when do we quit the henchy hand holding?

Thats right, I want to know. So you own (much like the rest of us) all the campaigns. and you make a new character for the first few levels (maybe 20?) you have henchies and heros.

But since we all know they steal some of the "best" drops (depending on location and levels of mobs) and I believe they also steal from chests (correct me if i am wrong)

when do you give them up and go solo?

(I added heros to this topic because even heros steal from you)

Loot scaling makes going solo essentially pointless; hench/heroes will only steal coins, whites, and blues. Possibly purples also.

Golds, Greens, Rare mats, lockpicks(?) etc will not be affected.

The only chests heroes/hench get drops from are those that do not need a key to open, like SF/UW/FoW _quest_ chests.

Lolwut?
When we go solo we get pooned by the first mob unless we're a sin...
Second how can heroes steal chest drops? Each chest has his own rates, it all depends on luck if you get a gold or a purple. They do steal mob drops, but i think it's the same as when you would be with a full party of real people.

not really... henchies steal your golds, greens and rare mats, but loot scaling doesn't

Only when you become powerful enough to obtain the secret level 21 can you roam freely slaying beasts of Tyria, Cantha, and Elona.

Loot is dead, most can't even be given away let alone sold. Just hang out in town and talk smack. It's the popular pastime in game. Then you can find out what the new game is and all the juicy details and jump ship.

Guild wars is now an enhanced avatar based chat program. Remember GW has no monthly fee, so if you stay or go, they still got your money from buying the game(s)

"Strange game, the only winning move is, not to play" Joshua "War Games"

wow what a dead issue to raise up

if you think you can do just as well with less h&h, then don't bring them

if you need them, then don't complain that they steal their share

simple as that

also, don't confuse pve questing with solo/duo farming

Then you get pooned as a sin because that godmode everyone was talking about is just like every other farming build and only works in certain areas.

heros and henchies dont steal drops anymore than fellow players... you just cant visually see the drops for h/h like you can see other human party members' drops, i have probably gotten my best drops during h/h vanqs. And heros stealing from any chest is just LMAO... guess someone has some bad luck.

Mostly people run H/H when they want to finish missions or vanquishes ASAP, to advance their characters/titles. You farm solo when you want to make money, or else join some elite speed-clear teams. They don't try to do both at once.

That said yes alot of henchies do have questionable additions to the group. People running 7-man (3 heroes from another acct that leaves) are already doing this trick, getting both much faster clear times and slightly more loot.

Edit: as mentioned, scaling doesn't affect golds, greens, or rare mats. Although kill speed does factor into it, a good 6-heroway will probably get less whites/gold per kill, but should be about the same per time. As mentioned, dungeon and locked chests are not affected at all.

I don't think this is true any more. I was under the impression that increasing party size increases number of drops proportionally, so although they do "steal" drops, drops are increased to match, so you notice no difference. (This is what loot scailing is)

Edit: Ah, ignore me. I fail at pve. Read billypowergamer's post 2 posts down.

ummm, steal from chests? and what's the difference between henchies getting the drops and real people getting the drops if I don't get the drops ;-)

Actually, Bug John is right:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Loot_scaling

If you are after anything on the exception list, you are better off going solo.

I'm pretty sure he's referring to the chests that spawn in FoW after completing Tower of Courage (?) that drop only a single item and don't require a key. I'm pretty sure I've seen those drop nothing when h/h were present, meaning they would be claiming whatever was coming out.

Um...never? GW is a team game, even if that team is a group of AI companions. Furthermore, most of the time when I'm playing, I'm trying to do something (dungeon, mission, etc), and successfully completing my objective in a decent time span means way more than whatever slight increase in drops I would get by dropping a henchman or two.

To the above: flag your henchies out of radar range so their names turn grey, voila, they don't steal the drops.

READ people. Geez.

Anyway, it's negligibly more beneficial to play with as few party members as possible. Playing with more people allows you to clear areas *faster* regardless of difficulty or possible party size. If you're farming, then there are certain builds and certain areas that can solo/be solo'd. Otherwise, get used to playing with a full party of henchmen, heroes, other players, and combinations of those.

Because of loot scaling, Hench steal your loot even when you don't party with them!

How stupid is that ANet?

i heard gw was a team game


...then again i heard gw was a multiplayer game, so i could be wrong

This part is correct to a certain point. I use to do the kilroy quest all the time in SF with hero/hench and when the chest would popup I would open it and get at most 2 items (purples of course)... but when I flagged them way off radar and opened it. The chest would drop at least 4 items.

Once I heard gw was a pvp game.