If something is BIS, there is always the chance, that it will get nerfed, changed or replaced. I have 6 or 7 mystic artifacts on my main, at least 10 epic companions, 4 or 5 legendary companions and I bought/ made and used lightning, dread, vorpal and fey enchant over the time.
Going for BIS is always a gamble, bc it might change. You just have to ask yourself, is it worth the risk? Is it OP, how so, how much would I have to spent and is there talk of a nerf and for how long did they discuss it? If you dont like the chance, dont change. If you aim for BIS and the change is reasonable, go for it.
For example, the active power of Tensers floating disk would boost my mains dps a few %. I could buy it, but I did not do it, bc it is to expensive in my opinion. On the other hand, I dished out 7 kk AD for a legacy snail, to boost the AP gain of an alt from 15% to 25%.
Another problem here is, that the situation differs on all platforms. Even my alts had/have full avenger gear, bc it was dirt cheap.
Me and my crew ran two Fbi's last night as a test. First run was with our nomal legendary companions and the second run was with blue con artists. Only the three dps changed companions because the gf and dc usually run danciong shield and sellsword. Both runs were run exactly the same way with nothing changing except the 3 companions. Party composition was gf, dc, sw and two cw's all between 4-4.2k gs. The first run was 33 minutes and the second run was 34ish minutes.
@merhunesdagon1 oh you meant that gear, my bad. Anyway, because of diminishing return on power, I don't think the extra offense slot of the sellsword/rebel mercenaary does justify buying that very expensive loyal avenger gear, con artist is a very viable alternative and the fastest FBI run so far (on console so no loyal avenger) has been done with con artists, that proves the difference between those 2 companios is very very minor.
Ambush drake is inferior to both con artist and dancing shield plus it's a lot more expensive, no reason to get that thing.
party composition, what was the item level, and last but not least, what type of buffs and debuffs, beside the con artists were they running with? Just because you have a con artist or a sellsword doesnt always mean the run will go faster than if you had an archon or any other companion. All those things I mentioned count as well. It was probably more so that the group was used to running with each other that the run didnt last so long. I wouldnt contribute that to just one companion and Im not saying that it wasnt a factor either...
There is one other disadvantage to the fire archon. As a tank, it seems like the archons are always in my way. They always seem to set up between my room and my point of view, this obscuring my view of the boss. Its not so bad when there's just one, but when there's three Its just hard to see what the turtle is getting ready to do.
I'll really admit that most dps, and especially gwfs, don't care a bit about this. But it's almost to the point where if I see the party has 3 archons, I'll leave it. They want to pursue the dps charts to the detriment of the team, let them.
that sounds really annoying lol. jamie runs with groups where the archons and CWs are 50ft away from the actual fight so that may be a better fit for u. lol can u even cast anything at that range?
I never claimed uncapped debuff companions were the one and only reason groups did speed runs, I rather stated they provide a group wide dps boost no other companion type can and that's why speedrunners shown on the videos have all 1 10% or 20% pet. Anyway if they all had other companion types they could still beat FBI quickly yes, but it is mathematically impossible that they'd do it in the same amount of time than with uncapped ebuff companions let alone faster.
It is obvious that for attempting a record the group needs to practice a lot.
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clericalistMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 595Arc User
edited June 2017
For those that are not speed runners (which I would assume is a sizable chunk), just how much of a difference does a companion make? If say I want to run with something that has not been mentioned here (which is basically over 90% of the companions), what kind difference are we talking about here, for example will the fire archon dps player beat say a leprechaun dps player by double paingiver purely because of the companion choice? Personally I do not want run with a Fire Archon or Sellsword (or whatever is the current "you must have it" thing is), this is for both immersion reasons and that I am fond of the my companion, but I also do not want to end up having wasted lots of AD when I am being surpassed by orders of magnitude differences in damage.
More specifically I have an owl companion for my hunter ranger, I really do not want change it, would trying to make in legendary with bondings be a complete waste or is it within reason to do it ? Likewise if you are playing a support class, is the exact choice of a companion that important ?
I have been testing on the dummies, as it is all I have for some single hit testing, and swapping between the Epic Erinyes +10% Crit severity (I have 84% without it right now plus the trans vorpal) and Epic Repentant Dragon Cultist; +4% damage against targets at >50% health, as active (not summoned - I have another pet for that).
I think the math says the additional +10% crit would give me ~7% damage increase on a critical hit, going from 134 crit severity to 144 crit severity but the values recorded on the hits are lower when I have this pet on vs the +4 damage pet. So either it is too hard to judge without a proper tool on xbox because of the variations in damage, my math is wrong, or at this point the difference is small enough that it really doesn't matter except for the min/max effect.
Alos, one thing I noticed on my tank, which had not occurred to me before I did it, was in testing out the Con Artist for a couple runs, when I changed out the summoned legendary companion for the blue Con Artist I lost a nice chuck of HP as my legendary companion has about 10K more HP than the blue guy. This is not a huge change, but does change the buff produced from Aura of Courage.
TR - Sun: 16000 IL OP - Sunshine: 16000 IL
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
For those that are not speed runners (which I would assume is a sizable chunk), just how much of a difference does a companion make?
Ultimately, I'd say your choice in companions (taking active bonuses into account as well) makes slightly more difference than your race or starting stat roll, but barring some of the horrible trollish options available (summoned companions with massive knockbacks or a possession mechanic), using whatever you want as a non-minmaxing player isn't going to hurt much.
Last caveat is to be mindful if you have a defender companion, it has the potential to create problems for a player-controlled tank. At least have the courtesy to check.
For those that are not speed runners (which I would assume is a sizable chunk), just how much of a difference does a companion make? If say I want to run with something that has not been mentioned here (which is basically over 90% of the companions), what kind difference are we talking about here, for example will the fire archon dps player beat say a leprechaun dps player by double paingiver purely because of the companion choice? Personally I do not want run with a Fire Archon or Sellsword (or whatever is the current "you must have it" thing is), this is for both immersion reasons and that I am fond of the my companion, but I also do not want to end up having wasted lots of AD when I am being surpassed by orders of magnitude differences in damage.
More specifically I have an owl companion for my hunter ranger, I really do not want change it, would trying to make in legendary with bondings be a complete waste or is it within reason to do it ? Likewise if you are playing a support class, is the exact choice of a companion that important ?
I understand your sentiments. I personally find the Archons to be ugly and don't want a human companion. So I had my friends hunt through all of the companions with the following set of requirements: 1) Can't be human (or human shaped) 2) Can't be an Archon 3) I want it to either buff my group (not just me) or debuff the enemy 4) must proc bonding
We hunted and found my current companion and she's perfect for my character. No two of my characters run the same companion as summoned and all of them do just fine (well other than my TR, but that's because she's a WK and not her companions fault).
Unless you have a companion that causes problems in a fight - I couldn't care less what people run. I certainly wouldn't kick someone over their companion choice.
Founding Member of "Wrong Side of the Stronghold" Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
I have been testing on the dummies, as it is all I have for some single hit testing, and swapping between the Epic Erinyes +10% Crit severity (I have 84% without it right now plus the trans vorpal) and Epic Repentant Dragon Cultist; +4% damage against targets at >50% health, as active (not summoned - I have another pet for that).
I think the math says the additional +10% crit would give me ~7% damage increase on a critical hit, going from 134 crit severity to 144 crit severity but the values recorded on the hits are lower when I have this pet on vs the +4 damage pet. So either it is too hard to judge without a proper tool on xbox because of the variations in damage, my math is wrong, or at this point the difference is small enough that it really doesn't matter except for the min/max effect.
Alos, one thing I noticed on my tank, which had not occurred to me before I did it, was in testing out the Con Artist for a couple runs, when I changed out the summoned legendary companion for the blue Con Artist I lost a nice chuck of HP as my legendary companion has about 10K more HP than the blue guy. This is not a huge change, but does change the buff produced from Aura of Courage.
I thought epic erinyes was +5% crit severity (not 10)... recently asked about the crit sev vs. dmg active bonus, and was told that almost always, the increase to base damage will be a greater value (assuming crit chance at/near 100). But I can't see the numbers being so far off that it would be noticeable except in long (>20 second) fights.
XBOX GT @ Merak Starborne Fyre, Eyce & Wynd Ladies of Neverwinter I stopped believing this morning; Journey is going to be PISSED.
I have been testing on the dummies, as it is all I have for some single hit testing, and swapping between the Epic Erinyes +10% Crit severity (I have 84% without it right now plus the trans vorpal) and Epic Repentant Dragon Cultist; +4% damage against targets at >50% health, as active (not summoned - I have another pet for that).
I think the math says the additional +10% crit would give me ~7% damage increase on a critical hit, going from 134 crit severity to 144 crit severity but the values recorded on the hits are lower when I have this pet on vs the +4 damage pet. So either it is too hard to judge without a proper tool on xbox because of the variations in damage, my math is wrong, or at this point the difference is small enough that it really doesn't matter except for the min/max effect.
Alos, one thing I noticed on my tank, which had not occurred to me before I did it, was in testing out the Con Artist for a couple runs, when I changed out the summoned legendary companion for the blue Con Artist I lost a nice chuck of HP as my legendary companion has about 10K more HP than the blue guy. This is not a huge change, but does change the buff produced from Aura of Courage.
I thought epic erinyes was +5% crit severity (not 10)... recently asked about the crit sev vs. dmg active bonus, and was told that almost always, the increase to base damage will be a greater value (assuming crit chance at/near 100). But I can't see the numbers being so far off that it would be noticeable except in long (>20 second) fights.
Epic Erinyes is 10% Crit Sev (dancing sword is 5%)
You can calculate the damage increase from crit sevevrity. Let's say you have 84% base + 50% vorp = 132% crit severity. How much DPS increase from an additional 10% crit severity?
When you crit @132% crit sev, your hit generates 232% normal damage. If you have 142% crit sev (with the Erinyes) then it generates 242% normal damage. Because the crit component is multiplicative with the rest of the damage formula, you can factor out the rest of the formula when assessing the damage increase:
(242% - 232%) / (232%) = 0.04310344827 ~ 4.3% damage increase from the Erinyes.
BTW because of the way the damage calculation works, Combat Advantage (if you have it triggered) is additive to Critical Severity. Since that effectively increases your "base" for the damage increase calculation, our result would be even less than 4.3% if you measured this assuming CA was on.
Edit: The CA piece could knock the effectiveness of the Crit companion down quite a bit. Base CA is +15% damage, but you also get additional points from Attributes (varies by class) and potentially the entire CA component can be multiplied by 1.1 if you have the CA boon (maze engine maybe? or underdark... i forget)
So assuming you have 0% CA from your attrib and you didn't take the CA Boon, if you are hitting in CA your "crit + CA severity" is now
142% + 15% = 157% meaning you are hitting for 257% damage. In this case, the +10% severity from Erinyes is worth:
(267% - 257%) / (257%) = 0.03891050583 ~ 3.89% dps increase. That's the best case for a CA-enabled hit.
Let's look at a more reasonable case: Let's say you have 5% additional CA from your attributes, and you did take the CA boon because you care about DPS.
That puts us at 142% + (15% + 5%)*1.1 = 164% meaning you are hitting for 264% damage. In this case, the +10% severity from Erinyes is worth:
(274% - 264%) / (264%) = 0.03787878787 ~ 3.79% dps increase. If you have any other sources of CA, the increase would be even lower.
well there is me sticking my foot in my piehole. but thanks for the detailed look... So If I read that right, I should be looking to switch out erinyes for the seige master...
XBOX GT @ Merak Starborne Fyre, Eyce & Wynd Ladies of Neverwinter I stopped believing this morning; Journey is going to be PISSED.
well there is me sticking my foot in my piehole. but thanks for the detailed look... So If I read that right, I should be looking to switch out erinyes for the seige master...
If you are running a vorpal, it's often better for your dps to stick with +dmg active pets vs. crit severity / CA pets (especially if you already have other sources of crit sev and CA). Crit severity pets can be good if you have a high crit but are not running a vorpal/dread, since your "base" crit severity in that case is low enough. They can also be preferred by healers, since crit severity also benefits healing (and +dmg does not).
Edit: for example, if we weren't running a Vorp in the previous case
Crit severity is 84% so we hit for 184% damage. +10% is worth: (194% - 184%) / (184%) = 0.05434782608 ~ 5.4% damage increase. That's not bad if you're assuming 100% uptime.
But bringing a Vorp nudges your crit severity up so high that the diminishing returns start cutting in.
I have been testing on the dummies, as it is all I have for some single hit testing, and swapping between the Epic Erinyes +10% Crit severity (I have 84% without it right now plus the trans vorpal) and Epic Repentant Dragon Cultist; +4% damage against targets at >50% health, as active (not summoned - I have another pet for that).
I think the math says the additional +10% crit would give me ~7% damage increase on a critical hit
@sundance777 I think your math is a little optimistic
More specifically, I think you forgot to count in the extra 100% for the base hit (with 0% crit severity, your critical hit would do normal "non-crit" damage, and not 0 damage altogether)
So I'm guessing you did (144% - 134%) / (134%) = 0.07462686567 ~ 7.46% but that's not correct.
The math here would be (244% - 234%) / (234%) = 0.04273504273 ~ 4.27%.
But that's still optimistic, because it's assuming that you do not have Combat Advantage for the hit. Combat Advantage is additive to Crit Severity on crit hits (see my earlier post). So that nudges our combined crit+ CA % at least at least another +15%, possibly more if you have additional CA from attributes and the CA boon.
So assuming 15% crit sev, plus another 5% from your attribute (could be more or less), plus the crit severity boon your base % is
244% + (1.1)*(15%+5%) = 266% so the effect of adding another 10% would be:
(276% - 266%) / (266%) = 0.03759398496 ~ 3.76% damage increase as a "reasonable estimate" for your situation. If you know your CA numbers you can do your own math exactly.
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
I'm kind-of wondering if the "optimal" buff/debuff companion combination in a 5-man group might be 1 Harper Bard, 1 Dancing Shield and 3 Con Artists/Sellswords.
Thoughts on that ?
Hoping for improvements...
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
I'm kind-of wondering if the "optimal" buff/debuff companion combination in a 5-man group might be 1 Harper Bard, 1 Dancing Shield and 3 Con Artists/Sellswords.
You know the devs will fix the sell sword soon. This debuff is causing content to be to easy when players run with more than one of those companions. We will soon see a fix in place to make the sell sword, rebel merc, and con artist all have a single stack. We all know it is coming, so why not adjust our companions now for future state instead of current state as it will be a waste of AD to get a the companion to legendary as I have seen so many players using.
you mean to not able to stack if they are the same companion?
I have been testing on the dummies, as it is all I have for some single hit testing, and swapping between the Epic Erinyes +10% Crit severity (I have 84% without it right now plus the trans vorpal) and Epic Repentant Dragon Cultist; +4% damage against targets at >50% health, as active (not summoned - I have another pet for that).
I think the math says the additional +10% crit would give me ~7% damage increase on a critical hit
@sundance777 I think your math is a little optimistic
More specifically, I think you forgot to count in the extra 100% for the base hit (with 0% crit severity, your critical hit would do normal "non-crit" damage, and not 0 damage altogether)
So I'm guessing you did (144% - 134%) / (134%) = 0.07462686567 ~ 7.46% but that's not correct.
The math here would be (244% - 234%) / (234%) = 0.04273504273 ~ 4.27%.
But that's still optimistic, because it's assuming that you do not have Combat Advantage for the hit. Combat Advantage is additive to Crit Severity on crit hits (see my earlier post). So that nudges our combined crit+ CA % at least at least another +15%, possibly more if you have additional CA from attributes and the CA boon.
So assuming 15% crit sev, plus another 5% from your attribute (could be more or less), plus the crit severity boon your base % is
244% + (1.1)*(15%+5%) = 266% so the effect of adding another 10% would be:
(276% - 266%) / (266%) = 0.03759398496 ~ 3.76% damage increase as a "reasonable estimate" for your situation. If you know your CA numbers you can do your own math exactly.
Thanks for the math assist, I think even without all the exact numbers, I am keeping the +4% from the Repentant Dragon Cultist. It seems better and feels good and the math supports that.
Thanks for the math assist, I think even without all the exact numbers, I am keeping the +4% from the Repentant Dragon Cultist. It seems better and feels good and the math supports that.
Probably a solid choice, it's certainly not going to be hurting your damage numbers significantly. The other benefit is that since it's a +dmg bonus, it will always provide it's benefit even if you increase other sources of crit sev, or even change your build to be high-power low-crit.
Oh and that 2x effect on dragons is nothing to scoff at. Although to be honest I've never tested to see if it actually works.
I'm not reallly runnig being biss this for 2 reasons
1 - I run on lesser boundings because they are really overpowered and my toons are at good shape with that. 2 - My companions/pets i use to fit my look, like: a black drake on my HR using a black armor + shadow wolf mount and terror enchant a Paranoid delusion on my CW because he has the mirage weapon set a Duegard Theurge on my dwarf GF, because i use red/gold armor with fireburst enchant + greater flaming (on a volcanic sword since theres no volcanic hand axe)
To be honest playing on a bis toon with 3x bounding + a good epic pet must be like living "Saitama's life" ! Really i've stopped to spent ad on my GWF because he was killing stuff soo fast that i tough it was really boring already, and i dont have 100% crit, plus my severity is like 105%...
Anyway really nice post because most of the info here is really good even for non bis toons, like the cheaper pets being usefull at blue quality.
btw upgrading your jewelcraft is pretty usefull for you ring user pets since the underdark rings got cut off...
I'm kind-of wondering if the "optimal" buff/debuff companion combination in a 5-man group might be 1 Harper Bard, 1 Dancing Shield and 3 Con Artists/Sellswords.
Thoughts on that ?
Sellsword is still better than the harper bard.
I suspect you have the numbers to back that up somewhere...care to share?
I'm kind-of wondering if the "optimal" buff/debuff companion combination in a 5-man group might be 1 Harper Bard, 1 Dancing Shield and 3 Con Artists/Sellswords.
Thoughts on that ?
Sellsword is still better than the harper bard.
I suspect you have the numbers to back that up somewhere...care to share?
Old thread but has most of the answers you're looking for. The short answer is that the debuff is lower and more mitigated than sellsword, the HP buff is broken, and the stat boost is 800 power / 800 crit which isn't that great for end-game parties.
Harper Bard is an ok "introductory" support companion, and might even be more effective than sellsword in lower-geared groups. But it just gets outpaced dramatically at the high end.
which one is better for a SS Renegade CW - e.g. having other useful abilities, stats, better at survival, proccing faster?
Answering my own question, for a dps Sellsword or Rebel Mercenary has an advantage of 3 Offense runestone slots, which allows to maximize the power stat, while Con Artist has 2 Offense and 1 Defense slots, so one of the bonding runestones gives Defense instead of Power. Also, while it's easier to get some 3 rings for the Con Artist, getting 3 rings with Offense\Offense slots is probably as hard as getting waist/neck/knot for the Sellsword and Rebel Mercenary, at least I was able to get all 3 Heroic/Bold +4 items for my Sellsword from IG in less than 100 runs.
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Going for BIS is always a gamble, bc it might change. You just have to ask yourself, is it worth the risk? Is it OP, how so, how much would I have to spent and is there talk of a nerf and for how long did they discuss it? If you dont like the chance, dont change. If you aim for BIS and the change is reasonable, go for it.
For example, the active power of Tensers floating disk would boost my mains dps a few %. I could buy it, but I did not do it, bc it is to expensive in my opinion. On the other hand, I dished out 7 kk AD for a legacy snail, to boost the AP gain of an alt from 15% to 25%.
Another problem here is, that the situation differs on all platforms. Even my alts had/have full avenger gear, bc it was dirt cheap.
I'll really admit that most dps, and especially gwfs, don't care a bit about this. But it's almost to the point where if I see the party has 3 archons, I'll leave it. They want to pursue the dps charts to the detriment of the team, let them.
I never claimed uncapped debuff companions were the one and only reason groups did speed runs, I rather stated they provide a group wide dps boost no other companion type can and that's why speedrunners shown on the videos have all 1 10% or 20% pet. Anyway if they all had other companion types they could still beat FBI quickly yes, but it is mathematically impossible that they'd do it in the same amount of time than with uncapped ebuff companions let alone faster.
It is obvious that for attempting a record the group needs to practice a lot.
More specifically I have an owl companion for my hunter ranger, I really do not want change it, would trying to make in legendary with bondings be a complete waste or is it within reason to do it ? Likewise if you are playing a support class, is the exact choice of a companion that important ?
I think the math says the additional +10% crit would give me ~7% damage increase on a critical hit, going from 134 crit severity to 144 crit severity but the values recorded on the hits are lower when I have this pet on vs the +4 damage pet. So either it is too hard to judge without a proper tool on xbox because of the variations in damage, my math is wrong, or at this point the difference is small enough that it really doesn't matter except for the min/max effect.
Alos, one thing I noticed on my tank, which had not occurred to me before I did it, was in testing out the Con Artist for a couple runs, when I changed out the summoned legendary companion for the blue Con Artist I lost a nice chuck of HP as my legendary companion has about 10K more HP than the blue guy. This is not a huge change, but does change the buff produced from Aura of Courage.
OP - Sunshine: 16000 IL
Casual Dailies
Last caveat is to be mindful if you have a defender companion, it has the potential to create problems for a player-controlled tank. At least have the courtesy to check.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
1) Can't be human (or human shaped)
2) Can't be an Archon
3) I want it to either buff my group (not just me) or debuff the enemy
4) must proc bonding
We hunted and found my current companion and she's perfect for my character. No two of my characters run the same companion as summoned and all of them do just fine (well other than my TR, but that's because she's a WK and not her companions fault).
Unless you have a companion that causes problems in a fight - I couldn't care less what people run. I certainly wouldn't kick someone over their companion choice.
Ravenskya - TR / Krisha Chaos - OP / Waffles - GF / Dex Domitor - HR
Becky the trendy GWF - GWF / Too Toasty - SW / Falcor - DC / Morrigan - CW / Sir Didymus - OP
recently asked about the crit sev vs. dmg active bonus, and was told that almost always, the increase to base damage will be a greater value (assuming crit chance at/near 100). But I can't see the numbers being so far off that it would be noticeable except in long (>20 second) fights.
Fyre, Eyce & Wynd
Ladies of Neverwinter
I stopped believing this morning; Journey is going to be PISSED.
You can calculate the damage increase from crit sevevrity. Let's say you have 84% base + 50% vorp = 132% crit severity. How much DPS increase from an additional 10% crit severity?
When you crit @132% crit sev, your hit generates 232% normal damage. If you have 142% crit sev (with the Erinyes) then it generates 242% normal damage. Because the crit component is multiplicative with the rest of the damage formula, you can factor out the rest of the formula when assessing the damage increase:
(242% - 232%) / (232%) = 0.04310344827 ~ 4.3% damage increase from the Erinyes.
BTW because of the way the damage calculation works, Combat Advantage (if you have it triggered) is additive to Critical Severity. Since that effectively increases your "base" for the damage increase calculation, our result would be even less than 4.3% if you measured this assuming CA was on.
Some good discussion on critical severity:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1226915/critical-severity-companions
Some good discussion on the damage formula in general:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1228351/pc-pve-basic-ability-information
Edit: The CA piece could knock the effectiveness of the Crit companion down quite a bit. Base CA is +15% damage, but you also get additional points from Attributes (varies by class) and potentially the entire CA component can be multiplied by 1.1 if you have the CA boon (maze engine maybe? or underdark... i forget)
So assuming you have 0% CA from your attrib and you didn't take the CA Boon, if you are hitting in CA your "crit + CA severity" is now
142% + 15% = 157% meaning you are hitting for 257% damage.
In this case, the +10% severity from Erinyes is worth:
(267% - 257%) / (257%) = 0.03891050583 ~ 3.89% dps increase. That's the best case for a CA-enabled hit.
Let's look at a more reasonable case: Let's say you have 5% additional CA from your attributes, and you did take the CA boon because you care about DPS.
That puts us at 142% + (15% + 5%)*1.1 = 164% meaning you are hitting for 264% damage. In this case, the +10% severity from Erinyes is worth:
(274% - 264%) / (264%) = 0.03787878787 ~ 3.79% dps increase. If you have any other sources of CA, the increase would be even lower.
So If I read that right, I should be looking to switch out erinyes for the seige master...
Fyre, Eyce & Wynd
Ladies of Neverwinter
I stopped believing this morning; Journey is going to be PISSED.
Edit: for example, if we weren't running a Vorp in the previous case
Crit severity is 84% so we hit for 184% damage. +10% is worth:
(194% - 184%) / (184%) = 0.05434782608 ~ 5.4% damage increase. That's not bad if you're assuming 100% uptime.
But bringing a Vorp nudges your crit severity up so high that the diminishing returns start cutting in.
More specifically, I think you forgot to count in the extra 100% for the base hit (with 0% crit severity, your critical hit would do normal "non-crit" damage, and not 0 damage altogether)
So I'm guessing you did (144% - 134%) / (134%) = 0.07462686567 ~ 7.46% but that's not correct.
The math here would be (244% - 234%) / (234%) = 0.04273504273 ~ 4.27%.
But that's still optimistic, because it's assuming that you do not have Combat Advantage for the hit. Combat Advantage is additive to Crit Severity on crit hits (see my earlier post). So that nudges our combined crit+ CA % at least at least another +15%, possibly more if you have additional CA from attributes and the CA boon.
So assuming 15% crit sev, plus another 5% from your attribute (could be more or less), plus the crit severity boon your base % is
244% + (1.1)*(15%+5%) = 266% so the effect of adding another 10% would be:
(276% - 266%) / (266%) = 0.03759398496 ~ 3.76% damage increase as a "reasonable estimate" for your situation. If you know your CA numbers you can do your own math exactly.
Thoughts on that ?
Thanks for the math assist, I think even without all the exact numbers, I am keeping the +4% from the Repentant Dragon Cultist. It seems better and feels good and the math supports that.
OP - Sunshine: 16000 IL
Casual Dailies
Oh and that 2x effect on dragons is nothing to scoff at. Although to be honest I've never tested to see if it actually works.
I'm not reallly runnig being biss this for 2 reasons
1 - I run on lesser boundings because they are really overpowered and my toons are at good shape with that.
2 - My companions/pets i use to fit my look, like:
a black drake on my HR using a black armor + shadow wolf mount and terror enchant
a Paranoid delusion on my CW because he has the mirage weapon set
a Duegard Theurge on my dwarf GF, because i use red/gold armor with fireburst enchant + greater flaming (on a volcanic sword since theres no volcanic hand axe)
To be honest playing on a bis toon with 3x bounding + a good epic pet must be like living "Saitama's life" !
Really i've stopped to spent ad on my GWF because he was killing stuff soo fast that i tough it was really boring already, and i dont have 100% crit, plus my severity is like 105%...
Anyway really nice post because most of the info here is really good even for non bis toons, like the cheaper pets being usefull at blue quality.
btw upgrading your jewelcraft is pretty usefull for you ring user pets since the underdark rings got cut off...
i miss the Orcus ring on my pet soo much
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1221783/harper-bard-testing-with-act
Old thread but has most of the answers you're looking for. The short answer is that the debuff is lower and more mitigated than sellsword, the HP buff is broken, and the stat boost is 800 power / 800 crit which isn't that great for end-game parties.
Harper Bard is an ok "introductory" support companion, and might even be more effective than sellsword in lower-geared groups. But it just gets outpaced dramatically at the high end.
Also, while it's easier to get some 3 rings for the Con Artist, getting 3 rings with Offense\Offense slots is probably as hard as getting waist/neck/knot for the Sellsword and Rebel Mercenary, at least I was able to get all 3 Heroic/Bold +4 items for my Sellsword from IG in less than 100 runs.