Companions stand in "Silly"

Sythen88411 · February 16

So im not on to use companions and I was totally down to trick out a companion in very over price bis traits to tank for me. I dont see the point to spend mills and mills to just have them stand in a aoe and live for 5 secs longer. Is there a way to fix them of doing this or this is the end all be all of what they do...

freespirit · February 16

In fights where there are multiple mobs. a HA on a mob outside of the AoE should persuade a companion to move away from stupid!

I also routinely run a good heal on my DD's to help keep them alive.

I only use my companions as Tanks and Bastian has helped me solo content I previously couldn't!

zenonuk · February 16

Probably do an in-game feedback/bug report if it's causing real problems on a specific fight. Over time ZOS appear to be preventing more and more ground-based AoEs from harming companions - a lot in IA, dragons in Elsweyr, etc.

I remember this being discussed on the forum before - rather than fixing the intelligence, it seems (at least to me) the current approach is to identify problematic AoEs for companions and make companions immune to their effects.

That said, I do see companions roll-dodge backwards out of ground based AoEs where they're not currently immune, but I guess the companion's build/cooldowns affect how often they can do that or even if they try.

katanagirl1 · February 17

Bastian does a good job as tank for me, he will die in the Lady Thorn boss stage in IA but otherwise holds up to all bosses except the overturned Marauder Gothmau and the other one, I forget his name. There is a thread out about this bug but has got no response yet.

I hear Azandar makes a good tank but I just realized after leveling him up to 17 on my main character that I don’t have him unlocked for the IA character that I use. Which probably means I will never use him for that.

Hapexamendios · February 17

The sad thing is I've see veteran player who do the same thing.

Gabriel_H · February 17

Zerith is better than most for getting out of AoE, but companion combat AI has always been terrible.

Orbital78 · February 17

I have my controllers back buttons keybound to attack and disengage but even that is often not enough for some fights.

Poss · February 17

I’ve always complained about this. My boi Bastian has been tanking for me since forever but his distinct lack of self-preservation inside stupid breaks my heart

But then Bastian always was a bit special 😂

In all seriousness yes I’d love to see a combat overhaul with companions

LootAllTheStuff · February 17

Poss wrote: »

I’ve always complained about this. My boi Bastian has been tanking for me since forever but his distinct lack of self-preservation inside stupid breaks my heart

But then Bastian always was a bit special 😂

In all seriousness yes I’d love to see a combat overhaul with companions

I think this is a result of a fundamental limitation in the companion AI, which should probably be addressed by ZOS.

I have Mirri and Azandar set up as ranged characters. This means they will evade backwards when attacked by an aggressive melee enemy, and that often has the happy side-effect of taking them out of stupid.

But I have never seen any of the companions set up for melee do this. As someone noted up-thread, you have to manually re-target them to take them out of an AoE. You basically need to have their "under 25% health" and "under 75% health" heals in the 1 and 2 slots and hope for the best.

Well, either that, or also have an ally healing skill up that can keep them alive until they are either forced to move or the AoE times out.

An update to the companion combat code would indeed be nice.

joergino · February 18

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

I have Mirri and Azandar set up as ranged characters. This means they will evade backwards when attacked by an aggressive melee enemy, and that often has the happy side-effect of taking them out of stupid.

(...)
An update to the companion combat code would indeed be nice.

Usually this backwards somersault also has the extremely happy side effect of resetting the boss.

So yes, I definitely agree with your last line. Nice alliteration, btw.