New Henchman AI-Very Impressed!

First, this is not a rant on updates, and its not about the whole update, just then hench. Im in the crytsal desert and we are being swarmed by all sorts of enemies, jade, 2 hyrdas, and rockshot, and i go down.......all the hench are left. Im like "thats it, we are died!" but then they start to focus fire on one enemy at a time, by now the hrydas are dead, but before they went down they were firing meteor so i am like "MOVE hench!" and guess what they did, they spread out! they kill them, and start to kill the rockshots, kill them, and finily the scarabs, so they killed everything without me, i am very impressed with it! Good soild hench AI update!

Go henchies!! They don't need us humans to slow them down.

lol, but they tried to rez me 3 times during battle, repatedly getting interupted, when a human play wont try when they know they are going to fail, so not perfect AI, but getting there

I actually gotta admit the henchmen don't seem any better than before. I'm not saying I disliked the updates, but I think the change in henchman AI was based on their pathing, not behavior. I was trying the Elona Reach mission just for the heck of it, and Lina, the Protector, ran RIGHT up to the warriors, and even while being targeted by the entire mob, continued to sit there. Then when she died, Alesia ran up and tried to rez her, dieing in the process. Eventually my team was destroyed without the aid of any healing.

The henchmen still have a few IQ problems, but I think their getting better slowly.

I wonder if they still get stuck near the catapult levers in Ice Caves? Guess I could find out.

Well im not saying they are perfect, but they seem to have been improved in my eyes, but mabye i need glasses

The level 20 henchmen are a lot better than a lot of players I've been with. Considering I travel with Mhenlo and Lina, and one is healer the other protector... our party of 8 rarely has a death.

I couldn't believe in the Ember Light Camp when somehow Lina managed to kill 3 dryders!

well sometimes i'll get annoyed at alesia. a couple times when i die, the henchies will keep fighting, but sadly get cut down until Alesia is the only survivor. Now 15% DP is bad enough, but then sometimes Alesia will try to rez me, and i know if she's successful, my DP will get bumped right up to 30% cause naturally my weak elementalist won't be able to stand the brutal onslaught of centaur warriors.

One BIG advantage is that Lina is available pre-ascension. She wasn't until this evening, but with her, suddenly Thirsty River wasn't terribly hard to solo with henches at all.

I agree, I just did mineral springs ( well not entirely ) with henchies with alot of ease. When I saw a group of 6-7-8 avicaras before, I had really a bad feeling about my life. But that was pretty easy

True, the addition of lina was a big improvement, i would just like a little back story on why all of a sudden, when we get to new towns (ascalon to yaks as a example), why we have new hech to use, i know to fill the party, i would just like a little back story on them

Im out of town, and would like to know, is lina a special person, or a hench?

And yes im far enough to know normaly if you were wondering.

First, there is a edit button, and i bet you didnt mean to do this, but for future editing, and second shes just s hechman with a protector monk build

Actually if you remember WAY back in pre-searing... Lina the Healer is the NPC that gives you the Resurrection Signet and its associated quest. So she does appear in the game other than as a henchmen. If you talk to her, she complains about the lousy job of maintaining the resurrection shrine.

henchmen r so stupid! i was fighting about 10 things and the bloody healer was healing me and healing them! i ended up dieing in the end!

So the healer was healing you and healing them.... who exactly is them.... and does a monk have something to do such a thing o.O?

~prime

I'm not sure I understand you here. I think you mean heal area, but im not sure.

As for the rest of the posts, I have yet to make a party full of henchman. I'm glad to hear that their ai is being updated though. It's good to see that arena.net continues to take steps to increase henchmans worth in missions. What I'm worried about is their pvp value. On occasion, my guild had to make use of a healer henchman, and the results were only about par. A few dumb decisions here and there, but overall it wasn't too bad. After this new patch, I'm eager to see how improved the yare.

On a different note however, I would really like to see the monster ai improved. I'm sure that many players have seen monsters do some very odd things. One event in particular comes to mind:
I was completing some of the bonus missions I left behind with my character, and I eventually got to the frost gate. After getting close to the bonus, I was fighting a group of 3 summit dwarves and 1 ice golem. After making the first strike, the 3 summit dwarves started to rush me, but then halted and shifted their course. I started to laugh when I realized that they were targeting rurik, who was safely out of harms way under the bridge. I'm sure many others have had some interesting and odd experiences as well.

I have to say that I'm very impressed with the henchmen since the last patch. They focus fire well. The warriors tend to not rush in and when you retreat back (like luring) they follow a little better. I know the henchmen are now smarter than some of the pugs I've had.

Pheonix Ascension

Yeah I think he means Heal Area. Never really use it much in PvE.