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Originally Posted by Navaros
In my view playing Guild Wars solo with Henchmen is often not viable. Especially in difficult zones with multiple mobs with dozens of enemies all congregating in the same place. Ie: Southern Shiverpeaks.
A few reasons why henchmen are often not viable:
- Henchmen can never retreat until it's too late, resulting in their guaranteed deaths if they get themselves into a losing fight.
- Henchmen often cause multiple mobs to get aggroed that real players would never have aggroed, which just compounds the first problem.
- Monk henchmen will always solo aggro into a mob to res any other dead party member and ensure their guaranteed instant re-death.
- It is not possible to pull mobs while playing with henchmen because the henchmen will always aggro ahead of you 100% of the time.
- Henchmen are very weak overall. Their power is limited, their skills are limited, and their AI is very, very, very limited.
I can understand not making henchmen become overpowered, however as it stands henchmen are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy the heck on the other side of the spectrum from overpowered. Henchmen should be on par with regular players. Yet they are not, not by a longshot.
Recently I was in a video game store and I picked up a box of Chapter 1's "game of the year" edition or something like that. It said something like "Play with your friends or ours. You may band with other players or skillful AI henchmen". I was shocked when I read that on the box, because the henchmen in Guild Wars are nowhere near being "skillful".
The henchmen need attention and buffing from the devs. Not to the point of being overpowered, just to the point of not being absymally bad.
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I strongly disagree with most of this and anyone who says henchmen are bad. In most instances I find them stronger than many PUGs in PVE. Most of their skillbars are fairly well focused (despite not having 8 skills). I cannot say this about many of the ppl I meet in pve. I have seen people running skills in 4-5 different attributes and I'm not talking about stuff like Rebirth with no Prot Prayers. I mean stuff that requires attribute points to be useful. Most people seem to have trouble with henchment aggro management. I did at first, but with a little bit of attention, and target calling, controlling henchmen aggro is not really that hard. I have henched everything in Tyria and Cantha on my monk, and almost everything between my ranger and my war (Fire Islands excluded, as I'm just too lazy to finish them. I know it can be done). In fact, the more difficult the mission, the more I prefer henchmen. The simple reason being that as long as you know what you are doing and are able to direct them, henchmen will hardly ever truly RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO you over, whereas, I find that often happens in a human PUG. I am sorry, but I cannot say much for the general intelligence level of human players online. People claim missions like Thunderhead Keep are genuinely difficult. Not really. Thunderhead is quite easy (well after they fixed the fact that henchmen aren't infused here).
It is true that henchmen do not run, but you CAN pull with them. It just requires you do to a little bit of work and REQUIRES you to have a long or a flatbow. You can't pull with a wand. The extra few meters makes a difference. A flat bow is best. It also requires you to pull the closest group, and not necessarily the group you want to pull most. Pulling with henchmen is a learned thing, but it can be done. A good place to learn is Gyala Hatchery. Do it the back way with 7 henchies and you are forced to pull. It'll take a while, but you will get masters if you do it corretly. I dunno if they fixed this in the last patch though. Haven't done Gyala since that patch. The not running thing only presents an issue if 2 things happen: 1) You overaggro, and 2) you start dying. Both rarely happen to me when I play with henchmen, so GG. In fact, I see both those thigns happen more with human players than with henchmen.
They have also, due to recent AI patches, severely reduced the monk res AI problem due to use of res sigs. Although, I find that henchmen do not realize they have their res sigs back after a morale boost. ANET you might want to look into this.
I strongly disagree with henchmen being weak. They are limited by below par skillbars, but possess many benefits that you cannot get by playing with real players. The coordination that you can accomplish with henchmen on a consistent level is much greater simply because henchmen always listen to you and always do what you want them to do. This is the main reason why henchmen are often BETTER than players. Simply because if one person decides "I don't feel like doing that, I feel like going over there and picking up my gold drop" can often mean the end of the group. Henchmen stay put, and do what you tell them, when you tell them to do it. It requires a bit of management, but in my opinion, that complete control and good coordiation is far more valuable in the more difficult areas of the guild wars world.
Let me use monk henchmen as an example.
Mhenlo is normally my healer of choice for pve areas in Tyria where he exists. For the following reasons:
1) He uses Word of Healing correctly
2) I only use him to heal party damge, and while his lack of Heal Party is disturbing, his other skills will suffice 99% of the time.
3) He requires much less control than Alesia
4) Lina almost always resses faster than him, so if combat res happens, Mhenlo is not normal out for very long.
5) He is a stronger primary healer than many monks I meet, simply because he uses his heals in a proper manner.
6) He doesn't overheal that much when it matters
In general, if I put the Mhenlo AI with a properly construced healer skillbar, I am sure Mhenlo would be one of the best monks in the game. His judgement about who to heal, when to heal them, and what heal to use is generally spot on. That is more than I can say of many human players. In all areas where he exists, I will take mhenlo over ANY PUG monk, and I will usually take Alesia over pug monks also. This is simply because I know how they will react. Security is a valuable thing when you are trying to get something accomplished. If you realize how your group is going to react to a certain situation, you can plan for it, and get through it. This requires you to actually *gasp* think during pve, but almost always you can be successful.
The only thing that henchmen cannot handle as well as human players is AOE damage. That is the one thing that murders henchmen. They ball like there is no tomorrow, and do not move out of AOE. Stacked spells like Churning Earth ruin henchies. That is the only problem I have with henchies.
Seriously, Henchie control is something that all PvErs should learn. I believe that once you realize how to effectively utilize your henchmen, you will realize that they are stronger than human players, simply because they react in a predictable manner. And that, is by far the most valuable trait you can have in a group, predictability.
but why must hench play at the level of a 3rd grader? I'm glad they're starting to understand the concept of resurrection, but why oh why do they sometimes get stuck in this never-ending run back and forth between me and a dead teammate -- they won't go all the way over to res the guy, even though we're standing within aggro distance of him, so I have to move closer to him.. even if I was trying to res another of the hench that got themselves killed.
It is possible to make it heal faster than any player, res more accurately, fight more intelligently, and not have "human error" like mashing the wrong key or forgetting to swap weapons.
