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.

Then please, do tell, how do you measure henchies hp while observing them in action?

Yeah, thought so. Fire&Ice already said twice their hp but we can't see where he got that.

It would be nice if he redirected us to that source.

As i said one or two times,i honestly dont remember where i saw there health ammounts,if i remembered i would tell you.

480 health logically makes sense. Get Eve to use Blood Ritual (17% sac, 81 or 82) then cast an 10 specced Ethereal Light (75 health) on her (no Divine Favor). If it heals to a sliver off full health then it's 480.

If Eye of the North henchmen are runed then 550 makes sense for some but not all depending on what runes are given. A superior vigor, two vitaes, then a minor rune in their main attribute + primary would work out to the 550. However some henchmen use a third attribute so whether they would have 540 or simply not have that extra rune its unsure. The only way you could probably test that is to die, and have Lina use Ressurection Chant. Her Protection Prayers and Divine Favor should be maxed leaving her Healing Prayers to be between 0-4 (4 if runed with a minor).

Using Eve to Blood Ritual can determine the amount of health they have in Eye of the North as well. 17% of 550, about 93, 6 specced Heal Other heals for 93. If it heals to full, try with 5 for an 83 point heal which should put it to near full.

Seeing all the thought people are giving this (which really amazes me!) I'm kinda surprised nobody ever posted a similar question...
Seems to me this is a question many people would like to know.

Regina? You there? ^^

You don't. I didn't suggest you could. But, the original question was about what weapons bonuses, skills, etc. the Henchmen use, and much of that (but not all) can be determined by careful observation - if you want to spend your time that way.

Anyone with access to one of the early Prima Guides can tell you that level 20 Henchmen have 480 health. It's common knowledge.

EDIT - I take that back - you can observe how much health they have. A simple Google search will net you this:
http://guildwars.incgamers.com/showthread.php?t=430122

Go stand in a maelstrom from an ice imp both you and a caster henchy, set ur hp to 480 and armor to 60 and see if ur hp drops by the same percentage each hit. Thats easiest way i can think of to check hp.

I think I once worked out what prot attribute the prot henchy in prof had by her shield of regen, but it was nerfed or something and i cant remember now. Also cant remember if it was <12 or >12.