Does the Hench even use their skills?

Here's another tale of frustration with henches. I seriously think that they use only like 1-2 skills. Today, I was trying to cap the elite Aura of Faith with my monk. So I set out with me as a healer plus Menlo and Lina and then choose Devona, Little Thom, Dunham, Eve, and Aiden to take with me to try to cap this skill from a mursaat monk boss. Thinking that no matter how good a monk is, 8 people together should be able to beat it down, my was I in for a surprise.

So finally we all got to the mursaat monk boss Mr. Willa the Unpleasant. And we systematically killed off everything else and then started to focus on Willa. Well...... Devona and Little Thom and Aiden was okay, they attacked and used attack skills just fine. Dunham stood their like an idoit and spammed distortion over and over again and did absolutely nothing else. Eve stood there like an idoit and maybe once in a while used blood ritual on someone. So I went over and checked their skills on guildwiki.

Well, according to guild wiki Dunham had crippling anguish and just never used it at all. Eve had deathly swarm and shadow strike which I saw her using shadow strike once and never used deathly swarm at all.

So after about an hour of futility, I decided to leave my computer on GW and went afk to go swimming. (since we're obviousely not gonna die and I can't do much anyway as a pure healer) And when i came back, they were still at it and Mr. Willa is still at almost full health.

*sigh* I swear the henches just dont' use their skills sometimes.

I've seen Eve use Vampiric Gaze, Shadow Strike, Blood Ritual, and a couple of others.

Cynn nukes the shit out of things as long as you get her attention on them. Calling targets is a good way to do this. I've seen Cynn use Incendiary Bonds, Fire Storm, Fireball, and a couple of others.

I used to think Dunham was one of the most useless henchies ever, simply spamming Distortion over and over, but I've taken him along more often lately and I have seen him hexing enemies, so maybe he's gotten better. I wasn't watching him, though, so I didn't actually see him casting the hexes, I just targeted the enemies and noticed they were hexed and degenning, and I know he's supposed to have Conjure Phantasm/Crippling Anguish. So, I know he's doing *something*...

Thom and Stefan are well-documented in their tanking and use of skills. Devona I haven't watched much, but she does some hammer skills as well.

Mhenlo and Lina are well-documented in their use of skills too, and they're pretty reliable as long as a) another monk isn't dead and b) they're not getting overwhelmed or standing in lava (as they are wont to do if you're not paying attention to how they stand in a pattern around you).

Willa is pretty tough even for a PC party to take out; I suspect that the situation was such that they could damage Willa but not overwhelm her mana regen/healing capabilities. You may need a different team pattern.

eudas

Dunham is your best choice for that boss shame he didnt used shatter ench

I think I have a theory on how the hench use their skills. (I always call target btw) I believe that they will only use skills to their full benifit, what does this mean? let me explain.

Dunham had skils such as crippling anguish and empathy as well as drain enchantment I think. And I see him using all of it in a regular battle. However, crippling anguish and empathy is obviously best used on a warrior while drain enchantment is best used when you need more energy. And as such against a monk boss such as Willa, Dunham can only stand their spamming distortion since he thinks that crippling anguish and empathy is not good on willa and let's not use drain enchantment since I still have lots of energy (since I'm not using anything else).

It's the same thing with Eve, I have already noticed before that she only uses blood ritual when on me when my energy is really low. One would guess that shadow strike is only used when the foe is above 50% health and Eve needs a little healing, and deathly swarm is used only when there is at least more than 1 enemy present.

Of course, against a normal group of enemy, all of this works out perfectly fine. Against a monk boss like willa, well....they are then just reduced to sitting there spamming distortion and then attacking with their staff. I knew I should have taken cynn with me as she will do dmg if nothing else, I just don't like her firestorm who drive the enemy back to other enemies and then devona following them to draw more agro.

Dude this is the worst caps of the game, dont blame the henchs...

Actually, I found the the Feast of corruption cap to be harder than this. I did get that with hench. This cap is not particularly hard really, I went again after that time and just brought scrouge healing along with a decent smite attribute and Willa died quite quickly.

I will tell you something these henches are far better than those in Factions.Where did you cap this anyway?

Aura of faith? I capped it in abbadon's mouth mission I think. I kept on trying to get the mursaat monk boss to spawn in ice floe near thunderhead keeps but that never happened so I thought I might as well just do abbadon to cap it. As for feast of corruption, that would Mr. Maw the huge wurm in dreadnought.