Henchmen are absolutely impossible for me in PvE

Haha, Fortunatly for me, I NEVER have to take Alesia... because I'm a Monk!

Overall I think that the Henchies are great, but it sounds like depending on a Alesia can be a pain... sucks to be you all

Henchmen simply need a better AI and some commands:
-Kill hench: Kill a hench that's stucked, should also be possible after you die.
-Autoheal: set a hench with healing on another hench/chr with the only job to do: heal that person continuasly
-follow me: henches follow you without attempting to attack anyone until you attack
-defend [chr x]: concentrate on defending a chr. and attacking those who attack him/her
Also it should be possible to set them into differend modes, like defensive/agressive, healing, and so on.
-last person left should be controllable by the player.

oh snaps. i just posted something new like this. hehe

Wait until you have to bring Alesia onto a map with hostile environments, like poisonous swamps. She'll be dead in a few seconds. And if you res her, she'll stand there healing herself while she dies again. Brilliant!

Well, I know many players here know this game from Diablo 2 and most of them hate the way D2 can be exploited, but if there's one thing VERY good in the expansion set Lord of Destruction, than its the way you can 'build' your mercenary! Just like the henchmen here tend to rush into a mob blindly and get killed, a merc on D2 LOD isn't much good untill you level it and add some good items. I love the idea of a personal merc/hench who is always there and can level and wear stuff you give it. Just an idea though...

The problem of henchmen running to their death location happen when you die far from the resurection shrine. It also happen when you're party die while running.
You could do it with your character also.. just press R and run into monster and let yourself die while running. When your party will be resurected, your character will still be on auto run and try to reach the same place where you died.

I tried it a couple of time and it always worked.

Is that why the monk went running back to her death location 50 FEET IN THE AIR!

I was under the impression before I purhcased this game, that I could go throughout the game just by myself and some henchmen. Not have to deal with knuckleheads and bulls. That theory was tied to a seven foot stake 20 feet from the firing line and shot to shizzle. I'm to the point where I need to rely on people of my level that for some reason believe they can tank enemies and end up dying in two seconds. The bots are brighter in some cases I must say. Anyway I think the game needs better henchmen. I've rarely run into problems with them getting stuck under the map. But I have had it happen to me and ruined the Ashes of Althena quest if I remember correctly. I wish if there level not improve to something more suitable is some areas such as persay The Wilds that at least we have more control of their actions instead of the current willy nilly script.

I have generally been quite satisfied with henchmen behaviour. Just made it to Henge of Denravi with my N/W (played as a pure blood/curses necro for the past three or four levels) tonight at level 15, only having used henchmen the for the entire game.
A few of the missions took two or three attempts (including Gates of Kryta and The Wilds), and I skipped Bloodstone Fen and walked to Aurora Glade after having been beaten horribly in the final match , but other than that I think the henchmen have done a really great job of keeping themselves and me alive.
Haven't had problems with them getting stuck more than a couple of times either.

I definately wouldn't be opposed to having a few commands available - stay and retreat being the two that immediately springs to mind, but so far I haven't needed or felt encouraged to even try my luck with a pick up group.
Unless the henchmen really start to suck the rest of the way to ascension, I don't expect to either - I will probably get my fair share of interaction with real people once I get started on more than the occasional random arena match .

That said, AI improvements of any kind in a game like this are always more than welcome of course.

I've been happy enough w/the henchmen, also. Sure, they have problems, but most computer controlled helpers do. But I do think they kind of have to fit your playstyle...it would be nice to have a few simple commands for them or something tho.

The healer henchie is targeted first by the baddies at least 50% of the time (even tho I'm always the attack-initater) - it doesn't matter at all where she's standing - behind me, to the side, around a corner, in front - they go for her like she farts platinum ingots a dozen at a time. I don't think it's always her 'fault' - I think the enemy AI just targets her (at least w/an all henchmen party).

Thankfully, I haven't had any of the wall-stuck issues etc. That must suck.

I've made it all the way through the game up to Sanctum Cay using nothing but henchies. I realize eventually they probably won't always suffice, but I wanted to see how far I could get using only them, plus for me, I learn the game better that way, on my own, w/out PUG group members hollering out 'n00b go here/do that/you suck/don't you know anything' etc. Plus, it's almost an intellectual challenge to use only them. heh

Anyway - Lion's Arch, the poison in the swamp was an obstacle, until I took ONLY ranged henchman. Since i'm also ranged, this worked just fine as they then didn't charge forward, and it was no problem then. Wouldn't work for meleer's I guess but it's one thing to try.

My biggest complaint about soloing w/henchies is that if a non-healer henchie is the last one standing at end-fight, if the player he wants to res. (always the healer henchie, instead of the PC) is lying outside the 'radius' of your PC's influence, they'll keep dashing back and forth between your body and the other body, forever - and you have to map it and start over, when it's a matter of a few steps distance stopping the res.

It'd be nice if that influence radius could be increased just for that one situation - ie, an AI check "Not in combat?" "Are all other players dead?" "Are there no monsters within such and such a radius?" "If yes to all three, increase distance for res by this amount." Dunno if that's possible, but it'd be nice. :P

the only two missions i haven't done successfully with henchies are thirsty river and thunderhead keep. But since they USUALLY seem to be smarter than MOST players, i'll continue to prefer all-henchie teams.

I'm gonna give thunderhead keep at least one more shot with henchies before i resort to trying to find a team of real players again. With henchies i can completely cruise to the final part of the mission...eeeeaaaasy peeaaasey...but MOST dumb-ass teams i get on seem to start dying almost as soon as the mission starts.

Same with elona's reach...which was the first mission i thought might be easier with real people...worked most of saturday with various real people teams...failed every time, all day...tried again sunday morning with all henchies...success.

I think the people that complain about henchies are the people that are cruising through this game on the abilities of others...with henchies YOU are the BRAINS...YOU are the leader.

I've had very good luck with Henchs. They are not as good of company on teamspeak but they are alway available when you only have a short time to play.
( Got one character to Ventari with them. )

I am a Mo/R and the only mercenary I take with me is Alesia.

Alesia is ALWAYS attacked first (though it doesnt help that she thinks she is Wonder Woman). I have played with her a lot and I have learned to use her as a tank. Since she aggros everything, the monsters ignore me and my bird. She sits there constantly healing while I pick off her attackers. Generally (if she constantly heals) she can heal herself as fast as she as taking damage, though if she gets into trouble I can always cast a regen spell on her.

Figure out what the mercs do and use it to your advantage.

Use Alesia as a healer = hours of wasted time.

Use a human monk as a healer = days of wasted time.

Use Alesia as a tank = priceless.

I'll comment on this because I have a special love for my Henched partners.

I have tactic that I use thats worked so far for any situation or mission. (ele, just henchies)

1) I Use call target or just double click the primary target like others have mentioned, if the healer gets aggro you will need to divert some power to that new target. (double clicking new target gets henchmen on it) ...

Then wonderfully, All the bad guys follow the tank back to the healer as hes now engaged the new target thats ganking the healer.. (usually at this point the monk will take a few steps back.. Yea she actually does some cool stuff sometimes!)

All the while Ill have me AOEs ready to stack ( putting different a one on different targets to spread out the damage ) and all 3/8+ mobs or dead within oh... 4 or 5 seconds..

So at this point I really don’t want them messing with hench AI..

You do realize that you can select yourself (') and hit <spacebar> to have the Henches return to you? Good way to draw a wandering one back to the fold.
( Once they are in melee it becomes tougher since they get interrupted by attackers. )

Yep that's really my only complaint with the henchies. I just want 1 change. I want some way to tell Alesia to STAY THE HELL BACK until I have a chance to piss off all the mobs.

I can't complain about the henchies really that much either. They usually help to play their roles (besides alesia but that topic has been hammered to death) and when I get really frustrated with them I usually find a human team to join up with. Infact I'd rather take a couple of henchies and start a mission fast than to set there spamming for ever "Room for 1 more" or "Looking for <insert player type here> for mission", and if I'm on a team and not the leader, and the leader won't take a henchie ill just bail on the team.

As a programmer and having taken a couple of game programming classes, and an AI class I really have to give my thumbs up to the AI developers. Its a hard freaking job to do, and I suggest you don't bitch about it too much or they might just take them out of the game entirely!

Just thought I'd throw in a quick post, kinda directed to the Mexican Standoff post, but you can use Ctrl+space to tell your henchmen to attack your target even while dead... it can help.

Ah, the sky running finally happened today - Prophet's something or other.. can't remember the name off the top of my head. Alesia and Little Thom decided to run upwards instead of ahead, got stuck in sandy-looking sky, and were attacked by monsters from below.

Hahaha, ah God that's awesome. I wish I would've been there for that one.

Did their bodies fall to the ground after they died? Now THAT would've been fun to see.

I agree, as a monk I really don't have a problem with the henchman. I may change my build to do more damage but that's about it.

I'm sick of the henchmen not rezzing until after fights or when it's too late. The only time they rez for me is when the fight is over or if they are the last person standing. For rez signet this seems to work ok because it either casts faster than normal rez or they are able to stay alive long enough to use it. For the healer, IT'S FRIGGIN REDICULOUS. She never rezzes until she's the last one standing. By that time there's no way she will be able to cast it before dying. The other henchmen always seem to want to rez the healer henchman instead of me also. That annoys the absolute hell out of me. This would be fine if I wasn't a monk secondary. They always rez the healer and then she heals/fights until she's the last one standing and then tries to rez me with elventy godzillion mobs beating on her. If the other hench would have rez'd me instead, I could have ran away and rez'd them all after the aggro was gone. I think the number 1 priority for the henchmen should be to keep ME alive. I'd understand them rezzing the healer before me if I wasn't a monk, but I have rez. REZ ME FIRST! Restarting missions because of this is sooooo annoying.

i've played the whole game with my bro and henchies...

sometimes they really piss you off (when they go AFK), but if you know how to use them it works pretty well.

A couple of things:

Dunham seems pretty useless, but he is a monster magnet... it's great because all the baddies try to kill him -- that leaves you to do what you want unencumbered.

It's really funny that Orion always casts meteor storm just as we win the battle.