The Gold Road Chapter – which includes the Scribing system – and Update 42 is now available to test on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/656454/
U32 companion?
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phaneub17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭@phaneub17_ESO had you trained your both Companions to level 20 with guild skill lines maxed and at least 2 armor and weapons skill lines maxed ?
If yes, do you really think Companions are useful? Do your Companions stay out of red? Had your Companions learnt not to reset bosses?
if not, why do you need one more Companion to remain underused?
In all honesty I like that they're flawed, having perfect companions would be such a bore if they did things the way you want them to, having faulty ai scripts and subpar performance add to the nuances in the chaos they provide. I have both of them almost maxed out on everything skill line except a couple, Bastian is missing dual-wield and restoration staff and Mirri is missing heavy armor and restoration staff.
Bastian is currently setup to tank with 1h+shield, heavy armor, 26% quickened, and 5% vigorous.
His abilities are: Drake's Blood, Kindle, Provoke, On Guard, and Ritual of Salvation. I prioritize healing himself over taunting, even if the mob gets loose for a few seconds is better than him getting floored with damage.
Mirri is DPS with dual-wield, medium armor, 9100 shattering, and 8% aggressive.
Her abilities are: Warp Strike, Masque of Torment, Razor Cape, Life Siphon, and Spinning Steel. the main bonus of this setup is the AOE fear while it has a short range it has no target limit and can affect those that go invisible for a heavy attack.
As for the boss resetting, there's two things you can do about that.
1. Slot a taunt like Inner Fire so you can pull the mob/boss back to you.
2. Change their equipped weapon to something else.
The dodge roll parameters are based on the weapons they have equipped. Weapons like bow, restoration, lightning, and inferno staff will dodge roll immediately when the enemy they are attacking enters melee range. You can alter this by directing them to attack something else as they can be surrounded in melee by other enemies they aren't focused on and won't roll away, its when the one they are focused on comes into melee do they roll away. Weapons like two-handed and dual-wield changes the parameters to =< 50% health before they will dodge roll, then 1h+shield and frost staff is even lower threshold won't dodge roll until =< 25% health.
If I'm setting them up to be healers and don't plan on slotting a taunt, I give them either 1h+shield so they stay closer in melee range or frost staff so they stay at a distance. If they do get the mob/boss attention they won't dodge roll until their own health is critical. If you're going to do this, you should put in their first ability slot: Drake's Blood or Twilight Mantle, this reduces the chance of ever dodge rolling unless their oh crap button is on cooldown and they are in critical condition.Edited by phaneub17_ESO on September 18, 2021 11:58PM5 -
DinoZavr✭✭✭✭✭
✭@phaneub17_ESO
in my humble opinion, Companions are too flawed and several simple steps could fix them quite a lot:
- checking the distance from player. simple check, but required when healer dodges too far away from anyone
- checking the boss reset zone boundaries. simple check. why this is not implemented?
- checking standing in the AoE. simple check (it is harder to program retreating into AoE free zone, but doable)
- implementing Companions gear bag. i can not believe Zeni had not noticed the necessity of this in a year of testing
The game makers approach is quite lazy, and this is so much upsetting for me.
As for companions gear stats: no math was ever published and it is hard to measure what traits work better.
for offense i ended up in all aggressive, but still i lack the tools to measure Companions DPS
for healing i use 8 soothing 3 quickened
for tanking - Bastian is still in progress, right now i equip him with all vigorousPC EU3 -
phaneub17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I see quickened as the best for Single Target DPS and Shattering + Aggressive for AOE. I have a post explaining how Quickened functions right here:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7361909#Comment_73619090 -
Elvenheart✭✭✭✭✭
✭I’m sorry some people don’t find companions useful for their playstyle. Personally I love both of them and I do find them useful at times.
I use blue quickened gear on both companions. Awhile back I finished leveling up the medium armor line for Mirri and the light and medium armor lines for Bastian and now I’m working on their heavy armor lines. Recently I enjoyed either one-manning or two-manning normal Dragonstar Arena with a friend with them. Without really planning to, I made Mirri into a semi-tank. My goal was just to give her some skills to keep her from dying during the rounds so she wouldn’t lose exp, but as an experiment I also added the Undaunted taunt skill and was quite surprised how well that worked out. She kept the attention of some mobs, including bosses, and every so often would vanish and heal, then take the attention of the mobs back with the taunt. It was nice and useful not being the sole focus of all the mobs all the time. But the truth is whether they were useful or just another pet-type companion that talked and commented like they do I’d still love having one out with my characters all the time. And I can’t wait for companions of other classes so I can mix and match them will all my alts 😀0 -
SerraKBella✭✭✭I think companions can be released with every chapter from here on, because leads are released with every new chapter with the knowledge that you have to own Greymoor to be able to scry - so wouldn't the access to new companions be the same - if you own the Blackwood chapter - you have access to having the ability to have a companion?
Also, I use my companions all the time. I run primarily solo and they are level 20 with most skills maxed and mostly blue equipment. They don't die all the time now and help me out a lot. Plus I just find them fun and entertaining.
Edited by SerraKBella on September 19, 2021 1:51AM1 -
Monte_Cristo✭✭✭✭✭
✭NoxiousBlight wrote: »Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »And how would they lock it beind blackwood if its in another zone?
Next year with blackwood as part of eso+ i think we may see more of them as the system is separated from the zone
Lock the companion behind the story finale.
The year long story finishes with a finale that you need to have completed the chapter and the Q4 DLC - so you would need to have finished Blackwood and the new DLC to get the companion. Thus, they lock it behind Blackwood for 6 more months like they want.
Or make having already recruited Mirri or Bastian the requirement for this one.0 -
Elvenheart✭✭✭✭✭
✭phaneub17_ESO wrote: »I see quickened as the best for Single Target DPS and Shattering + Aggressive for AOE. I have a post explaining how Quickened functions right here:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7361909#Comment_7361909
That’s some great info and an informative interesting thread I somehow missed along the way, thanks for linking it and for sharing all that data, phaneub17_ESO!0 -
Gylzyn✭✭✭I would not claim that Companions are as good as they could be: their AI and survivability could be improved; the rapport system is poor and a grind (and the bonuses you get from the two current companions are trivial); the drop rate of epic gear should be better; they should have their own inventory; the inability to craft gear/traits as a Master Crafter is disappointing. However, in my experience, doing some grinding of base game veteran dungeons solo for gear with my damage dealer I have found Bastian set up as a tank to be helpful. He has held aggro on bosses and not died that much.
I have Bastian set up as tank but I also have a damage dealer set up for him. I have Mirri set up as a healer. So I would like either for Companions to have their own inventory (so I can easily swap Bastian's role) or a third Companion that I could set up as a damage dealer. Of those two options, I prefer the first. I am not especially interested in more Companions for their race/class/backstory unless these were much better than the backstory/quests were for Bastian and Mirri.0 -
DinoZavr✭✭✭✭✭
✭@phaneub17_ESO thank you very much for your hints.
You would probably not believe but i had previously examined your Companions DPS measuring posts in a different threads on the Forum as i am also interested in some tool allowing to measure Companions efficiency (not only DPS, but HPS) and find barely nothing other than utilizing ESOLogs in soloing easy 4-man.
Still i attack my target dummies barenakkid to let my Companions to do the most damage and check time to destroy easy dummies like Precursor and 3M.
Once again, you also would not believe, but i am really not indifferent to Companions (as i am a solo player most of the time and i appreciate theirs potential, not fully implemented yet) and my expectations for what Companions might be if done right, and what are they now, unfortunately, differ a lot.
End of rant.
And, yes, without Companions gear bag, we really need at least 4 of them: stamDD, magDD, healer, tank (though underdeveloped gals and guys serve as mannequins just for storing hard-to-earn Companions gear). Storage space is so precious and Zeni had not thrown us a bone to keep this non-craftable and non-reconstructable stuff. So i strongly hope we ll get 2 more Companions or Companions 30 slots gear bag shared between Companions ( 18M players x 30 slots x 3 bytes per slot is just 2 GB of server storage. Thats negligible in an MMO scale of things) or both. The question is when?PC EU0 -
phaneub17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Still i attack my target dummies barenakkid to let my Companions to do the most damage and check time to destroy easy dummies like Precursor and 3M.
Where do you find target dummies in the open world? I only know of the ones inside homes and you can't summon a companion in there. Or you have access to them somewhere else?Edited by phaneub17_ESO on September 19, 2021 10:07AM0 -
RaddlemanNumber7✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭I'm happy with the companions, now that I've explored their limitations and found a suitable role for them in my RP.
A mute option and headgear would make them better.
A Khajiit companion would be good, if we ever get another one.PC EU1 -
DinoZavr✭✭✭✭✭
✭@phaneub17_ESO to measure my DPS without gear no avoid the situations my sets buffing companions pen or crit
then i just substract my DPS from totalPC EU0 -
Berdusk✭✭✭I would like to see them go back over some existing content, and create Companions from some other NPCs we've encountered (and helped) through various quests in the game.
One fun thing would be to lock certain companions behind a set point in Zone Story quests, so you cannot get that companion until you've completed 80% of the zone story...
...or companions unrelated, but requiring a certain Achievement, like Archmage, to be able to start a quest that gives you a wizard companion like... Barilzar, anyone?
How about Alliance companions, where you can have this companion as part of this alliance, but not as another - one for each of the three?
How about an animal companion, like a Raht or Alfiq, that isn't a mount or a pet?
Or a companion you assemble, like a factotum?
This system has so much potential that goes well beyond the scope of just Blackwood.0 -
Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo✭✭✭✭✭
✭Hey! I still haven't bought Blackwood. I can't rap my head around buying DLC for companions. For me it's the same as purchasing house guests in a sense. I read someone spoke of role play above; For real role play purposes I think 'people' might give you a better bang for your buck.
I'm still up for the possibility of introducing our own characters as companions, because I like that sandbox approach, but I understand the desire to add game based lore of course.0 -
SammyKhajit✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭A khajit companion. Or better yet, an evil mastermind alfiq. This one loves the idea of an alfiq companion who keeps urging you to murder in the name of Sithis
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phaneub17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭@phaneub17_ESO to measure my DPS without gear no avoid the situations my sets buffing companions pen or crit
then i just substract my DPS from total
That wasn't my question... Where are you finding Target Dummies to attack with your companion? Companions can't be summoned inside homes (at least I can't) and the only Target Dummies I know of are the Furnishing kind that are placed inside homes. This is something a lot of people would like to know so they can also see the DPS of their companion as well.1 -
VaranisArano✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Hey! I still haven't bought Blackwood. I can't rap my head around buying DLC for companions. For me it's the same as purchasing house guests in a sense. I read someone spoke of role play above; For real role play purposes I think 'people' might give you a better bang for your buck.
I'm still up for the possibility of introducing our own characters as companions, because I like that sandbox approach, but I understand the desire to add game based lore of course.
Real people will absolutely be better for roleplaying with. However, my IRL friends have mostly moved on to other games. And even before that, we'd hit the point where we were really too powerful to quest together.
So I roleplay with my Companion.1 -
cyberjanet✭✭✭✭✭NoxiousBlight wrote: »Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »And how would they lock it beind blackwood if its in another zone?
Lock the companion behind the story finale.
The year long story finishes with a finale that you need to have completed the chapter and the Q4 DLC - so you would need to have finished Blackwood and the new DLC to get the companion. Thus, they lock it behind Blackwood for 6 more months like they want.
Ah... the fourth ambition as a companion?
Antiquities are locked into Greymoor, I'm sure they can find a way.Favourite NPC: Wine-For-All
Mostly PC-EU , with a lonely little guy on NA.1 -
cyberjanet✭✭✭✭✭i am not for more companions, but i am for better companions
While I was so disappointed in companions that I did not prepurchase but waited for a sale, the more the merrier, actually. These armies of Bastions and Mirris are like Stepford Wives Online.
Favourite NPC: Wine-For-All
Mostly PC-EU , with a lonely little guy on NA.1 -
Andre_Noir✭✭✭✭It's take too long for leveling them so I don't bother. The whole skill lanes also looks weird: so for an acceptable tanking you have to level armor line to level 20 as ... tank. What point of that at all ?
So plz no useless companions anymore2 -
starlizard70ub17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Luke_Flamesword wrote: »
Yeah and I will make whole questline on all my 14 characters to unlock itLock the companion behind the story finale.
ESO always looking to extend content in meaningful ways.
"We have found a cave, but I don't think there are warm fires and friendly faces inside."0 -
CoronHR✭✭✭✭✭i've had such a grind to level up rapport on the two we have (still have days to go for Mirri) and i'm not crazy about having a new one. i'd rather have more character slotsPC - EU - Steam client0 -
Berdusk✭✭✭I'd be okay with just the two (for a while) if they would only open up the hair/hat/head slot. Just because Mirri changes up her hairstyle or puts a helmet on doesn't change who she is. But at least it wouldn't feel quite so much like a medieval Clone Wars every time I hit a wayshrine.0
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DMuehlhausen✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I don't really care about for the companions. They are always in the way when I'm trying to interact with something. I don't need Bastian quite literally up my arse anytime I try to talk to an NPC.
That being said their next one needs to be one that doesn't mind, or even likes stealing and or murdering with Blade of Woe so you can do those DLCs/stories with a companion and not lose rapport.0