It may be that companions were counted as pets for combat purposes when they disabled resource sharing last year.

They didn’t specify if that included companions, but in combat companions function as pets in many respects (including the commands used to control them).

xXCJsniperXx7 wrote: »

Maybe an oversight then? I can give companions major and minor heroism though.

Could be. Or, if they do use our same type of ultimate, it could be intentional to exclude them from Cryptcanon due to the detriment to other players when both are in group.

If companions were eligible for Cryptcanon, that would create situations in which they would take away ultimate from players, who otherwise would have gotten more. Yet companions are explicitly not meant to take things away from players. This is why you cannot count them for a dungeon queue - they would be taking that spot away from a player. The devs clearly stated they wanted to make sure that players get priority over companions. It’s also part of why companions don’t do very much damage or heals compared to players.

That said, it would be interesting to know the devs’ thinking here more clearly, especially as I don’t recall them being very specific about if or how the changes to pets also applied to companions.

The only difference I can see is that Cryptcanon gives a variable amount of ultimate depending on the number of targets, and having it go to companions detrimentally affects players because they get less ultimate than they otherwise would.

Arkasis, Torch Bearer, and Mender's Bond give a set amount of ultimate to each target they hit. If you have a companion in a dungeon group, then that can only be because you're down a player. The ultimate can, in that situation, go to a companion without affecting actual players, as it just hits all four "group members." Cryptcanon, meanwhile, distributes a set total evenly among the targets it hits, so players would get less ultimate if the set counted companions compared to how much they get without companions being included.

My next question would be: if you wear Arkasis in a group of more than four, does the game ever pick companions over players to get the ultimate? Or are they only counted as eligible targets if there are not enough players for the set to choose?