Should hench builds be accessable?

While we complain about not having 7 heroes in another thread, I've come to wonder what the deal is with not being able to customize a hench in order to work better with group builds. I checked out their sets on wiki and while they stick primarily to their profession, much of whats used seems lacking and looks to me like an area which stands for improvement.

If you want to customize a hench built just bring a friend with heroes

We have a thread for discussion on 7 heroes, this is a different topic.

A hero is a customisable henchman. What the point in allowing customisable henchmen when it would be much easier to raise the hero cap to 7.

Customizing henchmen wouldn't be as good because for one, we can't customize their armor or weapon. We probably wouldn't be able to change their attributes so we wouldnt be able to change their skill focus. Just changing skills around on a henchmen to be a better version of what they are would be nice, but not really that good and completely useless with certain henchmen in certain areas.

It would also require more work to convert all the henchmen into customizable npc's. You wouldn't have to change as much or add as much in with just allowing 7 heroes.

BUT, assuming this could work, this is what we would need.

Seperate flags for each henchman.

weapon - mod - inscription choices in a option bar. (can't remove items or armor runes/insigs but we could change them)

Complete access to a henchmans attributes and ability to change it how we wanted.

Automatic visual display changes to match currently selected weapon.

It would be fun, but its just silly thinking about doing twice the work for half the enjoyment when heroes would be easier to extend and would allow players to actually customize them and not have to worry about re-doing it everytime they logged on or changed areas. Plus having to save all that to templates would make it a real pain even with a seperate hero/henchie template section.

I always thought the henchmen could use options for customization. Nothing too major, like maybe pre-determined templates. For instance, there could be a ranger hench that you can set to Barrage or Broadhead, then another ranger hench that could be set to condition spammer (like Burning Arrow w/Apply Poison) or a pet build. Warrior henchies could be set to any of the three weapons and the difference in build would be the actual hench - more offensive or more defensive.

Basically, you don't want too much control, or you'd have heroes.

That's right and to make sense they're typically hirelings made to assist.

What I'm really bothered with are 2 factors, 1 the more campaigns a hench shows up in, the more builds they have available. 2 some henches (like Eve) don't even use the full space to make proper use of their builds. Why should they be limited in that area???

Very personally I wouldn't mind if they did fix this, but add something where you can select at least 4-8 predetermined builds you can select from. That and being able to see what they carry does a ton to help put groups in order.

HuntMaster ~ you seem to have misunderstood what this thread was about. Having to change their armor or weapons was not something I'd wanna suggest and would move them into hero territory. But you do have a point when it comes to being able to use flags. There just however wouldn't be a good point in giving each their own because we've already got enough as the way things are, what I'd rather put up a suggestion for is to have another party flag for hench only so you can keep your hero group on you so you don't have to lose the option of maintaining yourself as badly when you need to separate on certain tasks. This should work if you need to defend certain NPC's (Dunes of Despair for example) while catching other tasks or mission bonus.

Huntmaster you basicly want henchment to become heroes by that discription

but even with my suggestion it wouldn't be as fruitful as 7 heroes because every single time you logged on or had to reselect henchmen you would have to go through the entire process all over again.

I do like the idea of predetermined builds, but that just ends up meaning Pvxhenchies, which is just as off-putting. The OP said "Customize" in the post, not "more options". Just having predetermined skill bars isn't really customizing anything, since all we get to do is choose from a few options, none of which we had any say in. Plus we would need tons and tons of premade builds for each henchmen depending on what area and what campaign we were using them in.

If they didn't end up pvxhenchies, then they might end up completely under powered. Either way it could cause endless complaining and require more work by the few staff members to constantly update, nerf and balance.

Also if I wanted henchies to work just like heroes I would have included another option. Secondary professions. So my idea doesn't actually turn them into heroes.

Over all, 7 heroes >Customizable henchies.

I don't think there's much we can do about the pvx types as they're set up based on character and personality. However it would be nice to make changes like having Eve go from blood hench to MM or battery because it's within her profession for doing so.

As for discussion on 7 heroes, PLEASE keep it in this thread so we don't have to derail the topic for something anet may not lift a finger for.

i strongly disagree with this as there is a reason a game is made MMO! i think that if you could customize your henchmen to replace the need for another human with 3 good heroes then you cut out the willingness of people to play with team mates. bad idea mate sorry. if you dont like MMO's then go play starcraft. anytime if you need help with anything in game chat me up IGN: Drunk N Angry i got good heros and guess what i'm human so i talk back when you yell at me for over agroing. LOL

Actually, more options is a direct path to customization. You can't have one without the other, in a sense. Heck, having more than one henchie for any class offers options and helps to customize a team build. They're basically one in the same.

Also, a predetermined build doesn't need to be PvX-based. I would say they would be a bit more restrictive than that - strictly primary class and using only core + local campaign skills. The only difference is being able to choose from a [short] list of these builds to better suit your own, and your team's build. I think that's fair and would work well, personally. You don't need "tons and tons of builds," either; just 3-4 per henchie, at the most.

So the only reason people play with you is because they can't use 7 heroes?

Must be good be you...

thats what i think. if you hire someone to fix your sink, you dont tell them what brand of tools to use.

But you also tend to have lots of plumbers to choose from, instead of just one or two, allowing you to pick what you feel is the best for the job. (plumber = class, other henchmen classes = different types of repair - electrician, mechanic, etc.)


I love analogies!

true, but its still the same effect, just less "plumbers" to choose from. even if there were only 2 companies in your area, you still wouldnt tell them what brand of tools to use.

I like arcanemacabre's suggestion of giving the henchman a few build's to choose from, even if each henchman only had three or so templates to load, it would give them more versatility, it would have been a great idea if it was implemented back in the day, you know... before we had heroes.

I don't know about this but they definitely need to update some hench bars like the prots in Factions...WAY too many condition removals.

Because we need to have at least SOME incentive to party up with others.

Henchmen are there to fill in when you can't find what you need to do a quest/mission. They do the role they are made to do well enough to work in both NM and HM, although some things they won't do very well. Your idea is basically making them into a hero, although with fewer options. I agree that the hench skill bars are lacking for many of the hench, but they are not supposed to be the 'best' available.

To me, this sounds like someone who gave up on wanting them to allow 7 heroes and is looking for a way to get the same thing.