I don’t mind their damage for combat pet, but their survivability is garbage. They absolutely useless on bosses who cast aoe or dots and dying almost instantly. Just to give an example, meridian guardian boss in southern elsweir, one of the easiest dlc boss to solo, yet the moment he cast rotating wall of light companion die. Doesn’t even matter if it’s fully leveled tank in purple heavy armor or damage dealer in medium. They should have balanced them in same manner as sorcerer or warden pets with decent mitigation to avoid such situations. Dead companion = useless.

Yes, with a proper build they can help out, without feeling that the game is playing for you or that they are replacing players in a group.

tonyblack wrote: »

I don’t mind their damage for combat pet, but their survivability is garbage. They absolutely useless on bosses who cast aoe or dots and dying almost instantly. Just to give an example, meridian guardian boss in southern elsweir, one of the easiest dlc boss to solo, yet the moment he cast rotating wall of light companion die. Doesn’t even matter if it’s fully leveled tank in purple heavy armor or damage dealer in medium. They should have balanced them in same manner as sorcerer or warden pets with decent mitigation to avoid such situations. Dead companion = useless.

The issue with avoiding ground AEs or insta kill walls is that companions will be quite binary: they move out of the way or they don't. If the will always flawlessly move out of the way then they will be beter than most players who can get distracted, etc.

Riptide wrote: »

-edit, and to add, my opinion also is that companions should simply never replace a player in veteran content, or even normal DLC dungeons. If they can be a help in normal basegame dungeons that is a solid peak for their usefulness.

Most normal DLC dungeons, bar some mechanics, can be soloed. So the companion can just tag along for a little extra damage or (de)buffing. They won't enable anything that otherwise can't be done. Gonna have to check if they can/will interrupt bosses like Ibomez the Flesh Sculptur, though I could ride out that damage with the proper equipment before companions were even on the horizon.

So far I am satisfied, they could be a little more robust though in worldboss fights.

But already now Mirri is able to solo a basegame worldboss, the dreugh queen in the center of Stormhaven.

I just have to block now and then when Mirri becomes invisible to heal herself, apart from that I don't engage in combat.

Problem is, you need a kind of "Meta" setup for this, everything else is useless.
Heavy armore with increased health or healing/reduced damage, you also can use 3-4 pieces for increased ultimate generation.
Quality is less important, blue gear will do the job.
Weapon is restauration staff, she still can do some damage with it, but relies on the heals from it.

Their damage is fine, it's their utter lack of survivability in mildly difficult content that is bad.

They need to be able to interrupt boss mechanics to save us from lock downs that you can't breakfree from.

They need a tutorial on how to play the floor is lava.

I'm fine with the 'power' of companions per se but they do a bit of tweaking in combat. I like all four companions as tanks and each does a good job in their own way as long as your character can provide a bit of occasional healing to them. They also work well for me as ice staff (only) ranged dps. Therein lies the problem - I won't give a companion any ranged weapon but ice staff since they dodgeroll excessively (resetting bosses and spreading out fights) with any other ranged weapon. With an ice staff, they block/bash/mitigate just fine. I'd really like to see this significant limitation fixed. If a companion is going to dodgeroll, they should roll TOWARD the player, not away from the threat. And the frequency of using dodgeroll should be reduced.

SilverBride wrote: »

BretonMage wrote: »

They’re fine as DDs and healers, but companion TANKS need better survivability. Most of us use them to help us solo content, so if they die, all enemy attention turns to us and we cannot take the time to resurrect them. ZOS PLEASE FIX THIS.

Except for standing in bad stuff which doesn't happen often, Bastian survives very well. He has tanked entire dungeons with just the two of us and not died once. They just have to have the right gear with the right traits, blue quality at least and as much purple as possible. Right now the gear I have on him is half blue and half purple that I will upgrade as I find more pieces. (I won't pay millions for one piece of people gear.) They also need the right skills slotted. Once I set up his build it made a huge difference in his performance.

I have him in mostly blue gear. My tank Bastian survives the normal base game dungeons (don’t know about WS2 and FG2), only one vet base game, BC1, and maybe one or two of the easier DLC normals like FH (but needs healing). His survivability is much better at range. I found a purple restoration staff, equipped it on him, and it’s fine. I love not having to worry if he’s dead yet. So much more peaceful.

I’d prefer it if he could tank and not die on harder content though. Or if companions died, they should be able to auto-resurrect with a soul gem after 5 seconds.

Slightly increasing their damage would be fine, but I don't want them to play my game for me. Increasing their survivability and increasing the damage they do are two different things, though.

I find them quite reasonable for tanking.

They are abysmal for dps and could use major improvements.

I'd like to see them a bit better for utility and buffs if it's thought that the dps can't be increased.

Healing in theory is fine, but the fact that they constantly roll and move back with any ranged weapon, including resto staff makes that a complete non starter for me. I can't see myself using any ranged weapon with the current AI.