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On the post about the life minion, I learned that the AI on other minions is also problematic.

I think that the AI for minions should be looked at generally.

My suggestions:
The minion should not cast over other players' setups (traps, etc) *if possible*.
The minion should take the monster's health into account before casting over traps.
The minions should take players' health into account before healing. Lowest health players should *always* be healed first (yes, even with the spell sprite).

I think this would solve many of the problems most players experience with their minions.

I have also played with a death minion, and he takes on average three turns of setup before he begins casting.

I think this raises an interesting question: are there different "rules" regarding minion's behavior? In other words, are death minions programmed to act differently than life minions... or is there one general personality for all of them?

fire minion.

i have an issue with him not casting anything else other than fire blade, fire trap, and fire elf. occasionally you will see a flame cat, but thats it. is there any chance of him ever being fixed to more useful?

alex12222000 wrote:

I agree this needs work.

I am also troubled by another minion aspect - health. My first minion was the water elemental for Storm - brilliant! - 700 HP and shields including life armor - doesn't attack except for ghoul when low on HP, but taunts and absorbs several hits. Lasts long enough to win against other MOB.

Now running a Death wizard, and was dismayed to see minion HP between 150 and 300. They set up for attacks (trap, blade, etc.), but are killed before they can ever attack. Pointless. They either need more HP, or need to attack without setup.

They do have more HP. You just need to use more pips and they get WAY more powerful.

Why would a Cyclops minion be casting fire and storm schools' spells??? It has it's own myth spells to cast.

BTW Those spells are way more powerful than fire minions fire cat and fire elf.

When a card has an X where pip cost is then the more pips you spend the more powerful it is. Most minions have a destinct amount of pip cost (3) so thats as powerful as they will be.

striat wrote:

I disagree with most of the listed suggestions.

While I do think certain pets may benefit from some minor tweaks (minotaur, death), I think the general AI is fine. One person mentioned having a healer minion heal the person with the lowest health each time. Another mentioned giving us the ability to control our minions.

I have no doubt this would improve current minions. However, we have to take into consideration balance. Sure, more complex AI checks could be used to have a minion carefully choose the most efficient card to finish off an enemy and save pips or cast heals based on current hps vs. max or who needs it most. But, I feel this would give an unfair advantage to these classes especially in PvP (but in PvE as well). The lack of reliability of minions is what makes them fair imo. By definition, minions are not intended to be intelligent. Because they break traps, etc. they often are more useful only in certain situations. I believe this is the correct implementation. When we start adding some of the suggestions mentioned, we are virtually transforming our "minions" into a second player or bot.

So if what you think is the right implementation than what is the point to have minions if that is the case? If that is the case than it is a waste of a card and spell and should be used for more useful purposes. I think the AI for the minions is also broken and needs to be repaired. There is no point to having a minion if all they do is heal themselves or keep passing and not help out in attacking.

As with everything in this game, there are trade-offs. My son rarely uses his minion. He is fire, and he enjoys building up to a huge blast with traps and blades. His minion casts fire spells that would spring his traps prematurely. But that has to do with his playing style. If he peppered the enemies with smaller-pipped spells, instead of building up for that huge blast, then perhaps his minion would be more useful to him.

My ice wizard never calls her minion unless she is soloing a boss. He rarely uses his ice spells, and so he doesn't tend to spring my traps as often. But I don't cast him in regular duels, since I don't want to waste the pips since it already takes so long to build up traps and blades to make my weaker ice spells count for something.

With my myth wizard, I nearly always cast my minions (I now am using my cyclops minion) in practically every duel, unless it doesn't show up quickly in my deck. They tend to cast three and two pip spells after blading and trapping themselves. So I watch which one they are targeting, and then go for the other one. I can depend on them to USUALLY not spring a trap with a one-pip spell.

My point is, yes, while I agree that there should be some tweaking of the minions' AI, especially in the case of the life minion, casting a minion represents a trade-off. It makes the game more unpredictable to not always have them do what you would expect (or like) them to do. AND it depends on playing styles. I can see why some wizards would find their minions worse than useless, as in the case of my son's pyromancer.