Companion gear prices

Dragonborn1973

Ridiculously high prices for companion items
Imbalance in market.......

Credible_Joe

Just reflects scarcity. It's not too hard to gear up your companion in blues; between 5k & 30k for armor, and weapons rarely sell past 10k, sometimes even for purples.

AlwaysDancing

2 new companions on the way, people are preparing.

Most likely hoarding toilet paper and stuff as well. Long gameplay sessions coming up.

phaneub17_ESO

I bought the bulk of mine when they first came into play, back then everything was relatively low with highest being no more than 250k for the best items when people saw them as a dying fad. Now there's 6 of them!

Then you have the choices of the absolute best vs slightly worse like Aggressive Medium are well into the 2 million range while Aggressive Light is around 10k-30k per item. If that 7% increased damage doesn't matter to you then going with Light or even Heavy is an option. I have charts showing all Aggressive Medium is the worst option for damage companions, even though this is the most commonly suggested path to take.

ADarklore

Dragonborn1973 wrote: »

Ridiculously high prices for companion items
Imbalance in market.......

Most prices have become jacked up because of the two new companions coming out and people needing more armor. Although, Purple weapons are cheap, and purple armor doesn't make that much of a difference overall. I typically run all Blue armor and Blue jewelry with Purple weapons.

Amottica

Supply and demand at work.

Gruumsh1

Companion gear isn't worth the ridiculous prices people charge. Your guild banks often have piles of them but not in the weight/trait you want but in the end the measly stats they grant in comparison to each other is laughable for the cost. Your companion doesn't stay alive long enough for it to matter regardless of the gear you put on them. The colour choice people chase is more a player OCD/completionism thing.

ADarklore

Gruumsh1 wrote: »

Companion gear isn't worth the ridiculous prices people charge. Your guild banks often have piles of them but not in the weight/trait you want but in the end the measly stats they grant in comparison to each other is laughable for the cost. Your companion doesn't stay alive long enough for it to matter regardless of the gear you put on them. The colour choice people chase is more a player OCD/completionism thing.

Clearly you've never taken the time to actually invest into the companions, because if you had, you'd realize that everything you just said is completely wrong. The only people who have failures with companions are those who don't actually take the time to level them completely, assign the proper skills, and equip them with the correct gear for their assigned role.

Hapexamendios

I've been saving mine. I'll out fit the new ones and trash the leftovers.

Snamyap

Gruumsh1 wrote: »

Companion gear isn't worth the ridiculous prices people charge. Your guild banks often have piles of them but not in the weight/trait you want but in the end the measly stats they grant in comparison to each other is laughable for the cost. Your companion doesn't stay alive long enough for it to matter regardless of the gear you put on them. The colour choice people chase is more a player OCD/completionism thing.

I duo'd most DLC dungeons on normal with Isobel. And she didn't spend all that time on the floor. Like ADarklore said: learn to use them properly.

Grizzbeorn

Companion gear (blue in some cases, but especially purple; green is usually relatively reasonable, except who wants green?) has ALWAYS been expensive on the guild traders.

I have more of it than I will ever use (most of it isn't worth listing on a trader), and I don't do a lot of high-end content, so the gear isn't that difficult to obtain yourself.

whitecrow

I've been carrying around a ton of companion gear because my Master Merchant never has prices on them...

lopacaESO

I've spent about 24m on purple companion gear in the right trait cause i was curious if it's worth it... it's not. I mean it's cool, especially since i like to run vet dlc dungeons with just a friend, so the extra dps helps, but just use the blue gear, it's not that big of a difference. if they increase the drop rate now i'll be a little pissed tbh... since it will make my waste of gold an even bigger waste of gold.

Zodiarkslayer

Anything green or blue, worth less than 10k, I will not even bother offering on my guild trader. During the year you just do not make sales with them.
If you take a look at the amount of listings of the same type, you will mostly be at 1000 or more offers of the same item.

Maybe ZOS needs to take look at the loottables and the drop chances.

Like @phaneub17_ESO said, it is the incompetent streamers and youtubers who are to blame.
They are all the same. They read +damage% and think: Yeah that's gotta be the best! And then they use their subs and likes to misdirect everyone towards Aggressive gear.
Most of them do not even get the order of the abilities correct.
It's hilarious, really...

Streamers and Youtubers are really bad with Companion builds. But they have the most influence, so that is what everyone does.

Snaggel

Personally I am unaffected as I'll level my companion in blackrose prison to level 20 for achievements in whatever gear I scrounge up and then never summon them again.

Monte_Cristo

ADarklore wrote: »

Gruumsh1 wrote: »

Companion gear isn't worth the ridiculous prices people charge. Your guild banks often have piles of them but not in the weight/trait you want but in the end the measly stats they grant in comparison to each other is laughable for the cost. Your companion doesn't stay alive long enough for it to matter regardless of the gear you put on them. The colour choice people chase is more a player OCD/completionism thing.

Clearly you've never taken the time to actually invest into the companions, because if you had, you'd realize that everything you just said is completely wrong. The only people who have failures with companions are those who don't actually take the time to level them completely, assign the proper skills, and equip them with the correct gear for their assigned role.

My Bastian killed the Lava Queen mostly by himself. all I did was the necro heal ghost, skelly archer and occasional skull throw. Probably 80% of the damage was Bastian.

hrothbern

Gruumsh1 wrote: »

Companion gear isn't worth the ridiculous prices people charge. Your guild banks often have piles of them but not in the weight/trait you want but in the end the measly stats they grant in comparison to each other is laughable for the cost. Your companion doesn't stay alive long enough for it to matter regardless of the gear you put on them. The colour choice people chase is more a player OCD/completionism thing.

About that staying alive: "Your companion doesn't stay alive long enough for it to matter regardless..."

My guess is that most players when they would solo duel against a Telvanny Efficiency Tank Companion are not able to kill that companion.

Elvenheart

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

Most of them do not even get the order of the abilities correct.

I’ve actually noticed that and just wondered if I was somehow just missing their logic 😂

phaneub17_ESO

Elvenheart wrote: »

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

Most of them do not even get the order of the abilities correct.

I’ve actually noticed that and just wondered if I was somehow just missing their logic 😂

Emergency heal in the very last slot? I'm baffled by that too.

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

They read +damage% and think: Yeah that's gotta be the best! And then they use their subs and likes to misdirect everyone towards Aggressive gear.
Most of them do not even get the order of the abilities correct.
It's hilarious, really...

Streamers and Youtubers are really bad with Companion builds. But they have the mist influence, so that is what everyone does.

I like to think they are doing the community a service by making the worst trait the most expensive one and the others more reasonably priced.

merpins

Don't really make sense to me. Sure, scarcity and you can't make or improve armor for companions, but companions are basically made of tissue paper so I never use them anyway. I honestly do not understand the demand.

phaneub17_ESO

Not taking Telvanni Efficiency into calculations. Each piece of epic Aggressive provides 1.725% increased damage.

Your personal / passive / non-debuff penetration only affects your attacks, not your companion. Overland, Delve, and Public Dungeon mobs have 18.2% damage reduction from base armor. Group Dungeon, Trial, and Arena it is increased to 36.4%. Companions like Ember, Mirri, and Bastian with full Medium Aggressive is 30.7% increased damage that can raise staple direct damage abilities such as Starfall, Sniping Silver, and Destructive Blast up to 11,371 damage. Unless you can apply Major Breach, Minor Breach along with Crystal Weapon or Crusher enchant to every target they are attacking, their abilities will deal 9,301 damage to Overland, Delve, and Public Dungeon mobs. It's even lower for Group Dungeon, Trial, and Arena mobs to 7,232 damage.

Now let's use 7 Shattering, 5 Aggressive, all Medium that gives us 9100 Penetration and 18.625% increased damage. This brings the same abilities to 10,320 damage; that is a difference of 1051 damage. Your companion's abilities will now deal that amount of damage to Overland, Delve, and Public Dungeon mobs dealing 1019 more damage per hit than full Aggressive. To Group Dungeon, Trial, and Arena mobs they deal 8,442 damage with a greater difference of 1119 damage.

Light Armor with any trait, of any quality, does more damage than full epic Medium Aggressive. Wait, what? It's not the armor itself, its the active ability that comes with equipping at least 5 Light Armor on the companion, that ability is Haste. At the minimum it is 20% increased damage done every 37 seconds. Combine that with all epic Quickened its every 25 seconds (3 times per minute). If I were to use 5 abilities with full Medium Aggressive, each dealing 11371 damage that gets lowered to 9301 damage after armor reduction comes out to a total of 46,505 damage. Now I use 4 damage abilities with Haste, no increased damage modifier the base max damage is 8700 after armor reduction is 7,117 damage per hit, striking a total of 8 times (Haste is double cast) comes out to a total of 56,936 damage; a greater difference of 10,431 damage.

Ember can take this one step further with all Quickened (+Ascendant Ring) using 3 damage abilities, Haste, and Second Wind bringing the rotation striking 9 times every 15 seconds (5 times per minute). So you get 1 additional attack and at a faster rate dealing a total of 65,970 damage. Group Dungeon, Trial, and Arena this goes down to 51,291 damage.

Questions?

Edit: made a small correction, didn't include Ember's racial 3% increased damage.

Kite42

That 64k damage is per what unit of time? 1 minute?

phaneub17_ESO

Kite42 wrote: »

That 64k damage is per what unit of time? 1 minute?

Roughly 8 seconds, the ninth attack will be on a slight delay. Second Wind casts a second time before Haste cooldown resets and starts over so you'll have a 6-hit strike in between each 9-hit strike wave every 15 seconds.

Dark_Wizard

phaneub17_ESO, can you post full build for Ember (and maybe other companions) please? items-traits-skills-tips

Zodiarkslayer

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

I like to think they are doing the community a service by making the worst trait the most expensive one and the others more reasonably priced.

🤣 That's a prime way of seeing it. Awesome!

Snamyap

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Not taking Telvanni Efficiency into calculations. Each piece of epic Aggressive provides 1.725% increased damage.

Your personal / passive / non-debuff penetration only affects your attacks, not your companion. Overland, Delve, and Public Dungeon mobs have 18.2% damage reduction from base armor. Group Dungeon, Trial, and Arena it is increased to 36.4%. Companions like Ember, Mirri, and Bastian with full Medium Aggressive is 30.7% increased damage that can raise staple direct damage abilities such as Starfall, Sniping Silver, and Destructive Blast up to 11,371 damage. Unless you can apply Major Breach, Minor Breach along with Crystal Weapon or Crusher enchant to every target they are attacking, their abilities will deal 9,301 damage to Overland, Delve, and Public Dungeon mobs. It's even lower for Group Dungeon, Trial, and Arena mobs to 7,232 damage.

Now let's use 7 Shattering, 5 Aggressive, all Medium that gives us 9100 Penetration and 18.625% increased damage. This brings the same abilities to 10,320 damage; that is a difference of 1051 damage. Your companion's abilities will now deal that amount of damage to Overland, Delve, and Public Dungeon mobs dealing 1019 more damage per hit than full Aggressive. To Group Dungeon, Trial, and Arena mobs they deal 8,442 damage with a greater difference of 1119 damage.

Light Armor with any trait, of any quality, does more damage than full epic Medium Aggressive. Wait, what? It's not the armor itself, its the active ability that comes with equipping at least 5 Light Armor on the companion, that ability is Haste. At the minimum it is 20% increased damage done every 37 seconds. Combine that with all epic Quickened its every 25 seconds (3 times per minute). If I were to use 5 abilities with full Medium Aggressive, each dealing 11371 damage that gets lowered to 9301 damage after armor reduction comes out to a total of 46,505 damage. Now I use 4 damage abilities with Haste, no increased damage modifier the base max damage is 8700 after armor reduction is 7,117 damage per hit, striking a total of 8 times (Haste is double cast) comes out to a total of 56,936 damage; a greater difference of 10,431 damage.

Ember can take this one step further with all Quickened (+Ascendant Ring) using 3 damage abilities, Haste, and Second Wind bringing the rotation striking 9 times every 15 seconds (5 times per minute). So you get 1 additional attack and at a faster rate dealing a total of 64,053 damage.

Questions?

I really want to see the companion stats (and buffs) in game like I can see my own stats. Having to guesstimate and test everything ourselves is bloody annoying.

redlink1979

Dragonborn1973 wrote: »

Ridiculously high prices for companion items (...)

The "right" trait on purple quality sells for a high price? Supply and demand. Nothing more.

whitecrow wrote: »

I've been carrying around a ton of companion gear because my Master Merchant never has prices on them...

MM only shows the pricing of items sold by the guilds you are part of.
Check TTC or similiar add-ons to check the listings out there. At least, you will have an idea of the price range asked by others.

Anifaas

ADarklore wrote: »

The only people who have failures with companions are those who don't actually take the time to level them completely, assign the proper skills, and equip them with the correct gear for their assigned role.

And people who take them to fight Elsweyr dragons. Particularly fire dragons. It seems the companions can't resist failing to the flying breath ground AoE, earth spike and explosive spike even with correct gear, skills, etc.

I'd be so happy if ZOS would copy other games approach to assistants/pets/away-teams with commands like: passive/aggressive/stay-there/etc... It would be such a huge QoL improvement.

phaneub17_ESO

Dark_Wizard wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO, can you post full build for Ember (and maybe other companions) please? items-traits-skills-tips

It's going to change next week. Telvanni Efficiency is going to open a wider array of builds. Ember may not be king anymore, Isobel or Azandar may take that spot and can do it with 3 abilities only because they won't ever reach 4 and 5 with the maximum cooldown reduction, it actually gives them room for survival abilities rather than straight damage.

If you want to stick with Ember, the absolute best setup after Necrom: You Telvanni Efficiency. Two-handed, dual-wield, or Ice Staff. 2 Medium, 5 Light, 7 Shattering, 5 Aggressive. Starfall, Crystal Blast, Sniping Silver, Haste, Second Wind. The timing will be shortened 9-hit strikes in 6 seconds repeats every 9 seconds (7 times per minute). This brings her total to 88,965 damage to Overland, Delve, and Public Dungeon mobs. 72,774 damage to Group Dungeon, Trial, and Arena mobs without Major Breach and Minor Breach applied.

Alternatively, you can get Ember's opening salvo into 12-hit strikes, this wasn't possible before because of Sniping Silver cooldown was still at 8 seconds with 31% quickened and Ascendant Ring, it would constantly clip. Telvanni Efficiency alone brings Sniping Silver down to 6 seconds, Starfall and Crystal Blast cast times together makes 1.2 seconds which goes perfect with Second Wind before Haste in this setup. In this case she would do a total of 118,620 damage over 8 seconds in her opening attack; however, the repeat cast Haste won't be as consistent so don't expect it to continue that way. The other way above is more predictable, but if you want higher upfront damage at the start of combat this will do more.

Dark_Wizard

phaneub17_ESO, thanks for info! Whats best dps companion/build at Necrom do you think?

Heelie

It's quite easy to explain, drop chance of good loot is same as most other gear, but there is a huge part of the population that don't use the system and therefore can't drop items. So without their help saturating the market, prices go up. I never understood why you needed a companion to drop companion gear.