I argue that companions are more impactful than champion points, or gear quality, or many gear sets. Like those other parts of your build companion's are only effective when tailored to your build, so be very cautious about following the companion builds that were made before Blackwood's release, some of the stuff they assumed turns out to be just wrong.

In my opinion, all companion builds are support roles, they are not proper tanks/dd's/healers, although their support can lean towards one of those archetypes if that's what you need.

Companions generally need healing by you, so if you know you won't be doing that then your most complimentary companion is a very self-healing focussed build. If you want a ranged companion who doesn't run away too far then use an ice staff.

For optimal companion damage you'd need to run a complimentary build, this is why you saw a tank with an impressive dd

e.g.
Companions can receive many of the same group buffs that players do, so a DK tank with molten weapons (group major brutality), wearing Yolna (minor courage) and powerful assault (more dmg) will dramatically boost the weapon damage of a companion. Companions have no base penetration, so if that dk tank has puncture'd (major and minor breach) with tremorscale (more penetration) companion's will do far, far more damage. Companions don't have any base crit chance, so even a couple of "focussed" traits will give a chance for more damage that wasn't there before.

Gear
For any companion build, the priority is weight>trait>quality.

E.g. if you are a damage dealer wear off trait medium armor before wearing aggressive light armor (in most circumstances) - or if a healer don't wear soothing on medium armor, as you could get nearly the full effect from a piece of light armor + another trait.

Trait's are interesting, and green and blue quality is crazy cheap, so don't be afraid to test stuff out (green is 70% the power of purple, blue is 85%- but the traits that give 1.2% bonus at green are a smidge more powerful).

Lots of players think quickened is best because... Not sure. Some quickened is good, but it adds very little if your abilities have short cooldowns, and you give up other amazing traits. Traits that compliment your gear weight (e.g. aggressive on medium armor) are many times more expensive in guild traders (which is a an indication of endgame builds). For max level companions I always run a few prolific, the ultimates are just too good.

Skill order example
Skill order is where companions shine. Broadly you want conditional skills (used when a condition is met) first, then longest duration to shortest, but it depends on your build.

My current Bastion build is a sturdy medium armor damage dealer using his base attacks and "conditional" skills - this compliments the ever-popular heavy attack pet sorc, as his searing weapons boosts our heavy attacks by 15%, and his base attacks to about 7k a hit, so small, but his first 3 skills are conditional, dragon blood and kindle are first, so if he drops below 75% health his priority is to heal, which makes him much more survivable. Third slot is the 2 handed execute which is powerful and used as soon as an enemy drops below 25% health. 4th slot is a flex, but I like to put a damage over time skill, usually the cleave type ability for the AoE DoT. The final skill is searing weapons, because if he is healthy and the enemy has health, all he will do is light attacks, so he gets the full benefit of the +15% damage. (Searing weapons also has amazing visual effect). He wears a lot of prolific traits... I set him to solo 3 separate overland scamps and he filled his ulti bar.

Sorry for the rant, but I really enjoy testing companion builds and mechanics, so if you have any questions I might be able to find an answer.

mmtaniac wrote: »

Game have easy overland before companions . I give some items for Mirri and level her skill lines but still ,they die to fast

Some people just don't like companions and that's fine. But I think a lot of people who find them pointless just aren't using them as they might.

1) yes overland is easy! You don't need good gear or champion points to complete it either... But if you like to improve your build, if you want to make some difficult content easier, this is a great way to do it.

2) they die too fast? That's up to how you build it. Here is a demonstration from the tank club of a companion solo tanking a trial boss... It does not die fast!
https://youtu.be/eL-y9Zco0Wc

I play almost completely solo, so I initially built my companions with healing staves for some extra healing. The issue I find with this is there are many cases where the companion stands far away and aggros enemies away from where I want them to be stacked, sometimes going as far as resetting boss fights. I have started refitting them with dual-wield or two handed weapons so they tend to stay where I am fighting. They still mostly run healing skills. I don’t prefer to have companions set up as tanks, because I don’t want to have the fight out of my control.

I said from the very beginning, when all the naysayers were complaining about they being 'useless' or 'dying' that they just didn't have a clue how to use them properly- AND - didn't want to invest any time in learning to do so!

Even now, thanks to @Jim_Pipp I'm probably not using them AS effectively as I could be. I have both Mirri and Bastian wearing full heavy quickened because they can use their self-heals much faster and their cooldowns on weapon usage is much faster. So do you get more DPS from aggressive trait (Medium) tied to longer cooldowns or more DPS from survivability (Heavy) tied to faster skill use?!? Right now I don't even need to pay attention to their health because they can heal themselves more frequently. I do have Mirri as Healer and Bastian as DPS. I use Mirri for soloing World Bosses and group dungeons... and Bastian in open world. I also have separate gear if I should ever want to swap them into Tank role with heavy / vigorous gear.

I have Mirri and Bastian both set up for damage. Bastian runs two-handed with a focus on AoE, Mirri uses her bow with a focus on single target. I haven't bothered to really try and fully optimize them, they're both only level 14, I'll get more into that once I can play around with them at their full potential max level. Even still though they're useful enough, especially on my tanks, healers, thieves and farmers. And I find them mildly entertaining, enough so that I'm looking forward to getting the new ones.

Ranged with the Blood Altar, AoE CC, an additional heal, and other group support measures.

Also the gear is medium with as many offensive focused traits as possible, and at least 1 item to boost crit chance so the companion can actually crit.

Reason for all this is I find them essentially pretty worthless on their own. So I build them for group support, crowd control, and make sure they have the Blood altar slotted for burst heal reasons and getting resources thanks to the Undaunted Command passive. Ranged weapon so they're not getting themselves killed as often in red.

Their most important stat is their level. Get them to 20 asap. Some training gear and an exp scroll and dive into a public dungeon.

I personally just wish there were more options for personalities. Maybe a khajiit or orc companion, or a sneaky thief companion. That's what I'd like to build.

For now though, I'm okay with Mirri and just using her as a healer to make my tank a little more invincible. I like to think of companions as a summon pet that grants you a small buff - they're nowhere near as powerful or as versatile as another player, but it's just a nice buff sometimes when I'm going around lockpicking treasure chests or taking on a particularly gross boss solo.

Although I'm not a very big fan of when I do something they don't like and their friendliness goes down. I like it as a mechanic and making them feel unique, but I don't like how it either restricts what I can do or makes me bother unsummoning and resummoning them later.

I've gotten comfortable using them as either tanks or ranged dps. A couple lessons I've learned.

Companion tank. Seven pieces of heavy armor and at least one self heal slotted by the companion tank makes a big difference in their survival. This has allowed me to use them with characters that only have a limited 'heal others' ability.

Companion ranged dps. The ice staff is the only ranged weapon that short circuit's the companions' tendency to over use dodge-roll, drag fights all over the map and even reset bosses. The companion medium armor skill Vanish is fantastic - when the companion gets in big trouble, this causes their foe(s) to drop aggro from them and fully heals the companion. I've found that to help their survival massively.

DigiAngel wrote: »

Mine's a decent healer...I can take my DPS and down world bosses without much fuss with Mirri

I also have Mirri set as healer since she has a nice class healing skill with quick cooldown along with the resto staff skills and her class defensives are good too. I have her in all heavy w/quickened traits for faster heals.

Bastian is great as a tank especially with his skill that gives both himself AND player a shield which also has a quick cooldown. I have him in all heavy w/vigorous to increase his health to max. I used to run Bastian as a 2H DPS... but as I'm more than capable of handling most enemies on my own, it's nice to have him draw some aggro away and not die doing so.