which companion, which build to use

Dimski

I've now levelled Mirri to level 10 as a companion to my level 35 stamcro. She's started to pull aggro either singling mobs out of the bundle around me or drawing the attention of boss mobs. Which makes me ask what are my options. What are the goals? I guess I want to be able to solo world bosses and to take a stab at non-DLC dungeons solo. What are the best options to accomplish that?
Mirri - stamina, ranged (current setup)?
Mirri - stamina, melee?
Mirri - magicka, ranged?
Use her as a tank or a healer?
How about Bastian? Would he be a better partner for that at what build?

phaneub17_ESO

I play them both as straight up DPS until they get higher up. I plan to go the unconventional routes by the end.

Mirri while leveling: Starfall, Life Absorption, Sniping Silver, Reverse Entropy, Biting Trap
Mirri end goal: Warp Strike, Masque of Torment, Razor Cape, Life Siphon, Spinning Steel
My plan is to make her jump straight into melee then CC the crowd long enough for her to AOE the crap out of them. This will be useful against trash mobs packed together. She will die a lot, but that's okay after each fight she returns to life ready to take on the next pack of mobs so don't worry about rezzing her. This is about making her do as much as damage possible in that short window to help clear mob packs faster.

Bastian while leveling: Starfall, Crag Smash, Sniping Silver, Reverse Entropy, Basalt Barrier
Bastian end goal: Basalt Barrier, Searing Weapons, Ritual of Salvation, Skeletal Aegis or Crimson Font, Haste
I'm going to stack Quickened and Augmented to reduce cooldown and increase duration so he keeps the buffs rolling. Skeletal Aegis or Crimson Font so you have a Synergy you can activate while solo to take advantage of Undaunted Command or set bonuses that benefit from Synergy use. Your choice if you want an absorption shield or a power heal. Give him a Melee weapon so he stays close to you to ensure you get the buffs, he will cast them whether you're in range or not.

Amottica

Other than ranged or melee is there a real difference between stamina and magicka? I was also wondering if the type of destruction staff makes a difference. It is not like they have a mag or stam pool to scale off of and we do not have weapon passives that I have seen.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

I am pretty new to companions, but my plan is essentially to level Miri as Healer and Bastion as a Tank. I don't ever need DPS, but a pocket healer or perhaps something that can hold agro on a world boss might be useful once in a while.

I am currently working on Miri. I slapped a resto staff on her and only slot skills that dont actually do damage, just heal/buff. She seems to stay out of my way for the most part in combat, which is exactly what I want. I am actually having more fun with companions than I thought I would.

I am not even concerned about their gear at the moment. Once I have her leveled, I will probably work to make a build that is based around ulti generation and buff uptimes from her perspective. I have a green Resto Staff with extra healing I found for cheap in a trader, otherwise, she is in all white gear.

Small Tip :Right after I unlocked both companions, I unqeuipped them both (gives full set of light and medium, plus bow and destro staff), then bought all the other weapons from the vendor in white, and a few extra pieces of heavy so I had some of each weight. I then quickly went through both, equipped all the weapons one time and put 3 of each type of armor on one time each so i could unlock the skill trees. I am leveling Miri in 3 light, 2 heavy, 2 medium with a resto first, and Bastion with 3 heavy, 2 light, and 2 medium with a sword + board. That way all their armor lines level along the way in case I ever want to change. (not true) Once a weapon line maxes, I will swap to the next most obvious one.

I toyed with the idea of just taking them into skyreach to powerlevel (I can easily clear it solo), but am trying to do this organically. Haha

phaneub17_ESO

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I am leveling Miri in 3 light, 2 heavy, 2 medium

I hate to break it to you, unlike players companion armor doesn't level unless they have 5pc of the same type equipped unless they changed that very recently.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I am leveling Miri in 3 light, 2 heavy, 2 medium

I hate to break it to you, unlike players companion armor doesn't level unless they have 5pc of the same type equipped unless they changed that very recently.

Oh really? Good to know. It takes equipping 3 to unlock the armor line, guess I didnt realize they didnt level if there werent 5 pieces. I will have to check that. Seems counter intuitive to me, especially since they have moved away from needing 5 pieces for a lot of passives on our own gear. I just made the switch last night, so really havent had a chance to gain any experience since then. The tool tip for the armor lines doesnt suggest that at all to be the case.

Is that stated somewhere in the patch notes? I could see a lot of players just randomly running around without 5 pieces of any given type and not realizing they weren't leveling anything.

I will still say, I am glad I went through the act of unlocking everything, makes it so you can read the tooltips to better plan your progression and future build.

katorga

Medium armor for both for the heal/vanish skill. Imperative to keep them alive imo.

At low levels (10), I find them hard to use on my Sorc unless I swap to matriarch to heal them. They work well with my necro because of the healing, and because of that I like melee skills to keep them in the path of my heals.

At max level I think Buff/heal bot is the most likely scenario; eyeing Bastions 15% light attack buff and guild line 20% damage reduction rune in particular.

Dimski

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

I play them both as straight up DPS until they get higher up. I plan to go the unconventional routes by the end.

What's the class you are playing?

Dimski

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I am currently working on Miri. I slapped a resto staff on her and only slot skills that dont actually do damage, just heal/buff. She seems to stay out of my way for the most part in combat, which is exactly what I want. I am actually having more fun with companions than I thought I would.

I am not sure if I should turn her into a full blown healer. I fear I'll forget to heal myself if she isn't around.

AcadianPaladin

My main 'challenging' activity is soloing a decent selection of normal non-dlc group dungeons and soloing most non-dlc WBs.

What I've found is that for my characters that have strong 'heal/buff' others combined with dps, I use Bastion as a tank. He keeps the fight tightly together and I have the support to keep him healthy.

For my DPS that don't have strong 'heal other' support, a companion will quickly die as a tank so I use Mirri as a ranged healer with some dps. I'm careful to put her heal skills earlier in her rotation so I have plenty of damage going before she begins to help with dps. That said, she still will occasionally draw aggro. Her own heals can (usually) keep her alive but she does spread the fight out, doubtless leading to an overall dps loss.

My sorcs don't use pets but both my wardens love their bears - and sending in the bear to initiate combat. One consideration is that when a bear initiates combat in a group dungeon, the foes ignore their aggro and immediately go for the bear's warden. Having a companion tank fixes that. The problem with using a ranged companion is that they also take the command and shoot. And naturally their spell or arrow pulls long before the bear can arrive. So both wardens use a tank companion who gets there about the same time as the bear and that works fine. My sorcs gave up pets long ago as too ugly/annoying so no problem there.

Finally is my own tank. A ranged companion dps with plenty of self-heals to keep themselves alive works well since my tank can pull any big problems away from the companion.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Dimski wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I am currently working on Miri. I slapped a resto staff on her and only slot skills that dont actually do damage, just heal/buff. She seems to stay out of my way for the most part in combat, which is exactly what I want. I am actually having more fun with companions than I thought I would.

I am not sure if I should turn her into a full blown healer. I fear I'll forget to heal myself if she isn't around.

Ha! Fair point. My thinking is that a properly built healer might be more meaningful if you need it in a pinch in four man dungeons than a DPS would be. I think that a healer/tank companion can acutally move the needle, but they are always going to be bad at DPS.


@phaneub17_ESO

You were definitely right. Skill line doesn't level without 5 pieces of armor. That is pretty lame if you ask me. Counter intuitive with how armor traditionally levels, and since really all the 5 piece armor requirements were previously removed, seems counter intuitive for a new player as well. Thanks for the heads up!

phaneub17_ESO

Dimski wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

I play them both as straight up DPS until they get higher up. I plan to go the unconventional routes by the end.

What's the class you are playing?

All of them. I have 18 characters, 3 of every class, 1 Tanky, 1 Magicka, and 1 Stamina each.

Ippokrates

I turned Bastian into tank with s&b (to help with some solo vet content - unfortunately companions are ignore by CC/death-mechanics so it is not so good as I thought it could be) and Mirri is dd - very useful in overland content, when I am looking for nodes & chests - she covers my back (with bow, cause stun). And have this 30% bonus to chests

Andre_Noir

My thoughts:
Bastian

• Good as tank but problem that tanky skills come late (SB - 10 lvl for agro and even later for actually survivability). With a tiny heal can tank Blackwood WB
• Excellent healer-buffer. Radiating Heart line is impressive
• ranged DD - at least with staff he tries to stay kite enemies so almost whole skillset (that melee) remain unused
• melee DD - not bad

Mirri
The way with light armor Haste + MG Parallel + Viper's Bite + any spammable + Ult outshine everything she can do imo

katorga

Andre_Noir wrote: »

My thoughts:
Bastian

• Good as tank but problem that tanky skills come late (SB - 10 lvl for agro and even later for actually survivability). With a tiny heal can tank Blackwood WB
• Excellent healer-buffer. Radiating Heart line is impressive
• ranged DD - at least with staff he tries to stay kite enemies so almost whole skillset (that melee) remain unused
• melee DD - not bad

Mirri
The way with light armor Haste + MG Parallel + Viper's Bite + any spammable + Ult outshine everything she can do imo

Your Mirri suggestion is great. I had not thought of that.