Is it true that companions are really weak in PVE?

Wolf_Eye · June 2021

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

Are they as useful as Lydia? No? Not interested then.

All of the companions in Skyrim are more dynamic, and much more helpful then the eso versions.

It’s weird, Skyrim came out so long ago, and the companion system there seemed much more robust then their more modern eso counterparts.

1) you could give companions excellent gear matching their playstyle and they would equip and use it
2) somewhat durable, and had the knock down thing, ie when they dropped to low health they would fall down and the enemy would loose interest for a minute (not always)
3) could pull levers, be directed to stand in specific places, activate pressure plates, etc.
4) Some of them had some really nice dialog.... "Wow, this is beautiful.... I'm so glad you are here with me " ❤
5) CARRIED
YOUR
EFFING
BURDENS

Erandur was my fav follower from TES 5. He had fantastic dialogue and I absolutely loved his backstory. I was more than willing to sacrifice a daedric artifact for him.

I'm not so sure I'd be willing to sacrifice a daedric artifact for Bastion

Wolf_Eye · June 2021

(accidental double post)

stefj68 · June 2021

played them about 12-15hours on pts, try differnt gear and yes they do

that was before they nerf them
lol
so now htey are just pathetic!

mickeyx · June 2021

stefj68 wrote: »

played them about 12-15hours on pts, try differnt gear and yes they do
that was before they nerf them
lol
so now htey are just pathetic!

It will be interesting to see what people have to say at release considering it was one of the main draw for lot of people to play new chapter.

Toxic_Hemlock · June 2021

Just tried Craglorn for the last time. I have mirri and she does great in other pve content, even soloed a normal dungeon, but here she is just a burden. I know the "in thing" is to just solo everything and "why do you even need a companion", but I'm not young anymore and I'm not as fast as I used to be. I have Caldwell gold and I'm have decked out my character in all gold gear and all other pve content is trivial (save world bosses). Craglorn is just not fun, every enemy, even the trash, are just large meatbags of hitpoints and seriously their drops suck.

I bought Blackwood so that I could take on this tougher area, finishing my map, while relying on a companion to do AT LEAST some of the work, but I'll just go back to leveling another character instead.

Well at least I got the flaming mount, but $70 Canadian seems a bit steep for it IMO.

alanmatillab16_ESO · June 2021

Mirri was useful to me doing the usual "just hit level 50 and getting another nirnhoned weapon" questline in Craglorn. I managed to get her Resto Staff which was a bonus.

The annoying part for me is her gear and skill choices being account wide. I really don't need a mini-healer when i'm playing my healer and her damage with the bow seems meh.

AdventureGirl · June 2021

So far I am enjoying the companion feature, though I hit CP not long ago (maybe 78 in) and so I had a lot of content to still explore such as Caldwell's Gold/Silver, DLCS and Expansions. I will admit with larger bosses they are a bit lackluster, but general world PVE and quests it's doing well. I think they've only died maybe once so far.

Keep in mind I'm playing as a Mag Templar, so I don't have summons/pets really, but I do have pretty decent survivability between my templar skillset and healing staff.

BXR_Lonestar · June 2021

I tell you why I like companions....

Bastion. In a bar maid dress

M_Volsung · June 2021

Not sure how squishy Mirri is, she's only died a couple times on me and that was when I was soloing the group event bosses in a couple public dungeons.

deviousthevile · June 2021

I disagree with anyone that says companions are weak and squishy. Yes, my DPS Mirri does die a lot. But my Bastian is a beast of a tank. He is far from perfect, but as long as you know how to control him, he can tank some pretty rough stuff. Just two days ago he tanked a Vet Vaults of Madness hardmode that resulted in a do death run. My setup is....

Obviously all heavy, I don't have any purple gear, but the traits I use on him are:

2 Vigorous (Max Health)
1 Augmented (Buff extender)
1 Quicken (Ability cooldown)
and the rest WILL be Bolstered (Reduce Damage), but as of now, I only have 5

For skills I use (now I am using the player names for some of these because I don't remember the companion versions name.

1. Puncture (melee taunt)
2. Drake Blook (heal and damage reduction)
3. Bone Shield (damage shield)
4. Bulwark (auto block and reflect damage)
5. On Guard (another damage shield)

This setup has allowed me to use him to tank everything I have brought him into. Now I haven't done Vet DLC dungeons with him yet, I am waiting until I have purple gear, but my hopes are high.

I hope this helps some people see the value that these companions can bring to the table. Sure, they will NEVER be able to replace an actual player.

P.S. I also want to add, for those who don't know, you can control where the companion stands and what it attacks just like a sorc pet. By holding Y and clicking a light attack while having an enemy in your crosshairs will cause them to attack and holding Y and pressing block will make them stop. Using this mechanic, although it is sloppy because I have to move around to where I want him, I can turn bosses, pull him out of AoE's and prevent him from stopping at every mob he passes to attack it.

P.S.S I would also like to add that if you look at your companion's skill bar, you will notice something (not in game at the moment so I am unsure of the EXACT verbiage) that the slot a skill is put in, 1-5, is a 'firing order' or 'order of importance', something like that. That is why my heal is before my shields but behind my taunt. Because I always want him to prioritize keeping bosses taunted and I feel getting Drakes Blood to fire off before the shields is mandatory because he will shield after healing, allowing him to actually heal to full health while the damage shields are active.

Kalik_Gold · June 2021

My Bastian tanked 2 world bosses in all white gear and he's only level 4. My main is a templar (heals/dps) - and overworld was already easy.

REiiGN15 · June 2021

I made bastion as a healer. He stays alive through pretty much all content. He does dodge roll out of AOEs. I've been through all kinds of content with him on at least 10 different chars. World bosses, Public dungeons, lots of runs through deadlands. He mostly just on white merchant gear and lvl 12 at the moment.

I haven't played with Mirri yet as I'm focused on getting one companion maxed at the moment.

Casdha · June 2021

I tried to like Bastain but Mirri is a lot more fun for my character.

I don't remember the names off of the top of my head but I loaded her up with 1. Fear 2. upper swing (two handed), 3 heal, 4. conceal (hide when she gets low on health) and 5. a finisher (25k I think when below 25%).

This goes well with my Stamina DK 2 handed Brawler. I like running public dungeons with her. She runs up fears a whole group of trash mobs and I wipe most of them out before they recover. It is also fun to stand back and watch her finish off a boss. She dies on some world bosses If I solo them but I don't think I've ever lost her in a public dungeon. I gave her a blue 2 handed sword and I think 3 heavy pieces of gear, maybe two greens and a blue. I'd have to look to be sure.

SammyKhajit · June 2021

Tried Bastian as a healer last night and his survival is much better than a tank. But a very grumpy healer who yells at Sammy a lot. Mirri is pretty good as dps dual wield in medium armour with some heavy armour.

pklemming · June 2021

Mirri likes to yell at me to get out of stupid.... while standing in stupid... and dying.

GodsGrief · June 2021

weak but aggros damn near everything. Lack of helmet customisation, bugs with rapport and same lines over and over again. Companions were the selling point of this chapter but in all honestly, the game has fallen flat for me. Despite how pretty the scenery, voices and story is, in my opinion it's not enough to make me more engaged. Game systems and existing system overhauls are sorely needed.

Chadak · June 2021

I've got my Mirrir at level 20, in full Heavy armor (mix of greens and blues) with all blue jewelry, and all of it has +crit or +penetration stats. I've got her running a greatsword just now, but only using the t1 power from there. Her other four powers are class abilities that let her shadow jump to a target, two that do health leech and her big fat execute power, plus her ultimate.

Is she particularly sturdy compared to a PC that knows how to move and not stand in the fire? No, she'll facetank a lot of things to death. I find that incredibly useful, because she has 30k health at level 20 and can do a decent amount of additional damage.

I've got her destro staff line at level 20 as well, and while that's objectively better for AoE damage (she's very helpful, as I would imagine Bastian to be on this, as a farming assistant), she has the annoying tendency of peeling one mob off of my roundups and kiting it halfway to Cyrodiil.

Her melee DPS seems noticeably helpful just as destro dps was. Deleting single targets more quickly is starting to feel a little wasteful because I'm generally so good at that myself that it only feels meaningful on targets with 100k+hp, and I tend to delete even those too quickly to really feel Mirri's help DPS-wise to be truly meaningful.

Gonna throw a resto staff on her next and see what I think of how that progresses, but in the meantime, I can safely say that I highly recommend Mirri as a frost staff tank, a fire/lightning staff AoE smash-helper or what seems to be a pretty respectable single target DPS thing-deleter.

Resto staff, I haven't tried at all. Bow's skill line looked unimpressive to me, so I haven't bothered with that since I first got her and a different weapon to put on her, but maybe that one will surprise me down the road as a ranged ST thing-deleter.

Melee single-target, she seems to definitely be helpful against public dungeon bosses, but anything with less HP, I kill it too quickly to really tell if she's gotten to do much of anything anyway.

I'm interested in what 1h+shield will show me too. Ice staff tanking worked out as well as I'd expect on an NPC tank; she makes a great sacrificial lamb that can actually do a decent job of holding single target aggro, and if you can keep her healed, she can almost feel like she's as good a tank as any normal-mode dungeon rando I've ever encountered through the groupfinder.

I've soloed quite a few OG normal-mode dungeons with her running ice staff so far, and its *definitely* noticeable that she's a minimally acceptable tank, which feels perfectly in-line with what I'd expect here anyway.

So, depending on your expectations, DPS and tanking-wise, Mirri at least seems to be able to hold her water. Don't expect a companion to be any sort of replacement for even a merely-acceptably played PC though.

geonsocal · June 2021

ha, all the companion romance talk has certainly died down...gotta imagine a bit of a letdown for the riften rp'ers...

sgtnasty11b20 · June 2021

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

They're going to die ALOT so don't fret over them, don't rely on them to complete content

I thought that was the point of companions, so solo players could get some content done that they could not before alone.

ADarklore · June 2021

sgtnasty11b20 wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

They're going to die ALOT so don't fret over them, don't rely on them to complete content

I thought that was the point of companions, so solo players could get some content done that they could not before alone.

DON'T believe what other people tell you... period! Most of the players complaining about Companions dying are suffering from 'user error' in not adequately leveling and equipping the Companion before taking them into difficult content. Almost every complaint about the Companions dying a lot are from players who don't really seem to want to use them, not wanting to level them first, not worrying about equipping better gear, and not putting appropriate heals/defense abilities in priority.

I have run both Companions in overland, delve/public dungeons, world bosses and NORMAL group dungeons and have not had a single Companion die!! I've got Mirri up to level 18, Bastian to level 15, have a mix of green and blue gear... Mirri is a healer and Bastian is a range archer.

People that talk about how 'Bow skills' aren't impressive... you don't have to equip EVERY Bow skill. Personally, I look at the skill cooldown on damage and healing abilities more than anything... and equip those with lower cooldowns. For Bastian, I only have ONE Bow (snipe) ability equipped, but I also give him Meteor, and his Rock throw... the other two are healing/self-defense abilities.

Mirri can pretty much heal through everything and helps keep me alive during solo World Boss encounters. I have her skills as: Mystic Fortress, Vanish, Rejuvination, Mending Incantation and Blood Transfusion. I always put abilities that have 'used at xxx%' first in priority. Since they won't use those abilities until the specific criteria is met, they will just use their other abilities in order over and over, until the criteria is met to use those other skills.

Abigail · June 2021

I do delves, public dungeons, and a heap of quests EVERY day. My level-20 Bastion, equipped in all blue gear and a purple bow never dies and does substantial damage. His gear is an even divide between Crit and Penetration gear (all HA). I've seen him one-shot overland mobs, but his norm is three shots. He's as good as a lot of players I've observed. Happy to have him along for the ride.

Elsonso · June 2021

ADarklore wrote: »

sgtnasty11b20 wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

They're going to die ALOT so don't fret over them, don't rely on them to complete content

I thought that was the point of companions, so solo players could get some content done that they could not before alone.

DON'T believe what other people tell you... period! Most of the players complaining about Companions dying are suffering from 'user error' in not adequately leveling and equipping the Companion before taking them into difficult content. Almost every complaint about the Companions dying a lot are from players who don't really seem to want to use them, not wanting to level them first, not worrying about equipping better gear, and not putting appropriate heals/defense abilities in priority.

Yeah, this became obvious during PTS when the people thought they would just be a 1 dimensional NPC follower, like in Skyim.

Mirri and Bastien have to be played. In certain regards, they are extensions of your abilities, not replacements, and not independent. It can be one more thing to think about in combat, but if you have done a proper job training them, you get their heal, or tank, or damage, in exchange. That can be enough to tip the balance.