What is the best party of henchman to assemble at Yak's Bend?

I am a lvl 13 El/Mo and want some suggestions for which henchmen to take with me on my adventures for the best results (i.e. survivability). I figure that I need the healer, thom the brawler, and probably the other fighter...but from there I am not sure. I have been taking healer, two fighters, mage, and mesmer. What do you suggest?

Thank you.

Sorry. To tell you, but I play mes, and imho that's probably a waste of a spot. Playing mes takes human finesse anyway, and with recent nerfs/buffs, mesmer is a waste of a spot.

No it isn't. AI interrupter/computer reflexes > you. If it's not an interrupt, then yeah, you could probably do better.

Lose one of the warriors and pick something else. Anything really.

Should I really give up a tanker for another caster? It seems like the group needs more than one muscle. Also, what is the benefit of necro vs. mes henchman.

Thanks

Like he said. Or ask a friend or a fellow guildie with heroes to go with you.

That should work fine. However, you might want to consider taking Reyna instead of Dunham. I think she's more useful at that stage of the game.

Not to dis superfemi1's reflexes, but Katsumi is probably right. Though some people do have amazing reflexes, the computer is not only very fast, but also very consistent. However, where the human factor comes in, is priority. A human player can read the skills being used and find which ones are best to disable. The computer can be pretty dumb at this sometimes, blocking unnecessary skills and letting vital ones get by.

Skills such as [skill=text]Power Spike[/skill], [skill=text]Energy Burn[/skill], and [skill=text]Shatter Enchantment[/skill] are very powerful spells and can seriously damage an enemy. [skill=text]Backfire[/skill] is pretty good, too. It forces monks into a very bad situation. Either don't cast or take damage.

But I digress. Bring Dunham, Thom, Stephan, Alesia, and Orion. Henchies are lvl 8, so you might need to help heal. But as long as both you and Orion are blastin away, the tanks are holding and you can help Alesia heal, you should be fine.

Dunham
* Distortion
* Drain Enchantment
* Empathy
* Imagined Burden
* Resurrection Signet
* Shatter Hex

Reyna
* Dual Shot
* Kindle Arrows
* Power Shot
* Resurrection
* Troll Unguent


I'd go with Dunham.

Unfortunately, Dunham has no interrupts and his skillset is not particularly good. Worse, what skills he has the AI does not use very effectively. Either Reyna or Claude would be a better choice in general.

I'd go with Claude instead of Dunham, iirc he carries Blood Ritual which will help out you and Alesia when low on energy.

I appreciate all of the good feedback and suggestions...thanks ya'll.

When I play my E/Mo, I take Brawler, Ranger, Necro, Mes, healer. Has worked well for me.

I usually have Dunham in the party at that point. The Stone Summit mesmers carry Empathy which can do a huge amount of damage to the henchies as they attack blindly through it (and if Alesia gets hexed with it, it's basically a death sentence for her as she's usually unable to heal through it in my experience). Dunham is the only henchman in Prophecies who carries any form of hex removal; that alone makes him worth taking with you if you don't have any hex removal yourself.

It's been a long time since I was there with only hench - but lets see.

The healer is always a must - while her skill bar isn't that great it works and is all you have. I would take the two warriors - they aren't that bad even when compared to heroes. For the rest of the game these are pretty much core - as far as the hench go they are fairly competent and even when you get heroes you will usually not beat them by much (well, other than level at your point).

That leaves two more. Last time I played there with hench we had scatter, since we don't so much now I would take the mage as her AoE spells are OK (would be better if they either replaced firestorm or made her smarter in casting it). If not her then I take the necro - not that he is really any good but just isn't that bad. The other slot is usually the ranger - high enough armor to live and not eat up heals.

I generally found that the hench mesmer to be the worst - yes hex removal is nice but that is *one* skill and the rest blow. An AI interrupter is VERY nice on a hero and some of the Canthan ones are decent too. He has very little in the way of decent self heals and tends to die quickly sucking up heals and rezzes quickly to boot. A human mesmer is very useful, a hero mesmer set up properly is also - the hench mesmer in prophecies deserves what he gets every time I brought him out. That is a quick death.

I don't like taking claude. His energy regen capabilities also get the healer to waste heals on him instead of letting him self heal.

Causing others to not get healed when they should because alesia spends so much time healing claude.

Then again, I don't really need claude's energy regen.

I also like the hex removal capabilities, and empathy works well on enemies. Sure, he has imagined burden and that's mostly useless, but...