I see why the henchies have a sig of devotion now..

/signed

They should replace it with Meteor Shower, which is MUCH more effective. Mobs will still try to run from it, but usually can't because of the knockdowns. I always bring Cynn, but god, Firestorm is frustrating to deal with.

While we're at it, can we please please PLEASE stop Claude from standing at the frontline casting Blood Ritual on the warriors?

Oh, yeah, been there, done that. At one point, I had to give up because I was laughing so hard. She just wouldn't stand still.

She's afraid you'll rape her or something

Typo
I wanted to say, Tyrian henchies can't hold a candle to Canthan henchies.

I have as well but your statement is rather irrelevant to the fact that the hench builds are pretty sad. I mean compare them to a pair of enemy lvl 20 monks and it's...well sad. I mean the devs had to intend to make the hench build weak otherwise it makes no sense.

i have that problem with the henchies all the time, if by some stroke of luck they manage to stay alive and kill the last enemy they bot proceed to just run back and forth to the dead members and then back to where they were stood, i watched them for 20 minutes do this once just incase they had some real bad energy regen problem, but alas they never rez'd anyone even after my relentless pinign of "xxx is dead"

I have done most of the game with henchies, but that doesn't mean I dont think they are a waste of space. I always seem to end up shouting at them for one reason or another.

Normally along the lines of "Danika! Why are you standing there!?" as she wands a mob in the face. Or when the spirit henchie casts shelter for no reason at all, runs to catch up with the rest of the group and aggros the entire world.

I dont recall having such problems in Tyria. Maybe because the mobs weren't at such a high level, in Cantha I can't go up against a group of 5 naga without one of the henchies dieing. "Are you going to heal him or just stand there? Heal him. Heal him. Heal him. Heal hi... oh for Gods sake."

Just give us a couple of Dredge Gardeners as healer henchies and everything would be fine.

That's about what I did, I just announced to the party that I couldn't give her energy because she wouldn't let me, and stopped trying.

Far earlier in the thread someone mentioned the henches being better without healing touch, but I can say this: I have never seen them use healing touch on anyone other than themselves (Certainly never seen it be used on me) and Lina who has no healing touch will run right up next to allies before casting healing spells on them. It's just something in the healer AI for Prophecies, it's not healing touch.

My 2 favourite henches are cutthroat assassins They have a nasty habbit to teleport to random places though argoing more mobs in the process, but they manage to put daze on everyone around. Sometimes you call one target and you can see them running to other caster just to put that nice condition on him and interrupt everything after that.
It's well known how hard ele (and some ritualist) bosses hit now but those two can completely shut them down with daze.

Possibly... if they wern't idiots. Canthan AI can't even focus fire.

I dont expect henchies to perform as well as humans although the funny thing is that they quite often perform better.

I take them along when I go mapping or doing faction quests, sometimes they die, sometimes they dont, sometimes they let me die, big deal, at least they dont whine about DP or start shouting 'noob! u sux"

I also dont believe the devs designed the henches to be as smart as humans can be to encourage creating parties with human player but just good enough to allow you to complete missions and quests with them.

Don't go blaming the Henchies as this is your own fault as you don't have res signet on you bar.I guess you just ran away and let them die and came back well you are to blame.It is a good thing this isn't a real party or you weren't PvPing as it has happened to me in the RA but in the HoH or GvG you would of gotten a good talking to.So blame yourself.

The signet of devotion is nice but it is no wear near as good as say good ole orisions with devine favour bonus and can heal you for more.The reason prophecies henches don't have the same skill set and scripts is they expect you to team up with a real party not use henches only as it is an online game .When you use henches it might as well be single player game.We have mentioned henchman controls Alex said something about it and maybe it is about time to rewrite the prophecies henchman scripts since there aren't al ot playing in that part of the game as much try getting party at Abbadon's Mouth.I really don't mind to much the chapter 1 henches but it would be nice to have position where the castors are behind you and not the warriors as I see Alesia in front of me and Stefan behind me but at the lower level the getter they are as in level 3 Alesia is better than level 20.she doesn't like to have other Monks around either.It would be nice if they did give them a condition and a hex removal.

This could go into suggestion but i will post here it would of been nice to have ressurect avaible in presearing to Monks or /Mo and restorelife given to you in post and to have heal other closer to Ascalon in quest say Serenity Temple or piken Square as to match the skill bar of the henchies.I don't know why we can't get it when level 6 Alesia has it but I still missi Lina in faction as she has protective spirit and the protector of Factions doesn't but all of them like haveinf a ressing contest.That is what bugs me.

I will say this is Devona is one of the best in the game as she has in inturrupt and Reyna and Aiden don't which it would be nice.

The levels are the same in both chapters and I find it easier in Factions than Prophecies as you don't have a lot of hex and curses thrown at you like in Prophecies.

Sorry Moderators and other for the 3rd quote but Firestorm is still usefull in presearing an and I use it till I got to the desert as well I was playing ele with another one in the Ring of Fire mission and she used FireStorm and I didn't.I have been told by a good Ele in my guild that firestorm is good at protecting Monks.

You obviously never realised he uses a high-arc bow for his interupts, he also can't and has no chance of ever, interupting the spells Vasburg can... namely Orison and RoF.

Cynn and her firestorm is not a problem at all. The day that I learned to play with "Tab", "C" and "Spacebar" was the day that Cynn became one of my best henchies around.

Forget about better hench AI; I just want better controls for them:
- "Stay here while I pull."
- "Attack my target, I really mean it."
- "Stay on your target while I switch targets."
- "Rez me now. (Noob)."
- "Run away!"

You get the idea.

It would be nice if when you called a target, they attacked it regardless of which you switched to. At least that way when playing as a warrior you could control the agro and still kill off other things.

blah-blah-blah

So its safe to say , when with Henchies you need Rez because they are quaranteed to aggro and guaranteed to die.8 slots and I have to carry a frigging rez even with a god dayum rit and healer.
Bottom line-henchies suc.

QFT...when i was first working my way through Echovald, i was really suprised by the dredge groups...the squishies stay in the back and the melee's block fairly well...

why is it at comparable levels, the enemy AI completely owns the hench AI??

This thread is funny. So much Hench hate. As soon as I saw the enemies run away from Orion's Firestorm, I stopped bringing the Elementalist henchmen.

That Dredge AI is real good. I try to get the henchmen to kill that Gardner, while the Dredge Assassin and Warrior run through everyone right to my monk and hit real hard.

Erys and the Luxon Ranger Interrupt guy are awesome. They interrupt stuff I know I wouldn't even try to interrupt without an attached hex to slow spellcasting, but I'm not a good Mesmer or Ranger so...yeah.

But back to the monk Hench. I've done most of Factions with Henchmen too, but not without a lot of respawning. Spamming Blessed Light and Jamei's Gaze all the time can't be good on their energy. I think ANet knew their energy wasn't going to last long so they gave them that Signet...so that now they can have no energy and heal slowly. I do miss Alesia (if only she didn't bring that Heal Touch) and Lina. I do hope that the Hench AI improves, especially since the mobs are a lot tougher in Factions.

Sorry, but I never ever play without having some form of rez with me unless I'm solo'ing. Its simply good practice.

These threads never die do they.

When will people learn, henchies do not "suc" as someone put it, maybe they are not being used properly, 90% of the game is completable with them.

And really, you should be bringing res signet ect, in a HUMAN team, so why complain about bringing them with henchies.

Some people need to learn to play, so here is some help

And one last thing to add.

Call targets CONSTANTLY. dont just call your first target, have a second target ready to call before AND NOT after the first one dies. The more you call targets when one dies, the quicker your henchies will react, if you dont call they may attack a different target for a few seconds to the one you are attacking. Remember to (generally) attack elementalists first, then mesmers/necros/monks, and finnally warriors/assasins. Elementalists in factions do LOTS of damage, which is why they can be primary targets in most situations.


Would you call targets in a human team = yes

So dont forget to do it with henchies either.

Reading Arons post. Which bright spark at Anet decided to make it so that to make henchies retreat you need to click your health bar? They spent all that time but never once thought of having a Henchman menu with commands that Gran said earlier. At the most basic of levels i'd like to have a 'Offensive, Defensive and Pasive' modes. If any of you have played Total Annihilation before i mean like Fire at Will, Return Fire and Hold Fire.
Offensive they attack anything that comes close
Defensive they attack anything that attacks them
Passive you could let a lvl5 Bear kill them and they wouldn't flinch.

At least if you want to retreat you could quite easily switch them to Passive and run off.

Speaking of which, have you noticed that if you're owning a non-warrior mob, the mob will, after about 2 seconds, break off combat and run about 50 feet straight away from your group. If you have any warrior or assassin henchmen in your group, they will immediately give chase. This often will aggro even more mobs. I sure wish I could get the monk henchmen to kite like that...

Theres a link somewhere (which i cant be arsed to look for) where they said in an interview, tactical commands would be a factions feature.

So its "coming soon"............

Those two are the most pathetic/dumb healer hench ever.
They don't heal you in mid combat while you casually have a 8- degen from conjure nightmare they just heal the other hench + you have to wait like 5 minutes until one of them actully rez you.

Ah, I miss Lina and Alseia ;__;

I've done both games (mostly) with henchies (as well as with groups on various characters), including THK and the three Fire Islands missions. I haven't done Imperial Sanctum or Unwaking Waters with henchies, but I imagine I will be able to with the right character when I get the rest there. However, people also don't seem to learn that saying 'henchies suck' is not the same as 'the game cannot be played with henchies'. I got 100% Grandmaster Cartographer and completed Factions using henchies most of the way.

Henchies suck.

They don't suck as bad as Tyrian henchies, but they still suck. It doesn't mean the game isn't impossible, it just means some of us are just that damn good at playing with crappy henchies and can deal with the rezzes associated with them. I don't know if people will ever learn not to assume bad henchies means impossible gameplay..

Henchies are tools, use them wisely

In other words, don't grab the melee freaks, like Lukas and that bird.

They will just aggro more enemies.

For me, a full party of casters (Don't take Su, the Vile Henchmen, she uses Vile touch...I think, never used her :P), and grab a Flatbow, lure, kill, lure, kill.

Funny, during the FPE the Canthan henchman we're utterly retarded. They would clear out 1 group perfectly, then get wasted by the next group of Naga. Or of course just sucked beyond belief vs 3 Oni.

After using Tyrian Henchman practically everywhere, they are damn good. They have there utterly retarded moments too, but they all involve AoEs... They can occasionally pull off miracles too. I was rushing RoF once because i was getting sick of the Elite i wanted not appearing in a nice easy place and accidently lured 4 Mesmers, 2 Elementalists, 2 Armours and 1 Bow (the casters at the same time, the attackers near the end) and they actually won the fight with no deaths. How many Pugs can you say that happened with? Probably none because theres always 1 funny guy who isn't completely infused (i'll admit switching headgear is a common mistake though).

Aron, the problem is, EVERYTHING is 'coming soon'. I'm still waiting for my armour upgrade.

Sry if this has been posted already. I didn't feel like reading through page after page of comments.

This thing that pisses me off the most about hench is the fact that they love aoe. That is, they love to stand in it. They made the enemies run out of aoe, why can't they make the hench do the same?


I don't think that they are too bad other than the aoe problem and the ressing problem. IMHO, they are often better than the trash you see in pugs.

Yeah some where over the past year of playing prophecies I’ve totally forgotten how to use henchmen, same with everyone else.

Well when the henchmen break a called target it’s a bug, if I didn’t say anything about this how would anyone know. Same goes when other odd things happen more then once. If nothing is ever said then nothing would ever get fixed. When I am half health and trying to get away and they don’t heal me what so ever, when Duh’ika runs to the other side of the mob agros everything because of it “sucks” comes to mind…

I should've been clearer. You're right as well. I think the Tyrian henchies suck more comment is as a group because there is less choice (such as a good interrupter). Individually they are probably on the same level. During the FPE they did seem much worse. The mobs in most places seemed stronger (Ferndale seems about the same) and the henchies would stop more often to recalculate their path, causing them to get left behind. I think the more choice makes them overall better in Cantha than Tyria.

i think people who used henchmen in diablo2 will know what i'm talking about here:

when you learn to stop thinking of *them* as *your* henchmen, and begin thinking more along the lines that *you* are *their* henchmen, then you will begin achieving more success with the NPCs.

learn how each henchman AI works, and learn to babysit them. they'll stay alive longer, and you'll be more effective.

that being said, i'll throw in my $0.02 on the "tyrian henchies vs canthan henchies" discussion:

i have played quite a bit with henchmen throughout chapter1, and some henchmen are more valuable in some sections than others are. dunham, for example, is useless until you get up to the higher level areas (crystal desert through end of game); once he gets some decent degen spells, he actually can be quite valuable to have along, because he adds another form of pressure on the enemy team.

alesia is easily the most moronic ch1 AI, followed closely by thom, but mhenlo is quite an upgrade. but, individual AI's aside, the general henchman AI is not good or bad; it's just OK. The most important parts of working with it are learning the individual henchman's skill bars and capabilities, and learning how to trigger them to do what you want. Mhenlo and Lina standing in the fire? It's because the henchies like to stand in a ring around the PC's; so, move yourself away from the fire and they will move also.

Mostly I see people getting frustrated with the AI saying "henchies suck!" but really it's just that the player hasn't taken the time to learn how to control the hench AI. I get very good, very reliable results with henchmen; following the good old 80/20 rule, the henchmen get a pretty solid 80% score on capabilities if led by a competent PC. If you want to go above 80%, then, yes, you need PC's, because PC's can change skill bars, bring better selections, tweak attributes, and apply more critical thinking to changing situations. But the AI does pretty well in most situations. PC's can drag you out of some fscked up situations and save the day, but if you avoid getting into fscked up situations in the first place, the point is moot, isn't it? Keep the situations within the range of things that the hench AI can deal with and you'll have fewer problems.

So, finally getting 'round to the point: In my experience, the Canthan AI for healers is *really* fscking bad. Terribly bad. "Worse than Alesia" bad. To make matters worse, they took out Mhenlo as an option, because he's a storyline character now. The Avicara warrior, though, rocks hard. The interruptors are pretty good. Lo Sha isn't bad. I tend to avoid Necromancer minions, because I'm afraid they'll die too much using sacrifice skills, but I did use Eve alot in the Ring of Fire missions because she has some good direct damage skills, and can BR the other casters. [1] The Ele henchmen aren't too bad, either, though they tend to get targeted by enemy assassins and axe warriors alot, so if you don't protect them well they will get ganked alot.

All in all, some of the new AI's are pretty good, but they absolutely need to fix the canthan healer hench AI's and skill bars. They're god-awful.

Really, though, IMHO, Anet needs to form up a special team of developers whose sole responsibility is to go around improving AI's for mobs.
1) Fix the AI's for henchmen, and *at least* make them as smart as the enemy AI's;
2) Fix *all* AI's to look at their skill bars/attributes in an automated fashion and use them more intelligently. Too often, mobs get 3-5 skills, and just rotate through the same list over and over.
3) Fix AI's to kite intelligently.
4) Fix AI's to follow targets, and retreat more intelligently.
5) Give selected mob AI's "natural enemies". It's really RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing annoying to watch overlapping patrols of grawl and , say, devourers, walk up to each other, say "afternoon, fred", and walk off. Now, I understand, some species may not be aggressive on each other, but give me a fscking break. This is why the avicara in Mineral Springs are one of my favorite enemies: they attack other mobs. They say, "this is our fscking territory, bitch, get the fsck out" *and they will kill other mobs for intruding*! That is just really fscking awesome! It lends them personality, it lends to believability that there is stuff going around when you're not there to watch it. Please understand: I'm not just trying to get it easy, so they kill each other all the time. That wouldn't be any fun. But make it a little more believable.

And so on, and so forth.

Anyhoo, this has gotten long enough, so I'll end here. There are great strides they could make to improve the game simply by focusing on AI, but that doesn't make for high sales numbers, so it'll probably never happen. They seem to be following the stereotypical PVP formula: "Hey, just play with other players, they're smarter, and takes less coding!", not realizing the great predominance of the Greater Internet Fsckwad Theory (http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2004/20040319h.jpg) that permeates the playerbase.

[1] to those of you who think that BR'ing warriors is dumb, remember that warriors, and especially the ch1 warriors like thom and stefan, tend to use a lot of mana based skills like Power Attack. Thus, more mana = more PA's = more damage.

eudas

I always bring Eve whenever she's available, blood ritual works wonders on those Blessed Light spamming monks.

And the spirit henchies no longer use union after an update which "improved healing skills of spirit henchman".

Also I like to bring Devona if she's available for the extra knock down interrupts.