Share your companion builds

phaneub17_ESO · June 2021

Bastian the Brazen Bard
Two-Handed, Any Armor, Quickened: 27.2%
Crimson Font, Basalt Barrier, Searing Weapons, Ritual of Salvation, Skeletal Aegis
This is the closest thing to a Bard character in ESO, I gave him a melee weapon so he can stay close by and do a little damage when everything is on cooldown. At his current rate with cast time and cooldown timers Basalt Barrier has a 3.3 second window when its not active, Searing Weapons is 3.8 seconds, and Ritual of Salvation is 4 seconds. Crimson Font and Skeletal Aegis are cast 2 seconds apart and are available again every 26.8 seconds, giving constant Synergy bonuses and resource recovery from Undaunted Command. He needs no healing aid as everything he does basically grants us constant healing, an absorption shield, or damage reduction around the clock. This setup is great for long fights with a lot of unavoidable damage in melee. Armor choice doesn't matter Light is good for boosting Crimson Font's healing, Medium will only boost his melee auto attack swings, Heavy is redundant as he doesn't take a lot of damage anyway.

Mirri the Maniacal Martyr
Dual-Wield, Medium Armor, Shattering: 11000, Aggressive: 2.8%
Warp Strike, Masque of Torment, Razor Cape, Life Siphon, Spinning Steel
She has enough penetration to ignore all armor on any target. This build has her teleport into mob groups, strikes fear into the hearts of the weak, then unleash a barrage of AOE attacks. Very simple build, great for large trash mob packs in public dungeons and normal dungeons. Razor Cape you can actually put that anywhere on the action bar it won't matter, "Companions will use abilities in the order placed" isn't actually true, at least half true. Conditions have to be met in order to use abilities, most of them requires an enemy target to be in range before she will cast it. Razor Cape will be cast first regardless where it is on the action bar if Warp Strike is not available; everything else will cast in order as they all have the same condition requirements.

ADarklore · June 2021

Well... "Companions will use abilities in the order placed" isn't actually true, at least half true." Obviously if a skill is on cooldown, no matter where it's located on the bar it cannot be used until the cooldown is met. Also, placing skills with "used when xx%" will also only be used when that specific criteria is met. I tend to place those first so that no matter what skills are off cooldown at the moment, they are sure to use those skills as soon as the criteria is met.

Other skills, yes, if you add a melee skill, it most certainly won't be used until they are in melee range. A lot of people complain that Bastian doesn't use his ultimate, but it's a melee ultimate so he won't use it unless enemies are in range. I have Bastian as a healer, so normally he's out of range... and the only time I use him is when I'm in TANK mode when I solo world bosses, so usually I can keep the bosses off of him.

I like your idea for Mirri and may have to try it, right now I have her 2H with single target focus. She can basically take down a standard enemy in like 2 seconds. She leaps in with Warp, hits with Shadow Slash, and finishes them with Slayer's Blade... I also gave her Sniping Silver since we face so many Daedra, Undead or Werewolves, the increased damage against them is nice.

I may have to try your DW build tho, it sounds like it would work well in mob content. The only thing I don't like is that the damage on AoE abilities are so low and cooldown is longer than single target. So against bosses, it doesn't really help all that much... whereas a single target build is always useful no matter what. Being a Stamplar, mobs are my specialty... which is why I put her into a more single target build.

On Bastian, I have mostly blue heavy armor with mostly Quickened and Soothing traits. Mirri I have in blue medium armor, mixed traits but trying to go more for quickened or aggressive traits.

phaneub17_ESO · June 2021

I made that mention to Razor Cape just as a fair warning to anyone else who uses that skill even if placed in slot 5. It irks me at times when she has everything else off cooldown except Warp Strike yet will cast Razor Cape when running over and NOTHING is around her, wasting it prematurely.

ADarklore · June 2021

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

I made that mention to Razor Cape just as a fair warning to anyone else who uses that skill even if placed in slot 5. It irks me at times when she has everything else off cooldown except Warp Strike yet will cast Razor Cape when running over and NOTHING is around her, wasting it prematurely.

Well the problem is, everything else other than Warp Strike is a 'melee range only' ability... so she's not going to try and fear if there's nobody in range, she won't use Spinning Steel if nobody is in range, or even Life Siphon because nobody is in range. So the only ability she has to use that's off cooldown and doesn't require being in melee range, would be Razor Cape. I noticed the same thing with other shield abilities... that unless they have a "used at xx%" disclaimer, they will throw the shield up before even engaging in melee combat unless they have other ranged abilities off cooldown slotted first.

UPDATE:
I just checked in-game and both Spinning Steel and Razor Cape both say Target: "Area" while bone Aegis says Target: "Self". So it doesn't make sense that she would activate Razor Cape but not Spinning Steel as both are labeled the same. Seems like they have some internal coding that is causing this.

katorga · June 2021

I'm having a hard time using ranged weapons on either companion, they draw agro, dodge roll backwards, and sometimes reset bosses. Using melee weapons at least they stay near and seem to block more than dodge roll.

Mirri 1 - 5 light, dw warp strike, spinning steel, reset cool down skill, parallel ult gen skill, class execute, ultimate
Mirri 2 - 5 medium, resto, healer build. Using vanish to try and keep her alive, so far not very good
Bastian - 5 heavy or medium, 1HS, crimson font, bone shield, class light attack buff, class shield skill. Basically a buff bot.

AcadianPaladin · June 2021

My best luck with using Mirri as ranged has been on a MagBlade who has the room to slot the Undaunted ranged taunt. Works pretty well at either keeping aggro on herself or pulling it off Mirri.