Do off-radar henchies/heroes share in drops or not?

I've heard both sides of this claimed, so I'm going to start a new thread on it. But if you know of an old thread that you think is definitive, by all means please feel free to link to it. If you have definitive experience yourself, that would be even better.

Now that henchies and heroes can be ordered to stay entirely off-screen, do they share in drops when off-screen or don't they?

A bunch of people report that you can use henchies to clear you a path to whatever boss you want to farm, and then let you take him down solo without sharing your drops with them. Is this really true?


If so, I'd like to propose a second use of the same idea -- MM "solo" farming. Bring help for the first few kills, then run your army from there yourself ...

From my experience, when the henchmen and heros are grey in your party window (as in way off radar), they dont take any of the drops. Everytime I've killed a boss, I get the drops, while if they were there...I usually never see a thing drop.

Thats just my experience, I made over 100k the other day using henchmen and heros clear the way and then sending them away before killing the boss. I usually get the green that the boss would drop.

Agreed.
When you kill a boss, with your henchies away, you get full XP, which I think is in relation with the drop rate, so yes.
And it worked excellent for me so far.

Yes XP gained is related to whether or not your heroes/henchies are "close" enough and that is also one of the main ways the drop rate works.

At first i thought it just meant that you move henchies so they arent attacking, but after moving them outside of radar, it seems to work extremely well.



Horible

They won't get assigned any item drops so they're all yours, the will however still take their share of money drops which equates ~25% less income for taking a single hero/hench with you if you're using them to clear mobs that you can't solo.

Do you get more drops if you have heros/henchmen in your party? Like the total amount dropped not the amount assigned for you.

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By the way, I did an impromptu test of the MM idea, turning Gain Olias into an ettin farming run. It worked OK, although I must say that leaving Lion's Arch AND taking a couple of wrong turns with an MM build is not the most efficient way to ettin farm.

And I didn't get any good drops.

Seriously, I doubt MM farming is the best way to do ettins. Too many alternatives that work well.

Want definitive proof?

Take a group of eight people and do the exact same thing and see what happens.

Definitve answer: The do not qualify for item drops. They do take a share of money that you pick up.

I have been using henchies and heroes for farming greens since the beginning of the ability to command them. You clear all the enemies around the boss, send them off, kill boss yourself. All drops are for you, henchies don't steal any. But pick up any money and your share will be split by however many are in your part.

They must be completely off radar (their names on the party window turn grey). None must be dead within radar range either.

This obviously works as it have always worked in GW. I tested the drop system and distribution extensively during one of the early 2005 beta weekends, trying to find possible expoloits And the basics didnt change since then - a party member must be in the 'visible' range (you can see his nick when holding Alt and looking around) from the spot where the mob died (or a free chest opened, back then) to be included in the randomization of drop assignment. It doesn't matter if the party member is alive or dead.
As for gold pickups, the sum gets distributed *evenly* (maximum difference 1g) among all the party members, no matter if they are in range or if dead or alive.

And heroes are no exception, they count as party members in every aspect of loot distribution (except having antifarm flags on them obviously) and take an equal share of gold with the player.

Dead players get drops but they can't pick them up. So do drops assigned to dead henches become available to you after 5 minutes? Or whatever the time is that it takes for assigned drops to become unassigned.

Drops assigned to heroes and henchies can't be picked up by them, they are "automatically picked up" even when dead. You never see them.

The only exception is money. I have sent my henchies off radar into a mob and they have killed them and the monsters drop money, when i go back to them I can pick it up.