What's with the mobs

I hit level 19 today and since then everywhere I try to go theres nothing but mob after mob. I've been using henchmen but this is stupid. I'm fighting mob after mob and usually getting killed. The henchmen are 3 to 4 skill levels below the the skill levels of the mob. I can't even remember how many level 17 mobs I've run into. It seems like if I agro one group every thing that shows on the mini map attacks. I tried to go around Riverside and ran into a 30+ mob of Tengu Elite. They were all spread out but just as soon as 1 got in agro range they all came running. The fight lasted about 10 seconds.

And the game just gets harder and harder
I use henchies a lot but it is incredibly hard to do some later missions with them as 1 npc agro can kill us all in about 5 seconds.
Not saying that players are any better as you always end up with one suicide type!

Wait until you hit the southern shiverpeaks and beyond. In the peaks, the majority of the fights are 6-8 level 22 or level 24 mobs against your team of 8. I take henchmen out a lot, and on occasion we get overwhelmed by something. Learning how the henchmen react and how to keep them in control helps a lot to winning these types of battles.

*shudders* Henchmen... make missions impossible lol or mostly

I find it all depends on which henchmen you take for each mission and what class YOU are, as that can alter your strategy a lot.

i.e: If your a prime monk then your henchmen are cannon fodder. Just flee when they die, come back and rebirth them back into battle. Rinse-repeat. As a Warrior prime and only a res-sig to your name you may have trouble with some of the longer missions as you may end up with 2 total npc deaths.

Still, i prefer the real deal (real people) to henchmen anyday though its hard to find people doing the same quest as yourself i find. Easy for missions to find people though, just not quests.

Dont knock the henchies. I love 'em. For the most part they behave, but can be difficult to use when mobs are very close to one another.

I've wasted far less time playing the game with henches versus some real people. Now dont get me wrong, when in a good group of players dead mobs are quickly left behind us. But as stated previously one silly player (no offense but usually Warrior class) thinks they can kill 'em all single handed. Doesn't happen. Then you get to start the mission all over.

speaking of henchies... does anyone know if they also suffer from the death penalty like we do? I've always wondered if they are getting weaker and weaker, but haven't been able to confirm.

I think so, because I have noticed (mainly with the mage henchmen) that once they die a couple of times, they seem to die much faster even against the same mobs.

Yes, henchmen suffer death penalty. I use the henchmen a lot with my E/Mo. They take getting used to, but with some practice you can make them helpful. You will never be able to make them do EXACTLY what you want, but if you learn how they behave you can work with them. It's a little tougher for some other classes, but they're still usable with patience.

With two live people that know what they are doing with henchmen (how to manipulate them) you can control them very effectively. They can even be more reliable than a lot of real players.

i personally am a warrior myself and compared to the other classes our armor is ALOT higher. thus we take less damage and usually expect that the elementalists and monks will do thier job while we have all the monsters around us. were not really trying to suicide were trying to get the rest of you to do area spells on us while everything is around us. so maybe you just have to keep up and do your job :-P

The first problem is when the "heroes" rush off too far and pull more than the group can handle when fewer mobs could have been pulled from further back. The second problem is when the "heroes" rush off too soon and the monks/elems don't have enough energy regenerated from the last fight to heal and nuke. These two problems generally lead to the group getting wiped and the "heroes" bitching at the support classes when the "heroes" were the cause.

Note to Warriors: I know your adreneline will run out if you don't start fighting again, but you can regen it soon enough unless you're dead because we don't have enough energy to heal you. And when a caster/healer is spamming "I have XX out of YY energy" in the chat window, there's a REASON for it!

With my Ra/Mo20 I have multiple weapon sets. I have my pulling set, which is my longbow, my peppering set, which is my shortbow (all bows are 15-28 and either purple or gold with extras) and finally I have my monk set which is 2x items with +10 energy on them. If I feel like I'm in a situation where I need to play healer/smiter monk, I just switch to that combo until my energy is blown, then switch back to my peppering weapon set.

The reason I said all this is I use my longbow weapon set with henchmen. Generally I put down a spirit of favorable winds, then get to furthest range to the closest target. Pop off an arrow and before even seeing if it hits, I hit X and start running away from the mobs. This **usually** keeps the 2x fighters I take out with me (little thorn and stefan.) Unfortunately they occasionally stick around and decide to duo all of the mobs. Depending on the situation (proximity to other groups, etc.) I may or may not turn back around and continue the fight.

One really annoying aspect of playing a ranger with henchmen is that the range of my longbow is far enough that sometimes my healers aren't in range of the target and/or the fighter henchmen and won't make an effort to get any closer. They'll stand 5 paces behind me and just stand there, even with called targets. This is one of the reasons I switch to my shortbow (or my half moon - I have 3 different purple/gold 15-28 bows now) for fighting. By decreasing my range, it puts ALL of the henchmen back in the fight.

I've tried out henchmen just about everywhere, and I've evaluated DPS and useability in most zones and missions. In every situation I've found, the highest DPS comes from having both Stefan (fighter) and Little Thorn (brawler) in the group. The cultist (Claude) is also on my "useful" list since he feeds me and other henchmen energy. I never take the archer out. The enchanter is great, but ONLY if you have the option of having an 8 member party.

I've defeated all but one mission through the Iron Mines of Moladune. The only mission I was unable to defeat was Thirsty River, due to the final boss base having 2x healers and the inability to direct my henchmen to take out the priest while I kept the boss interrupted with arrows. This is the biggest issue with henchmen over real human players. I have yet to figure out a way to shoot something while redirecting the fighter henchmen to attack something else.

The biggest battle I've defeated thus far with just henchmen was in Whitman's Folly. In that battle we killed I think 47 grawl of different varieties. The only death was Claude (cultist) who has a tendency to cast blood ritual while he's at 25% health, which then takes him down to like 12% health and one shot kills him.

An excellent point. I was doing a mission past Yak's and we were fighting some frost striders in a cave trying to rescue a dwarf. As soon as the battle was over a certain amount of my group would sprint to the next group, then the next, ..... Meanwhile most of the peeps had half dead chars, and my energy was real low. We ended up finishing the quest and opening the frost gate, or whatever it was, but we had to redo the mission three times because of the sprinters.

Many times I don't get to animate any undead since I don't have the time. If I try then I'll be way behind the group. I can only imagine what you elementalists and monks go through as well....

Still, I do prefer peeps in the missions I'm on now. Earlier in the game, I was all about the henchmen, but it's been getting harder to use henchmen only....

I am a R/Mo16 and do almost exactly the same thing as you do. I fire at the closest target when the other mobs are away and immediately hit "s" and walk backwards. This almost always gets the fighters to turn around and run back towards me. Then when the 3 or 4 foes that are running to me get far enough away from the other mobs, I stop and start firing at them. Then the fighters run in, dont aggro the others, and the mage and healer stay with me and do their jobs. It works very well. It was the only way I could get through the wilds! It takes some time to learn how to use the henchmen, but once I figured out what makes them tick, they work very well. The healer is very effective as long as I can keep the mobs off of her.

Well said. And to be fair, I have found there are many good Warriors in GW because they played a spell caster avatar at some point in time. The Ascension missions and beyond do not tolerate aggro'ing of more than one mob at time, otherwise known as HD or "Hero's Disease". This is a terminal condition for all party members and only one need be infected.
And note as well when a warrior gets too far away from their support group (Me's, E's, Mo's, R's and N's) the fight soon falls apart. Individual monsters go around the warriors and spell casters become the primary target. If warriors don't protect the spell casters how can the spell casters possibly protect the warriors? This really is team play. The strength of any party is the combination of all the players skills.

This game is not Call of Duty!