A discussion on 7 heroes

Runes are hardly problem, because any (non-major or non-superior) rune or insignia that you give to hero will automatically make it better than henchman, so you could just live of the land and give them just found stuff. Did that with heroes during early NF and it was workable.

Issue is not people who cant afford to rune heroes, but people who would rune them in stupid way and in make those heroes useless (multiple sup runes ...)

You having to unlock 64 skills, which is not really big deal as you should be able to do it within one day (yarly)

Big deal is giving heroes good builds, and most people would fail at that.

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Bottom line is, people would fail with heroes because they would be bad at "designing" them, not because they cant afford to.

I would agree with you if this concept was followed throughout the entirety of the game and also had the promotional bumph not said that you could also solo the game should you so desire.

It says something like, 'Just grab the henchmen and go!'

But they (anet) didn't and you can't. So what we're left with is player that like the social aspect of the game and want this game to focus on real player teams, frustrated that the game they want is seemingly watered down.

Then, on the other hand, the 'solo' players frustrated that their style of play seems gimped by the H/H AI, the fact that we can't customize full parties and also can't access all areas of the game.

It's seems that anet have got themselves into these problems with the best of intentions, trying to please all the people all of the time is neat trick if you can pull it off, but this argument is reminiscent of the PvP and PvE community nerf/balance problems.

Edit: (had written argument twice in the same sentence)

If seven heroes were allowed.... henchies would become completely redundant.


That is my bet.
All those arguments of it making the game antisocial are bullcrap as those of us who would use 7 heroes are herohenching primarily anyway.
A-Net just love their henchies and don't want them to become totally useless.

Not only that but there is the little factor of IF ... on the odd chance... you want to team up with ONE other person and bring heroes... nobody can effectively take up half the party with their heroes alone. It has to be fairly split between the two.


Those are my only explanations.


I'm honestly not sure what more even needs be said on the subject.

It doesn't force you to do anything
I never pugged in pre-sear. never

-you can buy res sig as soon as you get to post-sear ascalon so its not forced on you, its an option.
-north of the wall quests aren't mandatory (I have for example never gone through that gate, ever) so again option, not a requirement
-searing quest isn't forced pug either. I've brought so many characters through pre-searing now, and only twice have I been with actual people, I always end up with henchmen.
and you can still just log out and log in when you get to the academy part, and you'll be able to do the next part with henchmen only.

so that argument isn't true, nowhere in the game are you forced to pug.

Perhaps not completely. Those who only own Prophecies / Factions + GW:EotN may want, say, 2 Eles. Well they have Vekk...so they'd still need good ol' Herta or Cynn. Also, the henchmen may have elites that you can't unlock for your heroes. Zho, for instance, has Broad Head Arrow. If you don't have Factions you can't set up one of your own heroes as a BHA interrupter. I actually think Zho is very good. Thinking about Factions, I always take henchmen monks into the Imperial Sanctum mission, since they have the Celestial PvE skill, whereas hero monks do not.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't be in favour of 7 heroes. I doubt the game would become more antisocial. I for one would still prefer to go with another human with 3 heroes each than take 7 heroes of my own.

And the only issue I would have with 7 heroes is the sheer cost of kitting out that many for all my characters.

All my chars except for my Rit so far have the bare bones basic Nightfall set up: Dunkoro, Tahlkora, Melonni, Koss, Acolyte Sousuke (never Jin), Olias.
Most have Zenmai too, though not all.
Only my Ranger and Assassin even have Vekk and Ogden.

Now given that the basic full team set-up for any of my characters requires more than the simple heroes they have easy access to.... YES, henchies would be required. Only my Assassin would be fully kitted out for the job (and he still has two heroes to get: The GW:EN Ranger and Assassin heroes in the Charr Homelands)...

But that aside.... I'd still go for it if it was made available.
The fact that Gaile said that it wouldn't be however has made this entire conversation somewhat of a waste of time though.

I'm in favor of 7 heroes, just because my guildies are rednecks and I'm on GMT, having 7 heroes will help me out when they are not around.

I don't do PuGs...because I do HM, and PuG's in HM /fail

Word.

123456

QFT, the same and only problem I got.

I've really, really, really tried to avoid this so far....
Want to talk about disadvantage?

Zomg, I get up to 4 bad hench and people that PuG get good humans instead.
Well, forget that.
Almost everyone on GWG and GWO complains about how bad PuGs are.
I can give a massive list of examples.
You get my latest for free:

Yesterday we (3 guildies) picked up a Wammo in Aurora Glade (NM) for mission and bonus (he also wanted both).
In the mean time, we were trying to get more guildies for some fun.
15 minutes later our guildie figured out the only char that needed that mission was not even there yet. That's 15 minutes disadvantage.

Now we start the mission, all fine.
As soon as we were in, the wammo was gone.
He was killing stuff on his own (well, that's ok). However, he was unable to kill the boss at the first stone, so went back to us.
But instead of joining he ran past us to the beginning.
We did not see him back to the bonus guy and got several 'ping position' requests.
Having him back, we progressed to the attunement area.
I was the runner, to make sure the places would be attuned, but not all.

However, for some reason mr wammo decided to attune the final portal with the 'enemy' stone. Because I had the one of our side.
So no bonus (we had almost finished off the last runners).
After cutscene we made a comment (not even that harsh) and mr wammo was gone.

Since we wanted bonus, we decided to load again, this time with the same team and Koss as replacement.
For some unknow reason, this went a lot faster than with mr wammo.
And I know for sure Koss' build was not the most effective.
Solo-killed the bonus-boss with my mesmer this time (same build as before).

So much for PuGs....

Oh, but guild teams are much better....
Yes, when you can get one together within a reasonable amount of time.
But no, you cannot start up right away.
You have to wait for ages for people to finish what they are doing, if they even want to join.
Oh, and since all are working on titles, that would mean they want to play on one character only. Meaning a possible overload of warriors or elementalists.

For some reason I get the feeling that people think that all human teams are R9+ guild teams with full unlock, the best builds/gear available and voice communication.
Well, they are not.
Ever noticed that 99% of the PuG members has a guild tag?
Would they suddenly improve when they play in a guild team?

Oh, you mean people that play in guild/alliance teams only?
Tell me, how many do you think there are?
Do you have any idea how long people that want to do a specific (hard) mission with a guild/alliance team have to wait before they can get a team?
Sure, one or two humans is possible, but full human team?

And again, no full unlocks.
A lot of times people unlock (on PvE characters) what they need as single player and not as player in a specific team build.
Meaning they have to invest gold (1k for each skill) to improve.
Leading to the common situation where they have builds that are not as efficient as could be possible with a team.




The freedom of H&H, it's incredible.
I can make a lot of different team combinations with my 25 heroes and the available hench.
Sure, I know those hench (except the EotN ones) suck, but I have full control over the 3 heroes.
I can load up any build I want and give them all the gear I need.
Since I know the hench builds, I know which ones to get in a certain situation. And how to enhance the team with hero builds around that.
And I don't have to wait for a very long time to get a party going.
I can even go afk or have a chat while playing and no-one complaining.
My H&H don't screw up, they do exactly what I want them to do.
When I have limited time, they don't mind me bailing out in the middle of a mission or area.

As you can see, it's the player with other humans that has the real disadvantage!

Jos makes a pretty good example of how screwed GW is.

Monks with 5 skills. No condition removal. No e management. WoH when they dont know to use it on <50%. Aegis, PS, SoR on the same bar with no e management.
Warriors with 6 skills. Charge as the elite. No deepwound. No IAS.
Rangers with 6 skills. Practiced stance as elite....with kindle arrows. No interrupts.


How can you possibly suggest that an average team of players is worse than this?
Yes there are bad teams. These dont represent the average though (Im not suggesting the average is great however but better than henchies!).

A player using henchies gets the same poor quality everytime. Yes in a pug you might have bad teams, you can also have very good teams.


Are you saying you have never teamed with someone with a full bar? Now if thats the case perhaps you have a point. But somehow I doubt it is the case.


Im starting to think even you can see why people solo!
They are all reasons people have stated for wanting 7 heroes. Can we do all that now? Yes we can.
Is it the same as a team of even an average pug? No.

Most areas we cant even have 64 skills (8 player areas of course).
We are forced to pick from several awful builds (Would I take that hundred blades W/Mo with HB over Devona? Yeah I would if I was available to pug. The builds are shocking!).

Even in GW:EN the henchmen bars suck. Monks with ZB which they dont know how to use and so blow the energy for example. Going past that however having 1 set build doesnt work everywhere. Maybe I want a BSurge ele, maybe I want an SS warder, maybe I want an SF nuker, maybe SH, maybe a shatterstone spiker, maybe a master of magic smiter?

Why should we not be able to play what we want? Why should we be forced to play at a disadvantage?

[QUOTE]that was mine and i got that from experts which i am not.

they stated months ago they would very happily trade all 4 henchmen for one additional hero.

they stated (the actual experts) that under the right conditions a properly set up hero with the correct runes/insig/skillbar would be much more effective than the 4 henchies that single additional hero would replace.

consider that carefully please as i am sure Anet did.

high end farming spot of choice

1. you + 3 heroes + 4 henchies loot scaling is not counted as you have a full party of 8 and you get your share as everybody else gets their share

2. you +4 heroes +3 EMPTY SLOTS loot scaling kicks in and normal loot is reduced but all those high end goodies on the exempted list still drop full rate with the party cut down to just above half.

that is where you have the extra chance at more loot.

a hero will take his/her share only if present to grab it.

those 3 empty slots give you a better chance at the missing slot drops which are still being dropped and have to go to someone in the group.

I dont see how that is different from 5 players +3 empty slots.

Besides players would farm much better than heroes. While ive never tried it im fairly certain a hero couldnt run a farming build like a 55 monk or whatever else people farm with now.

So this can only count for general play, well thats still the same as 5 players. The whole point is heroes ARE better than henchies. But players are better than heroes. So its not really going to result in anything. Besides why would I get the option of an improved team to cut it down? I want my full team of 8 custom builds so I can run around places like anyone in a team.

Can anyone argue in favor of 7 heroes without using the word want.

That means you can't use any of the following reasons:
-Let me play how I want.
-I want to use more heroes, since I have 25 but can only use 3.
-I want to play with custom builds/experiment.
-I don't want to play with people.

Please show me that 7 heroes is required. Show me what's broken. Show me:
-Areas of the game where H/H are insufficient. Excluding HM and Elite areas, since having 7 heroes in those areas wouldn't fix the problems or design implements that make those areas impossible to solo.
-H/H offer no advantages and only disadvantages.

Having more hero slots would be AMAZING. Why would I argue against something beneficial to me as well? Because I don't see it as justified enough to warrant using up Anet's resources or changing the game significantly for something that can't be done already.

[QUOTE]
in either case you are having drops for 8 being distributed to a party of 5.

loot scaling exemptions


drops for 8 distributed to a party of 5

it does not matter what those 5 slots are filled with as those 5 will randomly split what those 3 emply slots would have gotten if they had been filled

Why is it a want? Because its a game. People wont die if we dont get this. People will perhaps not spend any more money on GW related products, but im fairly sure everyone will still be alive and relatively healthy.

Does that mean we shouldnt ask for it? Does that mean its a pointless request that wont effect or change anything? No.

We want this because it will allow a big portion of the playerbase to be able to play more of the game.

"h/h offers no advantages and only disadvantages"

No one said that. It offers an advantage over no h/h.
But maybe we should limit players as well. How about players can only take 6 skills max. Its better than no skills right?

"Areas of the game where h/h are insufficient"

So you want to limit me by not letting me talk about the areas where h/h are insufficient?

I dont see why you think 7 heroes wouldnt work in HM. Some of the elite areas that requires the group to split obviousely cant be done. But HM doesnt require that.

Besides its not about them being insufficient. Its about the fact someone going with h/h is forced into playing at a much lower level than a team.


I also dont see it as a significant change as we already have heroes and we already have teams of 7 AI. Its not like they would need to create the whole hero system again as they already have it.


Edit for Loviatars post

Perhaps you missed the context of my comment.

Take 2 teams.
Team A has 5 players
Team B has 1 player and 4 heroes.

Player 1 on both teams will still get the same average ammount of drops.

The point is a player with heroes wont get anymore drops than a team of players. So there is no advantage gained.

I would love to go with just Heros, I normally go H/H but the Henchies AI is a bit dumber than your Heros AI. I wouldn't mind going as a group of real people controlling a character, but, this really needs to be done using voice communication in-game and not everyone has/uses Teamspeak , Ventrilo or whatever. The team/typing interface don't work for me because of a disability that limits the use of my hands/fingers

I bring you back to my absurd list of requests earlier in the thread.

I want (insert any absurd request here). Can I justify any absurd request using your logic?

No i think its fine to ask for it. And it most certainly will affect a lot of things.

And how much exactly can't you play with H/H? Other than some of the really funky missions (like Vizunah in HM...which is a problem with the mission design anyway) and elite areas. Those areas in particular wouldn't benefit as much as you'd imagine from Heroes because its the MISSION design thats impeding the soloer, not the lack of heroes.

In the end you want more heroes because you want more heroes.

If you want soloers to access more of the game, why dont you petition for redesigning the missions that are hard to solo? That way, even players with crappy henchmen, players who pug and the players who team up will also benefit from the changes, not just those with heroes.

The advantages of a H/H are offset by the fact that you can't have a full 7 hero team.

The advantages of a human team are offset by the fact that they are humans.

I think its perfectly fair.

I think 7 heroes works fine in HM. H/H works fine up to the point where the design of the mission destroys the A.I. But that same limit is also on heroes.

Again. Justify it for me.

You aren't forced to play at a lower level. You are playing the level you chose to play at, and thats with 7 A.I. instead of 7 people. Wether thats better or not, than people, I dont know.

I understanding WANTING a better choice. But thats still not a justification.


You dont see it as any significant change because you are only looking at it from your perspective as a solo player.

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So come on? Justify the change. Show me why you need it. Show me why its broken.

Sorry, you can't have everything. I have to deal with people (as a guild leader), but the reward i get is that i get people's help. You chose to stay with the A.I. so you are hampered by their limitation and having more of them wouldn't make any difference or fix the problems caused by mission design.

This is game, so anything can be argued as "not necesary" and as matter of "i want".

Noone holds gun at your head and forces you to do anything. You can do just fine with various self-crippling tactics. I finished prohecies in AL 45 armor (rather wasted all money on sup vigor, bad choice back then...), with FoC as my elite skill and without ability to chance build at will (refund points, ftl.).

-Do i need to complete campaign? No, I want it
-Do i need XYZ title? No, I want it
-Do i need fancy armor? No, I want it
-Do i need more storage? No, I want it
-Do i need hero of X profession? No, I want it.
-Do i need to kill of X boss? No, I want it.
-Do i need to chance builds easily and fast? No, I want it.

Sometimes "want" stuff argument is backed by ballance, just like in this.

Because having 1/2 of your party badly equiped and with funny builds is not really ballanced. (which does not really need to anything to do with want, its direct underpoweredness of henchies, so it might be stuff you are looking for.)

Its not NEEDED but again, NOTHING is needed.

Show me:

-Areas of the game where starter armor is insuficient. Excluding HM and Elite areas.
-Areas of the game where lack of (elite) skill X is cripling. Excluding HM and Elite areas.
-Areas of the game where non-max level is insuficient. Excluding HM and Elite areas.
-Areas of the game where 170att points are insuficient. Excluding HM and Elite areas.
-Areas of the game where nonmax weapon is insuficient. Excluding HM and Elite areas.
... etc.

Agreed Completely. Although the hero thing, there are mandatory heroes that you gain regardless if you want them or not.

Not balanced eh? What about the reasons why people prefer H/H to pugs in the first place? All those positive things.

They never lag. They do as you say. They have eternal patience, etc. etc. Read the thread for more phrase of H/H.

See your examples are examples of playstyles that have no advantage.

H/H has a direct and obvious advantage. Its not with people.

The difference between this and your list is that while you openly admit yours are "absurd" this is one that has a lot of positive effects.

I also dont want the design of all the missions to be changed so h/h can do them. Thats not what this is about.

I dont want the game made easier, I want access at the same level.
As it stands changing 3 heroes to 7 is a hell of a lot less work than changing the whole design of a lot of areas.


And no, im not chosing to play at a lower level. Because im playing solo im forced into taking henchmen. There is no choice on the matter.

You also cant say its something that must be needed to be worth doing. At the end of the day its a game. Nothing is needed. So using that to judge if something is worth spending the time to implement isnt going to get anything anywhere.

You are also extremely overstating the problems a few areas would cause with an all hero party. Only the areas that require splitting the team would cause a problem. Thats only a few places. So we dont do them, its unfortunate but its only a very small part of the game. Currently we have a disadvantage on all parts of the game (minus 4 man areas).



Im also not just looking at it from my point of view. I accept it will reduce the number of people who pug, not by a great ammount, but it will still reduce it.

That is the only effect it would have to people who pug.

Is that more important than letting the solo player gain all the benefits this change would grant?

If it would stop pugging all together than I wouldnt be here asking for it. Or if it had any other huge impact or was more negative than positive to the overall game. While thats obviousely more of a viewpoint I think if you looked at the list of reasons for each side this thread has generated the side for 7 heroes would have a lot more.

But what about players with no heroes and only henches as options?

Redesigning missions affects them positively as well.

My absurd list also are positive effects. Granted they are incredibly overpowered and unbalanced...

Giving you access to 7 would certainly make Normal Mode easier.

Agree or Disagree?

Fixing whats actually WRONG is better than patching it up.

Your choice was to not play with people. Thats still your choice. Don't go asking for handouts because the positive side of your choice isn't enough for you and you want more.

Priorities. Theres a list of things thats does NEED to be done. Theres a list of great things they could add. Guess where this suggestion sits.

Where are they disadvantaged to the point that they are unusable were never meant to be in the first place?

But not one of those reasons is based on anything other than want.

You live with the positive side of A.I., you have to take it with the negative side.

I live with the positive side of playing with people, I have to live with the negative side.

You play your way, ill play my way.

You pay your price and get your benefits. I do the same.

If you want more benefits, then give me more benefits.

Ok well just to start straight off replying to your last comment

Im quite happy to make pugging easier. If thats improving the search feature (I believe that was suggested back in this thread) im all for it. Anything that allows people to spend more time playing the game rather than arranging to play the game is great.

Then working my way up to your comment taking the good with the bad.
So we shouldnt try and improve stuff?

And again, yes its a want. Everything you have said is also a want. Because its a game. Its not critical. We might want 7 heroes, we might want 100 new weapons, we might want dwarves in stockings. We dont need anything. So why do we keep getting updates? Because wants are a good enough reason to change things. When it comes down to it GW is a product. By appealing to customers it sells more. So when enough people want something that would positively effect the game it might be added.



And I completely disagree with 7 heroes making it easier, I think we have established that point a long time ago.


As for people without heroes....they dont have heroes. The fact is each game (apart from GWEN) is a standalone game. Its not like because I own CoD im entitled to CoD2 for free. They have the option to buy the games like everyone else.

It might be nice to see the henchmen improved, but thats not the discussion of this topic. Since that wouldnt solve the problem this suggestion is aimed at fixing.

As for me not being happy with "the positive side of my choice".

If we paid the same for 2 cars but I got an old banger and you got a new sports car am I supposed to be happy that I have an old banger at all?

When the game was advertised as allowing people the option to solo or play with others it never mentioned 1 as being better than the other. I also dont think it was Anets intention to make 1 better. It just happened. But as it is right now, there is a huge difference between them. All we are asking is that we arent at such a disadvantage as we are now.


Saying you have to live with the downsides isnt the way to look at it. Things change and improve. If you have a knife that keeps going blunt you wouldnt just go, oh well live with the downsides. You improve it, you make it better, stronger.

Same goes for games. You keep improving them. To suggest that we should just be happy with what we have is a very poor argument.

Ill just get to what matters to me.

No. I never said be happy with what you have. I'm all for improving the gameplay, but for ALL players.

Not just soloers.
Not just puggers.
Not just henchers.
Not just those with GWEN/NF Heroes.

If you want to even out the gameplay, fix the mission designs.

Adding 7 heroes without fixing the major problems makes it into just a cosmetic superflous adjustment.

Sure you have 7 (or 11 in case of the deep) heroes, but you STILL cant solo 100% of the game.

And isn't that the crux of the argument?

What about soloers who dont have heroes? Isn't it unfair for them?

Stop pretending you care about all players, and using that as an excuse to add something that only benefits your player type.

Ok ill be as blunt in my reply as you chose to be.

Who does this suggestion benefit? People who solo. That should be fairly obvious.

Does that mean I dont care about other types of players? Of course not, thats why I said had this suggestion meant it would kill off another group I wouldnt have agreed with it. Im also not against suggestions that improve the game for others. However this specific thread is about this specific suggestion.

And tbh im not sure what you would change about the gameplay that would open the game up to all groups.

To not agree with something simply because it doesnt benefit you (while not having a negative effect) seems quite selfish to me.

For example if, as suggested earlier in this thread, people wanted a better party search I would of course agree with that. Doesnt benefit me at all. But it would help others.

And again im aware we cant solo 100% of the game. Thats unfortunate but just because we cant access all of it we shouldnt improve it?

Right now the solo player is at a disadvantage. Thats basically the bottom line of this. This change would simply allow the solo player to be able to play on a level similar to that of people in a team of players.

And only people who solo.

I dont agree with you because i think theres better answers out there. In other words, it sounds great, but once you think it through its a bad idea.

Again, theres better answers out there.

Now heres where we would disagree. I think both sides are fairly equal in capabilities (again...with exception to areas not designed for soloers).

(correct me if im wrong on these 4 statements)

We've all seen the negative sides of pugs.
Not all of us have seen the positive side of pugs (judging from some reactions here).
We've all seen the negative sides of heroes/hench.
We've all seen the positive effects of heroes/hench.

The only inequality you seem to really point out is the quality of skill bars in henchmen....which can be fixed by adding better skillbars.

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Ask yourself, why isn't there a MM henchman? Think about it.

seperate flags for the henchmen and making their bars half decent for all campaigns.problem solved,if you dont like the 3 hero limit then get a guildy/random who knows what theyre doing.plus you wont be able to have 7 heroes in the 4-man areas anyway,so no.

plus the added pressure of microing and keeping your heroes in order...

Being that I'm not in a guild, I'm very torn between wanting more heros and not. I want more heros because sometimes I really want my 2 monks, my war AND my ranger. I hate having to choose. I had that problem in FF games, I wanted to use everyone cuz they were cool, but ended up using the same group all the time. Also, PUG groups are very hard to find which eats into my playing time. Plus, they leave mid-mission, bitch at you for not skipping all the cutscenes and generally, I only use as a last resort (when h/h just can't cut it). Unless you're a crazy judo master with the flagging, I don't see 7 heros making the game drastically easier than 7 hench. Note that I said drastically.

However, allowing for a full hero party means pretty much the end of PUGs in GW. GW was always meant to be a game where you had to rely on others and the developers were very adamant about having a team/socialize aspect. When I get in a good PUG group, I love it! Since I'm not in a guild, having real people to talk to, strategize with and make tactical decisions with is tons of fun and wouldn't happen with 7 heros. Not because the game would be super easy, but mainly because I can do most anything as is with my party of h/h and my heros suck. I mean Oreck bowling ball picking up suck. Dyson never loose suction suck. If I had 7 heros that were actually good, I bet there'd be 20% of the game I would struggle with, 10% of that that I wouldn't be able to do and half of that 10% would be optional anyways.

Yes. This suggestion is one that would improve the game for solo players. As I said before this thread is just about this subject.

Why is that a bad thing?

Should I be against a better search just because it doesnt help me? Of course not.

If it improves the game its a good thing!


Please if there are better answers share with us. As I said if it improves the game its good. So please share with us.


I must say im suprised you think h/h is on the same level as players.

Now that list of reasons h/h are bad is somewhere near the start of this thread so forgive me for not digging back there for it.

But the main points of it are

Heroes stand in AoE
Heroes dont kite
Heroes cant combo skills
Heroes dont stay in wards
Heroes cant maintain enchantments
Heroes dont know how to use some skills (at least they wont wait until they meet a clause in the skill)
Heroes will waste ints on skills like flare yet let MS land
Heroes will waste a skill like MS when only 1 enemy is left

The list goes on if you want to dig back for all the reasons.

When it comes down to it players are better because they can think. They can make choices based on each situation.


You obviousely havent read the start of this thread (it is long however so cant really moan at you).

One of the reasons for wanting 7 heroes is due to time restrictions or multiple afk. With a player even 1 player you still inflict this on them. If I can only play for 30 mins then a break for 20 mins then come back. Do you really think the other player wants to sit for 20 mins waiting?
What if I go afk multiple times during a mission? Should they be forced to wait?

Having 7 heroes would allow people to no inflict this on others, while not being punished with henchmen for not ruining the game for others.

Also when was 7 heroes asked for in 4 man areas???
In 4 man areas...you take 4 chars....

Hench shouldn't have great skill bars. They should just have enough skills to make them relatively useful in most general situations. REAL players have the better skill bars you desire.

And I disagree with the hench flags. In a party, heros are your bodyguards. You're their master. They go where you want them to, attack what you want them to and make sure you stay healed (this is all ideally, I know). Hench are mercenaries. They follow the leader, attack what the leader attacks or what they feel like and heal when they don't have something better to do. You can never really trust hired guns and that's all they are.

I already did
A long time ago. I just don't see the need for more heroes (as lyra_song) and I do see that more heroes would hurt teaming besides PuG.
People stated that PuGs are bad and while I don't fully agree with it, for the sake of this argument I'll asume PuGs are not worth the effort.
However, as I already stated earlier with arguments that were not countered, it would also hurt friends/guild and alliance groups.

I already know that. In earlier postings I expressed that hench might need improvement.

But let's take a look at the prophecies hench, which are probably the worst of all.
First, you don't need any hench in the 4 man areas, so we move to 6 person areas.
Available hench: Stefan, Reyna, Alesia, Orion, Thom, Claude, Durham.
With Claude you get e-mgt and Durham has the hex removal and enemy enchantment removal.
The 5 (6 in HM) skills on Alesia are helping maintaining energy. Replacing heal other with Dwayna's Kiss would be nice in HM.
WoH usage is not that great, but it's only a 5e spell. The main problems are breeze and heal other, not WoH.

With Little Thom, you get a hench that can cancel stances.
He works great in a physical team, enhanced by paragon GftE or orders necro.
Stefan is not that good at attacks.
Reyna has Practiced stance, which is not so great, but since she uses Kindle Arrows, you can take advantage of the fire damage.

You are able to know all about those hench. The way they work, their advantages, their disadvantages.

While they don't have the best builds in the game, you can build a decent team around them.
You know Devona has two KD's, combine that in a team that takes advantage of that.
If you want to make a hex-centered build, take Dunham, since he's the only one that can hex.
When you take him as only hex caster in the team, you know what hex is on the target (burden makes them slower without degen, crippling is slower with degen and empathy is lose health on attacks).
Making it easier to switch targets as needed.

I am not saying hench are good, I'm just saying that you know what you get and can build your team around it.
This would not make the individual hench better, but would make the hench an asset instead of a burden to the team.
This is what a lot of people seem to forget. They only look at the various individual builds and say 'hench suck', not noticing that the greatest teams are not those with the best individual builds on each hero/hench/player, but instead those teams where skills are adjusted to support the entire team.
It's very possible to make a decent team with H&H when you take advantage of the limitations of the hench.

My thought so on the 7 heros aspect goes like this when I am out with H/H party it feels no more different than presearing.There is one big difference though and that is I am solo this is when guild chat and alliance chat are very quiet at times.In post it feels very much like pre it would be nice if we could just solo it and get rid of the missions as the game as changed so much it is not a cooperative game anymore.

I would say down size the spawns make them on par with our chars abilities and be done with it.It was fine to be a cooperative game in the beginning but that has all changed and with GW 2 around the corner it will be harder to get groups together to complete missions.That is when everyone is playing in GW2.it just feels like pre to me when heroing and henching it.

lets see, try running a fairly original build in PUG PVE and observe what kind of reaction you get from other players. I have and it generally goes in the form of "wtf! change that, put this!" - Kick - "psst, nooooB!"

now try running a 4 Ne team , 1 Pa , 2Mo, 1As in a PUG in PVE. It doesn’t happen.

now do that with H/H. *bangs head against table.

One can do what The_Jos has said and build the whole team around the henchies...but that’s just wrong and in the end not fun and highly uninspiring.

7 Hero teams enables people to explore the cool combos and weird builds that simply never are used in PUGs (because they either rely too much on synergy, or are complicated to explain [total effect VS single], are boring for many of the players or simply are just downright inefficient compared to "holy trinity" type teams.)

I’ve finished all the games multiple times with many many different toons, TWO things keep me coming back for more:

1. the guild, and oh wowzors look at that I even play with them and we have events and all! REAL PEOPLE ...
2. the fun of putting a build together. And what even more fun? putting a TEAM build together.

the day i see PUGS advertising stuff like "LF anything! we play to have fun!" ill join one no questions asked.
until that day ill stick with my guildies for the social side and my heroes for action.

Anet, please stop gimping heroes for the sake of your designer "vision" its not what you WANT it to be its what players have made it into.

As it stands 7 hero teams is the way forward.

What's point of having over 20 different heroes when you're only able to use 3 heroes at a time, for most of time you'll using hero monk, necromancer, and elementalist which left most of the other heroes with other profession hardly ever being use.

People keep saying having 7 heroes which decrease player interactive with other, some even say that will force everyone to go solo since everyone using heroes. Correction is the people want play in PuG really force other to play PuG whereas if we are able to have 7 heroes doesn't mean that you have to play 7 heroes which you will still have the option of finding PuG, whether or not someone want to form a PuG is entirely up to the people. you can't force people to play with you just because you felt everyone should play in PuG.

Beside there is still going to be big advantage between playing in a group of heroes and group of players. There's some advantage of teaming up with other player that you can't really get from heroes such as intelligence of using strategy and using skill at the right time, well most of us anyway, some player can be less intelligent than hero or henchman for that matter. Well I am sure this quite obvious to most of us.

I finaly see some good posts here.Yes its only anets bloody designer vision that prevents 7 heros.If they want ppl to buy their GW2 then they going to have to adjust, like they did with lvl cap or hard mode or the grind.They can change their minds if ppl apply pressure for a long time.
My opinion is this.Ither let us use all heros we want to use or leave just 3 and get rid of the rest.On that note i think that only those ppl should unlock 7 heros feature(whenever itll be) who got all 3 campaigns and gwen and who beat them all in normal mode.

So you can be like Snow White and her seven dwarves, Sleepy, Sneezy, Grumpy,... Gehraz, Mehnlo, Little Thom, and Talon Silverwing.

The way I use my heroes mainly is I equipped them for the major lines.
So I have one blood, one death and one curses necro, all geared and runed for their attribute.
I use my monk and ele heroes only when I team up with one other player.
Necro will be there, mostly curses, sometime mm.


I will say this once more, now in somewhat clearer terms:
I do not care about PuGs.
PuGs can go to hell (well, for the sake of this discussion).
7 heroes will also hurt guild and alliance teams.
Not because heroes are always better, but because it's so much easier to team up with them. And they will do the job just fine (see below).


The main problem here is not the compare between 1+7 heroes vs 8 humans.
Humans win most of the time, period.
It's that the strategic value of a single added human in a balanced hero team is minimal (1/7 -> 2/6). Ok, you get someone who can time skills.
But use more advanced strategy than a 1/7 team? Doubt it. Except when we are talking about picking up items, something heroes can't do.

Heroes are really good at one thing, timing.
Discord GvG team was a good example of that.
Put condition and hex on a enemy in range and 4 heroes would spike at the same time. That's only possible with a practiced human team with voice chat.

So what you get when adding a single human is minimal additional value and someone who is not effective in playing pure hero team builds (that trigger on conditions/hexes and the like).
Add a second human (3 total now) and you can do somewhat more strategical things, but sacrifice ever more hero power.

The thing is, the value of human strategics and timing decreases fast when humans are replaced by AI.
The more AI, the less strategical things you can do.
At the same time, the value of heroes also decrease fast when they are replaced by humans.
The more humans, the less advantage you can take of the 'dumb AI'.

When 7 heroes are allowed, the optimal teams would be either 1 human + 7 heroes or 8 humans.
Then there is a complicating factor.
Hero AI also reacts very fast to enemy AI.
Faster than most humans. They just don't use the right skill at the right time.
This leads to the situation where the 2+6 team is the worst option.
You get a human with not that much strategic value that has most probably a slower reaction time than a hero.
So you sacrefice AI which is good vs AI for someone that is not so good.
The value of humans increases when more heroes are replaced but I think that the value of a 7 hero team would most probably be at around between 4/4 and 5/3. Only after that point humans are more valuable than heroes.
Given that the heroes are used in a team that is tuned to take maximum advantage of the AI.

If you think 2 humans + 6 heroes are superior to 1 human + 7 heroes, both teams optimized for playing in that specific team, please tell me and state why you think that.

the_jos. you are mixing PvE with PvP and that makes me sad.

It has been repeatedly stated over and over that 7 hero teams would be reserved for PVE, hell even just to PVE HM.

separate pvp and pve please, they are two different gameplay styles.

No, I am not mixing PvE and PvP.
I only used a PvP example to show the power of heroes, to show why 7 heroes would hurt teaming in general.