What went wrong with companions?

adinosii · May 2019

There was a period during Preview testing when people felt the balance between augments and non-augments was "just right". Basically, there was no clear choice what was better - Yes, augments would be better for some builds and circumstances, while a healer or striker companion was the superior choice at other times.

Basically, not having a single "BiS" choice was a clear sign that the balance was "right" - just as it should be.

Then we got a change, which significantly reduced the DPS of strike companions and the healing from healing companions - one companion that previously healed for 15.000 HP every now and then would now heal for 150 HP.

With one stroke those companions were just made irrelevant - exactly when the consensus was that things were "right", and now there is really not a single good reason to run anything but an augment.

Amazing, eh?

ecrana · May 2019

Don't worry! As soon as you get that augment worked up to legendary, build out your comp set around that, gear up, etc.... they'll nerf augments and give non-augs a boost.... the cycle never ends.

empalas · May 2019

I never used augments before because I always did a lot of solo stuff so most classes had healer. Guess I will have to go augment until they figured out they "fixed" something that wasn't broke. The most dreaded of all programming errors. "Don't fix it if it ain't broke"

darthpotater · May 2019

"While we understand some players have concerns over companions, we believe they are in an overall pretty good place. We do expect there to be some post-launch tweaks to companions as the content gets played more frequently and we receive more specific feedback."

/sarcasm

kinamara · May 2019

The thing is quite simple really. augment Companions have augment which is unaffected by scaling. Bonding rune stones scale down so the harsher the area you go to scales the better augments get. Augments get the benefit of those bondings and also augment (transfer 100% of their stats on top of that) This means the more the scaling is the better it is to have an augment because it will help your stats be higher at a much better rate than bonding rune stones (which when at rank 15 get slashed from 70 each to 20-28% depending on what area you are in) but that augment is always 100% no matter what. Scaling is what is really pushing non augments out...

mordekai · May 2019

I'm going Warlock with Augment, and perma-puppet for lazy CA. Cos CA in solo play is about the only use an active companion offers.

The Lump Hammer of Balance always lands heavily, and is Cryptic's preferred method of "tweaking" things.

Healer Companion doing a bit more than is ideal?
THUNK... nerf it by 99%
That's better isn't it!

That's a "tweak" by Cryptic standards... be thankful those healers are delivering WHOLE NUMBERS of healing. Three figures is massive.

But don't worry... when the message eventually sinks in that it needs sorting (and that may be the next patch or three years from now), those healers will get THUNKED the other way and probably start Healing 150'000'000 per second, because these guys know no other way of fixing stuff.

lantern22 · May 2019

mordekai#1901 said:
I'm going Warlock with Augment, and perma-puppet for lazy CA. Cos CA in solo play is about the only use an active companion offers.

The Lump Hammer of Balance always lands heavily, and is Cryptic's preferred method of "tweaking" things.

Healer Companion doing a bit more than is ideal?
THUNK... nerf it by 99%
That's better isn't it!

That's a "tweak" by Cryptic standards... be thankful those healers are delivering WHOLE NUMBERS of healing. Three figures is massive.

But don't worry... when the message eventually sinks in that it needs sorting (and that may be the next patch or three years from now), those healers will get THUNKED the other way and probably start Healing 150'000'000 per second, because these guys know no other way of fixing stuff.

This 1000000000000000%

robai · May 2019

This is what U16 did:

1) Companions do 100 times less healing
on top of that:
2) Lifesteal was removed
on top of that:
3) Mobs move several times faster
on top of that:
4) Mobs hit you faster and harder
on top of that:
5) Your movement speed was decreased (so you end up in red circles quite often)
on top of that:
6) Timers of your powers increased, it feels like it's 2-3 times longer now (so you do less dmg and do less control, less buffs/debuffs)
on top of that:
7) Some Mob powers became almost instant (sometimes mobs hit you before you notice red circle), they cast so fast that you get hits before you start using some tactics (common example: on barbarian you activate battlerage and you see that you are already standing in red circle and must move out, sometimes you're lucky to do it in time, but your battlerage was wasted anyway)
on top of that:
8) Bugs (mobs instakill you, can't complete some quests etc., but bugs are just a MINOR issue compared to the rest stuff of U16)
on top of that:
9) The scaling (this means that many things were nerfed a lot, but if it were JUST the scaling then it wouldn't be so annoying to play the game)

Just one thing of any of these 9 things would be enough for many to complain on forums.
But now we have such an absurd situation that many players don't even bother to complain, it's just too much things broken in this game now.

Unknown · May 2019

This content has been removed.

tikamage · May 2019

Wonders Why there is even Scaling?? Not useful and levels should be the Dependent not the Loss. One thing I have to say is on my Wizard has 800 Plus Armoring over 13K Item ratings and was in Defend The Sword coast with 2 Guild and Alliance member, and with that, since there is Scaling, we had 0 Damage ability could not damage any thing there. This is why Scaling is Bad here not good.

adinosii · May 2019

iamsmokingone#2455 said:
you cannot get combat advantage solo with an augment.

Some classes used to have powers that gave them combat advantage (and so, an augment would be optimal for them). Are you saying all such powers have been removed? (I had a lvl 70 o every class, but haven't really bothered to play any of them except my cleric, after M16 was launched, so I honestly don't know).

Anyhow, my main problem is that there was a period during Preview testing when non-augments were a lot more useful than they are today. Now it has been confirmed that healing companions not healing is a bug, and as that changed at the same time as, well "striker companions not striking", maybe that will get fixed at the same time, which might make non-augments a viable choice for everyone.

Right's now, however, I'll stick with my augment - I don't need anything else for solo play and in group play, I have positioning and my team mates to give me CA.

tassedethe13 · May 2019

iamsmokingone#2455 said:

adinosii said:
There was a period during Preview testing when people felt the balance between augments and non-augments was "just right". Basically, there was no clear choice what was better - Yes, augments would be better for some builds and circumstances, while a healer or striker companion was the superior choice at other times.

Basically, not having a single "BiS" choice was a clear sign that the balance was "right" - just as it should be.

Then we got a change, which significantly reduced the DPS of strike companions and the healing from healing companions - one companion that previously healed for 15.000 HP every now and then would now heal for 150 HP.

With one stroke those companions were just made irrelevant - exactly when the consensus was that things were "right", and now there is really not a single good reason to run anything but an augment.

Amazing, eh?
I don't agree with you.
Sure augments give more stats, but at level 80 with endgame gear you are already overcap on basically all your stats except CA,deflection and awareness, with no boons, no companion and no enchantments.
you cannot get combat advantage solo with an augment.
and some companion powers rely on your companion attacking to proc...for me i have celestial lions presence which gives me 10% extra dmg as radiant dmg for 10 seconds when my companion attacks (at a 50% chance per attack) with a companion this has near 100% uptime, with an augment there is no point in slotting it as it won't ever proc.
also the lion absorbs 10% of the damage anyone within 5' of him takes and he grants party members stacks of radiant weapon which causes them to deal 2% additional damage as radiant damage per stack.
sure augments may be better for your average player who will go on reddit or mmominds, look up a guide and then run with it, but i'm sure many others like myself prefer an actual companion still.

Can you please show us your overcapped stats with a non augment pet ?

aratech · May 2019

tikamage#2445 said:
Wonders Why there is even Scaling?? Not useful and levels should be the Dependent not the Loss. One thing I have to say is on my Wizard has 800 Plus Armoring over 13K Item ratings and was in Defend The Sword coast with 2 Guild and Alliance member, and with that, since there is Scaling, we had 0 Damage ability could not damage any thing there. This is why Scaling is Bad here not good.

Because Cryptic is unwilling to give the time and resources necessary to create actual level 80 endgame content. So they're just lazily scaling in an attempt to artificially create "more" endgame content. But in true form that, as a Caturday Survivor that wears that label proudly, they botched it horribly.

It's a testament to the game's potential and the other players in it that I manage to have fun despite the best efforts of the people mangling the nuts and bolts of this game behind the scenes...

What went wrong with companions?

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