What role is best for companions?

washbern

Hello all!

I am a fairly experienced player, so I do mot necessarily NEED companions. But if thing is there, why not use it, right?

I have tried Mirri and Isobel in melee and ranged. Melee they are pretty much tanking the floor at all times. Ranged I was not sure if they did anything at all.

Have any of you guys made co.panions at all useful? If so, I'd love to know.

Soarora

I use Bastian as a healer. I had intended to have one of each role but in the end, I only needed a healer. If I were doing overland on tank a dps companion would be useful but I just don't do that at the moment really.

deejayvee

I mostly use them as fluff so don't really care what they can do.

Only time I'd ever describe one as useful is my Bastian tank. I don't need it, but if he can keep some mobs out of my ranged toon's faces for a bit, it's kinda useful.

AcadianPaladin

I play several varieties of healer/dps characters and for a companion, I like tanks. My preference is Mirri as a tank and we have no trouble doing a good number of non-dlc normal group dungeons and non-dlc WBs with just the two of us. I like Mirri's personality best but she also packs nice crowd control through her fear spell. I keep a HoT on her and that generally keeps her healthy. If she gets into a bit of trouble, I like her OMG spell where she disappears and heals for a few seconds. The invisibility means she stops taking damage while she heals and the duration is short enough that about the time the boss is focusing on me, Mirri comes back up and retaunts the boss. It really keeps her alive when sometimes I lose track of the damage she's taking. All heavy armor and S&B of course.

washbern

thanks so much! you've given me a bit to think about.

Araneae6537

I like crowd control or aggro with supplemental healing or damage, depending. On my healer I enjoy focusing on healing and damage while Bastian holds aggro with kind of a half tank / half damage build. I guess I really like playing a healer, lol, have to keep the HoTs on him in a boss fight, but I appreciate his appreciation of my heals.

Hapexamendios

Weapon collectors

I basically have them out for the weapon drops. Made a good chuck of change selling purple weapons with good traits.

phaneub17_ESO

Bastian: 1H & Shield, Heavy, 31% Quickened. Drake's Blood, Kindle, Provoke, On Guard, Ritual of Salvation. Universal tank for all my characters, I pull him out for World Bosses and hard to solo group dungeon bosses.

Mirri: Dual Wield, Medium, 9100 Shattering, 7% Aggressive. Warp Strike, Masque of Torment, Razor Cape, Life Siphon, Spinning Steel. I use her with my Magicka characters, it works very well with Occult Overload.

Isobel: Two-Handed, Medium, 34% Quickened. Blessed Sacrament, Sunder, Beam of Reproach, Sun Brand, Holy Ground. I use her with my Hybrid characters. Kind of a mixed bag doing both healing and damage over time combo.

Ember: Ice Staff, Light, 31% Quickened. Starfall, Crystal Blast, Sniping Silver, Haste, Second Wind. I use her with my Stamina characters. This does pretty decent single target damage, 65,970 every 15 seconds.

Jusey1

I say Support, which doesn't necessarily means healing only. If you're min/max, you do get unique buffs from their abilities, plus they are extra damage/healing no matter what. So, they're best in that supportive ranged role where they can play safely.

endgamesmug

Works well as carpet or ground cover in my experience, 😆 but i still use em from time to time 😀

washbern

Thanks so much everyone! I'll try some of this. Did make Bastian tank. I really can't do anything with melee builds. They just die. I may be wrong but I think all companions should by default have major evasion

Snamyap

Support and tank. I was stuck soloing some normal dlc dungeons. I used to let Isobel heal me (in heavy armor and sword and board to keep her close and alive) while I tanked. Letting her tank however leaves me free to focus on certain mechanics and I finally got past the Nizaasda/Grundwulf fight.
There are also a couple of skills that are very handy, depending on your playstyle. Like Mirri's AE fear, Bastian's boost to heavy attack damage and the archery skill that immobilezes mobs.

OP doesn't say if their companions are max lvl yet but that is pretty important for their survivability. As is purple armor, though that gets very expensive quickly if you want the most popular traits. I recently switched Isobel from quickened to bolstered, that was up to a million per piece on EU/PC.

In the end though companions are stupid, they can't do mechanics and they won't step out of red. You will have to adjust your tactics accordingly, and accept that in some fights they are simply useless. What they can do pretty reliably is bash interrupting, at least when equipped with a shield.
You will also want a skill that heals both of you in one cast, like echoing vigor. In harder content they can't keep themselves alive.

Dragonredux

Healers are the only thing they are decent at.

Tanks suffers from the same AoE problems all companions share. The bad cooldown system mixed with lack of ability space means it's hard to fix taunts + survivability + Tank toolkits (cc + pulls). Ultimate usage also tend to be a death sentence.

Damage Dealers are just bad. Maybe around 10k damage for hard to get purple gear.


They need a rework with some actual thought put into the combat system and not be pets 2.0 and watered down player classes.

Khrogo

A support role suits companions. For me, it depends on what class I’m playing. On a DD with access to a quick and easy burst heal, I let Bastian. On my mag sorc, he stays alive long enough to keep aggro off me. On my stamplar, not so much.

Khrogo

That should be “I let Bastian tank”. Lol.

Onomos

Depends on the character I'm playing and situation. If I do a solo dungeon, I'll use Isobel as a tank. If I'm on a ranged toon, I'll use Mirri for melee. Likewise, if I'm melee, I'll use Ember for range DPS. I don't actually use any of them as a healer. I mix it up.

Darkstorne

Buff bots!

Bastian's 15% damage boost buff to light and heavy attacks would be a ludicrously popular 5 piece bonus if it appeared on a set. But you get that just for letting him tag along with you, along with damage shields, and heals, and immobilizations, and off-balance applications.

It's the main reason why I think a Bard class would end up being ludicrously popular if it's ever added. It was always a class in singleplayer TES games, and could easily have skill lines that each focus on DPS, tanking, healing, but where most of their skills have additional group-wide bonus buffs (and enemy debuffs) for damage boosts, resource regen, shields etc. The accompanying Bard companion for whichever Chapter adds the class would likely be the most popular companion in the game

Jim_Pipp

I think companions that try and min/max into a specific role feel weak (maybe excepting a strong tank), and they get much better results leaning into their best class skills or building for a specific impact.

I wish we shared and discussed companion builds and mechanics more, because Bastian's +15% heavy attack damage is hugely overlooked, so here are 2 builds I wrote up to showcase cool mechanics.

Mirri - "Fair-weather-friend" - an unusual tank and jack-of-all trades

Build description
Using abilities that naturally have a 100% uptime countenances gear traits that boost max health, so skills that scale off of health work better, and for Mirri those skills grant invisibility, and INVISIBILITY IS IMMUNITY TO DAMAGE (except channelled damage over time). High health and damage immunity is powerful for a tank; yet invisibility drops aggro so the taunted boss will start to move to a new target... COMPANION TAUNTS RESTART AFTER INVISIBILITY ENDS, so most bosses don’t manage to attack anyone else before returning to Mirri! It’s not the best tank, healer, or damage dealer, but using the signature skills of all three roles synergises into a surprisingly strong all-round build that focusses a boss away from you, does 4k+ dps, heals you, and rarely dies because she disappears to heal herself when in trouble.

Gear
Ice staff, 5 medium Armour, 2 heavy. 8-10 vigorous traits, 2-4 prolific traits
5 medium armour is necessary to use the Vanish skill (see below for a heavy armour version). More medium armour is slightly more damage, light is slightly more healing, but I prefer 2 pieces of heavy armour for more damage mitigation.
Traits - vigorous helps take more damage, and makes Mirri’s self-heals heal more. Mirri’s ultimate is a powerful, controllable debuff, so prolific makes a noticeable difference. Feel free to experiment or just use what you have, but DO NOT USE QUICKENED OR AUGMENTED on this build, it won’t improve the uptime of damage or healing, and can upset the ability to hold a taunt on the priority enemy.
With an ice staff equipped companions taunt from range and stand their ground, they will roll dodge when below 25% health, which rarely happens because Mirri disappears at 50% health; so I call her a fair-weather friend.

Skill Order
1. Twilight Mantle – 3 seconds of invisibility and 25% heal, used at 50% health. Conditional skills should always be slotted first (so they are used as soon as needed) and this is slotted firstest because it has a shorter (16 second) cooldown than…
2. Vanish – 6 seconds of invisibility, restored to full health, used at 50% health, 36 second cooldown. (Alternatively run Ghostly Evasion and full heavy armour for more damage mitigation rather than damage immunity)
3. Destructive blast – 15 second taunt, with 16 second duration – this is the first non-conditional ability used, so it is the first skill used in a fight, and is reapplied as soon as it is available (the duration of the taunt needs to be slightly less than the cooldown to stop Mirri casting it on a new untaunted target, leaving her unable to maintain taunt on the priority target). Remember you can direct companions, if you want Mirri to taunt a specific boss.
4. Elemental Blockade – 8 second AoE DoT, with 8 second cooldown – perfect! This skill is cast at the primary target as soon as the enemy is in range, and as the primary target has been taunted the enemy is likely to run down the frosty corridor straight to Mirri, it just works.
5. Blood Transfusion – 8 second heal over time, with 8 second cooldown – perfect! Mirri cannot cast this on herself, but will keep it on an ally nearly 100%.
Impeccable Shot – An amazing ultimate – does great damage, and during it’s 3 second cast time the target takes an extra 20% damage from all sources. It’s so powerful I’ve increased the number of prolific traits; remember you can choose when companions use their ultimate, so use it when you are doing the most damage. Ultimate is generated by using light attacks.

Ember - "All AoE, All of the time" - an experiment on perfect uptimes, and how to make getting aggro'd useful.

Build Description
The goal of this build is to get the optimal uptime on 4 damage/healing over time abilities. Dual Wield for the ability Razer Cape, as it and Hurricane give a stacking(???) 20% reduction (40%!?!) AND AoE damage. With almost constant damage shield,, and heal over time for Ember, other groupmates, and me. 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 directed to focus on a stationary, helping stack everyone where you want them - Targeting this Ember build is like having a chaotic crowd-control ability!

Gear
For max survivability I prefer heavy armor, but for more damage use medium armor.

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" a light attack between most ability casts, so I 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 facing multiple enemies, 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)

If you have any feedback on these builds, I always like tinkering with them. Thanks

Snamyap

Dragonredux wrote: »

Healers are the only thing they are decent at.

Tanks suffers from the same AoE problems all companions share. The bad cooldown system mixed with lack of ability space means it's hard to fix taunts + survivability + Tank toolkits (cc + pulls). Ultimate usage also tend to be a death sentence.

Damage Dealers are just bad. Maybe around 10k damage for hard to get purple gear.


They need a rework with some actual thought put into the combat system and not be pets 2.0 and watered down player classes.

Disagree with the first part, but the last paragraph: yeah, they could have been so much more interesting if they didn't have separate combat and gear systems.

Necrotech_Master

i have bastion setup as healer, mirri and ember as dps, and isobel as a tank

the main problem i notice with tank companions is that they need a little bit of healing support, their own heal skills are too weak and too long of cooldown to help that much in certain situations

dps and healer companions are just "reduce cooldowns" or "increase dmg" so overall easier to setup and dont require as much babysitting

Jusey1

Darkstorne wrote: »

It's the main reason why I think a Bard class would end up being ludicrously popular if it's ever added.

Depending on how well they do a Bard class, I honestly would swap from a Warden to a Bard but it depends heavily if it is done properly. I want to be playing music, not cast spells with a visual look while still using attacking like any other class.

Blood_again

Bastian is a good healer for my endgame chars to do worldbosses and soloing/duo vet non-dlc dungeons and normal arenas. He doesn't solve the problems I couldn't solve myself, but makes it faster and easier.
I found him too weak or useless for vet dlc dungeons or vet arenas. Same for normal trials with minor group.

I found Mirri and Isobel not so useful as tanks. They did a fair job but I prefer more control over mob positioning, so I'd rather do it myself. Had a lot of situations when tank companion made a run slower by moving mobs.

Mirri and Ember were good as range dd for my low-levels and tanks in some overland or normal dungeon stuff.

I also tried Bastian and Mirri as melee dd, but found them useless. They sometimes died even on normal dungeon stacks.

peacenote

washbern wrote: »

Hello all!

I am a fairly experienced player, so I do mot necessarily NEED companions. But if thing is there, why not use it, right?

I have tried Mirri and Isobel in melee and ranged. Melee they are pretty much tanking the floor at all times. Ranged I was not sure if they did anything at all.

Have any of you guys made co.panions at all useful? If so, I'd love to know.

Agree. They are something else to experiment with. I find them most useful as tanks when trying to solo or duo content that is giving me a bit of trouble. A nice combo to duo dungeons has been with myself as a healer (I have a lot of healers), my friend as a DPS, and then Bastian as a tank to make the runs smoother, and I heal him and my friend while also supplementing with damage. If nothing else, having a support healer or tank companion that drops altar can be helpful.

Originally I thought it might be fun to add damage when I was out soloing in the world with my healer, but it turned out to be hard to tell if they really made any content any faster. Part of it, I'm sure, is that it is so expensive to max them out with the right gear and I refuse to waste that much gold for an experiment. So I don't have a DPS companion that's dishing out his/her full potential. Mostly I think it is psychological where I feel like I must be a little more efficient, adding that extra damage, so it can feel more satisfying than grinding something alone. The best use case I've clearly found for a damage dealing companion is when I'm waiting for a boss to spawn for an event ticket or something, and I have to quickly step away (dog needs to go out, someone is at the door). Then they can help me get credit for hitting the boss if I position them right and I don't have to wait for another respawn.

Overall while I think they can make experiences smoother as tanks or healers, they really don't move the needle on DPS, even when I'm on a support class (not comparing to a "real" DPS's damage). Every once in a while they can save the day in a comical way, like pull aggro or take a boss jump so I can heal or something. But for example, I recently went out in the world by accident on my healer warden with her "crafting only" build. That means I have six unleveled, unmorphed abilities on my bar, some type of healing gear on, no damage passives, no mundus, nothing. Even still it was faster for me to spam my one unmorphed, unleveled damage ability over and over than wait for my companion to kill what I needed to be killed. The only thing I can't remember is if I have any CP slotted in that configuration.

For whatever it's worth, I really appreciate ArzyeL's guide about which companion does what well, which is found here. I haven't run into any page quite like it and it has helped me decide which role I want each of my companions to play.

SirLeeMinion

I've used Bastian as a heavily armored healer when running difficult dungeons solo. When he's alive, his heals and synergies do help and he buffs my heavy attack damage. He's made it all the way through some vet dungeons; in others he spends a lot of time dead. It really depends on the mechanics. I don't run a taunt, so I mainly use pet commands to de-aggro him and keep him from dying or worse, dodge rolling from a boss until it resets.

rpa

Ice staff dps does not run away with the boss.

kind_hero

From my experience, the most useful companion is Isobel. That is because she is good at healing, but also at tanking. Isobel also has probably the most useful ultimate.

I found that dps is the least useful role for companions. They barely count, and usually get killed quickly.

Things change when they are properly geared and equiped for tanking. Isobel has good shields and self heals.

To be honest, I hardly remember when a heal from a companion really saved me. But as tanks, companions can cause enough distraction so I can get away from some tougher hits.

The problem is that you need to have them at max level and with good gear to get some decent help. What I don't like about companions right now is that you can't stop them from wasting their ulti, and that they can't carry at least 2nd set of companion gear.

Useful companion abilities:
- aoe snares/stuns
- aoe damage
- taking aggro
- heals

Less useful companion abilities:
- long cast attacks
- damage shields (weak)
- buffs (usually fights are short)

ADarklore

^THIS!

For a companion to be effective, they have to be fully leveled so they're at max health and have access to their ultimate. They also need proper gear. Blue armor is fine, purple weapons are cheap. I tend to run all my companions in heavy quickened (DPS) or Bolstered (tank) traited armor. The quickened works best IMO because it allows them to cast healing or damage skills more frequently... and yes, even as a DPS, they need several self-heals equipped or they will most likely die unless you're using healing skills to help them.

Personally, I have Isobel set as a tank for World Bosses and soloing public dungeons... but otherwise tend to keep Bastian or Isobel out for open world questing. Out of my favorites... Isobel and Bastian are my top two.

DMuehlhausen

Best role would be feature removal from the game.

After that DPS. throw on a pale order and almost nothing should be able to kill you on any class really. Not sure how well you can control them tanking.

UnassumingNoob

I just run ember as ranged dps with self healing. Don’t need a tank or healer for anything she is appropriate for and more damage is always a good thing.

redlink1979

I use them all as tanks. lol
They're kinda pointless in the other roles.

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

This thread has been moved to the Players Helping Players section, as it is better suited there.

Thank you for your understanding.