Got to ember light camp...and suddenly...

Well, I finally completed thunderhead ( ) and got to ember light camp.

i took the quest that shadow has, and decided not to say "LFG" to do a quest, because i haven't had to look for a group to do a quest with since ascalon. i grabbed the henchies and ran out, expecting to be killed in half a second.

after avoiding those hydras, i got to some white mantle. through previous experiences with henchmen and white mantle, i expected 8 mobs to be on me while the henchmen charge around in random circles. but no...they actually HELPED. A LOT.

i know the henchmen's AI was improved, but i guess i couldn't notice until the ring of fire. they seem to be much stronger, on par with the average warrior/necro/ranger/monk/mesmer. instead of spending an hour fighting 3 guys, they all help out and we kill people real quick. right after we kill somebody, they target the next person, without me having to target them first. this surprised me.

the henchmen got muuch better in the ring of fire. if they were that helpful since kryta, it would have really helped. a lot. but...that doesn't matter. it's fun the be able to kill big level 24 mobs with nothing but henchmen, with only small difficulty.

now, if i could just find that stupid boss with healing hands...

They are better henchmen in Ring of Fire (Devona, Mhenlo, Eva, Cynn, that whole gang). Prior to Thunderhead you have to deal with underlevel, "misfiring" orion and "always dying" stefan and alesia.

Alesia is, hands down, better than Mhenlo.

You think so? I've always found her to be Miss Supertank. She seems to die alot more than Mhenlo in my experience.

To me it seems Mhenlo doesn't heal that much so I go with Alesia.

Mhenlo has never been quick with the rez, in my opinion. Even after everyone is dead, he just stands there and tries to heal himself.

Mhenlo is a real ****tard. Alesia>Mhenlo, he hasn't got the full chakra u know :/

Alesia is a wonderful tank We used her in thirsty river and even though she didn't do much healing, she managed to get the aggro off our monk all the time

I've had Alesia do that plenty of times, too.

Sometimes she's on the ball healing and staying away from the mob. Other times she just tanks and doesn't heal. I haven't figured out why there's such a difference.

Alesia is fruitcake, all she does is run in like a woman in shoe clearance sale

Alesia and Lina make a great team, they can just about kill anything if they get it right. Healer henchies ALWAYS heal, they dont hold grudge, and reguardless of loot or someone insulting them they always rez. Ive done Elonas Reach, Dunes of Despair and Thirsty River with henchies pretty much first time. It gets alot better when you get two healers(well lina can heal).

Alesia has a knack for charging into the heat of battle with Healing Touch, instead of reserving that skill for herself, which is how she always manages to attract all the aggro (since she's hugging the monsters - and such a delicious treat is typically appreciated). Ofcourse if she -does- survive casting the healing touch, she often tries to distance herself from the enemies again (clever!) but tends to do this into unexplored territory, aggro'ing some more enemies (not so clever).

Ive always felt that Mhenlo has been the better healer since that mission outside of Lions Arch. Mhenlo is a LOT quicker on the heals than Alesia is hands down, and I dunno why people dont see this. The reason people think otherwise is because we have Mhenlo doing our heals on the much harder missions. By the time Alesia would cast a healing spell on us in Hell's Precipice, two people would already be dead!

Stefan for teh win!
I love him for his sheer unreliability. some times he will outlazs tthe entire group and tank for a full minute or more, other times hell be down on the ground before you manage to click the enemy.

OMG! that had me laughing out loud in front of my coworkers! You're evil, mrpo!

Alesia has really bad AI problems on her before level 20 :/

Lina pwns a lot more than her ^^ usually keeps the team alive longer than Aleisa.

Mhenlo... well.. he has some weird problem... I can't place it yet.../ponder

yeah but Sir Tydus personally recommends Alesia. She has to be good.

We need a smiting henchman.

Mhenlo's a hit or miss case for me, too. However, I will say he seems a bit more reliable than Alesia. If you use Alesia (aka Healing Hench) in a GvG, you'll notice she seems to heal slower whereas if you have Mhenlo in those crazy three last missions, he does a pretty steady job. Lina still tops the both of them, however, which makes me sad she's not recruitable in GvG. :<

Hench are getting better later on but the issue I find is they are not infused after thunderhead which confuses me a lot... I mean come on... why are they not? They die pretty quick for me trying to get to the grotto. I have yet to try the new hench out from the grotto though and see how they do.