Companion Aggro

wsmith97ub17_ESO

Hi,

Since using them, it seems no matter my situation, the aggro always goes to the companion and they die incredibly fast. I don't run a taunt and neither does my companion. I can have aggro first, then as soon as my healer companion shoots a random beam at the target, they will die soon. Its incredibly annoying and I simply stopped running them at all. I like the idea, but its its just not fun that they die so soon and easily. My companion has blue gear as a reference. I would rather not have to run a taunt, any ideas on why this is or does ZOS think the mechanic ads something to this?

phaneub17_ESO

Mobs have an AI script to swap targets to others in combat, they alternate from one target to another. If you were to play with another person for example mobs would do the same switching from attacking you to attacking the other player, attacking a pet, or a companion then later on going back to you.

You won't be able to stop them from attacking your companion, you can slot defensive and healing abilities in their first 2 slots like Twilight Mantle, Drake's Blood, or Vanish to protect them or make them invisible which causes the mobs to switch to a new target.

Snamyap

I take it your companions are still low level? They get sturdier with higher levels. Mine seldom die, even against world bosses and normal difficulty dungeons, but when they do it's usually because they keep standing in red.
You may want to give them heavy armor regardless of their role. I know light armor boosts healing but it does little when they are dead.

Edit: I do use Inner Beast (taunt & +10% damage done to target).

Sarannah

Mine have the same issue, keep getting aggro and keep dying very very fast. That is DPS companions, with medium armor, at max level. It is stupid they are useless in any meaningful fight. And this is coming from me, someone who loves companions.

Companions should only be able to grab aggro, if they specifically have a taunt slotted.

hrothbern

wsmith97ub17_ESO wrote: »

Hi,

Since using them, it seems no matter my situation, the aggro always goes to the companion and they die incredibly fast. I don't run a taunt and neither does my companion. I can have aggro first, then as soon as my healer companion shoots a random beam at the target, they will die soon. Its incredibly annoying and I simply stopped running them at all. I like the idea, but its its just not fun that they die so soon and easily. My companion has blue gear as a reference. I would rather not have to run a taunt, any ideas on why this is or does ZOS think the mechanic ads something to this?

imo as such nothing wrong with the blue companion gear you use
but blue medium or worse blue light armor will give the companion not much armor resistance and therefore vulnerable

Do you use light armor to get the armor passive of more soothing ?

CBreeze71

I felt the same way until recently.

Apparently my companion has leveled enough to be effective. Also went with heavy armor all around and now they can run normal dungeons fairly well.

I'm sure you have, but take a good look at how your slotting companion skills, especially heals and casting time.

As far as I understand, companions don't pick skills randomly, they run through their skills from left to right. Which can also be something to look for (I could be totally wrong on this but it seems to be the case).

ADarklore

If your companion is a healer, they WILL draw aggro right away. Players learn to target healers first, and ESO monsters are usually scripted to target healers as well. You have to make sure you companion is fully leveled, have APPROPRIATE gear (blues are fine, but you need matching traits too- I mostly use full Quickened, except on tank I'll use Bolstered). But also importantly, you have to make sure you have appropriate skills attached- mainly healing skills. They do very little DPS, so speccing them out as a DPS is usually a good way to have them die quickly. I have Bastian specc'd as a DPS, but I also have him in full blue HEAVY armor with Quickened traits, but I don't use him against difficult enemies either. I have Isobel specc'd full tank, and she rarely dies to World Bosses, however, I still have to offer heals now and then otherwise she will die- but not quickly.

I've found that most people fail with companions because they don't level them, they don't spec them in appropriate gear with useful traits, and they don't slot them with mostly healing/defensive skills. Then wonder why they keep dying. They are not 'player replacements'... they don't have the same capability as another player... so shouldn't be expected to perform like one.

I rarely rarely ever have a companion die, and if they do, it's usually MY fault. The last time I had a companion die was Isobel facing a World Boss and it was because her and I got separated as I was busying interrupting adds from healing the boss and she died during that phase. However, if I can maintain a close distance to her while she's tanking the boss, and offer up heals now and then, she never dies. Understanding what companions can and cannot do and then equipping and playing them accordingly is very important to companion success, or failure. But 9 times out of 10, failure comes down to a player expecting something out of a companion while not putting much understanding into them.

TybaltKaine

Okay. So.

Companions will grab aggro if they have a taunt skill slotted OR if they attack first and you do not taunt. It's just like any other fight in that sense. The easy way to prevent this is to:
1. Make sure they don't have a taunt slotted
2. Order them to wait instead of having them attack first

Companions will use skills on their bar in order from left to right. I tend to set them up based on cooldown so that they aren't stuck using basic attacks while skills are on a timer.

Self heals are usually connected to the companions health percentage and will only fire when they reach that point. To make sure they have priority, place them earlier in the order of skills.

When you run healing or ranged companions, it is vital that you maintain aggro. This can be done most easily with Inner Fire as it is available to all characters through the Mages Guild skill line. The reason I say this is that you will have the mob or world boss or whatever, make a beeline to the companion, because switching targets is part of their basic behavior.

Ranged and healing companions also have a bad habit of backing up to use their attacks, which will make bosses reset if they drag them too far away.

You can find the tutorial for companion controls in the same section as pet controls in game, under the Help and Tutorial menus.

Companions will only ever be as good as you set them up to be.

zaria

You should hold agro most of the time at least if you use DoT's , found that they rarely draw agro on bosses as they cast much less than me, think agro is recalculated every 7 seconds. An morph of inner fire works as other point out.

ZOS_Hadeostry

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic.

Thank you for your understanding

Jim_Pipp

wsmith97ub17_ESO wrote: »

The aggro always goes to the companion and they die incredibly fast.

There are 2 parts to your problem, companions getting agro (inevitable), AND companions dying fast (user error). Some great tips here, but I think the most obvious tip was overlooked - direct your melee companions to fight where you want to bunch up enemies.

A well designed companion will help you with crowd control by gathering up mobs and bringing them where you choose.

Here is a max-level Ember DPS build that has great survivability, good enough self-healing, and is designed to gather tonnes of agro and thrive in the middle of a dog-pile.

For max survivability use heavy armor, or for more damage medium armor. Dual Wield for the ability Razer Cape, as it and Hurricane give a stacking(???) 20% reduction (40%!?!), with a damage shield and heal over time to keep her alive. Crucially with all the AoE damage on a melee build Ember draws agro from any mob nearby, and as a melee build she can be sent to focus on the stationary mob you want to stack everything on.

The goal of this build is to get the optimal uptime on 4 damage/healing over time abilities, my current set up uses 8 purple quickened and the gold ascendent ring, reducing the 4 abilities with 12 second cooldowns to 9.14 seconds, which mostly allows a light attack and cast time, before abilities lasting 8 seconds.

Ember's ultimate synergises fantastically with the build, so my current iteration attempts to weave light attacks and use 3x prolific for max ultimate gain. You can get slightly more skill uptime with more quickened, more damage with aggressive/shattered - OR if you are a nightblade or sorcerer your passive will boost her crit chance so with 2 x focussed Ember will have 15% crit chance, which is about a 75% chance of a DoT or HoT crit every second while single target, and much more when surrounded by mobs, as she is designed to be.

Skill order
1. Thunderous strike (execute: has no cast time, AoE on the mobs around, and is powerful if it crits)
2. Razor Cape (AoE DoT, 0.2 sec cast time, 8 second duration, 9.14 second cooldown)
3. Hurricane (AoE DoT, 0.4 sec cast time, 8 second duration, 9.14 second cooldown)
4. Shared wards (Shield and HoT, 0.6 cast time, 8 second duration, 9.14 second cooldown)
5. Shocking burst (AoE DoT, 0.6 cast time, 8 second duration, 9.14 second cooldown)

Really happy to get feedback on this build. I decided to take a semi-break from the game mid-way through testing this, so if you can see assumptions or better ways to optimise please let me know.

wsmith97ub17_ESO

Thx all,

Yeah, was a light armor healer, so worst of all option apparently. I will go with how you have to do things in PVP, all heavy armor boring build, no deviation from that since 2014 or you will get blown up immediately with a bombing vicious death armor set. lol