BWE: Did you test-drive the new NPC varieties?

Of all the cool bits during the weekend, I think this is was one of
the coolest PvE additions that I didn't experiment with too much...
(and a wallpaper for you that didn't participate)



I did take 5 NPCs and slug my way through Gates. Made LA first try.
I liked the blood mage and everyone was using their abilities more,
but they still aren't all that bright. (they'll happily stand in the poison
water / acid until they die.)

Still, to see your NPC ranger fire up an ignited arrow or the monk
casting breezes, it took me by surprise though I was expecting it.

Did you test drive them? At 3rd / 6th / 10th? What did you think?

Yeah, I tested a few of them. Was quite happy with the Brawler, he seemed quite competent. Didn't like the blood mage, prone to death - he doesn't show much sense in when to use blood magic and would take himself out of game essentially; he'd run up front and let loose with spells, dropping himself to half health and then be slaughtered.

The Brawler is indeed nice. I may even like him more than the Fighter, though i'm not sure yet - have to play more with them.

The Bloodmage casts "Blood Ritual" once in a while if someone's low on energy, wich is nice, but only that skill probably doesn't justify taking him. The rest of his spells are pretty garbage, in my opinion. And he does like to use them at point blank range, yes. Much like the Elementalist henchman.

The Enchanter is, from what I've seen, a hexer. Didn't found him so useful, he would cast stuff like Imagined Burden and Empathy I believe. Kinda situational, sometimes useful, sometimes useless. I rarely took him.

If I went out with my Warrior in a kinda tough area, I would take the Brawler, Fighter and Healer. The fighters attack what I'm attacking so monsters go down fast with 3 Warriors beating them. With my Elementalist I usually made some place for the Bloodmage though.. I like his energy feeding. You have to adjust your playing to cautiously pulling.. though sometimes that isn't even enough for Mr. Mage. However he's not essential at all.. I just didn't had the energy gaining skills myself yet.

What was the difference between a fighter and a brawler?

Brawler uses axe attacks, fighter sword. Maybe some more..

Hey! Don't knock it, that's MY schtick!

Seriously, when teamed up with a little team backup, that build can be virtually unstoppable. Doesn't work too well in the chaos of PvP, but in PvE it can be very effective, and keeps the damage off of lower level players. If I was fighting alongside a lot of lower level folks, I'd dive right in with Vampiric Touch, unless I'd had any death penalties weighing on me.

Unless you're fighting lag. Then the difficulty targeting slows you down.

I never found them, only when I got through the mission where you fend off the Charr and send them packing, they where there. Where are they in the game?

Hmm. For me Mr. BloodMage did his thing, Blood Renewal & Ritual, and I'm pretty sure Pact too... guys would have damage on them but I don't know the animations for necros very well. It was Mr. Enchanter that kept closing to melee distance especially in stupid circumstances like fighting skeletal rangers who weren't using melee weapons themselves... that part was a bit odd. Had to pick up Mr. Enchanter off the floor a few times. As a caster he was mostly useless, as a meat shield he was totally useless.

The Elementalist, Fighter(Stefan Baruch) and the Healer were really good, very handy in the first missions 'cause i atleast had problems with ppl running to their deaths instantly there, then i got tired and tried the npc's out and they were awesome till nolani academy where they got owned in the battle pretty well Then after lion's arch the elementalist got kinda crappy and the warrior wasn't really good either, the warrior died easy and the mage wasn't really up to date with the skills but the Healer got better, it was a nearly a must on the missions The worst guy was the brawler, i don't it had any skills beyond yelling banzai and rushing to his death, i got as far as Aurora Glade and on the last part of the mission but i didn't manage to get to denravi (well i guess its well 'cause last beta i got to yak's bend and i made a new char to this beta) But the only usable henchman there was the healer :/

I only used them for the Academy quest and The Breach quests. I was fairly impressed with all of them, especially the healer. I think it is really cool that they put in NPC's you can group with if you can't find people. Just one more thing that makes this game so awesome

blood mage was a bit of a pain, i was a death necro and he tended to use up the corpses before i could finish my spells on them.
the mesmer guy complimented my style nicely though

Brawler is a nice second melee option for henchie teams, PvE style. The Mesmer and Necromancer aren't worth the drops they take.

Peace,
-CxE

They were good in general, but in GvG (we were 1 person short) the healer got itself stuck OFTEN. Once it got stuck in some water, and just sat there healing itself. Another time, it got stuck OFF THE MAP. It was floating about 30 feet above the map not doing anything. Which kinda sucked since i was the only other healer. But for PvE i have to admit the changes they made were definetly helpful

Yeah I played this beta as a Monk with Healing and Smiting skills. When I just wanted to explore the map, I would grab the NPCs to tag along. I would take both fighter and brawler, another healer for backup, the blood mage were standard. The mesmer wasnt particularly helpful. the elementalist was okay.
My setback was duh, being a monk and trying to be group leader. The henchmen dont attack on their own. I would have to be the one to try to pull out the big bads; and get swamped.

I took a quest out of Lions arch that sent me to the black curtain, and let me tell ya'll at lvl 15 Monk with just 5 henchies just plain undoable. I gotta find friends or just level up to 20 cuz that area is waaaaaayyyy tough. hee hee hee.
The henchmen tried their best but alas... it was a constant rez'd and slaughtered situation.