Easy Solo Tower Lord with Pet now fixed?

[ManiacMika.9851]

It seems that Tower Lords AI has been updated. But I can't find any proof.

Previously,

• If you have a pet and you have more Toughness, then the Lord will focus you.
• Lord has 2 attacks for melee (heavy cc) and 2 attacks for range (power and bleeding). https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Champion_Tower_Lord#Combat_abilities
• Since I'm the focus and I'm not in melee, she will only use range attacks with no CC.
• Those projectiles will hit another target than the focus (my Flesh Wurm) and their damage will be reduced by (90%) 95%, which are also quickly healed.
• This allowed to easily solo towers as a necro with only 1 utility skill required. Same applies to ranger's pet. Or any other class like element golems.

Now,

• As I cast my Flesh Wurm on top of the Lord, she will start using her Jump Shot, that will bump it away and kill it.
• If Flesh Wurm is not in her melee range, she will target it anyway, regardless of my toughness.

 

Maybe I messed it up today, but I did attempt the solo 3x with different builds and failed each time, while it was a piece of cake previously.
Does anyone else solo tower here and realized the same?
EDIT: Turns out, that I had only half my stats with toughness, and I indeed messed up. I hope you still learned something about solo tower.

 

I can't find back where I read the information about NPC/pet focus and their damage reduction. Could anyone link a wiki article of it?
EDIT: See two posts below

Edited November 7, 2022 by ManiacMika.9851
Answering my own questions

[Sahne.6950]

28 minutes ago, ManiacMika.9851 said:

It seems that Tower Lords AI has been updated. But I can't find any proof.

Previously,

• If you have a pet and you have more Toughness, then the Lord will focus you.
• Lord has 2 attacks for melee (heavy cc) and 2 attacks for range (power and bleeding). https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Champion_Tower_Lord#Combat_abilities
• Since I'm the focus and I'm not in melee, she will only use range attacks with no CC.
• Those projectiles will hit another target than the focus (my Flesh Wurm) and their damage will be reduced by 90%, which are also quickly healed.
• This allowed to easily solo towers as a necro with only 1 utility skill required. Same applies to ranger's pet. Or any other class like element golems.

Now,

• As I cast my Flesh Wurm on top of the Lord, she will start using her Jump Shot, that will bump it away and kill it.
• If Flesh Wurm is not in her melee range, she will target it anyway, regardless of my toughness.

 

Maybe I messed it up today, but I did attempt the solo 3x with different builds and failed each time, while it was a piece of cake previously.
Does anyone else solo tower here and realized the same?

 

I can't find back where I read the information about NPC/pet focus and their damage reduction. Could anyone link a wiki article of it?

Just play Cele and facetank the Towerlord, duh.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[ManiacMika.9851]

Well, I was more interested in the science of how things are working, on why the AI is acting differently, rather than actually just clearing the content. With understanding of a mechanic, you can optimize and streamline the process by reducing random factors. The level of skill a player needs to know his class, to avoid being CC while casting heal, the gear requirement, a complex skill rotation, etc. all of those can be ignored if you understand the aggro mechanic.

About Pet/Minion damage reduction, I found this https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pet#Combat_mechanics
"Damage received by pets from most ground AoE attacks from PvE enemies is reduced by 95%, and they are immune to  environmental hazards  such as  lava . This behavior is shared by ranger  spirits  and most summons in the game."
I believe "PvE enemies" = NPC and "ground AoE attacks" can mean that the pet is hit, but was not the main aggro target, so it receives the reduction. Just like that auto-attack projectile from Lord can be considered a 1 target AoE that focus on the player.

Sharing 2 YouTube videos on how to solo with Ranger and Thief with this concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rz8KLtGF44 (Ranger with Pet Toughness explanation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIiejqLi2EQ (Thief using Ram Blueprint as Pet to tank the NPC projectiles)

I realized that I only had my trinkets with toughness and not on my armor, so that's probably why lord aggro the wurm instead, because it had more toughness than me.

 

[Dawdler.8521]

Well, the AI sometimes jump from toughness to largest threat (ie highest dps). Its not really consistent and its always behaved like that.

Secondly I think the scaling sometimes bugs out because some days a lord topple over with ease while you facetank and then the next day the same lord on the same build does so much damage its nearly impossible to survive, with no apparent enemies or friendlies nearby to scale it. Keep in mind that it scales for both sides so you on lord and 4 enemies randomly picking flowers outside the tower or whatever it is AFKers does, the lord scale as if you are 5 attacking it.

[Karagee.6830]

19 hours ago, ManiacMika.9851 said:

It seems that Tower Lords AI has been updated. But I can't find any proof.

Previously,

• If you have a pet and you have more Toughness, then the Lord will focus you.
• Lord has 2 attacks for melee (heavy cc) and 2 attacks for range (power and bleeding). https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Champion_Tower_Lord#Combat_abilities
• Since I'm the focus and I'm not in melee, she will only use range attacks with no CC.
• Those projectiles will hit another target than the focus (my Flesh Wurm) and their damage will be reduced by (90%) 95%, which are also quickly healed.
• This allowed to easily solo towers as a necro with only 1 utility skill required. Same applies to ranger's pet. Or any other class like element golems.

Now,

• As I cast my Flesh Wurm on top of the Lord, she will start using her Jump Shot, that will bump it away and kill it.
• If Flesh Wurm is not in her melee range, she will target it anyway, regardless of my toughness.

 

Maybe I messed it up today, but I did attempt the solo 3x with different builds and failed each time, while it was a piece of cake previously.
Does anyone else solo tower here and realized the same?
EDIT: Turns out, that I had only half my stats with toughness, and I indeed messed up. I hope you still learned something about solo tower.

 

I can't find back where I read the information about NPC/pet focus and their damage reduction. Could anyone link a wiki article of it?
EDIT: See two posts below

I don't understand. I thought tower lords are all soloable on any class, including the parched and necro lords that are slightly more problematic.

Haven't played ranger in a long time in WvW but the mechanist golem does get aggro on lords.

Edited November 8, 2022 by Karagee.6830

[Sahne.6950]

1 hour ago, Karagee.6830 said:

I don't understand. I thought tower lords are all soloable on any class, including the parched and necro lords that are slightly more problematic.

Haven't played ranger in a long time in WvW but the mechanist golem does get aggro on lords.

i havent tried to solo parched and necro tbh.... but the rest is easily soloable.