Bastian Companion Build: Searing Weapons + Healer for Veteran Dungeons

wkrick · July 27

I have a DK tank and I run Vet dungeons with two Heavy Attack OakenSorcs.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to gear up Bastian so that he can most effectively do the following:

1. provide the Searing Weapons heavy attack buff to the group
2. provide supplemental heals for the group
3. stay alive

Obviously, full Heavy gear would provide damage mitigation to keep him alive and gives access to the Bullwark skill. But going with 5 Medium gear gives access to Vanish for survivability and going with 5 Light gear gives access to Haste for lower cooldowns. The downside to using Bullwark, Vanish, or Haste is obviously the loss of that skill slot for healing (or other) skills.

All Quickened is probably optimal for lower cooldowns, but Vigorous is better for survivability.

I'm also conflicted on the weapon choice due to the different dodge mechanics:

Restoration Staff
Frost Staff
Sword + Shield
2-hander

Any thoughts on how to build him for this scenario?

freespirit · July 27

I use Bastian as a tank but one thing I can say is if you give him a ranged weapon he will frequently move/dodge roll backwards and soooo many times he has reset bosses for me doing this.

Since I gave him sword and shield and set him up as my own personal tank he has not reset one boss, Ember on the other hand using a staff needs careful watching because she still does it!

Jim_Pipp · July 27

Heavy armour is the best for most companion builds because the extra defence and increased selfish healing makes them less squishy. The armour skills are situationally useful, but their cooldown is too long to make them a reliable defense. With Bastian you need to be in Melee range for his ultimate, and as he is for support not damage a Sword and Shield is the perfect choice.

If you are building to run with 2x oakensorcs then seriously consider wearing Telvanni efficiency yourself, it's normally a gimmicky set, but in this specific case having near 100% uptime will be more impactful than any other choice... As long as Bastian stays alive.

If you wear Telvanni Efficiency Bastian will be vastly more survivable, as his traits can be defensive (vigorous is best for this specific build), but I would still recommend heavy armour and sword and board.

1) Drakes blood (triggers at 75% health - his selfish heal, and it leaves a defensive bonus that lasts 8 seconds.6 sec cooldown

2) searing weapons. Lasts 8 seconds, cooldown 8 seconds

3) kindle - heal for anyone who drops below 75% health every 4 seconds

4) Crimson font - AoE healing, and a synergy every 20 seconds. 18 second cooldown

5) On guard - lowest priority skill, because it has a 4 second cooldown, but will still have a very high uptime being cast when nothing more important is needed.

spartaxoxo · July 27

Heavy Armor. Quickened.

Searing weapons, crimson font, his heals.

Ice Staff. He won't roll dodge as often but will still stay in ranged combat.

His ultimate isn't worth having him up close if want you what you want him to do is heal, imo.

wkrick · July 27

spartaxoxo wrote: »

His ultimate isn't worth having him up close if want you what you want him to do is heal, imo.

Yep. I'm not slotting his ultimate. I made that mistake with Isobel. I play on PlayStation and there's no way to unslot an ultimate once you've slotted it.

katanagirl1 · July 27

I have Bastian as tank and if I use Ring of the Pale Order, he can use his heals for himself instead of me.

I initially tried some healer setups on other companions but they were too weak at first and I quickly abandoned the idea.

I guess I wonder why a DK and 2 Oakensorc need extra healing. Maybe they are not using the flappies?

wkrick · July 27

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I guess I wonder why a DK and 2 Oakensorc need extra healing. Maybe they are not using the flappies?

Oh, we are. We're just struggling with some of the DLC Vet Dungeon hard modes and other achievements with only 3 people. So having a companion who doesn't die, buffs DPS, and throws out a few heals definitely helps.

spartaxoxo · July 27

wkrick wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

His ultimate isn't worth having him up close if want you what you want him to do is heal, imo.

Yep. I'm not slotting his ultimate. I made that mistake with Isobel. I play on PlayStation and there's no way to unslot an ultimate once you've slotted it.

You can slot it and then turn off the setting that causes it to automatically be used. That way it only gets used when it makes sense to use it. That's what I do.

Although I personally use sword and board as a tank for him.

SkaiFaith · July 28

I'll just say: take a look at Mystic Fortress, last skill in Resto Staff for Companions...

Others have already said everything else.

Zodiarkslayer · July 28

Companions have a really hard time with veteran Dungeons. You shouldn't expect too much.
A comp healer will survive if the human Tank can consistently hold aggro. It is much more important to have a DPS summon the companion, instead of the tank. This way his combat logic will make him hug the DPS and not the Tank. This in turn lets him stay out of detection range of most of the Boss's attacks and his deadly AoEs.

Comps will die to mechanics whatever you do. So, expectation management, I guess.