Foe

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A foe is any creature that can be the target of an attack or an offensive skill. Often called hostile NPCs, they appear red on the compass and almost always react aggressively when party members come within their aggro range.

Characteristics[edit]

  • Players can only target foes with attacks and offensive skills and only foes can likewise target the party or its allies.
  • PvE foes typically appear as red dots in the compass; when selected, their names appear in red text.
  • Foes can be hostile to each other.
    • In PvE, there is no way to determine which foes are on whose side outside of observing their behavior.
    • PvP foes from each side appear with appropriate colors for their names, compass dots, and target display frame backgrounds.
  • Hostile foes do not appear on the compass unless they are selectable, e.g. wurms cannot be selected until they popup.
Other mechanics
  • By default, you can select the nearest foe by pressing C and cycle through all foes within compass range by pressing Tab.
  • Any creature that is not a foe is treated by the game as an ally.
  • The hostility of a foe can change, for example:

Passive foe[edit]

A passive foe is any seemingly neutral creature that can be the target of an attack or offensive skill. They do not aggro unless they take damage or the party attacks or uses an offensive skill on them, which cause them to become hostile.

Passive charmable animals are a special case. Their names will appear green when selected as if they were allies and they will not appear in the compass unless they become hostile. From all targeted skills, only those that can target foes will consider them valid targets, but among untargeted skills, not only offensive ones will affect them, some that affect allies may affect them too. Some game mechanics also behave this way too (e.g select nearest ally will target them while they are passive). The mechanics that decide whether they are considered allies or foes by untargeted skills are currently unknown.

Another unique case are Water Buffalos. They cannot be targeted, so they can only be damaged with some point blank area of effect skills. They will never appear in the compass and won't retaliate when attacked, they will just try to run away.

Henchmen and heroes will only attack and/or use offensive skills on a non-charmable animal passive foe if any party member calls it as a target or the foe becomes hostile. Summoned creatures and summoning stone creatures will attack a non-charmable animal passive foe once they aggro it.

Examples
  • Most charmable animals.
  • Many level 0...2 hostile NPCs in tutorial areas.
  • During certain quests, some NPCs will be passive until triggered by an event or an offensive action.

Foe Behavior[edit]

Most monsters obey the same AI. A few of the principles are:

  • They wander back and forth, either in a small area or over a patrol range.
  • If you get within the danger zone, they become aggressive and attack you.
  • When fighting, they have two priorities of who to target: weakest foes (by health and armor rating) and closest foes.
    • They only overpower each other at extremes; for example, they will target the characters with lowest armor rating but a tank can draw focus by body blocking them.
  • They each have a set of skills to which they are limited. The way they use these skills is embedded into the skill itself, so monsters with the same skills use them the same way.

Monsters with non-standard AI[edit]

There are some specifically-coded exceptions.

Skill usage[edit]

See also[edit]