Henchmen idiots

I love the henchmen, they saved my life once XD

I don't remember what mission it was in but I actully was the first to die, the henchmen started fighting on there own, and by the end of the fight, only the ranger one was still alive XD
Thankfully he didn't res me, he resd the monk with his signet, then the monk resd everyone else... Least to say that mission was a breeze XP

I think after the Iron Mines, henchmen should automatically be infused if they aren't already, friggin they die so easily to Spectral Agony, how can ANYONE expect to use henchies to win? You'll get slaughtered.

desert monk henchies suck buns..... screw them to hell.

I dont HATE henchmens ... they are just plain stupid sometimes...

It has been a dozen of times where i saw a big charr group and (as an archer) tried to pull them, breaking them up and take them on one at the time...

But as i come near all my henchmen run in like headless chickens... even the monk thinks he is a super invincible warrior... WTF !!!

Fleeing as well, the moment i see we are about to lose (monk running low on HP, warrior dead, elementalist dead, im about to die as well) i think lets run out so we can heal up and try again, but then the darn monk just wont come... FOLLOW ASS IM UR MASTER

So those commands would be nice...

But then again you woudnt believe how many times i would have died without henchmens... as long as those monks stay behind you and away from enemies... you can go on forever...
Warrior makes nice meatshield and the elementalist has a firestorm that saved our lives dozen of time...

Just today i had it... there were 8 charr, bashing in on my warrior his HP was going down fast... and IF they would have finished him and went after me and the monk we'd be dead as can be... but luckily the elementalist used firestorm and saved our lives...

---

Humans are more fun to play with though (as long as they arent mindless noobs which most of them are actually), 2 days ago i played a great game with 3 other rangers in the ascalon arena... we won about 60 games in a row... just because our tactic was solid: stick together, focus fire, help eachother (signet of rez)... we were unbeatable untill 2 of them left and were replaced by some noobs that just ran in rambo style...

I've had mixed luck with henchmen. Clearly they have some sophistication in their scripts, but it does break down.

The monk seemed a lot better at knowing when to heal in the betas. I could often just go around with the monk alone in EAs and missions. Now, I routinely die but the monk has no problem keeping the other henches alive. I am often directing the battle while dead with target calling and all the henchmen live... Personally, I think they've unionized against me, given all the times I've used them as bait to run overland from one outpost to another thru high level areas.

Once after a battle was over I was suffering from major dotage and low health, spamming my signet of healing as much as I could and the monk just stood there and watched me die (all the other henchs had plenty of health left). Then, a minute later figured, maybe, just maybe, she'd rez me.

I find the archer to have become the most intelligent, often being the last alive if an extra group of mobs aggro'd. She manages to get into a safe position and then rezzes the monk and wins the fight. That's kept my progress thru a map going at least half a dozen times.

The axe warrior is pretty good too, I just want to be able to prevent him or the swordsman from rushing my targets if I'm trying to pull the mobs away from another mob group that's lurking a little to close.

The elementalist needs better AI when to use his firestorm and other AE. He does it right about 60% of the time, but often will wait to use firestorm when there is only one mob left...

I've found that once you get to Yak's Bend everything gets a lot more fun.

Having both the brawler and the fighter at once for tanking is nice. The healers just keeps them alive, while the elementalist nukes and my enchanter DoTs and Hexes.

I've also noticed that the enchanter henchman is unfairly intelligent. He's always the last guy alive in a pinch, because he can spam distortion so effectively...

Actually, we do! One time after a battle, I saw my elementalist henchie kneel down and get back up. I was going, WTF?!?, when I realized he was picking up loot from a MoB corpse! So you do see them picking up loot, just not the loot itself.

8^B

As a monk, I find it impossible to hunt with the henchmen simply because I have no way of ordering them to attack. Having commands like these would be very helpful because I would be able to fullfill my primary occupation of being a healer instead of having to tank while the henchmen attempt to take down a group of mobs.
I can understand ArenaNet encouraging people to party but I rarely, if ever, see anyone who wants to go somewhere which is not part of the missions.

In some zones I've now found, henchman are simply worthless.

In frozen forest, I've never come across so many hench problems as I did today.

Now normally when I attack a target and use the keyboard setting to do so, the hench fighters go for my target every time(unless blocked in). In FF I hit buttons nothing would happen, they'd just stand there. As others have experienced the healers stand there and attack THE ENTIRE TIME. Watched as they never once cast a spell. Meanwhile my elementalist has run off the clipping plain and died who knows where.

All the while I have 13+ mobs on me, 3 of which are healers who seem damn better than henchman at healing.


Further more how is it monster npcs ALWAYS go for the weakest person, be they just rezzed, lowest level, or player controlled. Meanwhile I've watched as henchmen switch off a near dead target move to a full health target. Then the near dead fully heals, and have to fight him all over again.

Now I know in the last beta, they beefed up the lower level henchmen. Did they forget the high end? It just seems that post ascending, you might as well do everything solo or with people, as henchmen will just get you killed.

Henchmen always attack the target you are attacking with your weapon but not your skills. This causes a problem where a monster is almost dead so you switch targets to kill another and all your henchmen come running over leaving the other one alive.

I have to say, in defense of the Henchmen... I had a group of level 16 or so players attempting to do a quest, and they got themselves killed repeatedly. Despite being a fairly well balanced group.

Now, after they all left because "The group sucked" I decided that I'd just grab some henchmen and attempt to, at the very least, earn some extra xp... These level 12 henchmen actually performed better than thier player counterparts with extra levels. I was able to complete the quest with only one of my henchmen dieing at any point in it.

Oh, for those that are wondering, the quest was Eye for Profit. Though I've had similair results on many other quests.

Here's a story about my henchmen.

In one quest me and my henchmen were being beaten up by a bunch of level 11 Snow Ettins outside a small cave. My stupid henchmen would not bunch them together to allow me to AOE them to death(reminds me of pubbies)and we went down one by one. Me and the healer were left along with two Ettins, I was blasting away at one Ettin and killed it, then I died. That left my healer to fight against a full health Ettin, she stopped attacking and I was thinking "Don't run away" forgetting she's not a pubbie. She runs over to me and starts doing something while she's getting hit by the Ettin, "what is she doing?" I thought. She was ressing me! I got back up and killed the Ettin while the healer healed me.

Had this been a human group the healer would have run away and then left the group becuase "ur grp sux u suc".

Earlier I asked my guildmates what the difference between a pubbie and a henchmen was, somebody said "henchmen don't give you any lip."

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this. I know people have said the henchmen do get loot and pick it up. But what is with the henchmen getting my money? Why, when i kill an enemy and pick up money left over, it is split with a computer controlled person? What in the world does he/she need to buy after we get back from the mission? NOTHING! He/she just gets back in line to get re-hired.

That is just plain annoying. If someone has already mentioned it im sorry for saying it again. I read every post but may have missed it.

there is a fee they have to pay daily to get in that line to be hired..not unlike taxis have to at airports. Also the HOA union fees are pretty steep. I think it was mentioned in the last Henchman of Ascalon meeting notes that they are also saving up for a guild hall and cape. If you notice--they still do not have a cape.

Kidding aside--it does annoy me too--esp since I am slowly saving up to buy all my armor and what I am lacking right now is GOLD

But then again--I never have to waste time trying to find a group---having henchman saves alot of time--I can grab them and get my -60% death penalty all that much faster

YOu need to pay for their assistance. How hard is this to understand? If you're out by yourself, and you can handle it, then you get all the gold, and all the drops. It's a reward for having the stones and skills to venture off by yourself. Now if you have 3-7 henchies tagging along helping you out, you're going to have to split the booty a bit to compensate for your lack of skills. I just don't like it when I'm out with player characters and I see rare item drops but they're reserved for other players, especially when I just took that monster out all by myself while the others were taking care of another enemy. They should reserve items for the person who dealt the most damage to that monster, and give the mesmers/monks the occasional drop to make up for their support. Keep it even, but give the good drops to the people who did the work.

I see a lot of complaining about the sharing that goes on in Guild Wars.

Quit.


This is a team game, not a solo game. If you want to get all the loot, do it solo.

If you need assistance you share the loot.

If you are a team player and you join a guild you share the loot amonst yourselves and distribute the stuff to who needs it. I am personally keeping my guild supplied with Ranger items, but I play Necro. Others are keeping me supplied with necro items. We share.


Now flame if you want, but you know I'm right.

Suggestions if I may

The Henchmen should have somewhat higher defense/armor or more life. The attack power seem's fine, just need some tweaking to ensure that they survive battle's with more then 3 enemies.

or

Maybe the henchmen could level up a few times in battle? Not to any extreme's(3-4 max), just so that you can improve your team's odd's. They do get some experience points and money afterall. Of course when you enter town's/outpost's, the levels would go away or a timer could pop up and when it run's out, the levels are reset.

Today a guildie and I were walking from Lion's Arch to the Wilds. We get about a screen away from the Wilds zone, and all of us die except our healer henchmen. She gets in a spot where she's fighting a Mesmer named mob, standing on my buddy's corpse. She heals herself over and over again, and occasionally tries to cast Restore Life, which the Mesmer interrupts with Cry of Frustration every single time. In short, we were trapped in an infinite loop, and, after about 20 minutes of waiting, ended up having to drop out of the zone and rewalk from the Temple of Ages.

That said, despite everything that's bizarre or incomplete about henchmen, there needs to be a way to either kill one of them or force a party respawn.

Two other bugs I notice all the time (I group with henchmen constantly):
1. Henchmen, after a party respawn, will often run off into space or deep underground, doing who-knows-what. This caused me to have to reload once too: my healer henchmen was stuck deep underground, couldn't die, and so my party couldn't respawn.

2. My party will often respawn before all of us are dead. While this in some occasions could be useful, like the infinite loop described above, it is currently a bug, and is uncontrollable and unreliable.

If the party respawns before all are dead, it's because the remaining characters/players don't have an available resurrection ability. Healer NPC's who get stuck/lost/left alive healing themselves are what ruin NPC play for everyone. I actually had a battle once in the Breach with my new character, the healer NPC got stuck behind the signpost at the bottom of the stairs. Honestly. We didn't notice it, so we went on our merry way, and subsequently got whuuped by the waiting Charr because we had no healer. And we had to reload it because she wouldn't move for anything.

That part frustrated the hell out of me. What part of get the hell out of the poison swamp is tough to figure out?