I’ll have to look, but Bastion seems to work better as tank than dps for me. I only use him for world bosses and such, and not often lately.

He dies too often in medium armor and as a tank he has all heavy. I don’t have all quickened, I am trying for the one that gives more health, Vigorous maybe? He did survive the Havocrel boss in Deadlands once and I thought I had found the build for him. Then he died each time after, lol.

He can take the heat off my toon so I don’t have to worry about damage and cc as much.

My main is a damage dealer and my main alt is a healer and I have found Bastian to be better and more useful as a tank. Mirri is set up as a healer but I use her a lot less (plus I find her dialogue is annoying). Their AI still could be improved a lot, but I have used Bastian as a tank when soloing normal and veteran base dungeons and some normal DLC dungeons. I would always prefer to do dungeons as a group, but sometimes when farming for gear (e.g. Kinras in Blake Drake Villa) or leads (e.g. Bog-Blue Jasper Fetish from Ruins of Mazzatun) or some monster heads (e.g. base dungeons), Bastian has been helpful. Of course, some dungeons cannot be completed due to mechanics within the dungeon. Bastian can still sometimes "stand in stupid" (e.g. last boss in Black Drake Villa) and sometimes his taunt just doesn't work (e.g. Baron Zaudrus in The Cauldron).

I have him set up with all heavy armour, 1H and shield with a mixture of Vigorous and Bolstered traits. His skills are all at maximum. The skills I use are: Provoke, Drake's Blood, Kindle, Balwark, On Guard with Unleashed Rage as Ultimate (as this is the only one - pity there isn't a more 'tanky' ultimate available). I have also used Crimson Font.

I start fights with a couple of heavy attacks on the boss so Bastian grabs aggro. I will use a heavy attack every so often on the boss to maintain that aggro. Sometimes Bastian will die but will have done enough to help me get through. Sometimes he does stupid stuff. Sometimes we both die but when farming (and I can't get guildies who also want to farm) re-trying is better than waiting in a long queue with dungeon finder. I may well be able to do the fights without a companion but I have found Bastian helpful to some degree.

I am not suggesting that this set up is the best and I have not done any real analysis to say that this is a 'good build' but I have found it has worked for me. But, I repeat, their AI could be a lot better and it is disappointing that ZOS haven't really updated companions much since their release.

I've been loosely using this guide by Hack The Minotaur for my Tank Bastion https://www.hacktheminotaur.com/eso-companion-builds/guardian-drake

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

It all depends on the content you're dealing with regularly. If the majority of your fights are normal dungeons and most world bosses, then having high health isn't necessary as there aren't many greater than 30k damage mechanics that's going to one-shot him. Quickened keeps Drake's Blood, On Guard, and Ritual of Salvation with shorter downtime for more consistent active damage reduction.

If you're dealing with stronger mobs like the big elite mobs at harrowstorms, powerful chapter world bosses, or dragon's breath attacks then you want him to have enough health to at least survive the massive attacks. Kindle unfortunately doesn't scale with his health, but with Soothing so its either something he can spam quickly or not have at all. In this case stacking Vigorous is better with skills that also scale with his health and 2-3 piece Bolstered for a little extra mitigation works best.

All 3 Undaunted skills are incredibly useful in their own right for tanking, the Synergy bonuses which then activates your Undaunted Command passive is great solo, and the sheer amount of bonuses they provide at the cost of higher cooldown. Without a Quickened build, you don't want more than one of them on his bar or else you'll see long downtime.

I think that's why Deltia suggests having BOTH Savage Instinct AND Provoke slotted, due to SI's high cooldown... you'll pretty much have a taunt available most of the time. We'll see how it works out... as I now have him slotted in full Vigorous with Deltia's suggested loadout. If not, I still have his Heavy Quickened I can add back in.

All gear bolstered (trying to get all pieces in heavy but still have 1 or 2 pieces in light/medium due to "bad" rng) and the following skills:

1) Provoke
2) Drake's Blood
3) Basalt Barrier
4) Crimson Font
5) Kindle
U) Unleashed Rage

He can handle damage pretty well (world bosses/wandering bosses/dungeon bosses) unless the foes spawn an AoE: companions have the "bad habit" to stand in the red without moving...