【WIP Patch 6.11】How to optimize your gameplay with Bots

This is a very wordy guide, with a lot of mechanics deep dives in Part 1.

If you want TL;DR version, read Part 0 to learn about mod and in-game settings, use builds in Part 2, and read Part 3 to learn strategies/gameplay loop.

Here is a video showcasing builds/technique I mentioned in this guide.
4 Bots solo Legend difficulty with all books collected without player's help.

The Bot shares host hero level/build/equipment. Levelling up all your characters is essential for any good bot run.
Without any mods, the Bot will choose the career you selected for them, and use the build you equipped on those careers currently.

In the Hero Selection menu(Hotkey: H), you can set up your Bot Hero Priority by clicking Manage Bot Hero Priorities.
In the Manage Bot Hero Priorities menu, you can left click to drag character up & down to change Bot Hero Priority, and right click to select which career you want that Bot to use.
























































Under Option -> Gameplay -> Interface, you can switch between Old & New Menu Layout.






















This method would overwrite Bot Career Priority Settings in the Manage Bot Hero Priorities menu AND your currently equipped items on both Old or New Menu Layout.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1445717962&searchtext=loadout
Require Vermintide Mod Framework and Simple UI too.
All these mods here are sanctioned, which means they can be used in the official realm.

This mod allows you to lock your bot career choice/build for that hero.
To save your bot build & career of choice:
Step 1: Go to the inventory page of your career of choice for that hero, change talents/equip equipment that you want your bot to use. Then click an empty loadout slot.
Step 2: At the empty loadout slot, click Save Equipped. If you did it successfully, your talent/equipment/cosmetic will be shown in that loadout page.
Step 3: After you saved the talents/equipment, click Bot Override.
This method would overwrite Bot Career Priority Settings in the Manage Bot Hero Priorities menu AND your currently equipped items on both Old or New Menu Layout.

You can access all Characters/Careers inventory with New Menu Layout.
Your Bot will choose the career you selected for them, and use the load out you saved for them.
Keep in mind your Bot setup with Loadout Manager will overwrite this.

• Bot follows a quite restricted attack priority, but the attack priority order only takes in place if the target is within 3 units from the Bot (with a few exceptions). And if there are multiple enemies within the same Priority Targets group, Bot will choose the one that's the closest.
  
• Bot will never attack non-aggroed enemies, including specials that just spawned.
  
• This attack priority order makes it so that if there are Monster + Horde on the field, Bot will hard focus on the Monster most of the time.
  
• It also makes it that if there are only long-range Specials left on the field, Bot will chase after them. However, Bot won’t go after something on the edge of the map that you can’t even Tag.

• Depends on the range weapon Bot has, Bot will most likely use melee weapon for Monster, Horde, most of the Elites, and Specials when out of ammo or when there are no units nearby. Their attack patterns, however, differ from weapon to weapon.
  
• Bot will only use either chain light attack or chain heavy attack. However, since they can cancel either combo with block/push, and after switching target, they may seem to have a complicated attack pattern.
  
• Bot will choose to use light or heavy attack chain, depending on several factors: the estimated single target damage of the first attack in the attack chain against its current target, the current target armour type, the attack chain average attack interval, the number of enemies nearby, and attack chain Arc Score. Bot will then weigh all these factors and choose either the light or heavy attack chain, depending on which one has the highest score. If the score is tied, Bot will use the light attack chain.
  
  • Attack chain Arc Score is a hidden number that's different from attack chain to attack chain/weapons to weapons. It is intended to represent the swinging arc of the attack chain, where a higher Arc Score means a wider swinging arc. In different situations, Arc Score will contribute different amounts towards the total score. When there are fewer enemies and when fighting Infantry/Berserker/Monster enemies, Arc Score contributes less. When fighting more enemies and when fighting Armoured/Super Armoured enemies, Arc Score contributes more.
• For Bot with two different melee weapons, it will weigh all 4 attack chains from the two weapons together, and choose the highest score attack chain. But since the logic in the score calculation is not nearly perfect, they don't always pick the right weapon for the right situations, even though their choice is consistent.
  
  
• Overall, because there are multiple glaring issues in Bot melee attack pattern logic, plus other behaviours, very often Bot doesn’t always pick the correct combo for the current situation. This means a good weapon for human player does not make it good for bots automatically.

• Bot can only use 1 or 2 attacks on the range weapons, but never do friendly fire damage. Each attack has its own hard-coded perimeters to determine when and how it can be used. This includes: types of enemies, distance, body part to aim at, if this attack can be used when there are enemies between Bot and the target.
  • For most range weapons, Bot will use them against Specials/Berserker enemies/Armoured enemies when allowed. For most range weapons that use overcharge, Bot will also use them on Infantry target when allowed.
• Bot switch from melee to range weapon when all the following criteria are met: the specific range attack is allowed to be used against the target, Bot can see the target for 3 sec, the target can be damaged by range attacks, and the ammo/overcharge is at certain threshold.
  
  • Normally, Bot only use range weapon when it has more than 50% ammo/below 22.5% overcharge (15% for Pyromacer). During emergencies, Bot can use range weapon as long as it has any ammo left/below 90% overcharge.
    
  • Emergency is when any teammates are disabled by Assassin/Hookrat/pestilence projectile from Burblespue Halescourge or Nurgloth the Eternal. Disabled by Lifeleech DOES NOT count as emergency in this case.
• Bot switch from range to melee weapon when the range weapon is not allowed to be used against the target and/or there are enemies within 3.5–10 units. The more enemies/more dangerous enemies are active on the map, the closer enemies need to be to force Bot switch back to melee weapon.
  
  • The number of enemies and how dangerous they are measured by current Threat Level, the sum of Threat Value of all active enemies. More dangerous enemies have higher Threat Value.
    
  • When there is Ratling Gunner/Warpfire Thrower, Bot is slightly more likely to shoot them, since Bot is asked to back away from them when their range weapon is allowed to be fired at them, preventing them to get within melee switching distance.
  
  
• Overall, Bot only use their range weapon in fairly limited situations. Because the attack range is usually very limited, most of the time Bot will choose to run towards Specials in distance and then shoot. At the same time, most of the range attacks are forced to aim at centre of body mass, but it doesn't often miss, so providing a proper bodyshot breakpoint is crucial.

• Against Horde:
  Bot never dodges against Horde, and solely rely on block and push. This also means if their Horde attack combo is slow, its DPS will drop quite significantly, as the likelihood of it doing block/push is now much higher.
  
• Against Elites:
  Bot only tries to dodge Elite overhead attack, but falls back to blocking when out of room/against other regular Elite attacks. Bot can also use push against Elite, but only when above certain Stamina threshold, and when Bot is trying to open up Shielded Storm Vermin shield or the push can stagger this particular Elite attack (Bot will even consider all the stagger related buff it has when judging if an attack can be interrupted by push). Because of these, shield weapons improve Bot's survivability a lot against Elites, thanks to shield push has much higher stagger power than regular push, and shield weapons have strong block ability. At the same time, if the Bot Elites attack combo is slow, its DPS will drop quite significantly, as the likelihood of it doing block/push is now much higher.
  
• Against Specials:
  Bot does not use dodge against any disablers. If they cannot kill them before getting disabled, Specials will 100% grab them. Bot does attempt to dodge Ratling Gunner/Warpfire Thrower/Globadier attacks, but only when there is no other defence actions it needs to take, so in the end Bot stays inside gas cloud/blight storm/weapon rat firing line quite often. In general, Bot's best defence against Specials is just killing them.
  
• Against Monster:
  Bot attempts to dodge all Boss attacks, only falls back to blocking when out of room to dodge, and tends to do nothing when the Boss attacks coming from an off angle (i.e Bot position is a bit far away from the player Boss is targeting at). As a result, Bot can fairly efficiently dodge dance Rat Ogre/Bile Troll, sometimes get grabbed by Chaos Spawn, and Minotaur will crash Bot easily. But since Bot can barely attack when got Minotaur's aggro, the Minotaur tends to switch aggro quickly. And since their dodge dance in general is not very efficient, this means if Bot is using a low dodge distance weapon and/or if its Monster attack combo is slow, its DPS will drop quite significantly, as the likelihood of them give up attacking and just focus on dodge is now much higher.

• Revive/save teammates:
  
  • Bot knows how to revive while blocking, but doesn’t know how to revive and use career skills at the same time, though certain career will more likely to use career skill when someone went down.
    
  • In theory, Bot prioritize revive/rescue disabled players/pull players up from ledge over other actions. However, Bot can be easily distracted by other enemies, even just 4-5 horde units/a single Elite or Special targeting the Bot within 4.5-5 units will force Bot to deal with them first, and Bot will even stop reviving immeidately if an Elite/Special is attacking it within 1.5 unit.
    
  • Bot has a hard time dealing with difficult terrain, including drop down/climb up and places with little to no NavMesh in general. This can also result in Bot giving up getting closer to downed allies.
    
  • At the current patch, Bots with career skill weapons (Grail Knight, Bounty Hunter etc) and Sister of the Thorn have a chance to bug out and hold their career skill and refuse to revive.
• Spontaneous Item Pickup/Usage:
  
  • Bot will only pick up ammo from ammo box/healing/potion/bomb if human players have full inventory (e.g if not all human players have healing, Bot will not pick healing up itself without command), and ammo pouch if all human players have full ammo. Bot will also pick up Tome spontaneously, but unless it is commanded by a human player, it will replace the Tome with healing items immediately when it sees one.
    
  • For bombs & potions, Bot will never use them but will give them to a human player as long as they have the inventory slot.
    
  • For healing items, they will heal wounded player/bot first, then low green health player/Bot.

• Tag & Social Wheel
  
  • Bot does not interact with the Tag system at all, except certain Social Wheel commands. Bot will not prioritize tagged enemies, nor will it tag the enemy it is currently/going to engage. This makes Witch Hunter Captain Passive With Hunt fairly useless for Bot outside fighting Boss/Lord wtih human players.
    
  • Bot only reacts to Item Pickup and Drop Grimoire command. You can give Item Pickup command by Tag and press the Social Wheel button at an item (including all healing items, potion, bomb, ammo pouch, ammo box, Tome, Grimoire), and give Drop Grimoire command by press the Social Wheel button at your Bot.
• Distance
  Bot will stay fairly close to a human player when there are a lot of aggroed enemies. However, when Bot is ordered to pick up an item, it will try to get the item rather than get closer to human players. Or when there are Specials in distance, Bot will tend to abandon human players and get closer to the Specials.

• Teleportation
  When Bot falls 40 units behind the human player, it will teleport to him, as long as it is not engaging with an Assassin/Hookrat that is currently disabling a teammate, or is trying to free a teammate from the pestilence projectile from Burblespue Halescourge/Nurgloth the Eternal. However, when anyone in the team is disabled/ledged/downed, the teleportation will be blocked, so Bot has to move towards players in regular ways.
  The teleportation also doesn’t overwrite players’ commands, too. So if a human player commands a Bot to pick up an item and keep running forward, Bot will try to run back for the item and teleport back to the player and then run back over and over again, until some task with higher priority shows up.
  
• Forced item pickup
  If the Bot is commanded to pick up a hard-to-reach/unreachable item, most of the time Bot will still able to pick it up, by either being able to pick it up from further away, or force the item into its inventory after triggering a teleportation.
  
• Ledge/Dead corner
  Until this point, Bot can still fall off a ledge and stuck at some weird corner/difficult terrain easily. If Bot got ledged, try to revive it yourself since other Bots will most likely get ledged when they attempt to revive. If Bot got stuck, run forward/backward as far as possible to force them to teleport.

General Melee Weapon Properties/Traits:









Help bot proc Swift Slaying and block, since blocking is their most-used defensive ability.

General Necklace Properties/Traits:








Help bot tank damage and block. Blocking is their most-used defensive ability, and bot usually ignore gas/blight storm so Barkskin is always a good choice on them.

General Trinket Properties:







Help bot on defensibility. Block/push is their most-used defensive ability so Stamina Recovery is a must-have. Curse Resistance increases their tackiness a lot on Legend full book runs, otherwise use Crit Chance to help them trigger Swift Slaying for more crowd control.

Recommend Bot Hero Priority: 2nd
Recommend Grimoire Pickup Priority: 3rd

Mercenary is an all-around bot with good damage and good survivability. From horde control to elites damage to special sniping, he can do basically everything. The only small downside is that he has no natural damage reduction and block ability on his melee is not the best, so not the best option for Grimoire.


Legend full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Legend full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]

LVL 5
Carve is way more consistent on bot.
LVL 10
Provide extra damage, extra cleave for more temp health and extra stagger for some stagger breakpoints.
LVL 15
Help Elites damage.
LVL 20
All bots are mainly focused on melee combat, so Strike Together works fantastic for the team.
LVL 25
Bot barely dodge. Damage reduction helps them better.
LVL 30
Bot never actively save career skill for a true emergency, so cooldown reduction is generally the best choice.






Mace has good balance between crowd control and elites damage. Its attack pattern also suits bot very well. It is also very fast and reactive, very safe to use for bots.
















Spear & Shield has very good horde clear ability and strong block. The shield push also allows bots to stagger elites consistently. The downside is elites damage is not amazing, though they do use the correct combo.






Handgun has good bodyshot breakpoint across all difficulties. With proper setup Kruber bot can kill specials very efficiently since bot never misses bodyshot.

Range & Charm Property/Trait (Legend)
Breakpoints: One shot-bodyshot all specials and Storm Vermin/Bestigor/Monk/Savage











Range & Charm Property/Trait (Cataclysm)
Breakpoints: One shot-bodyshot all specials and Storm Vermin.

Recommend Bot Hero Priority: 1st
Recommend Grimoire Pickup Priority: 1st

The best bot you can have. Ironbreaker bot is so good that if you play Bardin yourself the win rate of bot only game will drop dramatically. His weapon combo allows him to crowd control and sniping specials very efficiently. His insane amount of tankiness makes him the best choice for Grimoire. Only downside is that he doesn’t do any elites/monster damage, but taunt can save you from patrol way more often than other bots.

Legend full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Legend full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]


LVL 5
Depends on your Bot melee weapon choice, choose different talent.
Dual Hammers: Carve is more consistent.
Axe & Shield: Second Wind is more consistent.
LVL 10
Provides some extra damage. Essential for breakpoints on Legend.
LVL 15
Depends on your Bot melee weapon choice, choose different talent.
Dual Hammers: Smiter helps Elites damage.
Axe & Shield: Enhanced Power increases weapon cleave and reaches certain breakpoints.
LVL 20
Save bot from specials and knockback all types of units including Monster.
One trick to do is that when you want to stagger boss (say Chaos Spawn grabbed someone) without any career skill/bomb, you can friendly fire Ironbreaker to trigger this talent to stagger it.
LVL 25
Get bot more ult charge.
LVL 30
Bot never actively save career skill for a true emergency, so extra duration and duration is generally the best choice. However, it also increases the chance that Ironbreaker bot accidentally pulls the patrol, so Drengbarazi Oath is also a choice.
















Axe & shield has amazing block ability. And after the update, vanilla bot will use shield bash on high density enemies, providing tons of crowd control. With Opportunist and some other properties, bot can also use axe & shield push to stagger most elites out of their overhead animation. However this weapon has very low dps in basically every situation.






Dual Hammer has insane crowd control over on horde and above average block/dodge/elites damge. Only downside is that its monster damage is not great since bot only light attacks on monster with this weapon.






Crossbow can one shot most of specials on body on Legend. With only Globadier/Life Leech/Blightstormer need one teammate nearby to trigger Blood of Grimnir.






Handgun has way better bodyshot breakpoint than Crossbow on Cataclysm. Bot can use Handgun more consistently than Crossbow since Crossbow requires a lot headshot on this difficulty.

Range & Charm Property/Trait (Legend)
Breakpoints:
One shot-bodyshot most of specials. Globadier/Life Leech/Blightstormer need headshot or 1 stack of Blood of Grimnir.










Range & Charm Property/Trait (Cataclysm)
Breakpoints:
One shot-bodyshot all specials and Storm Vermin.

Recommend Bot Hero Priority: 3rd as Sister of the Thorn, 4th/5th as Waystalker (Replace Unchained if you want more special sniping)
Recommend Grimore Pickup Priority: 4th

Kerillian bot's power highly depends on how many DLC you own.
Character wise, Sister of the Thorn is currently the best Elf bot, and performs better than Saltzpyre/Sienna bot in general, due to her strong special sniping ability/strong team heal buff/fairly tanky/ low CD AoE stagger. However, since she is a DLC character, I will still list Waystalker bot builds here as a replacement. Even Waystalker is generally considered the least used bot, since she is super squishy and doesn't provide a lot useful team buff, but her special sniping ability is in fact in the top tier, with huge ammo pool and good headshot rate with Piercing Shot.
Weapon wise, Moonfire bow from Forgotten Relic DLC gives Kerillian bot infinite ammo and very good special breakpoints. Longbow is still useable but just beaten by Moonfire due to ammo sustain. I will list longbow builds for both Kerillian bot at the end of the Kerillian section.

Waystalker

Legend full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Legend full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]

LVL 5
Carve is way more consistent on bot.
LVL 10
Increase moonfire bow efficiency.
LVL 15
Mandatory for breakpoints.
LVL 20
Brings health regen to the whole team. Most of the time bots will be below 50% health, so this talent has a very high uptime.
LVL 25
Reduce cooldown is the most consistent talent in this row.
LVL 30
Kerillian bot has very good headshot rate with this talent, and it reduces bot's chance of pulling patrol.






1h sword has good cleave on its light attacks and high single target dps on its heavy. Bot can use this weapon's combo efficiently under vanilla settings.






Sword & Dagger has fairly low stagger from its attack. However, its push/push attack only consumes half stamina shield, making it more efficient at stagger horde than it looks. Its elites/monster damage is also top tier.






Moonfire bow is currently the best elf bot sniping range weapon, with good breakpoints and infinite ammo. Bot will quick fire 2 shots to kill specials within range, with either quick fire headshot or quick charge bodyshot.

Range weapon + Charm
Legend Breakpoints:
Moonfire bow:
Oneshot Assasin/Gunrat/Firerat with either left-click headshot or quick charge bodyshot
Twoshot Life Leech/Blight Stormer/Gas Rat/Hookrat with either left-click headshot or quick charge bodyshot
Piercing Shot: One shot-headshot all specials & elites.











Cataclysm Breakpoints:
Moonfire bow:
Oneshot Assasin with left-click headshot
Twoshot all specials except Wargor with either either left-click headshot or quick charge bodyshot
Piercing Shot: One shot-headshot all specials & elites.

Sister of the Thorn

Legend full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Legend full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]

LVL 5
The most consistent one for the bot.
LVL 10
Very good DPS boost. SoTT bleed can be applied to armour units easily too, help her deal with mixed horde.
LVL 15
Help melee Elites damage.
LVL 20
Powerful DPS boost for the team, also increase crit chance to help to farm THP.
LVL 25
DPS boost for the team
LVL 30
Kerillian bot doesn't really know use normal Thorn Wall, but can utilize this version very well, bring some low cooldown AoE stagger.






1h sword has good cleave on its light attacks and high single target dps on its heavy. Bot can use this weapon's combo efficiently under vanilla settings.






Sword & Dagger has fairly low stagger from its attack. However, its push/push attack only consumes half stamina shield, making it more efficient at stagger horde than it looks. Its elites/monster damage is also top tier.






Moonfire bow is currently the best elf bot sniping range weapon, with good breakpoints and infinite ammo. Bot will quick fire 2 shots to kill specials within range, with either quick fire headshot or quick charge bodyshot.

Range weapon + Charm
Legend Breakpoints:
Moonfire bow:
Oneshot Assasin/Gunrat/Firerat with either left-click headshot or quick charge bodyshot
Twoshot Life Leech/Blight Stormer/Gas Rat/Hookrat with either left-click headshot or quick charge bodyshot











Cataclysm Breakpoints:
Moonfire bow:
Oneshot Assasin with left-click headshot
Twoshot all specials except Wargor with either either left-click headshot or quick charge bodyshot

Longbow builds - Waystalker

Legend full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Legend full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]

Longbow builds - Sister of the Thorn

Legend full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Legend full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]

Recommend Bot Hero Priority: 3rd or 4th depends on your Elf bot setup
Recommend Grimore Pickup Priority: 4th (WHC)/2nd (Zealot)

Saltzpyre bot choice really depends on personal flavor. WHC does almost everything better than Zealot. Better synergy with rapier means better crowd control (from half shield push and stamina regen talent). And due to Zealot bot always heal himself, WHC actually deal higher damage on all types of enemies except super armour units than Zealot because of Flense and Tag. And crowd control AoE is always more useful than dash on bot.
However, Zealot is way tankier, and can eat multiple overhead with his LVL30 talent and passive. If the human player can deal enough damage, and only need bots to frontline/soak damage/attract specials, Zealot is better. Beside, Zealot bot is the 2nd best choice for bot Grimoire carrier other than Ironbreaker bot.

Witch Hunter Captain

Legend full build[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build[www.ranalds.gift]

LVL 5
Carve is way more consistent on bot.
LVL 10
Flense damage comes out very easily without requiring headshot, providing huge damage bonus to horde and Monster.mixing in horde.
LVL 15
Help Elites damage.
LVL 20
Crit chance bonus applies to the whole team, boosting team DPS.
LVL 25
Block/push is bot most-used defensive ability.
LVL 30
Bot never actively save career skill for a true emergency, so cooldown reduction is generally the best choice.






Rapier has great synergy with WHC talent Flense and Assassin. It also has the best block/push/dodge ability among all Saltzpyre melee weapons.






Crossbow can one shot most of specials on body on Legend. With only Globadier/Life Leech/Blightstormer need headshot or Tag.






Brace of Pistol has way better bodyshot breakpoint than Crossbow on Cataclysm. Bot can use BoP more consistently than Crossbow since Crossbow requires a lot headshot on this difficulty.

Range weapon + Charm (Legend)
Breakpoints: One shot-bodyshot most of specials. Globadier/Life Leech/Blightstormer need headshot or Tag.










Range weapon + Charm (Cataclysm)
Breakpoints: One shot-bodyshot assassin, two shot-bodyshot rest of specials, three shot-bodyshot hookrat.

Zealot

Legend full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Legend full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]

LVL 5
Carve is way more consistent on bot.
LVL 10
Unlike human player Zealot bot won’t maintain high THP low green health, so Castigate is very unreliable. Smite provides consistent damage and allows you to choose more defensive properties on equipment.
LVL 15
Help Elites damage.
LVL 20
Extra health regen is better than damage reduction.
LVL 25
Block/push is bot most-used defensive ability.
LVL 30
Feels Nothing helps Zealot bot to survive insanely long in patrol fight. Since taking damage will reduce career skill cooldown, he will eat an overhead, dash, being invincible, eat an overhead again, and dash again. Plus giving bot cooldown reduction on dash ability is very dangerous.
















Flail has amazing stagger power and horde damage/control. The downs side is on bot its single target damage is fairly low.
















Dual Hammer has insane crowd control over on horde and above average block/dodge/elites damge. Only downside is that its monster damage is not great since bot only light attacks on monster with this weapon.






Crossbow can one shot most of specials on body on Legend. With only Globadier/Life Leech/Blightstormer need headshot or 1 stack of passive.






Brace of Pistol has way better bodyshot breakpoint than Crossbow on Cataclysm. Bot can use BoP more consistently than Crossbow since Crossbow requires a lot headshot on this difficulty.









With LVL10 talent Smite, Crit Chance becomes meaningless. Use Revive Speed to increase the chance of a successful revive.

Range weapon + Charm (Legend)
Breakpoints: One shot-bodyshot most of specials. Globadier/Life Leech/Blightstormer need headshot or 1 stack of passive.










Range weapon + Charm (Cataclysm)
Breakpoints: One shot-bodyshot assassin, two shot-bodyshot rest of specials, three shot-bodyshot hookrat.

Recommend Bot Hero Priority: 4th/5th (Replace Waystalker if you want more tankiness)
Recommend Grimore Pickup Priority: 3rd

Unchained bot has very good tankiness from her passive and LVL20 talent. However the damage is inconsistent plus the special sniping speed is at the bottom tier. But she never use ammo, and has good crowd control ability from melee/AoE THP regen to help team stay alive.

Legend full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Legend full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Vanilla[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build - Modded[www.ranalds.gift]

LVL 5
Carve is way more consistent on bot.
LVL 10
Unchained bot stay at high heat quite often on Cataclysm. Attack speed provides more crowd control.
LVL 15
Mandatory for breakpoints.
LVL 20
Blocking is bot most-used defensive ability. And it prevents Unchained from blowing up by a lot.
LVL 25
Prevent Bot from exploding & die too often.
LVL 30
Increase bot tankiness.






1h sword has good cleave on its light attacks and high stagger on its heavy gives a lot thp to your bot. It is worse than Flail in general, so only equipe your bot with it when you don't own the dlc.






Flail fits the bot attack pattern very well, has good cleave and high stagger on all types of units. Provides very strong crowd control ability.






For specials, bot use beam staff like a laser pointer: it only uses beam mode, and as a result it kills them fairly slow, but helps you to locate their position since bot don’t Tag specials. And sometime Unchained bot will use blast to clean horde, which is very efficient.
You can also use bolt which can oneshot all specials with full charge even on Cataclysm. But there is a huge downside: Bot sometimes keeps charging it even there is no valuable target, making Unchained Bot always fall behind the team. And even if the Unchained Bot decides to charge & shoot, other Bots would probably kill the target already most likely, since weapons like Handgun/Crossbow are way faster for Bot to use.

Range weapon + Charm (Legend/Cata)
Legend Breakpoints:
1/2 shot-body shot slave rat/fanatic with Blast
Two shot-bodyshot all specials with Instant Snipe

Cataclysm Breakpoints:
2/3 shot-body shot slave rat/fanatic with Blast
Two shot-body shot assassin with Instant Snipe
Two shot-headshot or three shot-bodyshot rest of specials with Instant Snipe

• Strategies during pacing
  During pacing, Bots won’t attack ambient enemies that haven’t got aggroed yet, so it’s fully up to you to decide whether they should be pulled or not. There are couple elements you want to consider.
  
  1. Will these enemies be pulled when the horde comes? And if so, can you kill them before the next wave of horde comes?
     If they will be pulled by the horde, and you can kill them fairly fast, pull the ambient. Otherwise, leave them alone/avoid them.
     
  2. Are these enemies on the path of a potential Patrol?
     If so, pull them at a safe distance and kill them as fast as possible, since Bots might run towards their direction when the Patrol comes.
  
  
• Strategies during a Horde fight
  Bots are more than capable of handling Legend/Cataclysm Horde. As a human player, you can help them do their job better with some strategies.
  
  1. Choose a good terrain/position for Horde fight
     Generally, choose a place where you and your Bots don’t get surrounded. A tunnel/entrance where Horde can only come in one direction and can’t go behind your team will be ideal. Fighting against a wall is worse but not horrible. And try your best to avoid fighting in a completely open area.
     The reason for that is that Bots only do block/push during a horde fight. If they get surrounded, their stamina will be drained very quickly and start taking damage.
     
  2. Focus on bursting/stagger when there are Elites inside the Horde
     When Elites are mixing inside the Horde, Bots will change their melee attack pattern, using a more single target focus combo than a crowd control focus combo. So, depending on the build, it is your job to either help them burst down those Elites fast or stagger the Horde units until either all the Elites or Horde units are killed.
     
  3. Depends on your tool kit, use different strategies for Specials
     Specials can interrupt the Bot gameplay the most. So if your career is mostly focused on crowd control, try to leave most of the Specials to your Bots and stagger Horde for them. If your career is mostly focused on single target damage, try to help them kill the Specials ASAP so they can back to melee action and block/dodge.
  
  
• Strategies during a Monster fight
  Due to their restricted attack order, when there is a Monster + Horde + Specials scenario, Bots will focus on Specials and Monster, while basically ignoring Horde. So it is your job to handle other units. When there are Specials nearby, either kill them fast or grab Monster aggro away from your bot. When there are Horde nearby, leave the Monster to Bots and stop the Horde/Elites from getting close to them.
  Pay extra attention to Storm Fiend, Chaos Spawn and Minotaur. For Storm Fiend, Bots will pressure it and sometimes force it to climb walls and spray, making Bots die slowly from the flame. At this point, you need to pull your Bots away from Storm Fiend by running away. For Chaos Spawn, try to save your stagger career skill/bomb in case of Bots get grabbed. For Minotaur, try your best to kill it before Horde shows up, use your potions & bombs generously.
  
  
• Strategies for Patrols
  Patrols are usually the biggest threat to a Bot run. Although Bots have to get much closer to aggro the Patrol compared to human players (3 units vs 10 units), there is a very high chance they just run into them. Here are some tips for you to avoid Patrol when you are playing with Bots.
  
  1. It’s ok to do a full retreat when you notice a Patrol. Until you figure out their exact pathing, stay as far away as possible.
     
  2. Stop aggro more new ambient when you notice a Patrol. There is a high chance your Bots will try to run towards those aggroed ambient and pull the Patrol.
     
  3. Kill distant Specials as soon as possible when you notice a Patrol. Bots will also run toward distant Specials to try to kill them because even they have ammo, they only use range weapons in a very limited range.
     
  4. Hiding behind the structure is not a guaranteed Patrol-avoid. Since Bots use their career skill without recognizing the necessity, they might pull the Patrol when they try to kill low threat enemies with a career skill like Mercenary shout/Ironbreaker taunt.
     
  5. If somehow the Patrol is pulled, try to fight them in an open area. Let your Bots take most of the aggro, and you take care of a few Elites at a time.
  
  
• Strategies for Specials
  The best-case scenario is that you can kill all the Specials. But since it’s very likely not gonna happen, here is a Specials sniping priority for playing with Bots.
  
  1. Blightstormer, Globadier
     Blightstormer and Globadier are most likely roaming at a range that Bots won’t use their range weapon. Besides Bots ignore the threat of blight storm and gas a lot of the time, so as a human player you should focus on these two first.
     
  2. Warpfire Thrower, Ratling Gunner
     Warpfire Thrower and Ratling Gunner can be a threat to Bots if they are firing at a fairly long distance, and Bots will try to run into and melee them while they keep firing in some situations. But sometimes Bots will get close enough to use range weapons before the specials can attack.
     
  3. Assassin, Hookrat, Lifeleech
     The three crowd control specials can only threaten your team when they are in a very close range. Bots will most likely use their range weapon/career skill to kill them. And if it’s possible, try backward and let the Bot tank the crowd control special attack. It will be more reliable to let you save Bot than other ways.
  
  
• Strategies for Books/Items collect
  
  1. Healings/Potions/Bombs
     Bots only start to pick up these items spontaneously after the human player’s inventory is full. So fill up your slots first.
     Try to pick up a Medical Supply yourself and let the Bots take Healing Draught. So Bot can heal whenever they want and if they didn’t heal at a critical state, you can go heal them. Also at the current patch, healing others with a Medical Supply will clean the wound of both players, while Bots might just use Medical Supply on themselves. And always heal your Bots when there are excess healings.
     Remember to let Bots pick up ammo with Social Wheel when you see an ammo box. They sometimes will not pick up ammo without commands.
     
  2. Ammunitions
     Bot now will never pickup ammo pouch unless all human players have absolutely full ammo. So if you are only 1~2 ammo short, make sure to use the social wheel command to make them pickup some ammo.
     
  3. Tomes and Grimoires
     Always use Social Wheel commands to force Bots to pick up Tomes and Grimoires. Bots will not pick up Grimoires without commands. And if they picked up Tomes spontaneously, they will trade it with a Medical Supply/Healing Draught as soon as they saw one, dropping the Tome at some corner.
     Try to pick up some weird location books at complicated terrain(e.g the last Tome in Athel Yenlui, last Grimoire in Hunger in the Dark), since Bots have a high chance got stuck at a weird corner.

Threat Value is a value that determines how many active enemies there are and how much of a threat they are to a player. It dictates many other hidden mechanics of the game, including how enemies are spawned. It is not necessary to deep dive into it in this guide, but since part of the guide mentions it, it is necessary to provide a table for reference here.
If you are keen to know more in-depth knowledge about Threat System, you can read this post here.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1395655171&searchtext=bot
Change the behaviour of Bots. Not strictly improvements at current patch.
Used to have Sanctioned status so it could be used in official realm. However, it got removed when FatShark updated game's anti-cheat system.
The following contents are about how to use this mod. They used to be an important part of this guide, but not any more since you can no longer use the mod in Official Realm. Still they are saved in this section in case one day the mod got sanctioned again (though not likely).

All options in Bot Improvements - Combat mod work separately. They change different aspects of the Bot behaviour.

• Improved Bot Melee Choices
  Change melee attack patterns & some range weapon behaviour. Different weapons will have different results. For some melee weapons, which option is an improvement, but some is a downgrade. This option will also reduce Bots' ability to use crowd control range weapons, such as Conflagration staff and Drakefire pistol, they will use the crowd control attack on these weapons less frequently. Turn this option on/off accordingly.

• Bots Ping Attacking Elites
  Bots will now ping elites that are attacking them.
  However, this effect is not consistent, they sometimes just don't target elites no matter, and they cannot target multiple elites at the same time.

• Bots Healing Threshold
  When Hurt: Heal with Medical Supplies when <20% Permanent Health. Heal with Healing Draught when <40% Permanent Health.
  When Wounded: Heal only when wounded.
  Extra Heals Available: Heal only when there are extra healing items nearby.

• Bots Healing Threshold(Natural Bond)
  When Hurt: Heal with Medical Supplies when <20% Permanent Health. Heal with Healing Draught when <40% Permanent Health.
  When Wounded: Heal only when wounded.
  Extra Heals Available: Heal only when there are extra healing items nearby.

• Bots Heal Other Threshold
  Low Permanent: Heal others when they have <25% Permanent health.
  Low Temporary: Heal others when they have <25% combined health.
  When Wounded: Heal others only when they are wounded.

• Bots Heal Zealot Threshold
  Default: Heal Zealot when he has <25% Permanent health.
  Low Temporary: Heal Zealot when he has <25% combined health.
  When Wounded: Heal Zealot only when he is wounded.
  When Wounded And Low: Heal Zealot only when he is wounded and has <25% combined health.

• Bots No Longer Chase Specials
  Bots will no longer chase specials over 19 units away.

• Bots Ignore Line Of Fire
  Bots will no longer look for cover against Ratling Gunners over 12 units away.

• Bots No Longer Focus Bosses
  Bot will only engage the boss if they are targeted and boss is in 15 units range. Also, there are no other units within 5 units range or no teammates are disabled.
  Will ignore specials that are 5 units away from them.

• Improved Revive Logic
  Bots now only stop revive when there are more than 2 regular elites or more than 1 chaos warrior or any boss aggro on them in 5 meters. Berzerker/Monk do not count toward it.
  Increase Bots revive range increase by 50%.
  Mercenary, Huntsman, Ranger Veteran, Ironbreaker, Shade, Witch Hunter Captain, Unchained will also use their career skill first then revive if there is an elite/special/boss targeting them. However, if they got targeted in the mid of reviving, they will stop reviving and use career skills first then attempt to revive again.

• Improved Active Ability Usage
  *May cause some careers to use their active ability too sparingly on difficulties below Legend.
  Mercenary: Requires more enemies nearby to use career skill, and reduces the enemy number requirement when Mercenary has low stamina.
  Huntsman: No longer use career skill when Huntsman is low health, instead considers low stamina.
  Ironbreaker: Requires more enemies nearby to use career skill, and reduces the enemy number requirement when Ironbreaker has low stamina.
  Handmaiden: Now only dashes at threat specials and if Handmaiden has low stamina.
  Shade: No longer use career skill when Shade is low health, instead considers low stamina. Also no longer use career skill on horde mobs.
  Witch Hunter Captain: Requires more enemies nearby to use career skill, and reduces the enemy number requirement when Witch Hunter Captain has low stamina.
  Unchained: Requires more enemies nearby to use career skill, and reduces the enemy number requirement when Unchained has low health.

• *1 unit is about two Medical Supplies placed directly next to one another.

Recommended Settings

• Improved Bot Melee Choices: Depends on the melee weapon you choose for your bots. Recommend weapons will be listed in the build section.
  
• Bots Heal Other Thresholds: Use When Wounded for most options, and use When Wounded And Low for Bots Heal Zealot Threshold.
  
• Other options: Turn on.

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Cataclysm full build[www.ranalds.gift]

Legend full build[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build[www.ranalds.gift]

Legend full build[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build[www.ranalds.gift]

Legend full build[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build[www.ranalds.gift]

Legend full build[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build[www.ranalds.gift]

Legend full build[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build[www.ranalds.gift]

Legend full build[www.ranalds.gift]
Cataclysm full build[www.ranalds.gift]