How exactly do Clannfear and Unstable compare to each other?

sutasafaia

I've been searching around trying to figure this out and the answers seem to be all over the board. Some posts say they tank equally, but clannfear is better because of heal, some say volatile can't tank at all, some say volatile can't tank pre-50 due to a bug, some say volatile has less health but some say they are equal.

Anybody have a real comparison between them?

VaxtinTheWolf

Currently, Clannfear can be good single 'tank' against single bosses for your PvE adventures. It has some use if looked after well in 4-man dungeons too. It does not Taunt the same as a player character can do, but It still forces NPC enemies to target itself if allowed to attack them for a second or two.

I've never used it, but the familiar is basically just another passive DPS pet with an AOE active ability(with added stun).

Biro123

Volatile can take aggro as long as you let it attack first with a few light attacks only. (if you use its AOE, the monsters treat that aggro as from you, NOT the pet).

But usually once the pet has the aggro, you're good. What it won't do though is take aggro off you if you already have it.. (dunno if the Clannfear does that - but volatile certainly does not)

In terms of survivability - doesn't matter since you have to shield them anyway. But volatile can pump out a LOT of DPS with a high mag build (you are wearing necropotence, right?

But yeah, I've had my volatile tank the blue illambris twin on its own while I burn down the red - just have to shield a lot and ensure they don't wander off to far.

Dao_Jones

Responding in this post so I remember to comment later.

I use the Clannfear right now, and it's a pretty solid tank; I never have to heal it unless it eats an instagib-type attack from a WB or something equally big. In delves, public, and group dungeons it picks a target and that target almost never leaves it; even against WBs it can pretty much hang tough, and once it's established aggro it rarely loses it. (Unless a player taunts it off.)

I'm going to respec to the Volatile Familiar tonight (I need to respec a few other morphs, so I figured I'd test VF while I was at it), so I'll do that and run it through its paces, and report back.

Waffennacht

Familiar hands down. For everything always.

psychotic13

Waffennacht wrote: »

Familiar hands down. For everything always.

This pretty much. Familiar trumps the clanfear, also the heal that the clanfear gives is expensive as ***!

Though I do want to try the twilight with the damage morph (think it does 50% more damage to enemies with more than half health or something along them lines) paired with daedric prey it may give decent results

Dao_Jones

Waffennacht wrote: »

Familiar hands down. For everything always.

Does it hold aggro? Can it take hits from a dungeon or world boss?

Nestor

I have not tried the Familiar since the last round of updates, but when I tried it a year or so ago, it was underwhelming compared to the Clanfear. That could be because I wanted the pet to be a Tank for me and the familiar does not. Also, this was back when we could not get our Pets to use their special attack, so I have no idea if the Familiar Attack is any good or not.

But I found a nice way to use the Clanfear was to either tell him who to attack with targeting and the Y key, but that does not work on consoles. But what might be better is to drop Encase on the mobs, then the Clanfear will engage one of the encased mobs. Focus your attacks on the other mobs, encased or not as you see fit, and then you can clean up what the Clanfear has not done for you.

Waffennacht

Dao_Jones wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

Familiar hands down. For everything always.

Does it hold aggro? Can it take hits from a dungeon or world boss?

Pre homestead he held aggro just as well as clannfear, post homestead he's a little wanky. He can hold aggro, but it must be pre your engagement (some people recommend light attacks prior to abilities to get familiar to gain aggro)

He can take those big boss hits, though when I solo vDungeons he can die (typically 3 or 4times per final boss)

However his AoE deals Massive damage, and when you combine that with Prey you can potentially see 10k ticks from him (if it crit)

The clannfear would be just as good IF his ability didn't cost something like 7k magicka. @Psychotic13 found out the tooltip does not accurately reflect the cost.

WarpigFunk

The difference in my opinion is that that the Clannfear is worthless, the Familiar isn't.

Familiar means more damage ... that's generally what I'm after as a magsorc. I don't need a pet tank lol. not necessary solo, and kind of annoying in a group.

Biro123

WarpigFunk wrote: »

The difference in my opinion is that that the Clannfear is worthless, the Familiar isn't.

Familiar means more damage ... that's generally what I'm after as a magsorc. I don't need a pet tank lol. not necessary solo, and kind of annoying in a group.

/agree - although it can be handy while levelling before wards have been unlocked..

Waffennacht

Nvm

Trihugger

The only real reason to ever use the Clannfear is if you're sorc tanking and like the activatable heal that you can use it for. Outside of that rather niche (and probably not even most ideal) scenario the Clannfear is in all aspects dwarfed by the beast that is the current Familiar.

Biro123

Clannfear is an odd beast.. When looking at heals, (and passives) it *almost* feels like its designed for a stam tank... I mean, you get 20% health and stam regen for having a summoning ability slotted - but look at the line. What can a stam toon use? Aside from bound armaments (which I hate cos toggle), theres the clannfear whose heal scales off health (hence good for tanks in theory) - but then when you take into account how much mag it costs to use..... it becomes pointless for that setup.

So if you had enough magicka to heal with it - well.. you have the twilight matriarch which heals based on max mag... Max mag also increasing your shield strength which also protects you AND the pet... the synergies here are just sooo much better - although you don't really need that 20% regen passive anymore...

Hell, that passive really bugs me... I'm trying a health regen build on my stamsorc but can't justify taking up 2 slots for bound armaments.. If I could use a decent pet that heals - based on health and maybe either cost a lot less mag or instead cost stam.... Or there was a tam morph of *something* that doesn't need double-barring in that line to make that passive obtainable.. It bugs me, that does.

Violynne

psychotic13 wrote: »

This pretty much. Familiar trumps the clanfear, also the heal that the clanfear gives is expensive as ***!

Having played both, I'm the opposite of this (sorry, OP). Clannfear pulling aggro and acting as an emergency stimpak has saved me plenty, usually during those pesky silence spell hits I couldn't dodge fast enough.

If you're pumping the Clannfear for heal, then I'd say there's something which needs addressing.

Every so often, I do fire off heal for the Clannfear. Its primary role to pull aggro is more important than my draining health. That margin of damage aversion can mean the difference between looting a corpse or spending a soul gem.

Waffennacht

Violynne wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

This pretty much. Familiar trumps the clanfear, also the heal that the clanfear gives is expensive as ***!

Having played both, I'm the opposite of this (sorry, OP). Clannfear pulling aggro and acting as an emergency stimpak has saved me plenty, usually during those pesky silence spell hits I couldn't dodge fast enough.

If you're pumping the Clannfear for heal, then I'd say there's something which needs addressing.

Every so often, I do fire off heal for the Clannfear. Its primary role to pull aggro is more important than my draining health. That margin of damage aversion can mean the difference between looting a corpse or spending a soul gem.

How can you justify losing... literally thousands of dps for the clannfear, in PvE surge is the only heal needed

aLi3nZ

So you can vma no death run with power surge and solo ic city bosses using power surge only? I am sure I could solo a few bosses in city with surge only but it's a hell of a lot safer to at lease have 1 heal.

I use clanflare currently because I like when it ranks the bosses for me and I use it as a source of heals since I don't run restro staff.

sutasafaia

For soloing world bosses, what do you think? I'm currently using both pets, volatile and...healer...Matriach? I forget which. Would clannfear + healer be better? The volatile definitely loses agro even if wait 3-4 attacks from it before starting to attack myself.

VaxtinTheWolf

sutasafaia wrote: »

For soloing world bosses, what do you think? I'm currently using both pets, volatile and...healer...Matriach? I forget which. Would clannfear + healer be better? The volatile definitely loses agro even if wait 3-4 attacks from it before starting to attack myself.

It's a personal choice. I'm a sorc tank. While leveling, the clannfear holding basic or solo bosses still while I pick my tail off the ground helped a lot. All you have to do is heal and shield it, and it will not easily die, outside of the very strong singe target attacks.

If you will be grouped very often as a DPS, the familiar brings good AOE and stun utility on trash, assuming they life that long.

Dao_Jones

So I've been running with the Volatile Familiar for a few days now, and here's my assessment:

- If you don't mind kiting everything that isn't a basic mob, OR you're stupidly over-geared for content, then the Volatile seems like the better bet. It definitely does a truckload of damage, and the Clannfear isn't even in the same ballpark when it comes to DPS support.

- If you're not geared for running Vet content, and you want a tank for any purpose, the Clannfear is the way to go. The Volatile Familiar dies very, very easily unless you're keeping your Wards up on him, or popping off Matriarch heals periodically. Also, while he actually can hold threat, it's trickier: you need to let him attack first, and get a few hits in before you even touch the mob. If you attack first? Forget it - he'll never pull a mob off you.

Overall, I'd say the VF is good if you don't need a tank. If you're looking for any sort of tanky pet, use the Clannfear. (I intend to swap back to the Clannfear until I'm CP 160+, and have my build down tight.)

FrancisCrawford

Before Homestead, I soloed a lot of world bosses with just the Clannfear, or else with the Clannfear plus the Matriarch (the healing Twilight). Either way worked great. I recast Empowered Ward whenever the Clannfear lost any health (which meant his shield had been burned through) or just when it expired. If heals were needed, so be it; that just slowed things down a bit.

A single WB plus ordinary adds was almost always straightforward to handle. (A few of them do have crazy environmental attacks I lack the skill to dodge.) Committee-of-three WBs can be more of a challenge, of course.

Ditto regular MA, although even in regular it's easy to die if one doesn't understand the mechanics.

This was all on a sorcerer with decent but not great specs (no monster or trial gear, 300ish or whatever CP, perhaps not the ideal traits or enchantments, etc.

VaxtinTheWolf

Boss 1 @ 2:25 - 4:50

Boss 2 @ 10:25 - 16:00

Boss 3 @ 21:35 - 24:25

Boss 4 @ 26:00 - 30:40

Boss 5 @ 31:25 - 36:30

You can do this with Clannfear and Twilight at low-mid level ranges. Later on it can lose it's usefulness if you are a DPS sorcerer, but since I play a Tank first and only just started collecting DPS gear for it, I'm staying with the Clannfear if I want to let it join me in combat again for old times sake. Excuse my sloppy combat, I hadn't played a sorcerer before at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCq4y5vgeJY

Waffennacht

aLi3nZ wrote: »

So you can vma no death run with power surge and solo ic city bosses using power surge only? I am sure I could solo a few bosses in city with surge only but it's a hell of a lot safer to at lease have 1 heal.

I use clanflare currently because I like when it ranks the bosses for me and I use it as a source of heals since I don't run restro staff.

Yes to your questions, an absolutely solid brick wall with steel backing yes.

Molydeus

Using power surge, wards, and basic kiting you can solo any world boss you want. You don't need the clannfear. The familiar puts out absolutely insane dps, its pulses alone do more damage than liquid lightning. If you desperately need burst healing slot the matriarch. Clannfear is useless too if you ever want to run in a group.

FrancisCrawford

Molydeus wrote: »

Using power surge, wards, and basic kiting you can solo any world boss you want. You don't need the clannfear. The familiar puts out absolutely insane dps, its pulses alone do more damage than liquid lightning. If you desperately need burst healing slot the matriarch.

Evidently you're a better player than I am. Congratulations!

Molydeus wrote: »

Clannfear is useless too if you ever want to run in a group.

Basically true. There's a minor exception for cases in which you're the last member of your group alive, putting you temporarily into a solo situation.

Dao_Jones

Molydeus wrote: »

Using power surge, wards, and basic kiting you can solo any world boss you want.

If you can do that, then yes - the Clannfear isn't for you.

Which is certainly not the case for everyone; @FrancisCrawford and others have provided a useful counter argument on the subject.

zaria

Dao_Jones wrote: »

Molydeus wrote: »

Using power surge, wards, and basic kiting you can solo any world boss you want.

If you can do that, then yes - the Clannfear isn't for you.

Which is certainly not the case for everyone; @FrancisCrawford and others have provided a useful counter argument on the subject.

This, clanfear is very nice for soloing stuff for most players however it has nothing to do in group content there you have an tank to tank and an healer to heal.

Waffennacht

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/245479/endgame-sorcerer-pet-build-the-daedric-shepherd#latest

FrancisCrawford

I just fought the Crow's Wood skillpoint boss with a low-rank sorcerer. The Clannfear held aggro smoothly all the way through.

Lylith

Waffennacht wrote: »

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/245479/endgame-sorcerer-pet-build-the-daedric-shepherd#latest

thank you. somehow i missed that update before.

ADarklore

It's interesting reading through this... it's clear that there are players whose viewpoints are based solely on their own skill and are not taking into consideration the skill level of the 'average' player. If you're a skilled player, you don't need either of the pets, period.

Plus, there is a difference between Magsorc and Stamsorc playstyles as well. I know I use Clannfear on my Stamsorc when facing World Bosses because it definitely helps draw aggro, which is especially beneficial against World Bosses that spawn multiple adds. I tried using Familiar on a Magsorc but I found his noises and micromanaging him to be a pain, also the fact he dies quite easily... on top of that, I also found that I really didn't need the Familiar for the content that I run because I was equally able to kill things just as fast without him. For the most part, on either Sorcs, I rarely have the pet out because they just aren't needed except for various situations like World Bosses. It might be different if I were running Necropotence, the extra Magicka boost makes a permanent pet worthwhile.