Henchmen weapon + armor mods?

It just occured to me that I do not have any clue as to what the stats are of the henchmen's weapons...
The whole "7 heroes" thread and the "do you customize?" thread brought me to this wondering.

Do they use mods on their weapons, and if so, which ones? And are they customized to them (+20% dmg)?
Same for insignia's on their armor: do they have any? and if so, which ones?

I'll assume the damage and armor stats are max when they are level 20, but the rest is unclear.

By "henchmen", do you mean "heroes"?

If so, if you put some heroes in your party and press "I" to open your inventory, you can click on their face at the top of the window to see what armour and weapons they have.

Their armour rating increases as their level increases so there is no need to buy them more armour. "Hero Armour" only changes the appearance of the armour they wear, and does not give them any other bonuses at all. You can, however, apply runes and insignia to your hero's armour, and remember, the rune you put on the headpiece gets an additional "+1" in that attribute added to it.

If you customise weapons for you, you can give them to your heroes and they will also get the +20% customisation benefit. Likewise, they will gain any benefit from any mod or inscription you use on the weapon also.

You should try to upgrade hero weapons with collectors items or gold/purple/blue inscribable chest junk or drops, since most of the weapons they come with will not be max damage, and shields wont be max armour etc..

If by "henchmen" you do actually MEAN "henchmen" (Sister Tai, Kai Ying, Alesia, Herta etc...) then no, you cannot change anything about them.

He meant henchmen imo, and he doesnt want to change anything.. Just curious about henchmen's equipment, as well as me to be honest

Depends on the campaign.
if im not mistaken,all henchies in prophs/factions/nf have 500 health and a max,customized weapon.

EoTN henchies(there smart) have 550health,and runes to fit there build,and again max,customized weapons.

No, by "henchmen" I mean "henchmen". I know how my heroes are set up, as I did that myself. Henchmen on the other hand I cannot customize or check their equipment, that's why I'm curious about it.

Interesting info. Where did you get it? I can't find it on the wiki, only their builds. Can you confirm this?

yaa, its interesting, but due to their skill bars, they should be avoided anywhere anyway
was a bit surprised by the fact they actually are worth takin in GW:EN, but anywhere else use them as a minion factory for my MM hero

interesting question, this makes me wonder what henchies have as well. it should be interesting to see.

Never cared about armor, weapons, and rune/insignia info myself. Only thing I care about is builds. Some hench are quite useful, some are worthless (depending on your play style). I always assumed hench had max armor, max weapons, no runes, no insignias, and weapon mods were 15^50, +30, and everything else was irrelevant.

Mildly curious though, but not enough to do any testing myself.

i'd assume max clean customized
armour, no inscriptions

Henchmen don't have Runes, anyone who knows the values for a 12 Healing Prayers spec Orison, knows that

I always assumed henchmen were clean armor and weapons.

They have set health levels that are above the basic 480 most chars get(500-550 depending on the campaign,eotn gets 550 others get 500),other then in eotn they have no attribute changes over 12.

The bold items contradict each other. This is twice you have stated things as known facts but not responded to the person asking where you got this from as this information is not available on the known sources.

As far as the OP is concerned - I think it would be reasonable to think that the henchies are set up in the same way that heros are when you first get them - so henchies below level 20 will have lower hp and non max weapons and no runes, level 20s having max clean weapons with max clean armor and no runes.

Read the second post i said OTHER THEN EOTN have no changes over 12.

A good example of the attribute distribution is Herta in EoTN.
Her ward is at 14spec.

And any one can look at the henchies durations on enchantments and such to figure out what there attributes are,it isnt a hard thing to understand.

As for the health ammounts stated,i've seen that some where,honestly dont remember where.
And the weapon being customized was just a guess,its what makes the most sense.

interesting question, sounds like its already answered in posts above, but its something i've never thought of and something you would think a-net would have released somewhere on the official wiki or something, but can't find anything.

1. No they don't.

2. You can easily tell that EoTN henchies have at least some runes by looking at their skills.

They don't contradict each other. I think you may be getting hung up on the idea that Runes are usually used to take an attribute beyond 12, but a Minor Rune (for example) could simply be used to take an 11 to a 12. Not that this applies here, because that's not what Fire&Ice meant (as he explained).

You keep wanting Fire&Ice to quote sources, but he keeps pointing out to you that you can, if you want to take the time, establish these things yourself by carefully observing the Henchmen in action. Perhaps he should write it up in Wiki first, and then quote "Wiki".
(I always find it a bit amusing when people quote Wiki to "prove" something.)

Mods: - no trolling intended.

Thanks for all the replies.
I've also assumed their armor is "clean" (no insignia's). Not sure about that though. Perhaps it's different in EotN as stated above.
As far as runes go, you can always check how high their attribute levels are from observing their skills. This could therefore easily be mentioned on the wiki pages.
Weapon mods are a mystery though. At level 20 they should be max damage, but which mods do they use? I guess they'll be like collector weapons: req.9, max dmg, 20/20 for casters and clean for melee, hopefully customized...

Unless someone from Anet can give us the facts, we'll never be 100% sure I guess.

Not all attributes can be determined by watching a hench use skills. For examlpe, look at Little Thom. in Prophecies, he uses the following skills:

Executioner's Strike
Swift Chop
Wild Blow
Healing Signet
Spring/Charge
Resurrection Signet

Now, how much health is he healed when he uses Healing Signet? How much damage does he do with Wild Blow, Swift Chop, or Executioner's Strike? Only thing you can determine is his Strength attribute when he uses Charge, or by carefully timing his duration of Sprint when he has that. However, if his Sprint lasts 12 seconds, is that an indication of 9, 10, or 11 attribute points in Strength? And since he only uses Sprint before Dragon's Lair, when he picks up Charge, he isn't level 20 yet anyway.

So Little Thom can only be an example of how many Tactics points he has. But even that has leeway for error unless you make sure he is weakened when he uses it. Since all possible durations of Charge correspond to 2 attribute levels, you would need to lower his attribute by 1 to determin which it is.

Even knowing Tactics on him, you still do not know Strength and Axe Mastery.

Supposing you found Charge lasted 10 seconds even when he was Weakened, that would mean he had 10 Tactics. Now, does this mean he is running a 12 Axe, 10 Tactics, 8 Strength setup, or an 11 Axe, 10 Strength, 10 Tactics? OR, does it mean he is running 12 Axe, 9 Strength, and 9 Tactics, but has a Minor Rune to boost his Tactics to the needed 10?

Too many possibilities to prove what the hench have for attributes. There may be a few hench who use enough skills that would indicate an attribute investment to know their full layout, but not all of them.

Caster henchmen are pretty easy to figure out because they'll generally have a single attribute + primary. Physicals are a different story if they use anything from a third attribute, which is pretty much all of them that I can think of. The only way to determine the level of those skills is by examining any effects they may use on the party. From this you'll know that Devona/Stefan have 12 or 13 in Tactics because their "Charge!" lasts for 10 seconds.

Determining the strength of their weapons is another story, however in theory it should be possible. Thom has Wild Blow, an attack that will always inflict a critical hit. From this you can determine what his Axe Mastery level is, and roughly the spec of his Strength attribute. All you have to do is wait for him to swing at a fresh target with Wild Blow as his opening move. Screenshot the health bar, then you equipped with an axe can adjust your attributes until your Wild Blow removes the same amount of health.