Henchmen Questions

Just have a couple of questions that most people should know the answer to .

(I play an E/Mo)

1. I just made it to Yak's Bend and now I can have 6 people in a party. If I play alone, which should I bring and why?

2. Should I always bring 5 henchmen or is it better to not have as many sometimes?

Thanks a lot for your help.

Unless you're running a solo build (which you aren't at this point, it's too early for that), you should always take henchmen with you.

There are rarely any reasons to leave town without a full party, whether it's humans or henchmen.

Definitely keep taking a full party. Farming (which you aren't doing at this point) is really the only instance it pays to go with fewer.

Orion: fire is great in the shiverpeaks. Lots of ice to melt
Alesia: You need a healer
Thom/Stephan: you'll need a front line. Take em both if you want.
5th guy: I usually took the ranger because of her higher armor vs elemental damage. I can't say I really *loved* the necro or mesmer, but Claude *does* have [blood ritual] which can be nice so long as you aren't having lots of death issues.

Definitely take both Little Thom and Stefan. Alesia is also a must (ewwww...I hate myself for saying that), and Orion and Reyna are the two best choices for the remaining spots.

Alright now I have them full except the last spot, it's a battle between Dunham and Reyna.

What's good about Dunham?

If you are in a hex/enchantment heavy area...even then, Dunham is only ok. The ranger will take more hits than him even with his distortion. Empathy is good, but really...especially in the shiverpeaks...take Reyna.

Ummm...he can remove enchantments and hexes. I don't know a ton else that's great about him.

<---- is a Mesmer, but agrees with Sindy. In most situations, especially early, I'd take Reyna.

Most of it is person preference and play style though.

You don't need 2 warriors and Little Thom goes and aggro's everything, so I'd stick with Stefan.

I dunno, I've always preferred having at least two frontliners. That's just me, though.

One warrior is sufficient in my opinion. Reyna's got good survivability but not much in the way of interrupts or raw damage, so I normally don't bring her.

Seeing as the OP is an ele, I think he'll find Claude a valuable member of the team. Claudes Blood Ritual will keep both the OP and the monks in energy, so Claude would be my suggestion.

Dunham's only worthwhile spell in the North Shiverpeaks is Empathy, which doesn't suck but isn't great either. Later in the game he gets more useful (Crippling Anguish is perhaps not the sexiest elite skill he could bring, but it's not useless either).

Irrelevant to henchmen but two more questions.

3. Should I buy keys? Why/why not?

4. What should I do with my purple items?

3. If you want items. You will not be able to turn a profit (the keys will cost more than you can get from the items) so I'd suggest using keys as you find them.

4. I sell them to the merchant. Sometimes they may have upgrades which can be salvaged and used, so identify them first before selling.

purple items (if max damage) should go to a hero, if your hero does not need them then they are usually merchant fodder

keys are used to unlock chests I personally only bother with the ones that cost 600 gold on up, as the drops aren't worth it (usually) from lower end chests.... you can also use lockpicks if you have some

Alright thanks, but how do I know if the items have upgrades? Sometimes when I identify some things are unlocked but by now I forget which ones had upgrades.

They should say if they have upgrades. You could get a purple drop saying that it's a Fellblade. When you identify it, it could become a Icy Fellblade of Defense.

It could also say if it's unidentified or not.

Well weapon upgrades are present if there is a prefix or suffix to the weapon name. Perhaps go over to gw.gamewikis.org and look under weapon upgrades to get a better idea.