ANet, fix the Henchmen please.

Make them unable to draw aggro. I'm fed up with them starting fights in your CROWDED AND CRAMPED Canthan city while I'm still trying to revive the rest of the moron henchies who just died. Give us a damn toggle button to keep them from trying to start fights with mobs until I'm freakin' ready. Patrols in the city overlap. That's nice. Please spread out the damn patrols so they DON'T OVERLAP until you get a new henchmen control system in place. I can't even find safety spots in some of these tweener areas where I can revive without a damn mob intercepting THE HENCHMEN AGGRO BUBBLE.

Here I am in Bukdek trying to cap an elite, and I haven't died once while the moron henchies are probably at 60% DP.

Capping elites with henchmen parties remains the most frustrating thing about this game, and ANet seriously needs to get with the damn picture. Instead of taking time to fix something that was undoubtedly broken in the first campaign they just ignored it. Good job. Really, good job. Way to go.

You know...Ive never had this problem. Perhaps its just you.

I would seriously love henchies more if they implimented some features like: Passive mode, Aggressive mode, Attack Mode, etc. Just throw them onto the buttons that we have and only have group leaders be able to lead henchies.

ANet, you guys listening? This would definitely make your henchies more friendly. Even adding a viewable aggro bubble would help on the henchies part.

Other things on my henchies wishlist instead of them babbling: ability to tell them when to resurrect and when not to resurrect. I often find myself being resurrected during battle only to die again. Then I find myself NOT getting resurrected when there was plenty of time to be resurrected or there was only 1 remaining enemy left vs my 7 henchmen.

ANET? YOU LISTENING?

i agree the henchies can be pretty retarded, but if it bothers you that much, join a cap group...

Takes too much time to find a cap group. Not worth it.

If the fact that mobs wern't already designed to gank you wasn't bad enough, the henchmen AI is terrible. The assassins are aggro dolls, their shadowstepping sends them way out of the fight, usually into an aggro bubble of one of the few mobs not designed to walk in on you only when you have already started a fight. The casters are just stupid. I can barely count on two hands the number of times casters have run straight into mobs after a fight has started.

My problem with henchies.


Assasin = dosnt put the teleport skill to any use, does not kite but tanks, and needs the most healing in the henchie group because of that. Also if you are fighting a group and another is nearby, they can sometimes teleport and agro the other group, which is dumb. I personally dont use him.

Illisinist = Looks like the riddler, the gay riddler

They dont always get the "res mid battle" thing right, mostly it works out. but sometimes they res in the most stupid manner, it does need tweaking a little.

Other than that ive been able to use them for pretty much everthing.

Remove Signet of Devotion from Healer Henchie please. By the time they use it, the one they were trying to heal is dead.

When your henchmen do get wiped out, you are pretty much forced to revive the ONE hench healer that you can ever get LAST, because they immediately try to revive the others without even recovering their health/energy, etc, and assessing the mob situation around them. It's just a poor implementation.

Keep in mind it is still entirely possible to get skillcaps with henchmen parties (I just managed to get the one I was after), but it shouldn't be from wave after wave of wipeouts-revivals-take out what you can before next wipeout-restart, etc. The henchmen need a lot more sense and it's incredibly pathetic that this game has gone on this long without some sort of adjustment. I'm winning these fights by brute force, and not from any sort of technique.

As an aside, what else really sucks is that you are only allowed to have ONE hench of a certain type, which is completely unlike what is possible when forming a human party. How about giving us more healing henchmen? Hell, how about multiple henchmen of the same type for other builds? Maybe I'd like to grab 5 ranger henchmen some time? Is it that hard to come up with 4 other hench names and give them the same builds as the Ranger hench? Seriously.


EDIT: Just noticed I used CAPS in the thread title. Didn't mean to. Sorry about that.

I just want to know why are the foes AI smarter than our hench AI. Hell I've seen a group fo 3 wars, 2 ele, and 1 mes SPIKE a target.

They triple chop, dragon stomp, and unnatural sig. I saw 1 henchy drop while 3 others were left with 1/8th life. They quickly fell.

Do you really want half the city devoted to rows and rows of henchmen? That would be pretty stupid, so they'd have to come up with a different system. Which wouldn't be so "easy" anymore.

I've never had any problems with henchmen, but I've only played a monk in Cantha so far. Never had any problems in Tyria with other characters, but we'll see.

Hench recruiting NPC. Problem solved. Add all of the hench to a window, not an area of town. Maybe keep the storyline henchies out for added polish, but the "extras" could just be grabbed from this NPC's menu. Just have a pool of names where one is chosen randomly when you pick a type of hench.

Remove res from the healers, remove purge signet and sig of devotion, give them decent healing skills instead of two instances of heal other.
Also the aggro thing is annoying, hench move slowly and often wander off randomly causing them to aggro too many mobs and even get themselfs stuck in walls etc.

Seriously, the healer hench needs to stop trying to go melee with me and when she does she heals herself and ends up dying so does the rest of the party and the stupid ritualist is always last since the first thing it does is cast the stupid spirit when we are not even in battle its just RETARDED. I get so pissed when they dont do their damn jobs and up being dead.

I've had it with henches. Lately I've been having trouble finding groups in Tyria (due to Factions no doubt, which is completely understandable) and so I tried using henches. After playing today, I came to the conclusion that I will not play with henches. If I can't find a party, I just won't play the game. Of course, this really doesn't bother ANet (1 less person using their bandwidth), but it can be frustrating as a player. An AI update is definately required, and would be more welcome than the Henchman "conversations" during missions and quests.

I really don't care how complicated the henchie thinks their interpretation of life is, I want them to do their damned jobs. I died twice trying to cap Palm Strike, and then i had to map out after i got it because the only reason we won was getting Kenshi first. Meh. The henchies really are beginning to piss me off with their auto-run-to-aggro-no-matter-what BS. A-net is too busy making them look pretty to focus on the basics of the game dynamics. I really would like to see better AI as the next update, no matter what has to be shoved off before it. Except maybe the fixing of alliance battles.

Rezzing should be definately looked into. Often henchies tryin to rez other henchies by running thru the wall of mobs and instantly die there.

Very common situation: Henchies aggroed more than i asked for. I pulled them out. 1-3 died in process because they either totaly ignored pullback or because healer hench ran first and left them die. Now im waiting for groups to separate and trying to kill one group that left to get to the bodies of the fallen henchies. What do you think monk does? Oh yes, she just rushes thru straight to the bodies trying to rez... needless to say that ends up pretty bad. At that point I usually just rezone, because even if I will be able to get party back on track henchies will have 60% dp and its just not worth the trouble...

I think henchies should only rez by the target call of the player. I say "Devona [suicidal henchman] is dead!" - monk goes and tries to rez her, and not a second earlier.
That would fix most of the problems.

Learn to play with henchies and learn to control them, it's not that difficult. You should be glad henchies are there to provide free service, since you don't like PUGs at all.

wow that idea of getting multiple of one hench is a great idea! why would u need a window? just recruit the same exact hench twice whats wrong with that? just click em again.

also henches are retarded and im getting pissed off trying to kill that smiting horse with a 60DP at the end of the 15 attribute mission

My problems with henchies:

1. Cantha healer waits ten minutes to res me when I'm the only one dead (usually because SHE aggroed an army and led them right to me).
2. They have no tactics (attack whoever the party leader attacks, otherwise follow the last party member who moved). As someone who prefers squishy characters, I do NOT want to have to be the one to aggro every damn monster we come across. I would give anything to be able to have certain henchmen on AGGRESSIVE mode or something.
3. They have very few priority skills (and even less of a clue about how to use them). Seriously, Mhenlo uses Word of Healing when I'm at 90% health, and the Tyrian necro hench casts Blood Is Power on STEFAN!

Most of the time when people take henchies, they don't want to deal with the stupidity of real people who have these problems. Perhaps ANet should consider that when they next look at the AI system.


Henchy points I applaud:
-Stefan and Talon Silverclaw (the two fighter henchmen) are pretty hard to kill. Seriously, I've seen Stefan solo three White Mantle (2 casters and a Justiciar)... that's some good AI right there.
-The archer henchmen know how to stay out of the way. They are some of the only henchies who don't constantly attract aggro.
-The Canthan earth ele henchman is brilliant with his skills. He is one of the select few of the henchmen who have a clue.