Companion equipment space problems

lamar720 · June 2

Can companions get their own dedicated storage system, similar to the furnishing vaults that were added for housing items?

Companion gear is creating a significant storage problem as the companion roster continues to grow. We now have approximately eight companions, and many players maintain multiple builds for each companion depending on whether they're being used as a tank, healer, or DPS.

If a player keeps just two builds per companion, that's roughly 11 gear slots per build (7 armor pieces, 3 jewelry pieces, and at least 1 weapon). Across eight companions, that adds up to approximately 176 inventory items dedicated solely to companion equipment.

Unlike player gear, companion gear cannot be added to the sticker book or reconstructed, which means every piece must be physically stored somewhere. This consumes valuable bank and character inventory space and discourages players from experimenting with different companion builds.
A dedicated companion storage chest, companion armory, or companion gear vault would be a major quality-of-life improvement. It would help players manage their companion collections, encourage build diversity, and reduce the ever-growing inventory burden without impacting game balance.

rothan117 · June 2

The entire companion gear system is awful. The ridiculous low drop rates on the better quality gear makes outfitting companions a pain. Given how central crafting is in ESO, companion gear should be craftable or at least you should be able to upgrade it via crafting, maybe with the limitation that upgrading it binds it to account.

AcadianPaladin · June 2

It would be a great idea if companions could carry their own spare companion gear - perhaps 12 - 20 slots that held only companion gear. That would allow differing characters to change the role of the same companion without having to go hunting for their tank/dps/healer gear.

Alphawolf01A · June 2

I would like to see some sort of crafting/transmute option for companion gear. Maybe a dedicated crafting table where you could decon/research/craft gear.

GloatingSwine · June 2

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

I would like to see some sort of crafting/transmute option for companion gear. Maybe a dedicated crafting table where you could decon/research/craft gear.

The problem with crafting for companion gear is that it isn't really good enough to spend resources on. Not even purple resources that are relatively common.

(Also you can just buy it from guild traders)

Alphawolf01A · June 2

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

I would like to see some sort of crafting/transmute option for companion gear. Maybe a dedicated crafting table where you could decon/research/craft gear.

The problem with crafting for companion gear is that it isn't really good enough to spend resources on. Not even purple resources that are relatively common.

(Also you can just buy it from guild traders)

"Isn't really good enough to spend resources on", is just personal opinion. Also, speaking for myself, I have tons of mats, so that's not a problem.

I know the gear can be bought from traders, (kind of like how purple mats can be bought), but I would be able to upgrade companion gear easier and cheaper than buying it from a trader

AScarlato · June 2

Companions turning us all into Lydia.

GloatingSwine · June 2

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

I would like to see some sort of crafting/transmute option for companion gear. Maybe a dedicated crafting table where you could decon/research/craft gear.

The problem with crafting for companion gear is that it isn't really good enough to spend resources on. Not even purple resources that are relatively common.

(Also you can just buy it from guild traders)

"Isn't really good enough to spend resources on", is just personal opinion. Also, speaking for myself, I have tons of mats, so that's not a problem.

I know the gear can be bought from traders, (kind of like how purple mats can be bought), but I would be able to upgrade companion gear easier and cheaper than buying it from a trader

It's testable how good companion gear is though, you can log a combat with them and test how well they can do and work out the effect of trait upgrades on their gear.

Like I could get about 6500 dps out of Ember (before they fixed her crit passive and with me in full tank mode debuffing the enemy) in blue gear, upgrade that to purple and she'd likely get less than a single percent of performance from the difference between blue and purple.

rothan117 · June 2

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

I would like to see some sort of crafting/transmute option for companion gear. Maybe a dedicated crafting table where you could decon/research/craft gear.

The problem with crafting for companion gear is that it isn't really good enough to spend resources on. Not even purple resources that are relatively common.

(Also you can just buy it from guild traders)

"Isn't really good enough to spend resources on", is just personal opinion. Also, speaking for myself, I have tons of mats, so that's not a problem.

I know the gear can be bought from traders, (kind of like how purple mats can be bought), but I would be able to upgrade companion gear easier and cheaper than buying it from a trader

It's testable how good companion gear is though, you can log a combat with them and test how well they can do and work out the effect of trait upgrades on their gear.

Like I could get about 6500 dps out of Ember (before they fixed her crit passive and with me in full tank mode debuffing the enemy) in blue gear, upgrade that to purple and she'd likely get less than a single percent of performance from the difference between blue and purple.

And yet the purple companion gear drops with the most favored stats sells for a fortune on the trader. My companions are lacking purple gear because I sell it all on the trader when I get it. Worth too much gold not to given the marginal improvement the change from blue to purple makes.

GloatingSwine · June 2

rothan117 wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

I would like to see some sort of crafting/transmute option for companion gear. Maybe a dedicated crafting table where you could decon/research/craft gear.

The problem with crafting for companion gear is that it isn't really good enough to spend resources on. Not even purple resources that are relatively common.

(Also you can just buy it from guild traders)

"Isn't really good enough to spend resources on", is just personal opinion. Also, speaking for myself, I have tons of mats, so that's not a problem.

I know the gear can be bought from traders, (kind of like how purple mats can be bought), but I would be able to upgrade companion gear easier and cheaper than buying it from a trader

It's testable how good companion gear is though, you can log a combat with them and test how well they can do and work out the effect of trait upgrades on their gear.

Like I could get about 6500 dps out of Ember (before they fixed her crit passive and with me in full tank mode debuffing the enemy) in blue gear, upgrade that to purple and she'd likely get less than a single percent of performance from the difference between blue and purple.

And yet the purple companion gear drops with the most favored stats sells for a fortune on the trader. My companions are lacking purple gear because I sell it all on the trader when I get it. Worth too much gold not to given the marginal improvement the change from blue to purple makes.

This is true. But mostly because of the extreme rarity of purple drops for them.

It's also true that the most favoured stat is the wrong one (quickened is actually bad).

Alphawolf01A · June 2

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

I would like to see some sort of crafting/transmute option for companion gear. Maybe a dedicated crafting table where you could decon/research/craft gear.

The problem with crafting for companion gear is that it isn't really good enough to spend resources on. Not even purple resources that are relatively common.

(Also you can just buy it from guild traders)

"Isn't really good enough to spend resources on", is just personal opinion. Also, speaking for myself, I have tons of mats, so that's not a problem.

I know the gear can be bought from traders, (kind of like how purple mats can be bought), but I would be able to upgrade companion gear easier and cheaper than buying it from a trader

It's testable how good companion gear is though, you can log a combat with them and test how well they can do and work out the effect of trait upgrades on their gear.

Like I could get about 6500 dps out of Ember (before they fixed her crit passive and with me in full tank mode debuffing the enemy) in blue gear, upgrade that to purple and she'd likely get less than a single percent of performance from the difference between blue and purple.

So she'd "likely" get less than a single percent? So you haven't put her in all purple gear to prove it? It's just an assumption?

Just because you don't think it's worth it, doesn't mean others won't also. Plus if we could upgrade to gold gear even better. I'm not concerned with min/maxing every possible DPS percentage point out of companions. I put all my companions in heavy gear to maximize their armor to improve their survivability. After all, a dead DPS does no DPS.

anadandy · June 2

rothan117 wrote: »

The entire companion gear system is awful. The ridiculous low drop rates on the better quality gear makes outfitting companions a pain. Given how central crafting is in ESO, companion gear should be craftable or at least you should be able to upgrade it via crafting, maybe with the limitation that upgrading it binds it to account.

It's especially frustrating when switching characters that use the same companion in different roles. You either have to keep all the gear sets in your bank (thatbalso means ungearing the companion after activity is done) or remember to do gear swaps before logging out of each character. Otherwise you run the risk of the gear you need being in the wrong inventory when you want to role swap. Even if it was limited to one extra of each piece, in addition to what they're wearing, it'd help me.

Gabriel_H · June 2

Companions also need a menu so you can access them all and their builds without having to summon them. Have some sort of interactable object like a mailbox for accessing it.

CatalinaWineMixer2 · June 2

Id rather see them offer a separate Guild Bank, one for Auction Storage and one for members. I get why these are limited but there are a lot of people missing a real Guild because they are joined to an auction bank. It should not be forced upon people to have an alt to do this. Alternatively, the could maybe offer another generic storage of some type like a higher chest/coffer limit in homes perhaps.

I like the Npc companions and they add a lot of fun to the game. It's frustrating to see them standing in aoe from time to time but aside from that, I have accomplished a lot of things with them.

BetweenMidgets · June 2

I hope we can eventually decon some of that gear.

Necrotech_Master · June 2

rothan117 wrote: »

The entire companion gear system is awful. The ridiculous low drop rates on the better quality gear makes outfitting companions a pain. Given how central crafting is in ESO, companion gear should be craftable or at least you should be able to upgrade it via crafting, maybe with the limitation that upgrading it binds it to account.

you can get purple companion gear from the infinite archive, the type of which changes weekly

for the OP of the thread, my biggest issue with companion gear is that we cannot mark it as junk, it is sellable so why can we not mark it as junk?

GloatingSwine · June 3

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

I would like to see some sort of crafting/transmute option for companion gear. Maybe a dedicated crafting table where you could decon/research/craft gear.

The problem with crafting for companion gear is that it isn't really good enough to spend resources on. Not even purple resources that are relatively common.

(Also you can just buy it from guild traders)

"Isn't really good enough to spend resources on", is just personal opinion. Also, speaking for myself, I have tons of mats, so that's not a problem.

I know the gear can be bought from traders, (kind of like how purple mats can be bought), but I would be able to upgrade companion gear easier and cheaper than buying it from a trader

It's testable how good companion gear is though, you can log a combat with them and test how well they can do and work out the effect of trait upgrades on their gear.

Like I could get about 6500 dps out of Ember (before they fixed her crit passive and with me in full tank mode debuffing the enemy) in blue gear, upgrade that to purple and she'd likely get less than a single percent of performance from the difference between blue and purple.

So she'd "likely" get less than a single percent? So you haven't put her in all purple gear to prove it? It's just an assumption?

Just because you don't think it's worth it, doesn't mean others won't also. Plus if we could upgrade to gold gear even better. I'm not concerned with min/maxing every possible DPS percentage point out of companions. I put all my companions in heavy gear to maximize their armor to improve their survivability. After all, a dead DPS does no DPS.

It's not an assumption, it's a lazy calculation in my head based on the gap in percentage numbers.

If you want a longer version, I tested a few gear setups with Ember in a vet dungeon, and using blue Heavy armour with 3pc Shattering, 8pc Aggressive, and 1pc Focused, a Restoration staff with Rejuvenation and Mystic Fortress slotted, and my tank build maintaining Breach, Brittle, Minor Vulnerability and about 40% uptimes on Major Vulnerability and Major Force Ember was hitting 6310 DPS.

Switching all the Aggressive pieces from blue to purple would have added a mere 165 DPS from the upgraded Aggressive traits and a bit more from the weapon damage on a purple staff. The shattering would have done nothing because pen was already maxed due to my tank, The Precise is harder to calculate because crits are slightly unreliable, but it would have averaged out to about another 10-20 dps.

And for anyone other than a tank PC with that brittle and force Focused is strictly worse than Aggressive because they have no bonuses to crit damage by themselves, it was only there as a test of companion crits (and how I found out Ember's crit passive didn't work before U49).

That's not a "fully DPS optimised build", it's in heavy armour and two of the skill slots are heals (Rejuv and Mystic Fortress). Just having Rejuvenation slotted reduces it by about 400.

This is a secret sauce people don't realise about companions, their auto attacks are actually one of their highest dps actions in single target situations due to skills having cast animations and replacing them with skill casts is often a net-negative on their performance (and players clear out pack targets too fast for them to show effectiveness in them).

(In medium armour the difference between blue and purple would have been even smaller because of the 7% damage from armour trait being the same between both)

Ilumia · June 3

So on top of more storage, the percentage bonuses on companion gear should absolutely be increased

BretonMage · June 3

GloatingSwine wrote: »

It's also true that the most favoured stat is the wrong one (quickened is actually bad).

I thought there were calculations (or testing at least) showing it was the most effective one, especially if paired with effective skills?

I do find it difficult to try and figure out a build for my companions. Most content creators don't seem to bother with them much, so I've had to settle for my own less-than-adequate testing.

The inability to effectively upgrade companions is probably my biggest pet peeve for them (combat AI aside), even more so than inventory problems. Gold equipment should be reasonably attainable at least, not some once-in-a-lifetime event reward. And we should also be able to upgrade traits somehow, getting a gold ring in Augmented or Focused must have been annoying to put it mildly.

GloatingSwine · June 3

Ilumia wrote: »

So on top of more storage, the percentage bonuses on companion gear should absolutely be increased

Really they should get actual set bonuses unique to them. One for each role and one specific per companion that supports a characterful build.

BretonMage wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

It's also true that the most favoured stat is the wrong one (quickened is actually bad).

I thought there were calculations (or testing at least) showing it was the most effective one, especially if paired with effective skills?

I used to think that was true as well back in the day. Now I've actually tested how companions work and it didn't work out that way.

Companions don't work like players, their skills have cast times and cast animations which interrupt their normal light attacks, and their light attacks are the bulk of their damage. Most of their skills do barely more damage than the light attack they would replace and the ones with a DoT component are only an efficient replacement for an auto attack if they get to run their full duration before recast (the AI will recast on cooldown not on expire).

And even if you wanted to go for a build where you maximised those DoT uptimes it's better to do it by using Augmented to extend the effect than using Quickened to shorten the cooldown, because that makes for fewer cast animations.

As an example my Ember skills setup for the test above was Crystal Blast, Shocking Burst, Thunderous Strike, and Mystic Fortress and 3/4 of all her damage was light attacks, by just slotting Rejuvenation her DPS went down by 300 because the casts of rejuvenation interrupted her doing some light attacks.

Using Quickened gear removed more damage from doing light attacks than it added with extra skill casts.

The only skills that are strong enough to benefit from cooldown reduction are executes. Sometimes it's better to just not have a skill slotted at all than to distract their AI with unhelpful suggestions.

lamar720 · June 3

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

It would be a great idea if companions could carry their own spare companion gear - perhaps 12 - 20 slots that held only companion gear. That would allow differing characters to change the role of the same companion without having to go hunting for their tank/dps/healer gear.

This is probably a better idea, I often don't even pick up companion gear because I just don't have the room

BretonMage · June 3

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Companions don't work like players, their skills have cast times and cast animations which interrupt their normal light attacks, and their light attacks are the bulk of their damage. Most of their skills do barely more damage than the light attack they would replace and the ones with a DoT component are only an efficient replacement for an auto attack if they get to run their full duration before recast (the AI will recast on cooldown not on expire).

And even if you wanted to go for a build where you maximised those DoT uptimes it's better to do it by using Augmented to extend the effect than using Quickened to shorten the cooldown, because that makes for fewer cast animations.

As an example my Ember skills setup for the test above was Crystal Blast, Shocking Burst, Thunderous Strike, and Mystic Fortress and 3/4 of all her damage was light attacks, by just slotting Rejuvenation her DPS went down by 300 because the casts of rejuvenation interrupted her doing some light attacks.

Using Quickened gear removed more damage from doing light attacks than it added with extra skill casts.

The only skills that are strong enough to benefit from cooldown reduction are executes. Sometimes it's better to just not have a skill slotted at all than to distract their AI with unhelpful suggestions.

Surprised to hear that, I thought many of the DPS skills were around 9k-10k, whilst their standard light attacks tend to be around 3-4k, depending on gear of course. I set mine up to be tank/healers so I don't really care what their DPS is, and the quicker they heal the better imo

I do agree that certain skills have cast times that end up being unhelpful. I love Azandar's ultimate, it's so funny watching goblins and durzogs being flung up in the air, but unfortunately the long cast time often proved to be lethal for him.

lamar720 · June 3

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

I would like to see some sort of crafting/transmute option for companion gear. Maybe a dedicated crafting table where you could decon/research/craft gear.

The problem with crafting for companion gear is that it isn't really good enough to spend resources on. Not even purple resources that are relatively common.

(Also you can just buy it from guild traders)

The issue I find here is, for the correct weights and traits they are extremely over priced.

lamar720 · June 3

AScarlato wrote: »

Companions turning us all into Lydia.

😂 Carrying a squires bags

lamar720 · June 3

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

rothan117 wrote: »

The entire companion gear system is awful. The ridiculous low drop rates on the better quality gear makes outfitting companions a pain. Given how central crafting is in ESO, companion gear should be craftable or at least you should be able to upgrade it via crafting, maybe with the limitation that upgrading it binds it to account.

you can get purple companion gear from the infinite archive, the type of which changes weekly

for the OP of the thread, my biggest issue with companion gear is that we cannot mark it as junk, it is sellable so why can we not mark it as junk?

Yeah and you should be able to lock the stuff that you want to keep but my focus is on the good gear that you use.

GloatingSwine · June 3

BretonMage wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Companions don't work like players, their skills have cast times and cast animations which interrupt their normal light attacks, and their light attacks are the bulk of their damage. Most of their skills do barely more damage than the light attack they would replace and the ones with a DoT component are only an efficient replacement for an auto attack if they get to run their full duration before recast (the AI will recast on cooldown not on expire).

And even if you wanted to go for a build where you maximised those DoT uptimes it's better to do it by using Augmented to extend the effect than using Quickened to shorten the cooldown, because that makes for fewer cast animations.

As an example my Ember skills setup for the test above was Crystal Blast, Shocking Burst, Thunderous Strike, and Mystic Fortress and 3/4 of all her damage was light attacks, by just slotting Rejuvenation her DPS went down by 300 because the casts of rejuvenation interrupted her doing some light attacks.

Using Quickened gear removed more damage from doing light attacks than it added with extra skill casts.

The only skills that are strong enough to benefit from cooldown reduction are executes. Sometimes it's better to just not have a skill slotted at all than to distract their AI with unhelpful suggestions.

Surprised to hear that, I thought many of the DPS skills were around 9k-10k, whilst their standard light attacks tend to be around 3-4k, depending on gear of course. I set mine up to be tank/healers so I don't really care what their DPS is, and the quicker they heal the better imo

I do agree that certain skills have cast times that end up being unhelpful. I love Azandar's ultimate, it's so funny watching goblins and durzogs being flung up in the air, but unfortunately the long cast time often proved to be lethal for him.

For reference from the log where I switched in some shattering gear to get her to pen cap Ember does 9651 with Crystal Blast and 4825 with her light attacks which she does about once per second if she's not using another skill and trapped in cast time.

So their single shot DPS skills are only worth the damage of two light attacks best case scenario (and I think Crystal Blast is actually one of if not the highest tooltip non-execute skill on a companion).

Put them in Quickened gear and they spend more time in that cast time trap and just stop doing the light attacks. When I went all-in on cooldown reduction, full Quickened and Telvanni Efficiency she basically couldn't use any light attacks because she was always in cast time for a skill but the cooldowns still weren't fast enough to produce more damage outside of execute, it just swapped light attack damage for skill damage. DPS contribution from light attacks for the fight dropped to about 700, implying she was only getting one in every 6 seconds or so when everything lined up on cooldown at a time.

MRAW · June 3

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Put them in Quickened gear and they spend more time in that cast time trap and just stop doing the light attacks.

But, with full undaunted skills, gives you (the player) more synergies and thus more sustain so you might profit more than those extra dps from your companion.

GloatingSwine · June 3

MRAW wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Put them in Quickened gear and they spend more time in that cast time trap and just stop doing the light attacks.

But, with full undaunted skills, gives you (the player) more synergies and thus more sustain so you might profit more than those extra dps from your companion.

I'm pretty sure that if two synergies every 25 seconds or so makes a difference to your sustain you have other problems. (I say two because if you give them the taunt one they will be too dead to provide the others as soon as the enemy drops an AoE they're too dumb to walk out of.)

konrad.reibinger · June 3

It’s a revenge for Skyrim companions, that carried our junk 😜

Lokiator · June 4

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Using Quickened gear removed more damage from doing light attacks than it added with extra skill casts.

But what if you're using your companion as a tank or healer and don't care about their damage output at all? I'm playing DPS, so the companion's contribution to damage is usually negligible in the first place...

For example, I've been using Isobel to tank the first four arcs of IA using bolstered gear to enhance her survival. However, the big problem is she seems to routinely lose taunt on Marauders. I'm a glass cannon, so if a Marauder focuses on me, it almost always results in a 1-shot death. Which means losing fortunes, a gear drop, and a chance at an antiquity lead. It happens often enough that I've been thinking about swapping her over to quickened to see if that'll help her maintain 100% uptime on her taunt.

Gabriel_H · June 4

Lokiator wrote: »

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Using Quickened gear removed more damage from doing light attacks than it added with extra skill casts.

But what if you're using your companion as a tank or healer and don't care about their damage output at all? I'm playing DPS, so the companion's contribution to damage is usually negligible in the first place...

For example, I've been using Isobel to tank the first four arcs of IA using bolstered gear to enhance her survival. However, the big problem is she seems to routinely lose taunt on Marauders. I'm a glass cannon, so if a Marauder focuses on me, it almost always results in a 1-shot death. Which means losing fortunes, a gear drop, and a chance at an antiquity lead. It happens often enough that I've been thinking about swapping her over to quickened to see if that'll help her maintain 100% uptime on her taunt.

That's more likely to be a combat AI problem than a cooldown one. Unaltered cooldown is 12s and the taunt lasts 15s, and has a cast time of 0.3s. If the AI is only re-taunting when taunt drops off, then there is a gap of at least 0.3s in which to reapply it. It also has a smaller range than player melee, being 5m instead of 7m. Positioning and distance between companion and mob could mean it is already at max distance (5m) and in the small cast time window moves out of range.