GW2 How To Use Henchmen : Guild Wars 2 Nerfed Info

Perhaps you've found yourself in a position where you wanted to run a mission, or head out into the explorable areas, but you didn't have any friends on to help you out. Maybe you weren't in the mood to go with random people, perhaps you were feeling anti-social, or maybe you just enjoy being able to take your time in a solo experience. It seems like you're out of luck, right? Wrong! For situations like these, your best friends are likely to be the Henchmen. You can find them in Towns, in Outposts, and in Mission Staging Areas .. dilligently standing around by the exit, just waiting for someone to take them with them. But what exactly are they?

Henchmen work as 'stand in' players - you can use them to fill out a missing slot (or role) in your party, or you can fill your party with them if you're planning on traveling solo. Henchmen are never going to be as smart as real players, but they are competent in most situations, and are typically better than the alternative of taking no one at all. One thing to note is that henchmen are assigned item drops, just like real players are (these item drops, however, are invisible.) So if you were planning on using them as a means of hoarding drops to yourself, it isn't going to work out. Henchmen will also take a portion of gold drops (again, the same as real players would) .. consider it a sort of fee for their services.

Currently, there are four Henchmen. You can identify them by the brackets following their name, such as <Healer> and they are typically by the exit gate, standing together. To get a Henchman to join your party, you need only to target them and hit "Join" on your party window, and they will automatically be with you.

Now, let's take a look at the four Henchmen available. They have little more than a name, so for the sake of making them a little more human, i'm going to take the liberty of making up a backstory for them.

Alesia Baptiste: <Healer>



The Henchman that's most likely to be brought along to fill in a group, Alesia is the resident Monk. At lower levels, she may actually be preferrable to a 'real' Monk due to skill availability (she has more straight up heals.) She is generally competent, but at times becomes overzealous when there's an opportunity to ressurect a fallen comrade. So now that we know what she does, just who is she, really?

Alesia was abandoned as a child, and grew up living in a monastery, where she was often teased by the other Monk-in-trainings due to her penchant for wearing clothing inspired by burlap sacks. Alesia became increasingly depressed, until the 'Grunge Rock' movement of the 1990s, the first time she felt something that she could truly connect with. Upon hearing the lyrics "I shaved my head, and i'm not sad" from Nirvana's Lithium, Alesia immediately shaved her head in the hopes of finding some solace. To the bafflement of everyone around, it worked, and Alesia has since lived a life devoted to healing others and bringing happiness in general. She still secretly rocks out when no one else is in town.

Orion Elek: <Mage>



The Elementalist of the Henchmen group. Orion is specialized in the use of Fire magics. He has an unfortunate tendency of not running away fast enough when enemies get in melee range (don't all casters?) and getting hung up on casting Flare, but can still lay down the AoE damage spells. So who is this mysterious mage?

Introspective to a fault, Orion has only ever been able to truly express himself through his art. Believing that his name was an indication that he was meant to be a star, Orion pursued his creative self expression relentlessly, hoping for the day when everyone would recognize him - though perhaps it was only a desperate longing to belong. Unfortunately for Orion, his 'art' involved setting small, defenseless woodland creatures on Fire. Shunned by the masses even more than previously, Orion has since taken a vow of silence, and uses his pyromaniacal tendencies for the greater good of Tyria, silently working for atonement and acceptance.

Reyna Sandor: <Archer>



Reyna is the Ranger of the Henchman group. Probably the most competent of the henchmen when it comes to staying alive, Reyna functions as a good support damage dealer. Her specialty seems to lie in Wilderness Survival, as she will often use a preperation before going into battle for additional damage. But just who is this savvy Rangeress, really?

Reyna was, and is, a frighteningly intelligent individual. But such is the case with most geniuses, Reyna developed into an extremely eccentric person. As a child, she particularly enjoyed brain teasers, and would seemingly only speak to people in riddles. Her parents, having had enough of her bizarre behavior, asked her "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around.. does it make a sound?" as a means of getting her to be quiet. Instead, Reyna left home, and headed into the woods to devise ways of answering the riddle. She gradually developed into a Ranger during her many fruitless years of experimenting in the woods. Nowadays, Reyna works as a Henchman in the hopes that someday, she will find someone that will enable her to, at long last, determine the answer to that one, single, riddle.

Stefan Baruch: <Fighter>



The Warrior Henchman. He has an unfortunate tendency to sprint out to attack whatever target the player does, thus drawing the enemies to your group. As one might imagine, this makes it difficult for a solo player that is playing a ranged class such as the Elementalist or Ranger, that wants to keep enemies at a group and pull them seperately. However, he can make a decent companion for a more melee based group. But just what do we know about our portly pal?

Stefan was addicted to gambling since the day he was born. Regardless of the game, if there was something at stake, Stefan was there. Unfortunately for him, he also had the worst luck in existence - a considerably bad combination when you take into account his dull mind and thick head. Countless losses left him bankrupt and bitter, and Stefan turned to the bottle in search of solace. For a long time, he was little more than the drunkard sleeping in the bushes at Lion's Arch, but he has since taken on the life of a Henchman to earn enough money to pay back his debts and lead a clean life. His beer gut, however, remains as a stoic reminder of the tragic excesses of youth.