Customizable Henchmen

In both of the Guild Wars games, prophecies and factions, we are allowed to take henchmen with us on our quests. However the henchmen are rather limited in the way of skills. They might have an okay skill selection (AI is another post), but that skill selection is fixed. This is good in that you know what you are getting, but bad in the fact that some henchies have more or less value depending on where you are going.

So here's what I suggest to remedy that. Allow henchmen to have 3-5 skill sets that the party leader can choose between. For example, once the leader has added the henchman into the party, he can "talk" to the henchman to select the skill set he likes or would be better for the area. For example, maybe he'd like to see Devona using swords or have Cynn use water magic in the Ring of Fire missions. Furthermore these options could vary among the individual henchies. Alesia would have a different protection set than Lina and both would have different smiting skill sets. Note that the weapons a henchie uses should also change for the skills they have… Cynn with water magic should use a water staff while Devona with swords should carry a sword

For guilds: as of now guilds can have people bring up to four (standard) henchmen from their guild halls. That's nice, but let's make being in a guild a little better (and add a money sink). Let us hire more henchies (one for each one available in the game) and name them with a /henchname command. For example, for 5 plat I can have a mage that looks like Cynn in my guild and have her 3-5 options. Of course you can only buy new ones based on what campaigns your guild leader has. It'd also be nice if we could take the guild henchies into PvE areas so long as you meet the number requirements (or even better add a NPC to let you call in guild henchies).

Here are some ideas to get things started. The skill set order goes from most points to least points added.

Devona
1. Swords/tactics/strength
2. Axes/tactics/strength
3. Hammers/tactics/strength
4. Dagger Mastery*/tactics/strength

*I think that this should be an exception to the rule of henchmen having skills only from their primary class. This is to account for the fact that devona can duel wield gladiuses (gladii?)

Cynn
1. ES/Fire
2. ES/Water
3. ES/Air
4. ES/Water/Air (air and water can be equal)
5. ES/Sexiness (a Cynn only skill set)

Alesia
1. DF/Healing
2. DF/Healing/Prot
3. DF/Healing/Smite
4. DF/Prot/Healing

Lina
1. DF/Prot
2. DF/Prot/Healing
3. DF/Prot/Smite
4. DF/Healing/Prot

Mhenlo
1. DF/Healing/Smite
2. DF/Smite/Healing
3. DF/Healing/Prot
4. DF/Healing/Smite

Stephen
Weapon skill/Tact/Str

Little Thom
Weapon skill/Str/Tact

Kasai
1. ES/Air
2. ES/Air/Fire
3. ES/Air/Earth
4. ES/Air/Water

Agreed.
Sister Ta(nk)i should not be using Signet of Devotion with 9 divine favor, that's retarded. This is an excellent remedy.

/signet Makes the game a lotmore costumizable make sheena and brutus both blood spike to beat everything in the game with ease hehe...

Been suggested many, many times, but you put a little more thought into it. I again give a /sign. My only real concern is that human players will become obsolete if we can choose every skill that gets brought into the mission. Because of this, I wouldnt want henchies to have more than five skills, not including rez sig.

the idea is good. but it will never be implemented.

Anet wants you to play with real people. and while the henchmen might have superior reacting times. they lack that which makes real players better.

judgement. sometimes you have to decide between 2 things. you can't do both. players are good at this. and can predict the battle somehow. henchmen have a preset number of variables they use for determining their action. and it is not allways the best.

Henchmen do not have a proper understanding of their skills either. a good player will not cast through backfire. and while the henchmen AI is smart enough to not kill itself. it lacks some "common sense"
a henchman will also keep casting on a monster with spell breaker up. they just aren't that smart

/SIGNED

I'm a soloist, so any improvment on henchmen is a plus.

Tell me when you go outside to cap an elite. Do you stand in the nearest town for 2 hours spamming 'LFP TO CAP...'?

Or when you want to do something purely to explore, do you wait to form a full exploration party?

Early mornings/late nights when no-ones on, who do you use then?

We're not asking for henchman that can take out Willian teh Unpleasant single handed. Just a bit more frigging variation.

Doing Iron Mines bonus earlier, i took Dunham along. During the ENTIRE fight with The Inquisitor, he cast Distortion about 300 times. Even when the boss started to flee, guess what he did? Distortion. Did he cast Empathy (which would've done more than half my spells) or Crippling Anguish? Not once. The only damn reason i did the bonus was because some White Mantle body blocked him!

Do you have any idea what i would've given if he had spells like Diversion, Power xxx, Backfire or anything useful?

I like the idea I had a simlar idea so firstly a good sign is in order

/signed

now on to my idea I had I thought once that what if you could take your previous characters in so I have a lvl 20 R/Me and in lvl 20 area I could take him with me...course the system would have to be NPC rules which is like 3-4 spell/skills a character, oh and also the NPC obviously wouldn't be able to level up.

I think this way it would reward people who have unlocked all the skills im mearly thinking about PvE players who have unlocked skills for their characters...I also think it would be great to have it like this to make it a better feel.

Just thought of a bug which could allow characters to have droks on their NPC chars so way to get round that would be to simply have a fixed armor so their armor would go down just like it does on other Henchmen...

/signed

Would be good to get better henchies, though I went through factions with mainly henchies and did fine.

Also Cynn cant have sexiness. She was destroyed when they updated the henchmen models...

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=103936

I had a similar idea...but my idea was to have premade builds that are more diverse using secondaries and not just primaries.

Slayer, don't you go dissin' Cynn.

Infusion, I understand what you are getting at, but I think that henchies should be primary only to "showcase" the skills of their class. Could Talon or devona be better with strength of honor or retribution? Sure, but that isn't their purpose I think.

/signed
I also would like to add the possibility of having a side option while choosing skill to choose the tactics of the henchs, like the distance you want it to be from you, how to behave in combat(simple tactics) and so.
For instance when you need only a healer to do your job and you dont want your sister tai, danika nor our dealer alesia getting into trouble, b4 you leave town you choose the distance the hench would be from you as you engage combat (your aggro bubble touch an enemie or a group of mobs) and the possibility of the hench running from side to side when targeted (like smart monks) when dmged... It's so dull to see danika standing still while being hit, and the point is that the enemies healers usually run when YOU r the attacker.

arrrrr matey

You bump a three month old thread about something that is kinda in Nightfall.
You can have upto three custom heroes in your party and you can pick what skills they use. They may be even more customizable than just that, but we wont know til it goes live or atleast the pve preview.

"the idea is good. but it will never be implemented."

I bet you regret this really old post you forgot about ages ago now dont you?
New rules for posting
1.Use search
2.No spam posts
3. Check 3 months into the future to see if what you say isnt going to bite you on the ---

lol poor virruz. perhaps A-net did this simply to spite you,if so, make sure to burn all the other good posts so anet starts watching them too lol