Curse

TadaceAce · May 15, 2006, 04:57 AM // 04:57

Whats the point of making henchmen so bad? This post is gonna be less about the bad AI of the henchies but the lack of effort put into giving them a build.
I noticed that I really don't think ANY of the henchmen even have 8 freakin skills on their skillbar let alone a combo of skills that makes any sense at all.

The builds the henchmen use... are just.. bad... no no beyond bad...

War Henchies -> tiger stance, an energy attack, adrenal attacks, rez sig....
there current elite - charge... are you kidding me? thats absolutely useless, especially since they use it at the beggining of the battle and nothing in PvE runs from them.

Ranger -> kindle, dual shot, distracting shot, savage shot, punishing shot or even poison arrow, marauders shot. hurray If you wanna go even further why not make a barrage ranger outta one? or a beastmaster? its not as if there aren't enough ranger henchies.

Monk -> dwayna kiss, word, signet of rejuv, signet of devot, orison, touch, breeze, rez chant.... and fix their stupid rezzing, not only when they rez but how they rez... why do they stand over a corpse when using a ranged rez skill?

Necromancer -> wow where do I start... the one thing I approve us if their use of blood ritual, beyond that they are completely oblivious. I have never seen the cultist henchmen use an elite. Why not give him oob or something. And why is their a death necro henchmen who spams deathly swarm, wow thats useful............... Make him a curse henchmen or something.

Mesmer -> why don't you give um more interupts since thats the only thing they're good at. They have like 2 degen spells and use them less than often. They use clumsiness and empathy on every enemy caster then stare blankly at the melee enemies.

Elementalist -> wow they have like 3 skills. The only thing I have good to say about the eles is the earth ele and his ward vs melee. But even the earth ele, I think he has ward vs melee, earth attunement, and stone daggers. Why don't you give um some more skills so they don't sit their idol most of the fight and some energy management like ether prodigy? They like to cast attunements that only get shattered in a matter of seconds.

Assassin -> beguiling haze.... honestly... that is quiet possibly the worst assassin elite and it get puts on the henchmen. Not to mention the henchmen uses viper defense, gets hit, teleports, sits there clueless for 10 seconds. I'm also fairly certain this little piece of work doesn't have 8 skills. If he does he/she sits their cluelessly too much to pull of a combo and show all 8 skills.

Ritualist -> I like attuned was songkai, I kinda like his build, I don't know much about ritualists really. Just one thing that bugs me, he likes to cast shelter every chance he gets. If you wait for the henchmen to catch up, he only catches up and casts shelter to fall behind again.

TadaceAce · May 15, 2006, 05:05 AM // 05:05

Surely the crew knows more about the skills than anybody else since they have to balance them, I'm sure its not gonna to be incredibly simple to make decent builds outta single class henchmen. You could even add a second class since there are now like 20 different henchmen in cantha.

Seriously, can A-net just put a tiny bit of time into the henchmen builds. Just the other day they make the heal henchy use signet of devotion more cautiously, really I don't notice a different, now if you made her build like not crap.

samifly · May 15, 2006, 05:52 AM // 05:52

If they make them too good, then no humans could compete with them.

Shiznie · May 15, 2006, 06:20 AM // 06:20

Henchies are just there to fill up your party...not to be your party =\

VGJustice · May 15, 2006, 08:15 AM // 08:15

Shiznie is right. But, uh... the henchies are already better than a lot of the players I've been with.

Honestly, though, it is an art to hench properly. When you learn how to do it really well, you become very strong on the whole, and can react as a whole faster and better than 90% of the players currently.

Ashley Twig · May 15, 2006, 08:48 AM // 08:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by samifly

If they make them too good, then no humans could compete with them.

Isn't that already the case? :P

I hardly ever get a team or on a team that is signficantly better than a pure hench team.

There is only one mission in Tyria yet, that I was never able to do with just hench, and that's the bonus part in Bloodstone Fen.
The impossible task: DON'T attack the guardians.
Try to tell that to the hench.

There is, however a theoretical solution to this:
get your hench killed before you start the bonus.
Do the bonus alone.
Rez the healer hench, so s/he can rez the rest of the gang.

Currently I am working on the Raisu Palace, and I just have to say:
Never have I gotten farther than with a pure hench-team.

Problem here: hench control.
As easy as it might seem to make all hench attack a single target
(which is almost impossible with a PUG), as impossible it is to have them not attack at all.
Additionaly, hench get stuck in other NPCs a lot, but who's to blame them? I got stuck under a well of stairs recently in Cantha, though I've been told by some AW that this is impossible and all my fault.
Yeah right, I am blond.

So I would like to see some kind of way to put hench in active and passive modes.
Active = just like now, maybe a bit smarter.
Passive = just follow you, no attacks, nothing, just run and keep up.
Though passive should not be: I don't even heal because I am flagged passive.

shardfenix · May 15, 2006, 11:46 AM // 11:46

Well dont blame them, they're new...

OH! youre talking about henchman. I thought you were talking about regular pve people.

If you think you can make the AI better yourself, email arenanet with some scripts.

I personally like henchmen, except the monks because they utterly suck. I'm literally three times as good as a hench monk. Seriously, i can replace 3 hench monks with myself and even do better on a mission.

SpeedyKQ · May 15, 2006, 01:14 PM // 13:14

The builds could be better, but I think they're built to be sub-optimal on purpose. It is a very tricky thing to balance the hench so that somebody playing alone with 7 hench doesn't always win no matter how bad they are, or always lose no matter how good they are.

fiery · May 15, 2006, 01:32 PM // 13:32

I just skipped to the bottom because the statement that henchies are bad, pretty much everything can be henchied the right way.

Things weren't able to henchie,

Kuzick mission with the 3 trees.
Kunnarang mission.

Than the last 2 missions with Shiro.

FlarelordFenix · May 15, 2006, 05:48 PM // 17:48

I've gotten mad enough at Alesia that I took her out, got her killed, and used Unyeilding Aura to res and kill her over and over and over.

It's good stress relief.

Anyway, on topic.... I agree about Charge. I agree about the AI. And I do have one thing to say about this...

Sometimes, it's just darn impossible to find quality party members. Kaileen, my furthest characters, is stuck on the Iron Mines of Moladune because I can't get a party who is going to finish the mission. I got a free Infusion Run, with the idea of keeping those who wanted to clear the mission around after, but we were left with only three characters when everyone else bailed, and we didn't succeed, due to lacking a healer.

So, it just annoys me that you've got to wade through poor players because Henchmen are so inferior. I agree wholeheartedly, Henchmen need serious improvements: Logically, they can't make it to easy with them, but as it is, there are some situations where Henchmen are worthless, so a player has no choice but to find a party.

nimloth32 · May 15, 2006, 05:50 PM // 17:50

two words to describe

'AI flaws'

Ashley Twig · May 16, 2006, 06:02 AM // 06:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlarelordFenix

I've gotten mad enough at Alesia that I took her out, got her killed, and used Unyeilding Aura to res and kill her over and over and over.

Go therapy

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlarelordFenix

Kaileen, my furthest characters, is stuck on the Iron Mines of Moladune because I can't get a party who is going to finish the mission.

What's to get stuck in that mission, unless aNet changed it significantly since the last time I did it?

Depending on your profession you can even do the bonus there with hench.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlarelordFenix

but we were left with only three characters when everyone else bailed,

Again, depending on your profession (and of course the skills you equipped) you can finish that part with 2 or 3 ppl.
I my case we were a necro (me) and a ranger. Life Transfer, Suffering and Life Siphon did the trick.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlarelordFenix

but as it is, there are some situations where Henchmen are worthless, so a player has no choice but to find a party.

/agree
But thank god those situations are very rare.

CorstedPirate · May 16, 2006, 06:25 AM // 06:25

I henched my way through most of Tyria with my ranger. All the way up to THK, after that I quit henching the missions. I'll have to go back and get the bonuses for the protector title on my ranger, so yay for henchmen! I probably could do most of the missions with my monk, but it is easier to use henchies with a monk.

I am henching my way through Cantha with my monk. Except missions since I haven't done them before, I'll try with people that have.

Sciros Darkblade · May 16, 2006, 07:08 AM // 07:08

The AI is certainly far from perfect, but it's actually surprisingly robust and quite difficult to code if you think about it. If you think about just how weak the skill bars are of the henchmen and how efficient they are with them (honestly give those same skills you listed to a group of people and see what happens ~_^), then imagining a team of henchmen with actually competitive builds starts to get scary.

Also, hench AI is not that bad. Monster AI, seems to me, is also not that bad though, so that's why you don't see them outsmarting each other much ^_^

Mandy Memory · May 16, 2006, 07:28 AM // 07:28

Step one...dual class them. (Warrior henchies suck enough...give them mending?)

Step 2...Give them less skills, far less. But only good ones. (That way they actually use them)

Step 3...Give them better weapons than a human can get (To make up for the fact that they now have 2-3 skills)

Step 4...Fix rez.