)

Just copy paste the script they use for mobs.

 

[rish57]

That’s unfortunate. I started playing after update 19–too late to get the onyx panther and the owlbear. All of the mules I transferred off always received the lion after getting to Ghallanda. I’ve only ever run one character to 20 on hardcore, and didn’t remember if the lion dropped at 18.

I'm honestly surprised that they haven't re-offered the packs associated with those since many people would endulge...even at that time some of those packages I spend like over $100 on, and honestly as much as I solo stuff a lot of those hires come in handy...anyway, I'm sure they will re-release all those at some point for yet another cash grab, probably right before they sell the rights of the company off to someone else.