Is damage useless from companions?

Petoften · August 7

The game's design seems that healing and tanking are more useful for companions than damage, which is well below a player's.

While there might be some cases for, say, a tank character with good heals to use a companion for damage, is setting up a damage companion nearly useless over low damage?

Zodiarkslayer · August 8

It depends. You can gear out companions and get them to somewhere between 10k and 15k dps with the right rotation.
Is that a lot? No. But it might be, compared to the player's dps. Or rather, if the player is busy with Bosses, mechanics, etc. then it is a good option to have a modicum of damage, compared to no damage at all.

In practise, I have two companions ready to go for each role. It is easy to swap them depending on what I need. The only bother was to unlock at least three of them on all my characters.
Gearing them up is straight forward. Tanks and Healers get full on quickened. Dps gets shattered (7 pieces) until they (almost) hit the pen cap and the rest is Quickened (5 pieces).
Purple gear isn't as expensive as it was when Mirri and Bastian started with Blackwood.

Renato90085 · August 8

they all useless anytime
more like a rp thing

Nestor · August 8

In order of effective synergy, a Companion can do:

1. Heals
2. Tank
3. Damage

Reverb · August 8

Players do over 100k dps. Companions do about 15k dps. Not useless but not particularly helpful either.

valenwood_vegan · August 8

As a skilled and well--geared dps, I don't find that companions provide useful damage.

But I imagine they might be super useful for players who, for whatever reason, are only doing like 10-20k dps.

LootAllTheStuff · August 8

I have a character setup primarily as a tank. When I take them out solo in PvE content, I have Mirri setup for some supplemental ranged DPS. It helps, but not as much as a second player would contribute.

itsfatbass · August 8

I just choose to build my companions to maximize whatever I am running. Be it buffs, or shields. They're not particularly reliable for tanking (they stand in stupid), healing (they're slow at reacting), and dps (always in the wrong position).

SilverBride · August 8

Reverb wrote: »

Players do over 100k dps. Companions do about 15k dps. Not useless but not particularly helpful either.

Not all players do 100k dps. For those of us doing significantly less than that the Companions can be very helpful.

Zodiarkslayer · August 8

Reverb wrote: »

Players do over 100k dps. Companions do about 15k dps. Not useless but not particularly helpful either.

This is both a ridiculous argument in itself and also heavily misleading, because
a) If you can do 100k and your companion 10k, you will have a 110k combined, which is more than your 100k alone. And
b) The situations in which a player can do 100k+ dps are the situations where companions are not allowed. So if one wants to compare companions to players, one has to reject any influence of group support.

@Reverb Or are you boasting a 100k dps fully self buffed and Boss debuffed? 😉
I have yet to see a solo player that can consistently get 100k dps all by themselves.

Mik195 · August 8

SilverBride wrote: »

Reverb wrote: »

Players do over 100k dps. Companions do about 15k dps. Not useless but not particularly helpful either.

Not all players do 100k dps. For those of us doing significantly less than that the Companions can be very helpful.

Agree. Companions do 15K only slightly lower than my 20K. Izzy and my bear were eventually able to kill the wamasu in Arx corinium while I was bugged.

Petoften · August 10

Thanks for the replies. I didn't mean so much to compare companion damage to players, as to compare the value of companion tanking and healing to companion damage.

I'm not saying companion damage doesn't have some value, but rather asking with the game's design, is their tanking and healing generally much more valuable than the damage role for them?

It's hard to think of a damage char who doesn't prefer tanking and healing, and even for tanks and healers, I suspect I prefer primary healer and primary tank respectively, and damage a second priority. Who wants pure damage?

Renato90085 · August 10

Petoften wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. I didn't mean so much to compare companion damage to players, as to compare the value of companion tanking and healing to companion damage.

I'm not saying companion damage doesn't have some value, but rather asking with the game's design, is their tanking and healing generally much more valuable than the damage role for them?

It's hard to think of a damage char who doesn't prefer tanking and healing, and even for tanks and healers, I suspect I prefer primary healer and primary tank respectively, and damage a second priority. Who wants pure damage?

yes,they tank and heal more better,and i think in IA zos give they some buff for tank
but they still easy dead because they afk in boss aoe
but this problem more like AI is bad.

MJallday · August 14

tbh i use them as cannon fodder at world bosses and thats it.
theyre pretty much useless at everything

BXR_Lonestar · August 14

Renato90085 wrote: »

they all useless anytime
more like a rp thing

This.

I rarely use my companions, and when I do, it is almost always my tank companion or my healer companion. And I don't really use them for either of those roles, they just seem to live a little longer, giving the minions an extra target which gives me a little bit of extra survivability in certain situations. But the abilities they bring themselves are not really all that good IMO, even if spec'ced out.

MGRza · August 15

itsfatbass wrote: »

I just choose to build my companions to maximize whatever I am running. Be it buffs, or shields. They're not particularly reliable for tanking (they stand in stupid), healing (they're slow at reacting), and dps (always in the wrong position).

Yeah I wish ZOS actually improves their behaviour to not stand in stupid, or to keep attacking fire walls until they die.

Zodiarkslayer · August 15

MGRza wrote: »

Yeah I wish ZOS actually improves their behaviour to not stand in stupid, or to keep attacking fire walls until they die.

So do I. But this is most likely impossible, due to limitations of the game's scripting engine.
--‐

I think most people make the mistake of judging companions by human player standards. Imo the best way to see them is as an extension of yourself, that gives you an extra heal over time, a couple of health points to sacrifice or a tactical opening in a particularly frustrating Boss fight.

Honestly, if anyone thinks companions are useless, it's a "you issue", not a companion issue.

loosej · August 15

I found them useful to tank harder encounters when my cp, gear and skill weren't good enough yet to do them solo.

Once I really knew how to play my class and build just tanky enough while still doing decent damage they became more of an annoyance, and I only took them out to level them for the passive bonus they give.