Is Claude any use at all?

Just wanted to hear from people who've used Claude more than I: does he do ANYTHING apart from giving Blood Ritual to whoever in the team has least energy (usually one of the warriors)?

Seriously, I find Dunham more useful, and that says a lot as all *he* does is spam Crippling Anguish & Empathy.

I take me soley because he seems to draw attention away from the monk, creatures seem to try to take him out first.

If I use a full hench team, I take him because I don't take Duhnam.

you can say the same about any henchy except healers, orion uses fire storm when battle is over 95% of the time, thom and stefan use healing signet at completely stupid times and things like griffons sweep when theres no need then alesia heals herself, line will spam reversal of fortune/protective spirit and use shield of regen occasionally, dunham uses crippling anguish on a half dead caster and claude blood rituals warriors, reyna/aidan is the only half decent henchman but they will be the last 1 left alive have 50hp then use troll unguent and end up dying

Claude rocks. See how well your monks heal without him in a sustained battle! Blood ritual helps ALOT!

Claude for me is like all the henchies.. a real love/hate relationship. Sometime's he's very, very handy with excellent timed BR's for me and the monk healer's as well as casting attack spells (yes, he has attack spells and does use them) with good timing... and other times he's a total idiot .. like wen he constently BR's Stefen & Claude when I'm out of energy and waiting for regen to cast next spell.. but he refuses to look at me.. LOL

*shrugs* I couldn't say for definately whether he's better than a PUG necro tho.. (I don't PUG).. but I still would take him over Dunham (Everytime I say his name I think "Dumb Ham".. hehehe) simply because more often than not what he does do is good and helpful.. whereas the only use I've ever had for Dunham has been bodies for corpse spells

But to answer the OP - yes, I've seen Claude cast spells other than BR. And his timing seems to be better than mine at times (ie casting spells when they will actually get the critter.. and not fizzle because the critter died while your still trying to cast.. hehehehe)

Funny thing about Dunham is I've never ever seen him cast Empathy or Crippling Anguish on anyone.. all he ever cast's is Distortion.. Real useful that is.. though I admit I've only ever really taken him a few times in the desert as well as the jungle.. (just trying stuff out.. heh).. and that was quite awhile ago.. so they might have fixed him to be more useful... *shrugs*

If you hold Ctrl and click your energy, eve;claude sometimes gives you BR... they did when I tired it but it didnt ALWAYS work.

sure fire way to get blood ritual from claude/eve is to spam a skill you dont have enough energy to use, nice to bring a 25 energy spell just to get their attention and pull them back out of the fight

As a Monk, I find that Claude stresses the healing need way more than he is of actual benefit. He tends to sacrifice needlessly without regards to his situation. Just had him sacrifice himself to death when he was poisoned and at 1/5 health yesterday for no particular reason.

In fact, with some decent energy management and Protection, Monks should be never short of energy and the extra stress that comes with trying to keep him alive in battle makes him pretty much inferior to most other henchies.

Off-topic but a thing to think about if there are added species there will be added henchies to the species.

I think the key is what you play, with my fire ele, Claude was usually dead quick and pretty useless to me. But with my mesmer, having claude and stephen make great stay away from me tanks and if there getting too pounded, I through a choas storm in to give them a quick breather.

It could be worse, they could have given him BiP.
The way he spams BR, he'd drop almost instantly....

How I wish this was so. He ignores my casters even IF I do the ctrl+clicky =/

But if it worked like that, he'd be the most rockin hench to have as a mana battery =)

--The Shim

i think the problem with dunham is that he targets whatever he likes ? never do i see empathy cast on whatever i'm attacking oh no mr.dunham has to cast it on the monster right next to it >.>

His Blood Ritual never seems to last long enough though....

I love the cultist henchman. If I take the henchies my usual setup is Lina, Mhenlo/Alesia, Thom, and Eve/Claude. I do this with my ranger and my monk.

To help the AI take notice of me I try and get fairly close to Eve/Claude and that helps them take note of me. I also ctrl click my energy bar, but usually if I'm really low at like 5 -7. I get close to her and cast a heal or use a ranger attack skill and then that seems to help facilitate the blook ritual.

Overall I have noticed a definite performance increase to myself and the monk henchies. I don't bring the elems or Dunham as they suck up too much healing energy. They are fricken energy sponges. It's a lot easier to focus healing on just Thom and the cultist tanking than with a whole group. The only time I take a whole group adding Devona/Stefan, Cynn/Orion, and Dunham is when I need to do max damage quick like on missions. If nothing else they are at least good acting as extra health sponges.

The only other spell I've seen Claude cast is Deathly Swarm. And if you're taking him, I think Stefan is the better warrior hench (when he's available). Thom runs out of energy a lot faster (at least in my experience) so Claude spends a lot more time mindlessly BR'ing him. I don't have as much problem with that when I use Stefan. Maybe it's just me though.

i never use claude.....mostly since i play on my necro

I dunno, I really like Claude. Let's me spam spells without any worry of energy management.