Auto Mode AI and Hero Classes

A brief rundown of the A.I. script that governs hero actions when Auto-Battle is enabled. Describes how each hero will act in auto-battle. Also gives a summary of each class's abilities.

Introduction

This game is a "casual dungeon loot" style, so it really is not all that complicated. However, one aspect that I wish had been explained in a little more detail is the Auto Battle function. Each hero has certain actions that they will or will not use in auto mode, and at first it can be a little bit confusing as to which actions are used in which situations. So after playing for a little while I am here to explain what I observed each hero doing in battle during auto mode. Hopefully this will help some of you decide which equipment to use and which heroes to hire in order to maximize returns from your auto-battle dungeon runs.

During manual battle mode, you select the action for each hero. Clicking on an enemy will auomatically use a basic attack; otherwise you have to select your skill or item first and then select a target. Auto-battle can be toggled using the AUTO button on the bottom right of the battle screen. By using auto mode you can literally mute the sound, minimize the window, and go do something else while your hero team cruises through the dungeon. Seriously, this is pretty cool. Go watch Netflix for an hour, or take a friend to lunch, or go on a date, or work a 14 hour overtime shift. Your team will get as far as they can until they die, then the rewards screen will stay up until you return to receive your loot.

Battle Conditions

During your dungeon-crawling experience you will run into several scenarios in battle. Each one will trigger different actions for each hero type. So I figure it would be best to describe these battle scenarios first, before we get into hero reactions.

Lone Enemy

You face an enemy party of just one or two enemies. It does not matter if it is a boss or not. It is sort of annoying that two enemies is not enough to trigger your AoE skills, but such is life.

Group Battle

You face an enemy party of three or four enemies. It does not matter if it is a boss or not.



"Attack as normal"
For the following "special" situations, when I say "Attack as normal" that means follow whatever action is listed for "Lone Enemy" or "Group Battle" status.

Throwing Items

Your hero is equipped with a throw-able item: any item that deals damage to the enemy. If you have two types - one for single target damage and one for AoE damage - then which one gets used depends on what size enemy party you are facing. Single target items are the Rock and the Coal. Multi-target items are the Fire Gem and Holy Cannon. Rock damage seems to be tied to your hero's physical attack stat. Fire gem does 10 damage only to all enemies. Holy Cannon does 50 damage only to all enemies. If facing a large group and holding both multi-target items, the Holy Cannon will be used on first turn, Fire Gem on second turn, and regular attacks after that. Once you are able to get past level 250 or so, these items are out-performed by your heroes' innate skills and critical hits, since the items cannot score critical hits and the group-attack items do very little damage that never gets upgraded.

Bad Status

One of the more annoying situations is when one or more of your heroes has a status ailment (burn, sleep, poison, or dizzy/confuse). As troublesome as these effects can be, they DO NOT trigger any special actions. Healers will not use a heal spell just to clear a status effect. That is one of my biggest regrets about using auto-battle in this game, but it is a fact so just be aware of it.

Ally Near Death

If one of your heroes is near death (less than 40% HP or so). This scenario will OVERRIDE the one for when several allies need HP. Bear in mind that those healing stones that are meant to restore HP are only good for something around 30 HP, so once you get past level 200 and have the option to hire a healer they become somewhat obsolete.

Multiple Wounded

If four or five of your heroes are all less than 70% HP, but still above 40% HP, and NONE of them are "near death" yet.

Low MP

One of your heroes is running low on MP, below about 20% of their maximum MP.

Quick Summary

First, a graphical overview for quick reference. For explanation and in-depth analysis of each hero, see their individual sections of the guide.



In terms of speed (because the faster your battles end, the sooner you beat the dungeon) there are some heroes that do better than others.

Ruffian, Fighter, Merchant, and Conjurer all have skills that take a few seconds to run without adding any real benefits to the battle, so they can slow you down some.

Ragezerker uses his ROAR skill in EVERY BATTLE and it takes a few seconds to activate, in addition to wasting his entire turn, so even though he has high potential for dealing damage he will slow you down considerably compared to the other heroes. At least in terms of the number of battles per hour that you can finish.

Healer is great for keeping you alive a little longer than maybe you should be, and the heal spells activate pretty quickly, too, so he does not slow you down very much.

Darkmage and Knight have AoE spells that do take a couple of seconds more than a basic attack, but they are WORTH IT because the damage they do is pretty good and they hit ALL ENEMIES, will usually save you enough time to equal two or three additional attacks.

Everyone else is pretty standard, really.

(NOTE I have not yet unlocked the "premium heroes" who work at the tavern, so I cannot yet comment on their speed or skills. I will update this after I can afford to hire those guys.)

Healer

Bear in mind that the Therapy skill restores as much HP as the healer's max HP, it does NOT rely on magic attack power, so if you are relying on healers make sure to equip them with high-HP armor, and give them weapons with high crit chance for those times when nobody needs healing. Maybe also give them a Magic Bottle to restore MP as needed or an Anti-Magic Bottle to reduce the cost of their Heal skill from 2 MP to 1 MP. His group heal spells, however, are useless for auto battle mode because they never seem to activate. Even in manual mode they only restore a few HP to each ally, since their recovery amount is based only on your "magic damage %" boosts which are never very big. So those two skills are useful with auto-battle OFF, just to recover several allies from poison or burn at the same time (after you get the Healer Relic only) but really the single-target Therapy spell is much better for keeping your heroes on the right side of the grave.

Lone Enemy

You will attack it with your weapon.

Group Battle

You will attack one enemy with your weapon.

Throwing Items

You will use your item on your first turn, then attack as normal.

Ally Near Death

Will use single-ally Heal spell if you have enough MP; otherwise will use a health stone item if you have it equipped or a Magic Bottle if you have it and not a health stone. If you have no MP and no items then the healer will attack as normal.

Multiple Wounded

In theory your healer is supposed to use his second skill to restore HP (but no status clear) to the entire party. In practice, however, you will probably NEVER see this happen because it always happens that you get one hero (or two or three) down below 40% before you get four of them with minor injuries. Even if all five heroes are near death, your healer will still only use the single-ally Therapy spell on one of them. This is why healers are kind fo broken on auto mode. If you do not have enough MP for the healing, you will use a magic bottle if you have it. If you have no MP and no items then the healer will attack as normal.

Low MP

If any of your allies are low on MP and none have triggered the low-HP flag, you will use a Magic Bottle if you have it equipped. If you do not have a potion, you will attack an enemy as usual.

Soda Junkie, Ruffian, or Conscript

The soda junkie, dinner boy, and conscript all perform almost identically in battle. The only real difference is after you get their relics, the Conscript has a skill to do +50% crit damage, and the soda junkie / dinner boy has one to increase evasion rate (which is functionally useless). Then the Ruffian gets a Dagger Toss skill that hits three random enemies but only does about 40 damage each time (maybe a bit more if you have a high bonus to physical attack %).
The only reason to use them is if you cannot afford a better hero yet.

Soda Junkie and Dinner Boy are identical really; they even use the same relic which you unlock after the first dimension is cleared (go through the first magical portal outside the tavern).

The Ruffian's relic is unlocked after you clear the second dimension.

The Conscript's relic is unlocked after you clear the third dimension.

Lone Enemy

You will attack it with your weapon.

Group Battle

Ruffian will use Dagger Toss for 1 MP. The others will just attack an enemy with your weapon.

Throwing Items

You will use your item on your first turn, then attack as normal.

Ally Near Death

Will use a health stone item if you have it equipped, otherwise he will attack as normal.

Multiple Wounded

You will attack as normal.

Low MP

If any of your allies are low on MP and none have triggered the low-HP flag, you will use a Magic Bottle if you have it equipped. If you do not have a potion, you will attack an enemy as usual.

Fighter

The fighter has a skill for double damage that costs just 2 MP - but no chance to critical. After you get the relic, he gets another skill for triple damage that costs a whopping 10 MP - but still no chance for critical. Both skills are based on the Fighter's ATK stat (including equipment and relic bonuses).
Triple damage every time is nice, and the animation is fun to watch the first couple of times, but with the right equipment you can boost your critical damage well beyond that - particularly with the Conscript or Thief who both have skills to improve critical attacks. And the fighter has no ability to attack multiple targets. In terms of practical funtionality, he is only slightly better than the Soda Junkie AND his skills slow down the auto battle. So only use him until you can afford to hire someone better.

Lone Enemy

As long as you have MP you will use a skill to attack. It seems random which one activates. If you run out of MP then you will attack it with your weapon.

Group Battle

Same as Lone Enemy.

Throwing Items

You will use your item on your first turn, then attack as normal.

Ally Near Death

Will use a health stone item if you have it equipped, otherwise he will attack as normal.

Multiple Wounded

You will attack as normal.

Low MP

If any of your allies are low on MP and none have triggered the low-HP flag, you will use a Magic Bottle if you have it equipped. If you do not have a potion, you will attack an enemy as usual.

Merchant

The merchant is "mostly useless." You have a skill for finding +20% more gold, which is not really all that useful. And a skill 50/50 that costs 500 Gold to use, and has a 50% chance of doing zero damage or cutting a single enemy's health in half. Plus the relic gives him an Affluence skill that does decent damage to the entire enemy group (based on the Merchant's physical attack stat) but it never does critical hits and it costs 1000 gold for each use. I like to think of the Merchant as like a Conjurer that relis on gold instead of MP. So feel free to play as a merchant if you want to try something a little bit different, but in my opinion there are better choices for heroes.

Lone Enemy

You will attack it with your weapon. Occasionally will use the 50/50 skill... even if it is guaranteed to do less damage than a regular attack (i.e. the enemy has 400 HP so 50/50 does 200 damage, but your normal attack would do 433 damage). That 50/50 skill makes the Merchant sort of broken, really.

Group Battle

If you have any money you will use Affluence and spend 1000 gold to basically perform a normal attack's worth of damage on each and every enemy. If you somehow run out of money then you attack an enemy with your weapon.

Throwing Items

You will use your item on your first turn, then attack as normal.

Ally Near Death

Will use a health stone item if you have it equipped, otherwise he will attack as normal.

Multiple Wounded

You will attack as normal.

Low MP

If any of your allies are low on MP and none have triggered the low-HP flag, you will use a Magic Bottle if you have it equipped. If you do not have a potion, you will attack an enemy as usual.

Ragezerker

The ragezerker has the "Unruly" skill which means it does not matter what you tell him to do, he will always act as if he is in auto mode. You can give him manual commands but he will pay no attention to them. He has another skill that gives him +0.5 physical attack for each enemy he kills. As such, his basic attack power can skyrocket if he lives long enough.

It is also important to note that EVERY battle, the first turn he uses a shout that will increase the physical attack power of one random ally. If you have multiple ragezerkers it is possible that each one will boost a different ally's attack, or they will stack their shout bonuses on the same ally. This shout uses his full turn, and is activated no matter what the battle conditions are. So he only recognizes battle conditions starting on his second turn. If he is asleep for the first turn, he will use the shout as soon as he is awake. The shout in my opinion is a waste of a turn and because of that it renders the ragezerker almost useless in battle. By the time you reach enemies that require more than one turn to defeat, they do enough damage that they will one-hit-kill your whole party, including the hero that just got their attack boosted by the ragezerker's silly shout. So if you are going to use a ragezerker, load him with +crit gear and pray that he doesn't screw it all up for you.

Lone Enemy

HULK SMASH!!! (He attacks with a weapon.)

Group Battle

HULK SMASH!!!

Throwing Items

You will use your item on your first turn after your +Atk shout, then attack as normal.

Ally Near Death

Will use a health stone item if you have it equipped, otherwise he will attack as normal.

Multiple Wounded

HULK SMASH!!!

Low MP

If any of your allies are low on MP and none have triggered the low-HP flag, you will use a Magic Bottle if you have it equipped. If you do not have a potion, you will attack an enemy as usual.

Thief

The thief is a must-have if you are hunting for items and gold. You get a skill for +20% better items found, plus a manually-activated skill to steal gold or an item from one enemy (once you steal from them they have nothing to steal a second time so it would be a waste of a turn). If used on the purple sparkly enemies Pilfer will steal Essence instead. The Pilfer skill does not get used in Auto Mode though. A big reason to use a thief is that she will open ALL THREE treasure chests after boss battles instead of just one. This skill does activate in auto mode, too, and the thief does not need to be in your first hero slot for it to work. The thief will also get a skill for +15% extra critical attack damage AND +15% critical chance.which is better than the Conscript's +50% critical damage skill. So in addition to being great for scoring extra loot, the thief is a pretty good single-target assassin. Load her up with gear for boosting critical chance and crit damage and you can rule the world. Just remember to bring some backup to handle situations where you find three or four enemies in a group.

Lone Enemy

You will attack it with your weapon.

Group Battle

You attack an enemy with your weapon.

Throwing Items

You will use your item on your first turn, then attack as normal.

Ally Near Death

Will use a health stone item if you have it equipped, otherwise he will attack as normal.

Multiple Wounded

She will attack as normal.

Low MP

If any of your allies are low on MP and none have triggered the low-HP flag, you will use a Magic Bottle if you have it equipped. If you do not have a potion, you will attack an enemy as usual.

Conjurer

The conjurer is really only useful before level 100. If you get the relic, you get a skill for finding 10% more relics - whoop a dee doo da. The problem is that the AoE skill deals out VERY low damage but still costs 3 MP, which makes that +50% magic damage skill absolutely pointless for a conjurer. You only see decent damage from this hero if you have the relic to increase magic damage % and boost it to a VERY high level. In my opinion since the AoE does garbage for damage, it may be advisable to intentionally lower your MP to zero and then boost your critical attack bonuses with equipment, thus treating this hero like a soda junkie instead of a magician. So only use this hero until you can afford to hire the dark wizard or knight.

Lone Enemy

You will attack it with your weapon.

Group Battle

You will use one of your AoE spells. If you run out of MP you will either use a Magic Bottle if you have one, or attack with your weapon if you do not have one.

Throwing Items

You will use your item on your first turn, then attack as normal.

Ally Near Death

Will use a health stone item if you have it equipped, otherwise he will attack as normal.

Multiple Wounded

He will attack as normal.

Low MP

If any of your allies are low on MP and none have triggered the low-HP flag, you will use a Magic Bottle if you have it equipped. If you do not have a potion, you will attack an enemy as usual.

Knight

The knight really is a versatile class, and you will want to take one with you on every dungeon run (or have a Shifter with a Knight Stone).

The knight does a few things for you. Firstly, he lets you take the side doors even in auto mode. He also disables all the status-effect traps inside those doors, so you will always find something good: warp zone, HP/MP restore fountain, or bonus treasure chest. Secondly, he prevents you from getting ambushed which means you ALWAYS get the first turn in battle - effectively making it impossible for you to get hit by anything until you reach a level where an enemy will survive a full round of attacks from your heroes. He also occasionally uses a special defense move to protect an ally (half-damage) from an attack that would otherwise kill them. Aside from that, he has an AoE skill called Heavenstrike that does "half damage" to all enemies and "big damage" to the one you click on. This damage is modified by your "magic attack %" bonuses, so maybe give the Knight a magic wand if his is in the first or second hero slot in your party. If he is closer to the bottom slots, give him equipment with lots of crit chance and crit damage bonuses so he can one-hit kill a lot of single enemies. After you get the Knight Relic, you unlock another magic spell that does "big damage" to the enemy you click on plus BURN and "minor damage" to all enemies; this one is more closely tied to his ATK stat. Both of his spells rely on magic attack power and one costs 3 MP while the other is 6 MP, so maybe give him a Magic Bottle or Anti-Magic Bottle if you have him in a higher slot, otherwise give him an item suited for critical attacks.

Lone Enemy

You will attack it with your weapon.

Group Battle

You will use one of your AoE spells. It is unclear what determines which spell is chosen, but they will both activate (seems random) in auto mode. If you run out of MP you will either use a Magic Bottle if you have one, or attack with your weapon if you do not have one.

Throwing Items

You will use your item on your first turn, then attack as normal.

Ally Near Death

Will use a health stone item if you have it equipped, otherwise he will attack as normal.

Multiple Wounded

He will attack as normal.

Low MP

If any of your allies are low on MP and none have triggered the low-HP flag, you will use a Magic Bottle if you have it equipped. If you do not have a potion, you will attack an enemy as usual.

Darkmage

This class, thanks to its high-damage AoE spell that relies on magic power % and also may poison or dizzy the whole enemy group, and its big passive buff to magic attack, will be your "bread and butter" mass murderer for deep dungeon runs. She has TWO item slots, which is great for hauling a Magic Bottle and an Anti-Magic Bottle so you can sling spells for days. Her relic also provides a necroblast skill that is basically a cannon designed to destroy a single target. Necroblast scales with both the caster's max MP and ATK stats, and replaces the normal attack in auto-battle as long as you have enough MP to cast it.

Lone Enemy

You will attack it with your weapon. If you have the relic, you will likely use Necroblast instead.

Group Battle

You will use one of your Noxin AoE spells. If you run out of MP you will either use a Magic Bottle if you have one, or attack with your weapon if you do not have one. This class really shines in group battles if you put her in one of your top two hero slots.

Throwing Items

You will use your item on your first turn, then attack as normal.

Ally Near Death

Will use a health stone item if you have it equipped, otherwise he will attack as normal.

Multiple Wounded

She will attack as normal.

Low MP

If any of your allies are low on MP and none have triggered the low-HP flag, you will use a Magic Bottle if you have it equipped. If you do not have a potion, you will attack an enemy as usual.

Shifter

The Shifter is a bit... different. His actions will depend which shifter stones you equip (up to two at one time) in his second item slot. Remember the first item slot is just for normal items, then each circle in the second item slot is for a shifter stone only. Each stone will imbue him with the skills of a different class. One of the nice things about a Shifter is he will (slowly) earn all of the skills for each class, including the ones they unlock by getting relics - even if you do not have that other class's relic yet. He is not, however, affected by bonuses from relics that are specific to the other classes even if he equips one of their shifter stones. You earn each class's skills one at a time, by fighting battles with one shifter and at least one of those other heroes in your party. Having two of those heroes will make you learn that ability twice as fast as with just one. You can also have multiple heroes in your party to learn multiple hero skills simultaneously. Example: Shifter + Ragezerker + Darkmage + Thief + Noble will learn R, D, T, and N skills but it might take 1400 battles to learn just one of each skill. Having a shifter with 2 Thief and 2 Noble will not learn ragezerker or darkmage this time, but will learn thief and noble skills but it might take just 700 battles to learn each skill. (You will not possess any shifter stones at first; you must have at least one battle with a shifter and that other hero in order to receive the other hero's shifter stone.)

If you have him go with no stones equipped then he is similar to the Soda Junkie but with higher starting stats.

If he takes just one shifter stone and leave the second hole blank, please refer to the section of this guide that covers the individual class of that stone.

The rest of this section is specifically for a shifter who is using two stones to dual-class.

If you have him take a Ragezerker Stone then he inherits the Unruly skill so you cannot tell him what to do, plus the first attack of every battle he must use the ROAR to boost a random ally's attack power. After the shout, the auto-battle script for whatever second stone you have equipped will take precedence.

Lone Enemy

Figher Stone forces you to use your fighter skills instead of regular attacks, until you run out of MP.
Merchant Stone forces random activation of the 50/50 skill or regular attacks.
Fighter/Merchant dual class, it is random which skill activates and most of the time will be Piledriver until your MP is gone.
Everyone else just attacks with their weapon.

Group Battle

You will use one of your AoE spells (if you have any). If you have more than one equipped (i.e. if you are running a Knight/Darkmage shifter stone) then which one gets used seems to be random; they are all viable options. If you have no AOE then you treat it as if it was a lone enemy. If you run out of MP you will either use a Magic Bottle if you have one, or attack with your weapon if you do not have one.

Throwing Items

You will use your item on your first turn, then attack as normal.

Ally Near Death

If you have a healer stone equipped, you will use your Therapy spell to restore HP (based on your shifter's max HP) to that one ally. If you do not have a healer stone then you will use a health stone item if you have it equipped, otherwise he will attack as normal.

Multiple Wounded

She will attack as normal UNLESS one of your equipped shifter stones is for a healer. As a healer-shifter then this is similar to the regular healer class action so in theory you should use your Group Heal spell to restore some HP to the party... but in practice that never actually happens because there is always one ally who gets near death before the whole party is below 70% so it always defaults to the regular Therapy spell instead. If you are a healer but low on MP then you will use a Magic Bottle if you have it equipped. If you have no magic bottle and no MP then you will just attack an enemy as usual.

Low MP

If any of your allies are low on MP and none have triggered the low-HP flag, you will use a Magic Bottle if you have it equipped. If you do not have a potion, you will attack an enemy as usual.

Wizard, Shopkeeper, Owner, Gladiator

These heroes need Mystic Caps to unlock the ability to hire them. Then you pay gold to hire them. You can only have one of each on your team, unlike other heroes who you can hire a team of five identical people if you want that. After you hire them, you get to keep ONE of each of their unique weapons in your inventory. Even if you hire them again later you still only keep one of each weapon. You do not get multiple copies like you do with the Dinner Boy and his fork and bib.

The Wizard plays almost exactly like the Darkmage in auto-battle mode. The only difference is that his AoE spell does considerably more damage, and he also has a special ability that makes warp zones take you farther than normal so you go through levels a little faster. He also has a spell that will lower the ATK of all enemies by 10%, but he does not use this in auto-battle. Unlike the darkmage and conjurer, he can score critical hits with a normal attack. His weapon is typical for mages, like an upgrade from the Magic Wand.


The Owner also plays in a way similar to the Darkmage. He has one attack that puts Sleep on one enemy and does a little damage; that one is used if there are only one or two enemies on screen and if you have enough MP. He also has a strange ability that will randomly boost the level of one of your relics right there in the middle of battle; each time you attack with his specialty weapon it might happen, and the effects are permanent. His AoE is a bit ridiculous but it gets the job done, it fires if there are at least three enemies present. Unlike the darkmage and conjurer, he can score critical hits with normal attacks.


The Shopkeeper also plays a bit like the Darkmage, although his AoE acts a bit more like the Ruffian's Dagger Toss. He has an ability that will allow him to FOCUS to do 320% damage on his next strike, and if you do this for several turns the effects will stack, but it does not activate in auto-battle. His AoE throws random junk for random damage and random status effects at the enemies. This one might hit just once, it may hit one enemy several times, or it may hit several/all enemies. It is totally random, and he uses it whenever there are at least 3 enemies on the screen. He is also naturally immune to status effects. Bear in mind that his unique weapon removes his ability to dodge, which makes any evasion bonus from equipment or relics USELESS on him if he uses that hammer. Unlike the darkmage and conjurer, he can score critical hits with normal attacks.

The Gladiator plays a lot like a Conscript because he can score critical hits and he has no skills available to use except Defend and the basic attack. However, he has an interesting ability to make allies' attacks sometimes do "backstab" damage even if they are not behind the enemy. He also has a nice ability where kills made by his friends will boost his own attack power, sort of a reversal of the Ragezerker's ability. He has another ability that causes his base ATK to drop from 50 down to 5 over time, but after that his friends' kills will quickly pick him up again. So after you do a few hundred levels in a run, he will be doing massive damage with regular attacks. This is boosted even more by the +400% critical damage on his unique weapon. If you want a basic warrior with high damage potential, this is your guy.

[The Madman]

this quenched my thirst 10/10

[Fried_Carrot]

i brain blew up after reading this but atleast i understand this thanks

[Psysop]

I have not took the time to study details yet but just by playing I know your Auto-mode AI rundown is lacking and inaccurate. "Inaccurate" because the AI is the same whatever the class, "lacking" because your report only takes vanilla class skills into account and not skills given by equipment.

Each battle condition will trigger the same reaction depending on skills available to the character, in this rough order of priority:
- Low HP (or MP) -> heal HP (or MP) skill
- Group enemy -> group skill (damage or status attack)
- Solo enemy -> single skill (damage or status attack)
The exact choice made within a category if multiple choices are available is more complex and unknown to me yet.