Henchman Skill Bar Contest Winners!

I would laugh if the same day these skill bar updates come out they will update the AI to properly use said skills.

we know thats not going to happen >.>

First of all,

Gratz to all winners, good job.

would be a shame if they didn't update the hench, but than again most builds
wouldn't be that great in PvE.

/facepalm at this contest, gg wiki builds and lol @ the thought of henchies actually trying to use them correctly

Whao guys, maybe your taking this to far.
Yes some bars are... horrible as AI doesn't know how to use them.

Didn't it cross your minds that Anet will update AI to make these bars better.

They aren't to replace players, sadly they aren't good subs either. Until a major AI update we are going to have to wait to use them.

Well said ......
Also even if the AI is changed.......it still is the bar there using that fails

So uh, the whole "we want orginality" thing wasn't very important?

Seriously, these bars will not run on current heroes, and I'm sure Anet knows this. So even if AI is improved, I just got totally jerked around because I didn't copy PvX for the win.

WTB some actual care about this game.

Edit: This contest is the last straw. Good luck guys, I'm tired of being let down.

Grats to all the winners. We will have to see how this plays out

Not all of them are in meta,

I Will Win Ff build is... Shock sword? I hope the henchie will get an AI update to cancel his frezny.

Leet T H E O R Y is a hammer warrior, most of them runs earth shaker now a days, deaths charge needs to be fixed for him.

This Is Trigger is primal rage, still needs the same fix as I Will Win Ff.

Etron In Vitro is cripple shot, decent.

Lulu Xan is mage bane, it disappoints me that it's 4 skills different from Etron In Vitro.

Tannaros Tower Rush is VoR, it looks good. But the stance puzzles me as the henchie needs to be enchanted.

Cassie Santiago, this is new. I like it, not to bad.

Sacred Wolfy is... bad. The only reason it is bad is the henchmen can't pull off infuse well. Infusing spikes is about knowing your foe which AI can't do.

Il Juliya Il is RC, the only problem is that it is largely a part of meta.

Bellicus Magnus uses corrupt enchant, on originality it's worse than Cassies but I wouldn't mind taking this bar.

Dark Rising Shadow is LC... it's mostly meta and general players can easily roll this bar. It's decent but heroes won't use the AoE to effectively

A Papaya In There is blinding surge, doesn't look bad at all. I won't mind taking this henchie.

Luzy Of Fire is MB ele... didn't we have a huge problem with their builds before?

Mala Aurora is shatter stone. Thumbs up, I like it.

Hajime Hinata is Mirror of ice, I don't mind it.

Saint Reapers Sin probably won't use the build effectively unless a strong AI update.

Pseudo Antipathy is decent. Weapon spells puts me at bay.

Zen Si Ert is wounding strike, not much choices from elites to start with. But I won't mind taking this henchie along.

Aria Of Nerf is decent. Not at the good or bad bar, but not much you can do for Paragon.

Aurora Alessandra is cruel spear. I like it, I won't mind it.

Tiny Tina is shock axe, needs the same fix again.

Iarwain De Llanowar is hundred blades, I like, thumbs up.

Adepte De La Guerre is good, not sure if AI could handle frail.

Haldibarn Earendul is good. I'll take the henchie with me.

Unfaithful Servant is thumper.... straight from wiki... 0 points on originality. But it works.

Syn Spellstrike looks good, slowing spells, but 4 interrupts seem to much.

Leet Noobified is ok, rather have a person.

Healing Blocks is good. I won't mind taking this one into battle with me.

The Necromaxime is LC... not much to say but it's very close to wiki. It works though.

Eric The Devistator I like. I won't mind having this one.

Our Guild Is Leet problem is the snares, I hope it can use them well.

Bacchikoi Bacchikoi is decent, winters embrace spells trouble to me.

Der Held is bad, this henchie is out of energy in 3 seconds. Henchies will use Rodgorts to much.

Rolol Lololol is a little better, make haste can use a buff.

Pnoy Pride won't use YAA well... It's the worst from the list.

Hi Captain Obvious is decent. For support henchie I won't mind to much.

Le Boucher Alsacien is decent. I like it.

Uto Pro is good. I won't mind it either.

Khai Kemnebi is decent to.

Noodle Legs is good. I can take this henchie with me.

__________________________________________________ _______

When you look at the big picture, this isn't to bad. Needs to AI fixes. Even if a lot are meta you have to admit there are better than-
Bingo.

Pious Concentration blocks 1 interrupt regardless of enchantments.

The only bar that might be somewhat broken is the Coward Sin bar. I'm not sure how the AI works with Coward, but that could potentially be incredibly annoying. Mix it with weapon of Fury or some shit and you could potentially be knocking down anything that moves. Most of the bars are terrible and won't work well with ANY hero AI. Some of the para bars are bad, but i can see dual para being run with henchies now.

*big smily "I expected this but still am surprised" here*. No, Wait.

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Not sure its big enugh though.
Hmmmm. Those bars are all (well, most) a PVX bar, and those that aren't are PvX bars with one of the skills changed... Now thats originality.

*guess who's back*

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Pssh, way to be creative.

Out of all those entries there had to be something creative. But instead they picked something someone submitted from the meta. And I bet they weren't the only ones, I would bet on it that lots of people posted the same meta build, and when it came down to it the choice was random.

Grats though, I like some of the Para and Derv builds, one of the Ranger and Rit builds.

lol...at least the builds without elites would have been original...like the contest rules CLEARLY state. But pffft originality, who needs that

Let me quote one of the developers:So, are we, players, meeting two different ANets? One Anet (as above) trying to improve gameplay, the other one is lazy and brainless?

Important question: Is Martin Kerstein still employed?

No comments...

One more thing: Do you think, that (for example) author of this page: http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:N/E_HA_Lingering_Curse build, Frosty, can sue The Necromaxime and demand the reward for his work on pvxwiki? That would be funny and priceless!

Frosty, go go go!

dude i was playing Mind blast for one of my friends ha team then i just decided to hit submit...and i won.... EPIC META MIND BLAST CHAMPION WITH SONG AND HASTE

Things I don't like:
A hench will never know what target to snare in a clutch scenario.
A hench will never know when or how to split.
Those necro bars will have big energy problems.
A hench won't know how to chiizu dance.
Using some of these skills in henchies means that the skills will probably remain untouched for quite some time *COUGH*ILLUSIONOFPAINCOUGH*

lol @ people who still think anet picked these bars for their effectiveness. They arent that stupid. The entire point of this move was to kill heroes - this contest is nothing but a diversion.

gg to winners, another contest i couldn't enter.

This.

As I said M it's an extention of myself and last I heard as a person I am a PLAYER VS PLAYER. Plus I don't NEED anything in this game it's what I WANT which is quite different from NEED. So go read your dictionary and learn some good language and comprehension skills thank you bye now. )

Without these builds getting an AI update I can't see them getting run. I thought the point was to make useful bars that can be helpful to any team in the case a person on that team gets dced, avoiding situational skills that a hero probably wouldn't be able to apply when needed. I thought meta builds would be a poor choice because they would be sooner subjected to nerfs, destroying the whole point of the hench. Also most of those builds seem extremly energy intensive and without a human player's micro those hench are going to be sitting around a lot. I wonder if a-net even tested any of the winning builds to see how a hero would handle.

Warriors as a hench I really don't care about so I find it funny they recieved the most submitions for that. No matter how simplistic the build heroes can't run warriors as good as a person making it pretty much a wasted slot yet we get 3 of them... and a bunny thumper. The builds of any merit I see are the fire eles + air, the less situational necro builds, maybe the coward sin depending on how it wants to position itself, dervs would work but could be improved on, paras are a hit an miss depending on how badly they kill their energy maintaining aggressive, either bring more then 1 para or they would be more reliable without it. All the other ones it would take a human to handle.

When the next skill update comes around, all of those skills will get buffed for PvP... just you wait. I'm calling it now.

HA! Well, we could disqualify half the builds in there for that...
I'm pretty sure Anet just randomly picked builds. /roll 30,000, and the number that we get wins. norly.

Well, yes, but isn't this build (and other builds) breaking the rule of this contest I quoted?

This rule about originality was on contest page, and still is in google's cache. I bet that build submitter did not found this build himself = did break the rule "build cannot be taken from any other source".

I think one of the bigger mistakes that has already been pointed out is that they picked bars with certain skills that are almost essential (good) but that Henchmen cannot run well. There was a lot of room for them to make a solid hench bar with for example "Charge!", that people would take because "Charge!" is a solid skill that is almost always useful, and doesn't require much skill to use. The same can be said for skills like Tainted Flesh and Putrid Explosion, people would run a henchman just for those 2 skills, it allows for easy pressure and frees up slots on other bars as corpse control is covered by the AI. There are some good examples of these in the selections, for example Foul Feast, Profane (if the Hero can preserve the energy to actually use it, or switch to a high energy set), the Inc Arrows ranger and the other AoE focused bars.

When you have Henchmen with skills like Grasping Earth, Ward Against Foes, Infuse Health, Make Haste, Song of Concentration, Deep Enchantment removal etc you're not allowing players more options or easy characters to slot into any build, as they will need to bring these skills anyway on different bars as well. Unless there are going to be some severe changes to NPC AI, there is no way that a Hench is going to "Make Haste!" your relic runner, Grasping and Foes to slow down the relic runner on the other team, use Song of Concentration to help your Ghostly cap (or even to help you get off hard resses), Deaths Charge before a spike to hide your target, push into the other teams base to snare their flagger with Crippling Shot or do any of the necessary things that these skills are brought for.

The only way I can make sense of this is if the bars are meant to essentially never be used, which is fair enough, playing against NPC's in PvP is not particularly fun for a lot of people. However, if that's the case I'm pretty disappointed that I bothered to put any thought into this, or was even interested to see what people came up with when the results were released, and judging by the responses in this thread I'm not the only one.

Of course, I agreed with you. I added, and said that half the winning build can be disqualified for their winning this way.
Hrrr.

Congrats to the people who won.

ANet needed to pick non-meta bars or at least pick something that a henchie can run. Unless anet plans on redoing the henchies everytime the meta changes one skill update will kill a number of the henchmen. Others are DoA as it is. I ain't taking a stupid HB infuser. AI needs something easier like WoH. Also that PR GvG makes me want to rage a little.

Another thing that bothers me is I thought one of the anet devs said they were trying to avoid unoriginal bars. Looks like they failed on that account.

I know it isn't happening but I'd really like to see some of the builds that weren't selected. I'd like to think there are some good finds in there.

ok not to be a bitch or anything but i honestly remember ANET saying they wanted to see innovative builds and all that shyte... so why the hell do they pick the generic bull.

so i got me thinking... the developers team is ether gonna update the AI for the heroes or else they are gonna look like complete fools in the community's eyes and that all this was a sham and that they broke their own regulations...

or else you did not expect so many submissions so you just picked the builds that you know would usually last longer in the meta... which means you just fcked us over.

i cant say congrats to the winner cos if i say that im saying im retarded for not logging on with the paragon who was running the old school cruel spear build at that moment and not submit it straight off.... instead i made a DA build which could be useful since it is absolutely and utterly brainless... like YOU ANET.... COMPLETELY USELESS AND FCKNG BRAINLESS

Yeah, and I tailored submitted builds to that.

I feel that this contest was kind of pre-decided and more of excuse to basically just give met builds to henchies.

I would laugh if this was PvE build contest and whe got three necro henches with discord. Or maybe weep. Or both.

GZ to winners anyway *they did smart thing.

I'm glad they are PvP side Henchmen and they didn't do this for PvE. But they probably will eventually do it for PvE which will cause me to shit my self, lose all my wit and walk away from the game.

my thoughts exactly. i actually submitted creative, usable builds but i guess i would have been better off giving them what everyone is already running.

on a side note, i heard giving henchies frenzy/PR was a bad idea.

Firstly; congrats to the winners - a comps a comp, and even the folks who literally just copied & pasted from PvX "bought a lottery ticket" so-to-speak.

Secondly; I cannot believe I wasted time, thought & effort on entering this, when deviating from PvX just = disqualification anyway.
If they were always intending just going to pick these builds they could have just skipped the build pretense altogether and allowed us to simply enter a character name - disqualify the inappropriate ones then pick winners out of a hat.
Would have saved a lot of time and prevented a lot of ill-will + given us all equal chance.

Thirdly; there's nothing wrong with removing NPCs from PvP if that is their design - it's their game after all and four years in I cannot see the remaining PvP core complaining anyways - but I don't see the point in implementing a wave of aggressively-bad NPCs as a roundabout way of achieving this goal.
It has to be immediately apparent that slapping 4-5 basic skills on a bar would have achieved more NPC functionality than most of those selections.

~ Edit: Yeah - I'm worried about the PvE Hench update too now.
I had assumed it would be aimed at making them better suited to HM and fixing the logic gaps in their current designs (specifically the Prophecies builds) - now I'm thinking it may be an exercise in gutting them on the premise that social gaming should be top of the agenda through-out the whole game.

Thanks
And yeah, frenzy/PR is not a good choice for henchies, neither two stances on a ranger I think.

What I posted for HA:

Warrior/D Axe with Rending Touch
Mesmer/E with Glyph Of Immolation and basic domination/inspiration stuff.
P/Mo with Empathic Removal and physical support.

I would not consider it "awesome" or "creative" or "deserving to win" builds, but hey, I had fun playing em and fun tweaking em

This.
I spent a few days testing and finalizing my submitted skillbars. What a waste of time considering I could've just grabbed PvXwiki team builds in 2 seconds.

EDIT: I submitted a modified Tainter Necro skillbar and a somewhat unusual Blood Magic skillbar.

Commander facepalm to the rescue !

I seriously hope they don't delay the pvp """""love"""" update for fix all the IA for thoses builds. Wasting precious live team time because they picks meta template.

The only thing I say about this is that for low end gvgers (if there are any) can use a henchman monk which is essentially a meta monk. But then we could have done that from the start, so why bother with this henchman contest?

Essentially this just removed all Tainters, RoJ Monks, Tease Mesmers from PvP.

Well let's Look at the Bright Side Heroway is Dead And from the looks of these bars henchway never stood a chance.

iLOLD.

saw that here

Lol and most of those builds are wiki ones.. GG anet, originality FTW! And no one uses stupid henchies lol (well maybe for interrupts). And they wasted two weeks for this? hahahaa

And before I forget, gz to the winners.

Dont worry, the Assassin build is completely the opposite. Have fun with a non functioning hero.