My gripe on henchman.

It really gripes me that several henchman in nightfall are really badly setup build wise, 3 of them don't even have an elite skill. All this does is make groups combinations limited, and generally uninteresting when it comes to henchman. This apparently only applies in NF, which might be justified by the access of heros, excepting that it only seems to apply to these specific henchman:

Odurra - Probably one of the worst henchman ever. All she does is cast empathy. Probably because it's mostly her only offensive skill. I barely see her use anything else, except maybe ether feast when she gets low. She's illusion, why not conjure phantasm? Not to mention she has no elite skill either. I don't understand her build being so bad, considering all of the other mesmer henchman in the other two campaigns are somewhat decently equipped.

Aidan (nf) - His nightfall setup is really not very good. He uses Heket Rampage as an IAS stance. This stance ends on use of an attack skill. However, it never fails that he immediately uses both of his attack skills after putting up Heket. A very big waist of a slot. His build is not very good in prophecies either, but at least makes some sense and he has an elite, albeit a bad one.

Gehraz - His setup is not that bad, but it's pretty mediocre. He doesn't have much synergy and also has no elite. It would be nice to see dust cloak go for something more synergistic with Aura of Thorns. Or just replace aura with an elite of some kind.

Eve - Actually fairly useful. Blood Ritual comes in handy for the monks. The only thing I take issue with is that grenth's balance is not very useful in most cases for PvE, so you rarely see her use it. This applies in all campaigns.

It also gripes me that in hardmode in Tyria, most of the time you have no access to a protection hench... only Aleisa. This seems to be a problem in the areas which only allow 6 players, and for which a protection monk seems to be essential. In addition, Alesia's build seems to be no different then when she was level 10. Vanquishing a few explorables in Tyria with a friend on HM, not *once* did I see Alesia use an elite skill, nor were any of the skills she used very good at all.

Even with her and a protection hero monk, Alesia would still constantly die, or run out of energy, or just stand there and take hits (like she is infamous for doing already). I really hope this is an oversight. The only option seems to be using 2 hero monks, and as many people already know Dunkoro seems to practically have the same AI as Alesia anyway...

If Hardmode is only hard because of a dumbing down of ai for hero/henchman (and skills for henchman on top of that), then honestly that's a bit of a let down. I would think it would be more about harder ai/monster builds rather then the same builds with crapper help. It makes no sense to me why vanquishing an explorable would require you to group with humans... Because honestly, I've love to see someone even try to get a group if they don't have a large guild who is interested in PvE.

Well, she's no Erys Vasburg for sure, mainly because she has exactly the same skills as Erys does minus the elite and Backfire. Empathy, two interrupts, Ether Feast, Shatter Hex and res. Still, she most certainly is more useful than Dunham who really does nothing much other than throwing Empathys at monsters (and Crippling Anguishing at level 20).
And if you are referring that she's called an Illusion Henchman, I'd like to point out that Dunham is called an Enchanter Henhcman and he doesn't have any enchantments with him.

Gehraz is terrible. He's a secret wammo who aggros everything possible...but more than that...whenever he gets an enchantments on him he strips it straight away with Signet of Pious Light.

Eve is indeed 'teh win'

Hey at least NF's gang is still way better than Tyria counterpart. Go Alisia go!

Another reason why Factions Henchies win again.
Not only are they more competant... but they look cooler as well. Erys Vasburg is a permanent part of my team in Echovald...

Though of course there is the whole case of my NEVER taking Talon Silverwing into Nahpui Quarter because I keep mistaking him for one of the Star Blades...

Henchmen AI isn't dumbed down, it's BS. The circumstances in which the henchmen have to fight just make them act differently. Someone ran a few tests, and concluded henchmen/heroes didn't kite. Ofc. they don't kite if enemies run faster then the hero, it makes no sense because they can't escape anyway. Some dude was smart enough tu put some speed buffs on his hero and guess what: they ran away when attacked, because there was actually a chance to get away.

Besides, people watching in agony how their monk gets stomped should be stomped themselves, theres stuff you can do about it (snare, blind, flag, ward, w/e). I agree though that henchmen have awful skills sometimes, thats why I always stick to warrior henchies and in case of NF, warriors+monks, because they are pretty OK.

He at least deals decent damage, but yeah, heh I didn't mention that he absolutely loves trying to be a monk with that signet of pious light. And noone can be as bad as Devona for being a aggroing kamakazi. :P

Yeah, my issue with Alesia isn't as much that she doesn't kite... I usually have charge present in some form, which helps. It's that she loves to wand things, and doesn't heal good enough to keep herself from dying. Flagging sometimes doesn't help and can be very tedious (if not unpractical when you have more then 1 henchman). I've never had so many problems with healing henchman dieing as much I have with Alesia even in normal mode.

I'm pretty sure alesia in HM gets WoH (not that it's any good... prot spirit would be much better >.<)

Henches were had bad bars for 2 years... I don't see why you should start complaining about them now.

I had hoped that when they increased the henchie level for hardmode they had also updated their skillset. Apparently not.

There I was hoping that Khim in Istan would have some of her level 20 skills, like, say, protective spirit. All she used was healing breeze and orison. And shatter hex. Completely useless against the damage that hard mode deals out.

From there on out I just used my own monks, though I had been hoping to take more offensive heroes with me. Because the offensive henchies don't have the right builds for hard mode either....

Devona's even worse...

Try Cynn/Orion in Prophecies.

Whilst Firestorm can be good when used correctly, casting it left right and center and especially during a carefully planned lure, causing scatter and inevitably Little Thom chasing the scattering enemy right into the path of that other patrol you wanted to avoid, is downright annoying!

At least Devona has a KD. Gehraz is only fun for the novalty value of using him once in a blue moon.

If they make henchmen more efficient then parties with actual people will be almost non-existant. I believe Gaile even said that once. Many players rarely ever play with other people and since nighfall all you see is districts with 8's all around and sometimes one person spamming "3/8 glf more" while you go make a sandwich, stuff it down and head out past him, still lfg.

For damage, yeah. However, Devona can soak damage quite well, and has Charge! which makes long jogs less tedious - I mainly bring her for Charge! to be honest.

But yeah, useless for damage.

I like the henches and the heroes. My one wish is that they learned to move out of the AoE of meteor shower, maelstrom, and chaos storm.

Aidan in NF has practised stance and kindle arrows, lol. WHAT THE HELL ANET? seriously, at least give them bars that make sense. :/

i agree that many hench are really really silly and totally useless.

but at least they (supposdly) fixed the kiting issue. :P

I don't think Henchman should be better then people. There's a lot of henchman out there with crappy builds. I named these specifically because they are so terrible it's just ridiculous (w/ exception of Eve). Other henchman are so much better then them. Improving them slightly (hell, just give them an elite of some sort), wouldn't discourage grouping, it would just bring them more up to par with the rest of the henchman.

(Though... Funny about it, the sad part is that half the time henchies are better then people anyway. Just take 2 party missions in factions as an example. :P)

Actually, that's not true. Aidan in Nightfall does not have an elite. Practiced Stance was replaced with Heket's Rampage, which admittedly wasn't that much of an improvement.
In Prophecies and Factions he does use Practiced Stance and Kindle Arrows.

yar i typoed, meant proph, havn't really tried him in factions.

Sweet, more Vas fans.
He's the bomb!

Pff, its all about the Herta, Sogolon, Mhenlo and Kihm team. Although i do wonder why the hell he doesn't have Song of Restoraton...

And why the hell is Kihm called a Healer Henchman when she's clearly a f*cking prot!

Argo>all

But factions hencmen defently were the best factions would be pretty hard with nf hencies :P

Ever watched Olias for awhile? It seems appropriate that he'd have a death wish. Even when set on "Avoid Combat" he will go, hell-bent-for-leather, full speed into an opposing group... even if the rest of our party is going the opposite direction. At least Devona can knock 'em down once she gets into it with 'em; Olias just hopes to tire them to death by throwing himself on their swords... repeatedly.

She starts out a healer on Istan, iirc, and only goes prot after you hit the mainland...

I can understand the wanting to redress PUGs. I can understand Hard Mode being just that - a big challenge. I understand Hench have been fixed once before.

I would just like Hench have a little more synergy between their skills. Perhaps the community can suggest simple, yet more effective, builds for hench to use. Also, what rules should apply to hench? Should they have a full bar of 8 skills, or only the current 5-6 (? is that correct?) they have now? Plus, would it be too hard to program a completely different set of hench skills exclusive to HM (beyond some of them having an Elite)?

I'm not asking for them to be uber leet, so that it cancels out having to PUG/go guild. But when you are in a tough spot- especially in HM - it would be nice to have hench help out just a little more than they are now.

Nothing wrong with Olias, I like him to be aggressive. He's pretty much my default MM, no point him lagging behind the party even more than he does now.