ANet, fix the Henchmen please.

You try to find a PUG to do quests or even missions. Everything is empty.

I just wanted to point out that you can target something, and then press Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar. This will call a target without you attacking it, and if you're close enough to the target (though still outside the bubble) the henchmen will take off and take all the aggro while you stand back. Unfortunately it's sometimes the other casters.

It's not really an "aggressive mode", but I do it all the time on my monk and don't have any problems with being hit.

lol, funny when both henchies use rez at the same time and try to rez the same person

That's not funny, it's retarded. Enemies can time thier knockdowns and such to chain their skills where as henchies can't even do something so simple. You can only control henchies so much....

Sister tai does healing breeze now? and Blessed light {e} and jameis gaze (heal other) YAY!!!! They listened!!

Edit: or has that always been there??

Ok, let me quote that again and again and again and again, because hey, important people read us. Listen up! ANet there is NO WAY someone beta-tested it. I can't believe it. The henchies have the worst AI ever. Worse than Rurik, in the way that the missions are just way more challenging. They just don't know how to make a decision.

You have a goddamn earth elementalist who always forgets to trigger his wards. ALWAYS. He should do it at the begginning of the battle. We don't care about the place, we can move the center of fighting by stepping back. You have a stupidass Assassin who can aggro 3 groups in a matter of 2 shadow stepping skills randomly used, and doesn't get away when he should (he just teleports to draw more enemies). He's SO BAD.

There is one thing that is great. They follow aiming pretty well. So that's cool. The rest, ugh.

As to people saying "join PUGs", guys, it happens that the server is empty. For example right now it's midnight in the US, I happen to be here, and on the European servers which I'm linked to (for good reasons, I don't play only at that time), there is no one because it's too early for them. Just an example. I can't hench it, people are getting some rest or going to work. Hey what am I supposed to do? Just make a better macro on your henchmen, with basic stuff. I have a hard time thinking that you don't monitor the gaming. But I start to believe it. Pre-made PvP characters have been horrible for a long time now, and so are the henchmen selection of skills (take the rangers for ex)...

All I can say is:
MY KINGDOM FOR A HEAL!
I've actually sat there at the front of a battle (as a Warrior) with the Healer Henchmen WELL within Casting range spamming my declining health and still dying. Then I get picked up by the ONLY healer henchmen they give us early game, thus preventing EVERYONE else in the party from being healed for 6 seconds. Tell me. Does ANY of this make ANY sense?

Things that need to be fixed (IMO):
1. TWO Healers in early cantha. 1 henchmen for 8 people is retarded.
2. The Healer hench not picking her nose when there's healing needing to be done. I've 60DP within 3 aggro bubbles of the zone point to a town.
3. Control of the henchmen. I'm tired of them aggroing everything in sight.
4. Remove the Res from the Healer Henchman. They don't need it. Everyone else can do picking up. I'm tired of my team being slaughtered mid-battle.

The moment that sealed it for me was when the healer hench stood there and did nothing at all while we slowly died of disease (this was in the quest with floating clouds of something).

No enemies around us, we were well out of the clouds just after a battle and about 4/6 party members just degened to death. Good job healer hench!

i've never had this problem but then im still on prophicies

Two healers? Overrated. I demand a protection henchman. Give us back Lina. Prot + Heal >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Heal x 2

Overlapping Am Fah mob patrols/drop-ins as well as Jade Brotherhood clusters have really soured my impressions of Factions thus far. It's freaking ridiculous that every mob seems to have a damn patrol that walks by it. Drop-in mobs are lame, just like all the pop-up mobs from Prophecies were. These mobs are too damn big. Split them up. I'm sick of having hench parties that can't handle ANet's intentions of how they want to allocate mob placement! Henchies always get wiped out with any mob bigger than 5 or 6.

Absolutely ridiculous. I despise actually exploring this game (what little "ungated" areas I'm actually allowed access to), because the mobs coupled with the lame henchmen really tick me off. Every fight sucks. Every fight.

ANet still hasn't learned. Smaller mobs, harder individual monsters, mobs more spread out than they are, and keep the damn patrols away from each other. If one mob is patrolling an area, they don't need another one to intercept it. I'm convinced that ANet has never even tried to play the damn game with henchmen, or else Prophecies would still be in beta with this kind of lame henchmen AI and mob allocation.


Keep in mind that I'm not asking for the game to be made pathetically easy, but I just want the fate of my party of computer players and I to be more based on what I do rather than what the stupid computer henchies can NEVER do. I never die until I see all seven of my hench teammates go down in flames and I'm suddenly left to take on about 6-7 people myself. Wonderful. I love this stupid game.

That's why henchies are still better even if they are flawed.

Absolutely signed.

Last night, me and my guild leader were trying to do waking waters with the hench..they are clueless.

1) Healer hench doesnt start kiting until she has 10% health left, stops to cast signet of devotion, dies.

2) You have to stand stock still for the henchmen to attack a target once you have called it, but can't attack it. For example, the dragon in waking waters. Warrior's cant melee it, and if you stand still, you die..so you have to move around..but then the henchies just run around with you..

3) Again in waking waters, the henchies just stand around the corrupted scales, giving them all -10 health degen.

4) Degen + healer Hench - You have to stop and stand still and wait for the healer hench to heal your party, because she won't stop herself.

5) Take the res off of the healer! especially when you only have 1 healer hench! even if you try and beat her to the res, she will still stop healing and hope that her res is quicker than yours! let the ritualist manage the ressing.

6) If a henchmen dies, the healer hench will stop healing everything else to res. If a player dies, he can be left dead for up to 5 minutes after the battle has finished.

7) When trying to run with henchmen, they fall waaaaaay behind you, and aggro everything that you carefully avoided. also, they dont run in a straight line anymore, instead preferring to fan out and aggro everything in the surrounding area.

8) When you stop after you've been running for a while, henchmen will now run infront of you, but only sometimes, and different distances.

9) If the healer henchmen has a res, at least let the player control it. The most annoying thing is when you're forced to res the monk hench, even when you know she's gonna charge off on her own through 4 groups to res the over extended ritualist.

Thats about all i can think of..oh wait no..

The hench will sometimes still not get out of aoe damage.

Something I have a problem with in relation to Henchmen, but not exactly.

Any time I'm in Cantha with a full hench party (And I say Cantha because it doesnt happen in Tyria) the game acts like I'm carrying a gear. People familiar with that glitch know what I mean. The mobs completely ignore the henches and concentrate entirely on me. Its happened with my monk, my warrior and my Mesmer. Its like 10 seconds after I aggro a mob, the constant bashing by about 10-12 enemies has destroyed me. Then they turn their attention to the henches.

And once the player is dead, the henches lose all sense of order. So you're destined to lose almost every encounter and simply have to slowly pick off the enemies one by one while you sit at 60%

I basicaly agree with all the ideas presented here(called henchmen rezzing, toggleable modes of aggression) The only thing i'd like to add is target calling from beyond the grave... If you're with a pug(even tho they usualy wont listen) They have the ability to see what you call and keep attacking it, henchmen on the other hand will finish whatever target you dyed attacking then randomly fan out while the enemy AI spike them down

Also- signet of devotion is a great skill for a monk who is conserving energy and just topping off allies, it should not be used as a word of healing or devine intervention unless you want to go ahead and make it 1/4 cast time... it would also be nice to see the healer hench have a useful skill to replace it, I for one would reccomend vigorous spirit- that way atleast the party would be able to help itself while the healer hench is stops mid heal to res someone.

Also, about the multiple of 1 kind henchmen, it shouldnt be two hard to keep clicking on the same henchmen and inviting them, and if you wanted to make things seem more realistic just have a system that assigns them random names, heck, give them random armor style and color if you want. Although its unfortunate that if you could use multiples of one henchmen you would have to bring like 4 of the healer hench so that their overlapping sig of dev gave you atleast a glint of hope....

Despite how bad you say henchman are, you still manage to complete the game, and cap all the skills you want

I've also noticed the Canthan henchies seem to run off and attack groups without warning. They've caused more trouble for me than in Tyria. I spose it's not much different than playing with a PUG anyway.

At least Henches don’t run off the map on their own

Anymore. They used to. That's one of the huge AI problems they fixed last summer, that henchmen would run off to their deaths upon being resurrected.

I think they should fix the henchie and NPC problem of getting stuck on buildings and other NPCs. That's annoying having to run all the way back to untangle them from continuously running into some peasant.