For Honor Level 2 Bots

[Carolina Schmalzried]

In For Honor, the term "Bots" refers to a non-player hero or minion that is completely controlled by the game. In the Practice Mode, bots are randomly selected as enemy heroes. In the Custom Match, players can alter the type and level of the Bots they fight with or against. Players can play against bots in any multiplayer game mode by setting the mode to 'Player VS AI'. By going into parameters and turning off matchmaking, players can play on their own with a game of all bots.

The most basic bot. Lvl 1 bots will mostly perform the basic combos, without making much attempts for "strategic" maneuvers. They may not even use special moves much that are specific to their character, such as the Nobushi's Hidden Stance or the Black Prior's Bulwark Counter. What combos performed depend on the hero. Heroes such as the Raider will throw mostly heavy attack chains while Nobushi and Nuxia will mostly throw light attacks. Orochi and Warden will often have a balance of both. Their reaction time varies, along with what tactics they may mostly use. Sometimes they may not make any attempt to block or evade your attacks; other times they will succeed in blocking or evading all of them. The aggression of Lvl 1 bots vary with heroes such as Raider, Shugoki, and Highlander being more likely to be very aggressive and attacking nonstop until their stamina is depleted, whereas others such as Warlord, Jiang Jun, and Lawbringer will be more defensive.

If the player is aggressive and performs combos and not just singular attacks, then defeating Lvl 1 bots should come easy. Lvl 1 bots should be used as a means of practicing other skills such as parrying. While they are vulnerable to spammed moves, especially unblockables, this is discouraged as when they are upgraded to Lvl 2 the player will not have improved.

Lvl 2 bots will begin to make use of their character's full moveset. They will perform both light and heavy combos as well as guard breaks and zone attacks. They are not too aggressive yet not as passive as the Lvl 1. The attacks they perform rather random with very little correlation between you, them, and the environment. They will throw certain combinations more often than others depending on their class, the Raider will do a guardbreak and stampeded charge more often for example, but they do not act based on much else.

If you know the other character's moves you should be able to figure out what is being done and react accordingly. Their reaction time is rather average and they will make active attempts to block your attacks.

The most difficult bot level and with good reason. They will not only take full advantage of every move in the character's arsenal but utilize feints, zone attacks, and the environment around them. They will perform attacks specific to not only their class but your state as well as theirs. If you are out of stamina, they will very likely either perform a guardbreak or feint a heavy into a guardbreak. If you are close to a ledge or hazard, they will attempt to throw you off with not just guardbreaks but any moves they have such as Riposte for Lawbringer, shield bash for Conqueror, stampede charge for Raider, and demon ball for Shugoki. They are also very aware of their own stamina and will not allow themselves to be guardbroken when drained. Their attacks are done with more purpose, such as feinting a heavy then countering the heavy you throw intending to parry. And their reaction time is sharp to the point of parrying lights.

Intimate knowledge of both your moveset and the opponent's moveset is critical. It is unlikely that the player will land a hit form neutral. Feinting is a very powerful tool against Lvl 3 bots. Since their defense is so strong, getting them to react and open themselves up is crucial. Hard feints will often cause the opponent to perform a guardbreak, heavy attack, or a bash.

Parrying is also another vital component since it always leaves the opponent vulnerable for a period. Another important aspect is distance management. At close range Lvl 3 bots are very aggressive and will pound you with attacks so try to keep your distance and close in with opening moves. Also, try to keep track of their stamina. Often times the last move of their chain will drain them dry. If you can parry that last move, you can knock them over and get in some free hits.

Weaknesses in Lvl 3 bots include their inability to predict moves and their inability to recognize openings. As a result, they will often fall for the same trick. For example, they will not exploit mistimed Aramusha Blade Blockades from neutral. They will not take advantage of wall splats unless the wall splat was the original intent. In Breach, for instance, if a level 3 bot is engaged in combat with a player and there are pikemen nearby, it is more likely for the bot to prioritize any pikemen nearby rather than the player. This is another weakness of the bots. When playing one-on-one, they appear to be effective against any player, but when playing in groups of four, their AI frequently targets the first person they locked on, making it simple to eliminate them.

Hey im new here and im activly studying for two weeks, I played against the bots (around 700 worked very well for me) and I created an account to save my real player games. Well. I think I managed 2 or 3 Checkmates and all of the other (many!) games are either a tie or lost. I know I managed to produce a mess in some games, but its no comparison to bot plays.

You can take it slow and progress by playing games and trying to learn a bit outside of games. I advise you to read this:

-beginners-tale-first-steps-to-chess-improvement

These methods helped me progress steadily over the last 8 months, you might find it instructive.

That's because of talent inflation. You can see this on the high end when GMs play other GMs, their ratings often stagnate or go down in their career. On the low level, if every 300 rated player can beat a 800 rated bot then when they play other 300 players, they are playing players that can also beat a 800 rated bot.

The last days i have been trying to do quests and farm leather in Stonetalon Mountain, and Hillsbrad Foothills. The amount of bots make this close to impossible. Most of them are hunters, and even tho you attack them first, they tag it with their much stronger spells (they are lvl 25). I counted 16 of them in a small area. I vented my frustration in general chat, and people confirmed the whole area was the same.

Been playing for around 2 hours today and in duskwood I have seen rogues, mages and hunters (around 30) bots. Blizzard dont care, they hope warden will flag them but it dosent. Dont know why I pay for this anymore.

I despise bots as much as the next guy, but even if blizzard rolls around with several ban waves it wont stop botters.
Each version of wow is filled with botters and its been that way forever. Continuously fighting them probably costs a lot of money and manpower and blizzard is not willing to spent either on their products.

Its a bit different on servers with a level cap on 25 tho, not that much space to spread out on. This cause the problem to be even larger for players. I have been playing since the game was new, and i have never experienced it beeing this hard to complete quests due to bots.

On the server Lone wolf we have lots of Orc hunter bots in South Barrens killing hyenas and Stormhides,so if allys want some free hks there you have it,same with Stone talon mountains in the valley with the Elite spider, there is lots of spiders there, Lvl 25 troll mages standing there night and day killing.

The paring is rather thematic, since a lot of high tech equipment is kept cold, so hence, the cryonic villain, Cold Steel. (I feel like this pairing also honors my two old main characters back in Live, Chill-Out, my Ice/Ice tanker, and Mechanista, my Bots/FF MM...kind of like combining the two into one...at least it feels that way to me!)

I really miss the Dispersion Bubble the most, but I do like the +stealth from Arctic Fog. Helps keep the bots (noisy as they are) from alerting enemies while we assemble. Most of them tend to keep within it, with a few Goto prompts. With Fly +stealth on, I can sneak to mission objectives and summon the bots in peace. I wish I could fit recall friend in there to help with speed TFs, but I do find Group Flight helpful in certain maps, like Oranbega.

I put in a few procs for sleet (in the build, I don't have it yet in-game) and used Frozen Armor to slot a few uniques for personal defense. Overall personal Defense is lower than my /FF, but the resists are better. However, the slows, and other debuffs actually add to personal and teammate protection, so that's not as readily apparent. I do feel I add more to a team that just +Defense/Toxic/EndDrainProt, although I've had times when I wished I could add +Status Protection. That will have to wait until Clarion.

I did take hasten and put in some LotG for 30% global recharge, but I'm not aiming to take down AVs by myself here, just good solid solo and group work. If I have a few seconds of downtime here or there that doesn't bother me. Benumb and Sleet are up often enough to please me.

What this build does offer me that I enjoy compared to FF is more control. It is far easier to keep things clumped up for the bots. In my old Live Bots/FF build I had Mace and I could glue them down but prior to Mace I had to chase down runners. Not so much this go around.

Anyway, that's been my experience, and my reasons for slotting. If anyone would care to review the build below and offer critiques and suggestions, I'd very much appreciate them. Trying to get out of my comfort zone. Maybe one day I'll even try Beasts (ha ha ha....well...that might be a cold day in...well...huh...cold.../cold? )

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