Help pls: what are the best most reliable builds for each companion? (PLS READ)

Recent

Hello forum friends/helpers,
I am enjoying the companion system a lot except for the builds part for each companion. I have googled extensively for builds only to end up confused.
Some say that Sharp-as-night is an excellet healer and excellent tank but other sites say he is best as a stamina dd warden. Which is it?
I want to play to each of my companions strengths and build them for what they excell at.

A good solid reliable source for their builds would be greatly appreciated. If you could link something here for me id be very grateful and perhaps it will help other players too.

Thank you kindly 🥰💕🌼

When i first met sharp- as-knight he says he uses his axes so i assume he is giving me a clue that he is duel wield

ZOS_Hadeostry

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic, as it's related to character mechanics.

Thank you for your understanding

Recent

ZOS_Hadeostry wrote: »

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic, as it's related to character mechanics.

Thank you for your understanding

I actually looked for a companion section in these forums and could not find one but now you have pointed me in the right direction i am aware where to post this in future. Thank you 😊

Zodiarkslayer

I am not aware of any good source. Most guides will give bad recommendations, because they will always treat companion skills as if they were character abilities.
Most guides will also ignore skill cast order.
And most will say that Agressive, Soothing and Bolstered are the best traits for DD, Healer and Tank respectively. Which is just plain wrong.

Use this thread as a referance:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/620245/companions-basics-traits-and-mechanics
@phaneub17_ESO made a really great job. It's the best ressource you can get.

As for best role, I would argue all companions can do everything, really. What makes the difference between them is certainly not some inherent proficiency in one role or another.
In nearly all companion builds you will end up using primarily guild and weapon skills. And then two or three class skills, maybe. And those are standardised. Meaning, that at lvl20 they will all do roughly the same.

The limits of what all companions can do as DD is just roleplay level in my opinion. Getting more than 10k out of them takes real effort on the player side. And I mean real effort. Calculating penetration values, cooldown timers and the rotation down to 0.1s accuracy. If you just give them gear, you will barely get 5k out of them. And as melee DD they will mostly be dead, because their AI isn't that great at detecting enemy AoEs.

If that is what you want however, great! But I only use companions as Healers or Tanks, as a result.

What I always ask myself is: how can the companion supplement my character's build?
As a genaral rule of thumb, I will have a companion healer, if I play a melee character and companion Tank, if I am a ranged caster.

Trejgon

I am unsure about using Sharp as a tank due to the fact that his class skills feature no taunts - which means he requires to rely on melee taunt from sword and board, or excessively long cd ranged taunt from the undaunted tree.

For comparision, Azandar has a ranged taunt with comparable cd as the SnB one that also applies minor maim, which makes azandar better suited than sharp for tanking imo.

Jim_Pipp

I agree, it would be great to have a companion build website.

While companion builds have been published online, they haven't had the 'peer-review' that meta player builds have, so they contain a lot of the creators assumptions and blindspots. I still see guides that recommend companion dps builds use maces over swords...

It's not a bad thing, companions are best thought of as a customisable gear set, so they need to compliment whatever you are doing.

E.g. If you are a heavy attack build, you probably want Bastian, and to build into cooldown reduction to give maximum off-balance and searing weapons uptime, so he becomes a support build.

Since you asked for a healer build. I'm currently experimenting with a Mirri healer designed to support a meta DPS build through vet content (or an endless archive). It's a work in progress, but here it is..

Mirri has a natural boost to healing, which boosts constant heal-over-times, and she has access to emergency survivability with good uptimes. The build showcases her ultimate "impeccable shot" to give a precise 20% damage increase for 3 seconds.


Gear - This is a work in progress.

I'm testing prolific. I feel like it doesn't scale as linearly as the numbers suggest when fully stacked (156% ultigen every tick at max?!); I don't see much difference with 2-6 pieces in other traits (vigorous or soothing). It means you have her ultimate ready almost every set of mobs, but there is player skill in using it when you have all of your dots and buffs active for 3 seconds for plus 20% dmg on spammables on a boss... but +20% on a burst is a lot!

Medium armor allows us to give her incredible survivability through a second invisibility skill (armor skill replacing the mages guild skill, but placed 2nd on the bar), or light armor boosts her healing output. Currently I recommend heavy armor as a compromise, she takes more of her own healing and has great resistances, and has another heal over time for you.

Skills
1) mystic fortress. Emergency damage shield for whoever needs it, at 25% health.
2) twilight mantle. Mirri's best survivability, she drops aggro and heals if she is 50% hurt.
3) blood transfusion. 8 seconds heal over time for you, with near 100% uptime.
4) Rejuvenation - 8 sec heal over time, 12 sec cooldown, for BOTH Mirri and you.
5) reverse entropy. Flex spot. Another 8 sec heal over time, with 12 sec cooldown, but only helping you.

Zodiarkslayer

Trejgon wrote: »

I am unsure about using Sharp as a tank due to the fact that his class skills feature no taunts - which means he requires to rely on melee taunt from sword and board, or excessively long cd ranged taunt from the undaunted tree.

For comparision, Azandar has a ranged taunt with comparable cd as the SnB one that also applies minor maim, which makes azandar better suited than sharp for tanking imo.

Having a melee taunt is not inferior. And Azandar is the exception, not the rule. There is no other companion that has a taunt in his skill set. By this logic only Azander is able to Tank. Which is rubbish.

Besides Azandar is a far better Healer than he is a Tank. He has no 20% damage reduction skill. Two shield skills, yes. But they are not as powerful as 20% DR with nigh on 100% uptime.
He is able to give good buffs, a shield to the player and even a little bit of sustain.

Like I said, Companions can do all three roles. What role they are best at highly depends on your characters build.
If you want to compare them you need to set very strict base lines. Like against what enemies are we measuring or by what standards are we judging.

fred4

I explored companions recently only to drop them again, because even with Telvanni Efficiency they are not good enough to be truly useful for the endgame content I play. In other words, even for very hard content, or especially for such content, I find it better to make a solo build without a companion. That said, the best resource I found were the videos from this YouTube creator:

https://www.youtube.com/@CasualGamingGuild/videos

Some of the most powerful companion skills include Sharp's self-heal, Azander's shield (apparently), and the medium armor vanish skill, which makes them invulnerable for 6 seconds and sheds any (boss) aggro they have. However, if they are standing in an AOE that lasts longer than 6 seconds, they are still too stupid to move and may die.

Companions with 1H+S can be very good at blocking certain enemies, e.g. two handed bosses, but no matter how you arrange their skills, they are not good at using the right skills in the most timely fashion. For example the 25% health threshold of the resto staff shielding bubble, a skill with a 2s cooldown on the right build, is so ridiculously low (25%) that the skill is almost useless. The companion, or the player, can very easily go from >25% health to death, so the skill never triggers. In fact that's usually what happens.

Casual GGs features companions against some of the harder Necrom bosses and in some veteran basegame dungeons as well as normal Scrivener's Hall. The problem with that content is that it's not terribly hard for a well-built companionless solo character. You're giving up a full 5-piece set for Telvanni Efficiency, a set you must wear if you want your companion to be actually somewhat useful in harder content. Combined with all Quickened, this reduces their skill cooldowns by something like 80%, yet I find that's still not really worth it. The possibly best use for companions in solo endgame is to wear Pearlescent Ward and letting them die, as this grants you 33% damage mitigation.

Here is one of the very few exceptions where I find a companion truly useful, because trying to solo this fight without a tank companion subjects you to a stun / kill combo from Sabina / Ulfnor (on top of the chain mechanic) that is otherwise very hard to deal with:

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

I suppose you might argue it's no harm to run a companion without Telvanni Efficiency. Personally I don't like that, because companions, like all pets, have a tendency to draw the aggro of some mob and draw them away from the group that you are slaughtering. Basically they cause you to spend additional time dealing with the mob they've separated from the rest, while contributing almost nothing. If you are truly committed you may direct your companion with the pet key to get around this issue, which should work when you use a tank companion that stands their ground and doesn't frequently roll backwards.

Recent

Thsnk you all so kindly, i now have some very helpful information and im happy to know it wasn't just me being me when i found most sites contrsdicted each other.

AcadianPaladin

I wouldn't hesitate to use any companion for any role. In my case, I want a tank companion so I can focus on doing my rotation without interruption. The price being I like to keep a HoT going on my tank to help them a bit but that is a small price and helps me as well.

I use Mirri for my tank. In full heavy metal she's tough and she has a class skill that is similar to the medium armor skill of Vanish, just toned down a bit. It lets her disappear (and stop taking damage) while she heals up quite a bit. Three seconds later she reappears and immediately reapplies her taunt - usually before the boss can really change gears to target me. As a result, she almost never dies, even when I get distracted and let the HoT I normally keep on her expire.

Although I don't use it, Mirri also has a decent crowd control spell where she fears all nearby (non-boss) foes. Since I use plenty of AoE (which takes care of trash pretty well) and my focus is really on the boss, I find it suits my purpose to slot an addition survival skill on Mirri instead.

phaneub17_ESO

My favorite tank is Azandar. Telvanni Efficiency + 12 Quickened, Heavy, 1h and shield.
Triptych Physic, Scathing Rune, Zone of Recuperation, Ritual of Salvation, Shields of Erudition.

Both Zone of Recuperation and Ritual of Salvation can stack multiple casts, so he's laying down 2-3 of both granting up to 3000 healing, 375 tri-recovery, and 20% damage reduction circles, stacks multiplicatively. Then there's the constant damage absorption shields refreshing before they get depleted most of the time.

It ends up working as both Tank and Healer in the same build that allows me to stand in melee range without the worry about taking any damage from most world bosses. The hardest one to solo with him was the Fire Monk Khajiit with spawning adds.

Sharp-as-Night I'm currently using him with Dual-Wield, Medium, 7 Shattering, 5 Aggressive.
Snow Squall, Infest, Cold Snap, Spinning Steel, Razor Cape.

Alternative with a Bow
Snow Squall, Infest, Viper's Bite, Sniping Silver, Swoop.