Factions & Henchmen

I've seen more than a few complaints about the raw difficulty by numbers of the Factions quests, and some complaints about the ineptitude of the new henchmen. These combine to make me pose the following question:

Is Factions still as doable with a party that is mostly Henchmen as Prophecies was, or are those of us who only play with a couple real world friends and fill out the rest of the 5 slots with henchmen going to be left behind?

I never ran into a PvE area in the Factions preview that I couldn't do with henchies.

Peace,
-CxE

I love the Faction henchies. You can choose what kind of necro/archer/mesmer/ele henchie you want. Interupter henchie ftw!

i think the difficulty isnt with the henchman it is just with the strategy. in the kurzik area right outside of house zu hetzler there are just a few too many dredge patrols to make going thru them casual with henches. you have to bounce in between the mantis entrance the shove boss entrance and the southern entrance with the oni pops to find the next patrol to slaughter. the same could be said for the mantis lake with the locusts fury boss bu the area is open enough you just need to make room on the periphery to run away to.
the problem with the henches is i have to use the 5 second assassin sprint skill to get them to give up on attacking when another patrol startys coming. often not even that can pry them loose. 3 necros on one faction, 3 rangers on the other is nice for variety but the idea of the longbow hench is flawed, it isnt like he is going to pull why the heck does he need a slow loader/rate of fire weapon? what id really like to see is a second healer hench. playing with henches pretty extensively over the last 3 days and it was always the spirit or protector hencht that died first. if the spirit hench didnt lay down the party buffs i can always think that his skills were still recharging, but the prot hench who cant even prot himself?? pretty please add a second heal hench A-net! healing is so much harder to screw up. also rewrite the res ai. the protector hench often rebirths when in battle with 4 or more party members already dead. wheras after the party i sometimes have to wait up to five minutes for the survivors to res at all. that they do not attack even when getting spells can sometimes be a part of strategy as the wallows go spell crazy then move in for the kill. this allows a waiting game, that you can easily win.
all in all mixed feelings on henches ai and abilities, but loving the fact that we can have a tengu or wallow hench!

I don't know about the Kurzik side, as I never went there, but I did all the Luxon quests with henchies

Well, besides the fact that henchies actually roxed in the event, the only thing I regret is that both sides had some different henchies. Luxon had the earth ele (ftw), and the Kurzick (ftw) had the necro henchies (ftw).
The only thing I did with human players in the event are the missions.

I did all of the Factions quests with henchies, and I honestly thought they seemed smarter and more skilled than the Prophecies henchmen. Sure, I died a few times in the overrun areas like Ferndale, but that's a risk you always take anyway. Pulling mobs, careful navigation and other strategic nuances were all that was needed to do the quests in the overrun areas. People who couldn't do it with henchies were probably either being careless, or not used to working with henchies at all.

I was getting no where with my first team of henchies (I was a rit), I noticed the melee henchies always aggroed mobs and got the whole team killed. So the next time I went out I ONLY took casters and a ranger, the result? Anywhere I wanted to go...

"The Eternal Grove" is near-impossible since you're only given the choice to take the protection hench (no healer hench). That forces you to change to healing to keep the NPCs alive or to take your chances being without healing until Mhenlo appears.

Bug, maybe?

the eternal grove the healer hench is there automatically she even gets a speaking role. she doesnt tag along wiht the party however she hangs out with the kurzik fellows in the back.

Overall I think the henchies were great. Lots of different options but my one critisim has got to be that the PvE was way too easy. I completed nearly every Luxon quest with 5 henchmen.
I used Healer, prot, Interupter, Earth, Illusion and me Warrior/Assassin.

I really hope that the game is much harder than this.

Oh on a side note what I liked loads were the upgrades and boosts available at the Shrine's of the different Gods. Each God had about 5 different upgrades minimum, although I think Grenth offered about 7 things.

Yes, but that's not the point that I was trying to make. Danika is useless in that mission as you have to go outside the gates and kill the turtles and waves of Luxons (as in, far away from her since she doesn't move).

I did most of the quests on both sides with henchies, although I had the most difficult time questing with my assassin. With all the tough mobs out there on both sides, I think MM Necros will have it best there going henchies only.

I also like the wider variety of henchies to use, as that makes for some interesting strategy in henchie-group buildup. My MM Necro used both healers, protection hench, spirit hench, both fighter henchies, and either the cuttthroat henchie or the earth henchie, depending on the nature of the quests to be done. Gotta like the Flesh Golem elite for MM Necros; makes me wonder which boss will hold it for capturing.

Only PvE quest or mission I didn't do with henchies was Gyala, and only because someone asked for my help. Otherwise, my boon prot or active prot monking turned out to be more than fine with henchies, in a lot of ways easier than with a mixed group.

The protect hench has (and uses) Draw Conditions... then the healer hench uses Purge Signet on him... (this is Danika and Redemptor Klaus, on the Kurzick side).

Love it. Much better than Alesia and Lina.

(Ok, so the Draw Conditions wasn't always timed well... and he would end up killing himself sometimes, but FINALLY a hench carries condition removal).

In some Luxon quests I took all henchies and did very well. One group of henchies I had, I did about 3 quests without any deaths, me or hench.

I had:
healer, protector, earth, warrior (gaurdian), interrupter, illusion, (one other cant remember) and me (assassin)

I too was playing as a MM necro, like LordDeArnise. I had no difficulty doing the Luxon quests with the Flesh Golem.

And once I bought the +1 Death Magic scar with a Sup rune of Death - well a level 26 Flesh Golem with level 18 Bone Fiends, it was a walk in the park.

Ensign, were you Kurzick or Luxon? Or did you try both?

I found that all of Luxon was very simple with henchies, but the Kurzick side was not as easy...doable...but it often took a few tries.

First thing is that having such a wide choice of henchies is fantastic, especially when you can pick non-human ones for a bit more flavour. I have to say though, that range of choice is not worth so much when some were very clearly very much better than others. The Luxons' Interrupt and Earth henchmen were great, but I didn't think the Kurzicks fared so well. Brutus was fun, but I'd still prefer Eve, but the other Wallow (Vile Hench) seemed very below par. Deathly swarm spam ? Er, thanks. Not.

And did anyone else have a hard time spotting the spirits that so-called spirit hench Professor Xai was supposed to be using ? All he seemed to be good for was suiciding every time a hench died (typically monk first), by using his dodgy res, dropping to half health, and quickly dying (along with the monk hench, again), leaving the team with no healing. Not good.

Oh, and please take purge signet off healer hench. I'd rather put up with a couple of hexes than a healer with no energy.

Actually the healing henchman is there, she's one of the two NPCs that you see talking all the time during the mission. It's most certainly not a bug. And she does heal, as long as you're in that center area. Then Mhenlo shows up once things start to get ugly. You end up with three monks defending, even if only one of them is actually on the team. I was playing through it with an offensive character and didn't have any real problems.

In fairness, though, I approach PvE a whole lot differently than most American players so I can understand that concern. I'm not sure if you even need a monk at all to beat that mission, but I never tried doing it without the Protection Henchie before the event went down.


You only have to be out there long enough to take out a turtle and three rangers. You shouldn't need any monk support to do that, even with henchmen.


I did a few of the initial Luxon quests, but spend the vast majority of my time in PvE doing the Kurzick stuff. The Kurzick part of the map was indeed more difficult, due both to stronger, more tightly packed mobs, and (IMO) a weaker selection of henchmen.


Oh, and Purge Signet on that healer henchie is awesome. The monk henchie healer patterns never needed max energy anyway.

Peace,
-CxE