Finally figured out companions and World Bosses

Merforum · July 2021

CaffeinatedMayhem wrote: »

I'm really into housing, but that means running a lot of dailies for materials to use for furnishings. Once a chapter ages, it's hard to find enough people to help with World Bosses, and I don't have enough free time to keep instance hopping, hoping to find 1 person to help.
Thus, a companion healer would be ideal!

Problem: World Bosses target your companion until dead. Period. Happened every time I've solo'd a WB with a companion (PTS and live), until I had Mirri cloak. For those who may not have tried this - when she vanishes for 3 seconds, the boss will disengage.Then it hit me:

You can't have Bastian heal world bosses since he has no way to force the boss to disengage. Mirri does. Medium armor skill line has Vanish, but companions can't heal in medium. So you can't use Bastian as a high level healer (soloing WB is complex from an AI perspective)
So if you were avoiding a healer companion, use MIrri and slot Twilight Mantle. I'm sure someone is going to show up and post a streamer saying this, but meh. Not all of us worship streamers.

Lastly
Play the way you want, working as intended...

I have tested with companions pretty extensively during PTS and past month, specifically soloing world bosses and even level 1 vet dungeon like FG1 about 20 times. The OP is absolutely correct that Mirri's skill to heal and go invisible and the medium armor skill is amazing as far as:
1. removing aggro from them instantly
2. keeping them alive throughout even tough WBs fights (basically only die if you do something silly like bring kragh really close to them and she put her 1 shot carpet down while companion is in range)
3. worth 1 of 5 slots they have
4. not having to micro manage them as much or slot taunt
5. since those skills have a health requirement they don't get used unnecessarily and if you slot if first it will be ready when needed

The extent of my testing was me babysitting my companions and going almost full tank for quite a while. Then going more tank/dps to kill WBs faster and the second I removed taunt I can confirm bosses and adds do go after companions for sure, and will not go off them until you taunt then or they die. I couldn't figure out exactly what makes them grab aggro but it seems like the meteor and silverbow or whatever it is from guild skills pull bosses to them. Good news is those same skills like silver leash have a soft taunt (so whenever I say a boss walk away from me and start attacking comp, silver leash instantly brought them back to me). But like I said above and I think OP is saying, the inviso companion skills are way better choice for this since you can slot any skills you want and don't have to babysit companions.

It is not ideal to have 5 pieces of medium on Bastian while he is setup as a healer but the med armor skill is so good, it might actually be worth it to have 5 med/2 lt, or just make Mirri your healer with 7 lt and her own inviso. And keep Bastian as a melee because his ULT is worthless at range anyway.

ADarklore · July 2021

Well, I haven't solo'd the bosses you are talking about... however, I have solo'd many world bosses with Bastian as healer in all blue heavy gear. Any time he draws aggro, I simply pull the adds off of him... and I take my time to slowly burn the boss down. I realize me wearing 7 heavy I'm losing a lot of DPS, but thanks to Bastian, I can afford to soak up damage while slowly burning the boss. If it means standing right in front of Bastian and taunt every damn enemy while slowly burning adds and bosses, then that's what I do. So far, my health rarely drops below 90% and my sustain is fine.

However, as I said, I haven't taken on any DLC bosses at this point... however, I have taken the time to fully level my companions so that they have full health. As some in this thread have mentioned... "why do I have to level my companion for them to be useful?" Like... REALLY? If you want to use them, then use them properly... don't come to the forums to complain that they are bad because you don't want to invest time into them! (not directed at OP, but other posts here)

So I can only speak from my own experience and how I utilize Bastian... I prefer Mirri as my main Companion but I do not need a healer while questing... only for soloing Group content or WB's.

Merforum · July 2021

Merforum wrote: »

CaffeinatedMayhem wrote: »

I'm really into housing, but that means running a lot of dailies for materials to use for furnishings. Once a chapter ages, it's hard to find enough people to help with World Bosses, and I don't have enough free time to keep instance hopping, hoping to find 1 person to help.
Thus, a companion healer would be ideal!

Problem: World Bosses target your companion until dead. Period. Happened every time I've solo'd a WB with a companion (PTS and live), until I had Mirri cloak. For those who may not have tried this - when she vanishes for 3 seconds, the boss will disengage.Then it hit me:

You can't have Bastian heal world bosses since he has no way to force the boss to disengage. Mirri does. Medium armor skill line has Vanish, but companions can't heal in medium. So you can't use Bastian as a high level healer (soloing WB is complex from an AI perspective)
So if you were avoiding a healer companion, use MIrri and slot Twilight Mantle. I'm sure someone is going to show up and post a streamer saying this, but meh. Not all of us worship streamers.

Lastly
Play the way you want, working as intended...

I have tested with companions pretty extensively during PTS and past month, specifically soloing world bosses and even level 1 vet dungeon like FG1 about 20 times. The OP is absolutely correct that Mirri's skill to heal and go invisible and the medium armor skill is amazing as far as:
1. removing aggro from them instantly
2. keeping them alive throughout even tough WBs fights (basically only die if you do something silly like bring kragh really close to them and she put her 1 shot carpet down while companion is in range)
3. worth 1 of 5 slots they have
4. not having to micro manage them as much or slot taunt
5. since those skills have a health requirement they don't get used unnecessarily and if you slot if first it will be ready when needed

The extent of my testing was me babysitting my companions and going almost full tank for quite a while. Then going more tank/dps to kill WBs faster and the second I removed taunt I can confirm bosses and adds do go after companions for sure, and will not go off them until you taunt then or they die. I couldn't figure out exactly what makes them grab aggro but it seems like the meteor and silverbow or whatever it is from guild skills pull bosses to them. Good news is those same skills like silver leash have a soft taunt (so whenever I say a boss walk away from me and start attacking comp, silver leash instantly brought them back to me). But like I said above and I think OP is saying, the inviso companion skills are way better choice for this since you can slot any skills you want and don't have to babysit companions.

It is not ideal to have 5 pieces of medium on Bastian while he is setup as a healer but the med armor skill is so good, it might actually be worth it to have 5 med/2 lt, or just make Mirri your healer with 7 lt and her own inviso. And keep Bastian as a melee because his ULT is worthless at range anyway.

BTW I like to have Mirri teleport in on a boss then knock them off balance (with those 2 skills), so I can heavy attack for more damage/sustain. And with destro staff she will usually roll back out of the way until it is off CD. But occasionally she would die. But as soon as I put her inviso spell in 1st slot she can do this pretty much without ever dying.