Why won't my level 20 cleric hireling heal themselves in battle?

[My2Cents]

You would think by the time they got to level 20 they would learn to keep their HP up in battle.

My level 20 cleric hireling is useless, he keeps dying in any halfway tough encounter.

Sure, I could place him somewhere at some range from each encounter...ibut I shoudln't have to do that each time. Cleric hirelings should at least be smart enough to try to keep themselves alive.

This has been happening for a very long time across many updates, and it seems the level 20 cleric Wyoh is especially vulnerable.

Without the ability to even TRY to stay alive, they're nearly worthless.

/rant off

[somenewnoob]

I loved when the devs said that they saw the hirelings working very well.

Tell that to my poor computer monitor who gets covered in spittle and yelled at when i'm screaming "HEAL ME!! HEAL YOU!! HEAL ME!"

[My2Cents]

Ok so I bought me a Favored Soul to come along...

Next encounter Cleric bought it ASAP and FVS and I lasted a long time before wipe.

I wanted to see what killed the cleric hireling but apparently only my damage was listed in the combat log? Did I miss a combat log setting for either who to show or how long to show?

I don't mind wasting the 40 TP this one time on the FVS because the Cleric was nonfunctional, but I remember thiws happening awhile back and my giving up on many healer hirelings back then, and I think I won't be spending TP on high level healer hirelings again for awhile. Clerics don't self heal and FVS' burn through their spell points.

What I need is the ability to have more than one in-game vendor hireling so I can take an FVS to res my cleric hireling when needed. Perhaps some favor unlock of store-bought option to have more than one vendor-bought hirelings in game?

[PNellesen]

I loved when the devs said that they saw the hirelings working very well.

In fairness - I imagine the AI code for hirelings is "somewhat" complex. To be honest I'm impressed that it works as well as it does (heck, there's actual PLAYER clerics that can't heal themselves in battle half the time )

[somenewnoob]

In fairness - I imagine the AI code for hirelings is "somewhat" complex. To be honest I'm impressed that it works as well as it does (heck, there's actual PLAYER clerics that can't heal themselves in battle half the time )

lol true!

I just imagine if I was sitting down with a cleric hire asking him why he would say.......but Noob........we're all BATTLE CLERICS!

[danotmano1998]

>.<

See my signature..
That's really all that needs to be said.

[Ashlayna]

>.<

See my signature..
That's really all that needs to be said.

I was in that convo with the dev when that was posted.

On a more serious note, regarding your sig, when do I get my castle, so I don't have to leave it w/out the stuff in your guide???

[justagame]

It's probably just as well, because judging from other threads, healing himself while in battle would be OP...

[Arnhelm]

Cleric hirelings I've used above level 10 seem to be mostly useless. They will get into a situation where they're taking damage, scream "Someone should heal me now", then die.

They're clerics. They're supposed to be able to heal themselves, not stand idly by while they and I die in a simple combat situation.

*sigh*

So much for wasting plat on hirelings after level 10. ...and I won't, absolutely won't, waste TP on hirelings at any level.

[Ganolyn]

I'm no programmer, but it seems like a simple thing to make a priority list whn it comes to healing for AI:

Priority 1: Heal yourself when at 50% health or lower (this doesn't mean chugging pots unecessarily like an alcoholic)

Priority 2: Heal party member with the least HP if not yourself

Priority 3: Then heal party member with the next lowest HP (and so on down the line)

Priority 4: Do not heal summoned creatures unless manually told to do so

Priority 5: Never heal charmed creatures

Priorities 1-3 shoud be able to be overridden with a manual command from the employer. Sometimes you might want a certain person healed before another.

[MrkGrismer]

I am almost certain they have 0 points in Concentration. I wish they had the same ability as the mobs to cast spells without concentration checks.

[Bonulino]

I use the Cleric hireling Wyoh a lot,and she is a cranky sort. I have developed some techniques to protect her from herself, which then leaves her more time to throw heals my way. There are times when I just have to set her on passive and tell her not to move from a spot to keep her from running into the next room and aggro-ing a large mob of monsters, which I then have to kill to keep her from dieing. And, I also have to keep an eye on her HP, because she frequently forgets that she was hired to heal, herself as well as me.

[FuzzyDuck81]

IMO a major part of it is not having quicken.. so they try to cast but get it disrupted & appear to be doing nothing.

The level 20 favoured soul isn't too bad though, and at least it appears that he has the 10/whatever dr capstone which helps to boost his survivability.

[AMDarkwolf]

In fairness - I imagine the AI code for hirelings is "somewhat" complex. To be honest I'm impressed that it works as well as it does (heck, there's actual PLAYER clerics that can't heal themselves in battle half the time )

Except YEARS AND YEARS ago, guys wrote 'bots' for doom, which dodged, fought smart, used items to keep health up, and basically had some self preservation going on. And these 'bots' were liek 200-300 kb in code(if that)

So whats the issue here?

[Jsbeer]

Um, what about just giving the higher level healers the Quicken Feat and having it turned on for all healing spells. 10 extra SP for a guaranteed heal/mass heal is a trade off that everyone I know would make in a heartbeat.....

[silvermesh]

I'm no programmer, but it seems like a simple thing to make a priority list whn it comes to healing for AI:

Priority 1: Heal yourself when at 50% health or lower (this doesn't mean chugging pots unecessarily like an alcoholic)

Priority 2: Heal party member with the least HP if not yourself

Priority 3: Then heal party member with the next lowest HP (and so on down the line)

Priority 4: Do not heal summoned creatures unless manually told to do so

Priority 5: Never heal charmed creatures

Priorities 1-3 shoud be able to be overridden with a manual command from the employer. Sometimes you might want a certain person healed before another.

The funny part about this is all they would have to do is flip their current list upsidedown to get this result.

[luvirini]

But.. if they healed people properly they would not have time to do more important things like:
-Stand in traps and take damage
-Run into middle of a enemy groups and hit with their mace for 5 hp of damage.
-Jump into nearest pool of lava
-Heal charmed creatures at highest priority
-When someone is at 50 hp out of 800 left cast a cure for 30 hp.
-Stand still and do nothing
-Cast that light spell for 30 damage
-Say "Will do" and not do anything
-Die for no reason

[Lifespawn]

there is Zero reason for hirelings to not have quicken

[Psiandron]

Why won't my level 20 cleric hireling heal themselves in battle?

Well, generally these things go back to childhood; perhaps an abusive parent or being overshadowed by friends or a sibling. These sorts of things lead to a lack of selfworth and can lead, if not properly treated, to the individual allowing life to overcome them or even, in extreme cases to suicide later in life.

[oweieie]

there is Zero reason for hirelings to not have quicken

I don't usually take it until my last possible feat. It's mostly a waste of SP until high level where you can get hit hard enough to be able to fail a concentration check.

Anyway, yeah, seen hirelings stand around a lot, they seem to click back into sanity after you give them an order. Artificer pets on the other hand seem to go off into their own little world and will move to mobs to attack but then just stand there doing nothing. You have to unsummon them (by adding your health bar to party then finding the magical spot in the sp portion of it that will activate the menu when you click it, because clicking your main health bar and using the dismiss pet there does nothing still), then resummon them to get their little brains to reboot and act properly. This of course blows away all the ship buffs you gave them, as does logging out or getting DCed or the frequent game crashes, making one wonder why pets don't simply get the same ship buffs the master has.