I thought henchman were getting buffed for Hard Mode

Devona still uses the great Elite "Charge"

Thats so helpful, esp in hard mode...

charge is very usfull when you need to do alot fo running around (like in factions) but indeed she could do with a kick in the way of a more usfull elite for prophecies

in the dessert (elona reach) the henchmen are lvl 17 while the mobs outside are 30... hmm

With speed buffs on the enemies, Charge is extremely helpful so your DPS is not lowered as much and your softies can kite better. Think about. Although Earthshaker would be my choice for Hammer wars.

Claw, did you try adding a hench and going outside? They should go to level 20 then.

Even though they're 20, I'd hardly call them "buffed", they're not much more than fodder for the level 30 mobs.

At least with Charge! you will be moving almost the same speed as the enemies.

They get to level 20, but the builds are still bad and the AI is worse.

Charge is awesome, you take that back!

Charge affects minions, enough said.

I feels like they made the hero/hench AI worse. :/

I wasn't getting anywhere in hard mode until I played with people, because my braindead AI helpers couldn't keep up with the faster enemies at all.

I thought I did...but I will check again tonight.

I would agree with most here the henchies are useless in Hard Mode and hers for that sake as well.I was playing with Reyna the same one in Droks in the Northern Wall mission and was useing my energy to keep her alive and Koss ressing her most of the time please get rid of Practice Stance.I found her great in the former normal mode as she could outlast the Warriors.This sure will force those to group up more and cooperate more.

Agreed, while I haven't seen every henchmen, I haven't seen any improvements. Practiced stance + Kindle = Mind numbingly stupid combo.

I think it is more like, henchies got nerfed... because the scale of differences between the mob had widen, not shorten. That translate into lesser henchies combat capability within hard mode. Of course, if they didn't buff them at all, henchies aren't even in consideration.

I'd like to suggest that Henchmen/Heroes are using normal level AI.

I took Tahlkora into the HM Great Northern Wall only to watch her repeatedly stand still when assaulted by melee monsters where previously she would run around like an idiot as soon as something would come in reach of her.

Has anyone seen any other behaviour changes which might support this theory?

Well I know Grawl in Old Ascalon kept making a beeline for Tahlkora and she just stood there and died a lot. I think the monster AI is set to go for lowest health so maybe changing some runes around will help. But once she gets some dp it's all over. Jin and Margrid seemed ok though.

I just completed vanquishing all of Istan Island. It appears that the AI does not have the armor my henchman have. Although they say level 20 they are dead very quickly and taking more then 50% more damage on average then my own HEROs.

I do hope ANET checks on Armor for henchmen just to verify that armor levels are what they should be. If it was not for my ELITE team of Razah, General Morgan, and Olias I would have been unable to vanquish all of Istan.

more like they just buffed the lvl 3 henchmen to lvl 20 -_-

They didn't buff anything. They merely gave us end-game henchman at all points in the game... there skillbars are just as shit as they always were.

They've just turned it into a spike fest.

Honestly, if you can use henchman to clear normal mode Vabbi preupdate, you should be able to clear hard mode istan with hench. Now, higher level areas may be a problem, but then again, encouraging people to form parties with real people isn't exactly a bad thing. Weren't people always whinning on these forums about how PUGs had died with NF and heros? Well now you need PUGs again, so be happy.