It can be done w/hench only!!!!!!!!!

I started to play GW about a month ago, because a friend promised he would join once i did. Well he never did (another life lost to EQ). So since I loved all the Diablo games I decided to go on.......alone. I've heard all the "you can't go through the entire game w/hench only" crap. How "the game eventually forces everyone to join a party out of neccessity". Well i'm living proof that it can be done. I went solo from beginning to end!! It was not easy and I spent many an hour on a few missions. In particular Ashes, Santum Cay, Ring of Fire, and especially Thirsty River all gave me headaches and tested my resolve to stay solo. I know this is an mmo, so i did socialize alot in towns buying/selling and making friends. Those friends i've made, i go back and help them when they get stuck. I've proudly turned down many a guild and was shocked to as how few players later on in game where w/out a guild. Almost everyone on Ring of Fire and beyond has a cape and guild. I remember once in Ascalon I was buying an item and used the ploy " I'm sorry I have little money can you drop the price? His reply was "you should join a guild and you can be rich like me". Well I looked over into my account and thought 60k was rich enough for me. I did get the discount. So soloing is possible and I did it mainly for the challenge. Many missions are probably easier w/hench only due to coordination challenges in some groups. But if you put together a great party and keep it throughout I can see how this game can be easy and unchallenging. I must go.......I look forward to answering questions and reading replies. Sighned Lone Wolf AKA Red Rumm.

Not to take any of the credit away from you (It's quite an accomplishment), but did you just finish today? Because the recent update may've helped you do the last few missions.

Well I'm sure completing the game solo is something you're very proud of. I'm not trying to take away from it by any means, because I did mostly everything solo with the exception of a few missions. However some of the things have changed a lot too. Things like Ashes quest, used to be incredibly hard even with RL players, and some of the other updates that have occurred as well. In my opinion they tweaked these down for several reasons, which I won't get into, to make things easier for certain players. (I'm not talking about type that want to try things solo). Congrats, hope you continue to enjoy game play.

Did you do all the bonuses of the missions too? I heard that Bloodstone Fen's bonus is impossible with Hencheis because they refuse to not attack when they're attacked by the guardians.

It is possible I believe. What you do is just run past the guardians. Alesia will generally follow you, along with maybe 1 or 2 other henchies. Stefan and Little Thom like to stick around and fight. let them stay here and let them get killed (they shouldn't be able to kill the guardian without dying) Keep going and come back to res the henchies later.

It's not impossible, if you run past them and "follow" yourself while running, the henchmen will after a short moment run away and follow you away from the battle before they manage to kill it 'eh?

Then again I can't remember, can you not ATTACK them or just not kill them? I didn't do it with henchmen, and we killed them all AFTER we completed the bonus so I'm not sure.

Yes hencheman are better than the average player;
they dont leave the game, they follow you, they dont leave the game, they have a wide spread of classes (and not all warriors), they dont leave the game, they actually heal and ress you and support each other, they dont leave the game, they stay together and dont go on suicide missions, they dont leave the game, they are not annoying you with bonuses and minor anoying stuff and the best of all..
THEY DONT LEAVE THE GAME!

I sometimes accept the fact that they are bugged and dont collect stuff for that!

Sadly hencheman are just slightly above average and good players are just better than hencheman.

I have had a fair number of people dropping, but I have never had a player fly into the air and refuse to help. So if the rest of your party dies those flying henchmen will keep you from rezzing at the rez shrine. As soon as players start doing this, i will agree that henchmen are better than the average player.

Well I completed all missions about 2 weeks ago with exception to the last 4 or so which I finally finished this week. The Ring of Fire was by far the hardest of the last as the hench can be impossible to control sometimes. In the hard missions it is so important to lure in one mob at a time. That was just about impossible in ashes, where you have to dismember the enemy mobs one at a time like a puzzle. I finished it finally with a negative 60% death penalty and rushing to the ashes. I'm a R/M so the monk skills came through for me and I think are a must for soloing on some missions. I also did all of my ranger quests w/hench and the villiany quest was by far one of the hardest. Whats funny is the getting there was always the hardest part and the final bosses are usually push-overs. Now I must admit I did not accomplish or even attemp some bonuses. I was just so frustrated with my help that all I could think of was finishing the mission. Some missions are very long and more than once one of my henchies would float away, get stuck, or just plain disapear. I kept a res always on hand and had no qualms of turning my ranger upside down skill wise in order to find a successful build. Adapting, patience, and time were keys to my success. Rangers are tricky and in the wrong hands rangers can look downright weak, but in skilled hands they should be feared and respected. Thanks for the responses and now its time to help out some friends.

Nice job. Although, I'm not really surprised. In many cases, I would MUCH rather be with henchmen and perhaps a friend or two than a human team. However, missions like Thirsty River and any of them in which you may face Mursaat become rather annoying with only humans. As for Elona Reach and Dunes... Hench team > Human team.

How did you get from Beacons Perch to Camp Krankor? Doing Lonars pass with level 10 henchmen is virtually impossible!

Not to be a downer but many people have done this before you. It's slightly challenging at times but generally not particularly hard.

Number 1: I followed the story line mostly and went exploring when ever I needed a change of pace. Thanks to this forum I was able to download maps and look up key information. So after a try or two through Lonars Pass I decided it was best to follow the story line through Kryta and so on. Number 2: yes i'm sure its been done before, and maybe I was a little excited when I first posted. I was replying mostly because of all the "it can't be done with hench" propaganga I've read in these forums and heard in the towns of GW. Also I think rangers, the good ones anyways have a small chip on our shoulders due to the anti-ranger society in GW. Thanks to the poor handled rangers, us successful ones have to act like Nopolean sometimes for recognition.

I did it by killing off my henchies first: To minimize the trouble I just brought Alesia and Tom with me (couldn't solo the whole way to the seed area myself, perhaps possible if you're tenacious). When we had cleared out the seed area, I aggroed a couple of trolls on the hill where you're supposed to plant the first seed if you do the primary objective, and triggered some of those nagging lvl12 spiders(?) by grabbing the seeds. If you grab two seeds you have 4 or 6 running around. Two trolls+4-6 spiders were enough to kill off Alesia and Tom... Being alone it's then fairly easy to complete the quest. A good hint is to bring sprint and healing (I'm a Ranger, so storm chaser and troll ung)

I have been trying to do the bonuses for everything, sometimes its easy with henchies, othertimes not, I have alot left to do, ALOT. Still need to infuse my armor and stuff too, just haven't been in the gaming mood as of late it seems like.

I'll get to it at some point with my bf, but for now I run around doing odds and ends with my other characters, sure hope none of my guildmates think I've up and left or something, haven't been on in a day or two due to working and stuff...

Anyway, something I wish were possible, HoH with henchies, but it just isn't sadly enough, that would be one kickass and celebration worthy victory there though wouldn't it?

have any of you guys got the idea that this is a multiplayerd game and doing the whole game with henchmen takes away the point of that.

Im so sorry for you. You didnt count how many times the henchman got stuck in mountains or flew did you?

Can you explain, in detail, how you beat Ring of Fire with henchmen?

jordie.......I knew someone was going to respond like you did. That is why I refer you to my original thread. The combination of my brothers and my friend not joining, along with the fact that I had just painfully finished Ahes, also reading all the anti hench stories on these forums, I decided to take the challenge and to continue w/hench only. So it kinda snowballed into a personnal goal of mine. Yes I realize this is an mmo and I did do many mmo type things. So thank you jordie for stating the obvious that GW is an mmo. Synthos, I can't count that high dude. I finally came to expect the hench to try to screw me at every oppurtunity. Once you come to expect the hench downfalls the smashing of furniture and swearing tends to calm down a little.

Mina- your question is a tuff one, because there is soooo much to that mission and my build evolved so much during that mission and the following that my memory is kinda shaky on it now but i'll try my best for you. I have a R/M so my skills went like this hunters shot, dual shot, kindle arrow, whirling defense, healing breeze, dodge, winter, and finally rebirth. The enemies vary in this mission and I would use winter for the Lava Imps and I used healing breeze because it is faster than troll urgent. I also used scale armor for my torso and legs since most elemental magic is fire and it mostly hits these areas, I also only infused those two pieces. My gloves and boots were druid for the small energy boost. I had a superior mark, minor expertise, minor wild, and a major vigor. I also used my cold mx dmg half moon with improved dmg vs hex and with a fortitude grip +21. It is also important to have done both attribute bonus quests for the extra 30 pts come in handy. I also did not pick the archer hench because I filled that hole and the others seemed more up to this task. #1. I rush the mursaat killing the monks first. This always turns into a running battle to the left and my hunters shot came in handy here. #2.Then you need to go up the middle to take out one group of shade and then go left to draw in the second group and finally all the way back right to draw in the final group of shade. They have invisible aggro lines which crossed will put them into motion. Then you can take out the two mobs of mursaat individually. #3. This is the first check point and I finally found out you can bypass it alltogether by running along the left cliff while the shade archers are at the base of the check point (cp). They will eventually come out and you may decide to take out one or two or continue to bypass. #4. Now you come to the drakes and a few shadow monkies as I call them. You can bypass the drakes by taking the first left and this also bypasses the trolls and the bonus mission of infusing another pc of armor. #5. Now you come to the lava pool with trolls wandering about. I used my longbow here with my healing breeze and jumped into the lava and pulled the 1st mob towards me. Then I would rest and then go after any other troll mobs in the area. #6. Now you come to the 2nd cp and this one can be difficult. Sometimes the boss is way in front of the cp so u can pull him and other times he's not. If he is alone kill him, if he is with the shade archers at the cp then I used dodge and would run right through it. If you lose someone, rebirth will come in handy here. #7. Here is the cutscene and the halfway pt. You just fight through the eye monsters and follow the path to the spiders. #8. WARNING: You must pull one mob at a time here or you will get overran. The only exception is two mobs are soooo close you usually have no choice but to take both on and as long as the boss spider is already taken care of you should be okay. My kindle arrow in combination with dual shot comes in handy here, and Whirling defense and healing breeze helped also of course. #9. The lava imps. I used winter here and it saved my but. Along with going to the right and taking on one group at a time. Note: This turns into a huge battle because the other mobs wander into the battle, so timing is everything here. Also my anti-fire armor helped here. Now work your way around and do a loop back to the left. I recommend this technique so now your back is covered and you dont have to worry about being ambushed while you fight the final two mobs. After this you come to a lava pool and more imps. I rushed the enemy so my henchies would all be on dry land and then continue the fight. This part was the trickiest and all my henchies died and I was left standing amid a pile of carnage all alone....rebirth. After that its a cake walk. I hope that helps, I'm going to replay it soon anyways because of an elite skill that needs capturing so my memory may be improved in a day or two. Good Luck