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The Rundown: Companions In Neverwinter
harnel
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
The Rundown: Companions in Neverwinter
I've had a couple people ask me what the best companions are in the game, and my general response is "whatever looks cool, but you want an augment companion in a dungeon". Now, other companions feel kind of neglected - they're fun and everything, but you can't really utilize them in high end stuff - anything that can die will in epic dungeons, and you can't use them at all in PvP. Still, they're a big part of the game, can be very flavorful for your character, and in general people may want to know more about them. I'm here to help with that. To follow in the footsteps of the handbook writers of yore, I'll be following their templates of handbook writing for both readability and ease of use. This is going to be a “Dummies” guide, so I’ll be rehashing everything for the newbies to the game as well.
Quality: The Importance of Being Shiny
Quality, sometimes referred to as color, is an important part of determining the use of an item, and even more so in the case of companions, where it’s directly tied to their advancement. White companions, which are only gotten from the grand emporium in Protector’s Enclave for two gold apiece (or in the case of the poor neglected skeleton dog, bones from an event long past), can only get up to rank 15, which is absolutely pitiful in the endgame. Even the defender among them, the Man At Arms, is unreasonably squishy when exposed to an endgame boss.
Uncommon (Green) quality companions are the next tier up, and they can get up to rank 20. These companions are better than their white quality compatriots, but are still severely limited. Still, if you play the game for a considerable length of time, you’re liable to end up with a bunch of these, as green companions are the designated quality for promos. I myself already have two account-wide promo companions.
Rare (Blue) is where we really start getting into the real game. Getting up to rank 25 means they won’t die instantly in a dungeon, but their active bonuses all start following a different pattern – while white and green companions provide stat bonuses to your character, blue and up tend to provide things that are specific to the character in question. The Neverember Guard, for instance, gives you a second wind ability that, while useful, very rarely triggers. This is also an important quality level due to the fact rank 25 is when you have everything unlocked on the companion you’re looking at – all their item slots and all their runestone slots.
Epic (Purple) is what every lower quality companion looks at and weeps, for they are incredibly unlikely to ever reach this lofty height. These are companions that can reach rank 30, unlocking their fourth skin and third ability, a passive that increases their effectiveness in general, or one that improves one of their already existing abilities. If you’re about to take a non-augment companion into a dungeon, I don’t recommend having it anything but rank 30.
As you can probably tell, high quality companions aren’t just rarer and more expensive than their lower quality compatriots, but outright better in almost every respect. An increased level cap means being capable of taking more hits, dealing more damage, and having more equipment. It’s a direct quality equals effectiveness comparison.
Classes: They Have Roles Too
Companion use isn’t just determined by quality, oh no. Just like the players they follow, companions are segregated by their classes – A man-at-arms is a defender, a faithful initiatie is a leader, and a pseudodragon is a striker. Here’s a breakdown on what that means in regards to you.
Strikers are high damagers. They have average health and generally don’t focus on armoring themselves up in favor of pure glass-cannon goodness. Slap some power on them, and a rank 30 companion should be dishing out about 500 damage per attack, if not more. They have the highest damage, but lacking any sort of special mechanic, in general this is the grouping that does a miniscule amount of damage and then eats dirt for the rest of the fight once an elite mob decides to swat the uppity little thing.
Defenders are tanks. Every single one of them has the ability to do a hard taunt, which, for their target, moves them up to the front of the aggro line regardless of what piddly damage they’ve been doing, and have the health and defenses to take a few hits before being stomped flat enough to mail. Fortunately, that can be long enough for you to kick the teeth in of whatever your defender is distracting. Comes highly recommended for squishier classes.
Leaders are healers and buffers. These brave folk are the most likely of all companion types to survive a fight, because in general they’re focused on making you better at fighting, rather than trying to fight for themselves. Typically, they heal you in or between combat, making them absolutely invaluable in situations where you don’t have the ability to provide such healing for yourself.
Controllers are what they sound like – applying debuffs and control to the enemies. Sadly, there aren’t many and to be honest they’re not the most exciting things in the world either. There’s a few stars among them, but in general, they briefly provide a debuff to an enemy, making them the sort of anti-leader.
Augment companions hold the honor being at once the rarest companion type and being the most common companion bought. Augment companions are unique in that they aren’t a helper in combat – where a tank might distract the boss or a controller might provide a debuff, the augment companion adds it’s stats to you, making you all the more HAMSTER and heroic. As they are not really a separate entity (except in the case of the cat) they also can’t die in combat, meaning you don’t have to worry about them eating a fireball or giant axe to the face. These are useful for basically everybody, as having an augment companion in a dungeon basically means your effectiveness is increased all around. Many players swear by them, and for good reason.
Active Bonuses: The Power of Friendship
So called for the fact that you get these bonuses just for having a companion in an active slot even when it’s not actually summoned, active bonuses are buffs to the player (or, in some mostly useless cases, the summoned companion). These can be important, as they can be flat buff stats, or they can be more unique. One thing that you should be aware of, though, is that upgrading companions also upgrades their active bonuses. For example, let’s take the Cleric Disciple, a companion many, many people use. At white quality it gives you +25 regeneration, which is a joke when you hit level 60. If you upgrade her to green, though, suddenly she’s giving you +100 regeneration instead, which is far more considerable. Upgrade to blue? Enjoy +200 Regen. And following the pattern, it goes all the way up to +300, which is the equivalent of a stat boost from a rank 10 enchantment – not inconsiderable.
One other thing is of note, though – in general, you won’t find blue or purple companions that give flat stat bonuses unless you’ve upgraded them yourself. I’m not entirely sure why, but in general if you want a flat bonus you’re looking at upgrading a green or white quality companion – this is because Greens and Whites are the only ones with stat bonuses, while blue and purple have more esoteric effects. This isn’t to say the bonuses you get from the high quality companions is bad, quite the contrary, but at the same time they don’t add to your gearscore, which people tend to find important for some reason. Just a thing to keep in mind.
Upgrading Companions: What? Man-At-Arms is Evolving!
Upgrading companions in Neverwinter is a bit of a teeter-totter issue as to whether it’s a good idea or not. Let’s take a basic white companion, say a Man-At-Arms. Get him to level 15, and you may be looking for mournfully at that 300,000 Astral Diamond requirement for getting him to rank 20. And then it gets worse, when he’s at rank 20, as another upgrade button appears, this time for 500k. And finally, getting him from blue to purple so he can hit the remarkable rank 30? Another 750k. It costs, all told, 1.55 million AD to get a white companion to purple quality. That’s an amount even wallet warriors don’t scoff at, as it roughly translates to about $35 USD.
It gets worse. Oftentimes, it’s inexpensive to simply pick up another companion for the same price – That 750k that can go into bringing a blue companion to purple quality can be used to purchase most epic companions outright, whether from conversion to buy them off the zen store, or just off the auction house, and then you have both your old companion and your new one giving you bonuses and looking pretty.
It’s not all bad, though. First, even low quality companions have new skins and unlock item and runestone slots as they rank up, increase their active bonuses and general stats. This can be crazy useful if you’ve got a bonus you want more of – The Skeleton Warrior, for instance, gives you +55 power and lifesteal, but at purple quality gives you +165 to both stats instead without taking up an extra slot and while looking really, really cool.
So, is it generally worth it to upgrade? Not really. Not unless you’ve run out of other things to spend on to improve your build and equipment. However, having five purple companions that you upgraded from the ground up is phenomenal. It’s like slotting a rank 10 enchantment into a piece of gear, and, ironically, can actually be cheaper too. Rank 10 enchantments can cost anywhere from 1 million AD to 3 million, which can make upgrading a companion for that same bonus less costly while also making your companion much more of a HAMSTER.
I've had a couple people ask me what the best companions are in the game, and my general response is "whatever looks cool, but you want an augment companion in a dungeon". Now, other companions feel kind of neglected - they're fun and everything, but you can't really utilize them in high end stuff - anything that can die will in epic dungeons, and you can't use them at all in PvP. Still, they're a big part of the game, can be very flavorful for your character, and in general people may want to know more about them. I'm here to help with that. To follow in the footsteps of the handbook writers of yore, I'll be following their templates of handbook writing for both readability and ease of use. This is going to be a “Dummies” guide, so I’ll be rehashing everything for the newbies to the game as well.
Quality: The Importance of Being Shiny
Quality, sometimes referred to as color, is an important part of determining the use of an item, and even more so in the case of companions, where it’s directly tied to their advancement. White companions, which are only gotten from the grand emporium in Protector’s Enclave for two gold apiece (or in the case of the poor neglected skeleton dog, bones from an event long past), can only get up to rank 15, which is absolutely pitiful in the endgame. Even the defender among them, the Man At Arms, is unreasonably squishy when exposed to an endgame boss.
Uncommon (Green) quality companions are the next tier up, and they can get up to rank 20. These companions are better than their white quality compatriots, but are still severely limited. Still, if you play the game for a considerable length of time, you’re liable to end up with a bunch of these, as green companions are the designated quality for promos. I myself already have two account-wide promo companions.
Rare (Blue) is where we really start getting into the real game. Getting up to rank 25 means they won’t die instantly in a dungeon, but their active bonuses all start following a different pattern – while white and green companions provide stat bonuses to your character, blue and up tend to provide things that are specific to the character in question. The Neverember Guard, for instance, gives you a second wind ability that, while useful, very rarely triggers. This is also an important quality level due to the fact rank 25 is when you have everything unlocked on the companion you’re looking at – all their item slots and all their runestone slots.
Epic (Purple) is what every lower quality companion looks at and weeps, for they are incredibly unlikely to ever reach this lofty height. These are companions that can reach rank 30, unlocking their fourth skin and third ability, a passive that increases their effectiveness in general, or one that improves one of their already existing abilities. If you’re about to take a non-augment companion into a dungeon, I don’t recommend having it anything but rank 30.
As you can probably tell, high quality companions aren’t just rarer and more expensive than their lower quality compatriots, but outright better in almost every respect. An increased level cap means being capable of taking more hits, dealing more damage, and having more equipment. It’s a direct quality equals effectiveness comparison.
Classes: They Have Roles Too
Companion use isn’t just determined by quality, oh no. Just like the players they follow, companions are segregated by their classes – A man-at-arms is a defender, a faithful initiatie is a leader, and a pseudodragon is a striker. Here’s a breakdown on what that means in regards to you.
Strikers are high damagers. They have average health and generally don’t focus on armoring themselves up in favor of pure glass-cannon goodness. Slap some power on them, and a rank 30 companion should be dishing out about 500 damage per attack, if not more. They have the highest damage, but lacking any sort of special mechanic, in general this is the grouping that does a miniscule amount of damage and then eats dirt for the rest of the fight once an elite mob decides to swat the uppity little thing.
Defenders are tanks. Every single one of them has the ability to do a hard taunt, which, for their target, moves them up to the front of the aggro line regardless of what piddly damage they’ve been doing, and have the health and defenses to take a few hits before being stomped flat enough to mail. Fortunately, that can be long enough for you to kick the teeth in of whatever your defender is distracting. Comes highly recommended for squishier classes.
Leaders are healers and buffers. These brave folk are the most likely of all companion types to survive a fight, because in general they’re focused on making you better at fighting, rather than trying to fight for themselves. Typically, they heal you in or between combat, making them absolutely invaluable in situations where you don’t have the ability to provide such healing for yourself.
Controllers are what they sound like – applying debuffs and control to the enemies. Sadly, there aren’t many and to be honest they’re not the most exciting things in the world either. There’s a few stars among them, but in general, they briefly provide a debuff to an enemy, making them the sort of anti-leader.
Augment companions hold the honor being at once the rarest companion type and being the most common companion bought. Augment companions are unique in that they aren’t a helper in combat – where a tank might distract the boss or a controller might provide a debuff, the augment companion adds it’s stats to you, making you all the more HAMSTER and heroic. As they are not really a separate entity (except in the case of the cat) they also can’t die in combat, meaning you don’t have to worry about them eating a fireball or giant axe to the face. These are useful for basically everybody, as having an augment companion in a dungeon basically means your effectiveness is increased all around. Many players swear by them, and for good reason.
Active Bonuses: The Power of Friendship
So called for the fact that you get these bonuses just for having a companion in an active slot even when it’s not actually summoned, active bonuses are buffs to the player (or, in some mostly useless cases, the summoned companion). These can be important, as they can be flat buff stats, or they can be more unique. One thing that you should be aware of, though, is that upgrading companions also upgrades their active bonuses. For example, let’s take the Cleric Disciple, a companion many, many people use. At white quality it gives you +25 regeneration, which is a joke when you hit level 60. If you upgrade her to green, though, suddenly she’s giving you +100 regeneration instead, which is far more considerable. Upgrade to blue? Enjoy +200 Regen. And following the pattern, it goes all the way up to +300, which is the equivalent of a stat boost from a rank 10 enchantment – not inconsiderable.
One other thing is of note, though – in general, you won’t find blue or purple companions that give flat stat bonuses unless you’ve upgraded them yourself. I’m not entirely sure why, but in general if you want a flat bonus you’re looking at upgrading a green or white quality companion – this is because Greens and Whites are the only ones with stat bonuses, while blue and purple have more esoteric effects. This isn’t to say the bonuses you get from the high quality companions is bad, quite the contrary, but at the same time they don’t add to your gearscore, which people tend to find important for some reason. Just a thing to keep in mind.
Upgrading Companions: What? Man-At-Arms is Evolving!
Upgrading companions in Neverwinter is a bit of a teeter-totter issue as to whether it’s a good idea or not. Let’s take a basic white companion, say a Man-At-Arms. Get him to level 15, and you may be looking for mournfully at that 300,000 Astral Diamond requirement for getting him to rank 20. And then it gets worse, when he’s at rank 20, as another upgrade button appears, this time for 500k. And finally, getting him from blue to purple so he can hit the remarkable rank 30? Another 750k. It costs, all told, 1.55 million AD to get a white companion to purple quality. That’s an amount even wallet warriors don’t scoff at, as it roughly translates to about $35 USD.
It gets worse. Oftentimes, it’s inexpensive to simply pick up another companion for the same price – That 750k that can go into bringing a blue companion to purple quality can be used to purchase most epic companions outright, whether from conversion to buy them off the zen store, or just off the auction house, and then you have both your old companion and your new one giving you bonuses and looking pretty.
It’s not all bad, though. First, even low quality companions have new skins and unlock item and runestone slots as they rank up, increase their active bonuses and general stats. This can be crazy useful if you’ve got a bonus you want more of – The Skeleton Warrior, for instance, gives you +55 power and lifesteal, but at purple quality gives you +165 to both stats instead without taking up an extra slot and while looking really, really cool.
So, is it generally worth it to upgrade? Not really. Not unless you’ve run out of other things to spend on to improve your build and equipment. However, having five purple companions that you upgraded from the ground up is phenomenal. It’s like slotting a rank 10 enchantment into a piece of gear, and, ironically, can actually be cheaper too. Rank 10 enchantments can cost anywhere from 1 million AD to 3 million, which can make upgrading a companion for that same bonus less costly while also making your companion much more of a HAMSTER.
Post edited by harnel on
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This list is for all the currently released companions in neverwinter, giving brief details and my thoughts on them – if you have any comments about how I’ve ranked them (out of 5 for each category) then please, feel free to share your thoughts. Constructive input is always good.
As a note, Ratings are based my personal preference. And a few may be a bit skewed where I like them more than others for non-mechanical reasons. I remained objective for most of them, though.
White Quality Companions: Everybody Has To Start Somewhere
Name: Cleric Disciple
Role: Leader
How To Get It: Either through the Companion quest you get from Sgt. Knox at level 16, or for 2 gold at the Grand Emporium
My Thoughts: This is the cheapo companion of choice for basically anybody that doesn’t like spamming potions and isn’t a cleric themselves. Even at rank 15, she never loses utility, as her healing ability is based on your overall HP, and not a flat amount – she restores your HP by 20%, no muss or fuss. Suggested for basically everybody that doesn’t have an alternate healing method.
Overall Quality: 4/5
Name: Con Artist
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Grand Emporium for 2 Gold
My Thoughts: Really, White quality striker companions are just a level above useless. The entire reason you want him is to deal damage, and he won’t be doing that well at all. Get something else and never look back. The active bonus is worthy of note, for +25 crit strike, but that’s just not even worth the 2 Gold and active slot you’d need to use for him.
Overall Quality: 2/5
Name: Damaran Shepard
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Complete the Tutorial of Sword Coast Adventures.
My Thoughts: Well, it’s free, so that’s nice. Unfortunately, while it has respectable damage for a white quality striker, the two moves it does are subpar compared to the other white quality dog, and It’s active bonus is near useless.
Overall Quality: 1/5
Name: Dog
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Either through the companion quest from Sgt. Know at level 16, or 2 gold at the Grand Emporium
My Thoughts: This is one of the few strikers I really like. Shocking damage for its quality level (600 damage every 8 seconds despite being white quality!?) a knockdown, and an active bonus that benefits everybody other than clerics. One of the very few companions I’d consider upgrading to purple.
Overall Quality: 5/5
Name: Man At Arms
Role: Defender
How To Get It: Same as the dog or cleric, the quest Sgt. Knox gives you or 2 gold.
My Thoughts: This is another good white companion, though it doesn’t hold close to the dog. Hard taunts on both attacks it does and somehow peaking at 350 damage make it a respectable combatant that can take hits, dish them out, and distract a big threat long enough for you to stab it in the neck.
Overall Quality: 4/5
Name: Sellsword
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Same as the Man At Arms, Dog, or Cleric. Quest or 2 Gold.
My Thoughts: I Tried her. She’s not worth two gold. She’s even less worth two gold than the con artist is. This is a companion I wouldn’t take if she was freely offered because her damage is so absolutely abysmal that she just isn’t worth it. The active bonus might be worth it, but I certainly don’t want her. There’s other sources of power.
Overall Quality: 1/5
Name: Adbar Shieldmaiden
Role: Defender
How To Get It: 2 Gold at the Grand Emporium
My Thoughts: I haven’t tried her, but she’s apparently a female, dwarven version of the man at arms. If you prfer short rotund women over big bearded muscular men, then this is the choice for you.
Overall Quality: 4/5
Name: Skeletal Dog
Role: Striker
How To Get It: 40 bones from an event long past
My Thoughts: It’s the Dog! But Undead! Shares all the same stats as the dog, except it’s active bonus gives lifesteal instead of armor penetration. Sadly not widely available, as the event that handed them out ended many months ago. Which is too bad – we don’t have enough necromantic companions, in my opinion.
Overall Quality: 5/5
Name: Wayward Wizard
Role: Controller
How To Get It: You know the drill by now. Sgt. Knox quest or 2 gold.
My Thoughts: Useful to a point. He won’t be distracting things from you, and he can’t take many hits, but a slow can be pretty useful. Still, while he’s not terrible, I wouldn’t use him.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Archmage’s Apprentice
Role: Controller
How To Get It: the buffed Magazine held a code for this promo item in it’s December 2013 volume. You’ll have to purchase a copy to get it.
My Thoughts: It’s the Wayward Wizard, but a Halfling, and green quality. Frankly, there’s not a lot to say here – he’s literally just a reskin and a quality upgrade. Bonus that he’s available to your entire account, but, well, he’s not worth tracking down that copy of the magazine.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Armored Orc Wolf
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Call To Arms: Orc Assault skirmish
My Thoughts: the Armored Orc Wolf is an interesting beast. I’m fully in favor of getting it too, but not in particular for the attacks, no. While I favor animals with barding on them, the real reason this companion shines is because of its active bonus – with a +100 crit strike active bonus, you’re looking at +300 out of it at epic quality, a level only matched by rank 10 azure enchantments. Rank 10 Azure enchants go for 2 Million or so Astral diamonds on the auction house, making this cost about half that. Oh My!
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Blink Dog
Role: Striker
How To Get It: A Rare drop from the Tower of Celadaine, a Lair in Sharandar
My Thoughts: I’m not really a fan of strikers, for the most part, but this one isn’t bad. The ability to teleport to enemies prevents the problem associated with pathing to an enemy, and it’s active bonus will help you if you rely on combat advantage a lot. Not really worth upgrading.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Boar
Role: Controller
How To Get It: Our First Zen store companion on the list! Costs 800.
My Thoughts: This… is honestly a really terrible companion. The active bonus is to your summoned companion, not you. Despite being a controller, and thus having terrible health, it has no control moves, has to move into melee to attack, meaning it’ll get stomped on by any of the many AoEs that fly around at higher levels. This is really not worth it except for a few very niche builds.
Overall Quality: 1/5
Name: Cave Bear
Role: Defender
How To Get It: 800 Zen
My Thoughts: There’s better defenders. It’s active bonus gives you a lot of health, which increases the utility of regeneration, and it looks very cool to boot. Be warned though, it’s not really worth taking up to 30 as a summoned companion. The +1200 health a cave bear can give you is great, but I’m not sure it’s worth it.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Cold Iron Warrior
Role: Striker
How To Get It: 800 Zen
My Thoughts: Oh Boy! It’s the Sellsword! Except with a useless active bonus and three skins instead of two!
Overall Quality: 1/5
Name: Faithful Initiate
Role: Leader
How To Get It: IGN has a standing promo offer – Get a paid subscription of at least one month and you’ll get the code.
My Thoughts: It’s a reskin of the Cleric Disciple from white quality. Unlike how the cold Iron warrior is an even worse yet for some reason more costly version of an already terrible companion, this is a reskin of an actually good companion. Furthermore, the code unlocks her for your entire account, which is pretty valuable. Finally, she’s the only tiefling companion in the entire game – I want one for that reason alone, but I don’t have a credit card and thus IGN won’t take my money over paypal.
Overall Quality: 4/5
Name: Fawn of Shiallia
Role: Leader
How To Get It: Winter Festival for 3200 Simril Lights, but since that’s not exactly a constant thing, try instead for the Auction House
My Thoughts: This is an interesting little guy. No combat ability at all, but has the ability to jack your regeneration level through the stratosphere if you’ve equipped him right. At rank 30, the regeneration ability gets even better, and when properly geared, can give you upwards of 5000 Regeneration in one go. Even better, like the armored orc wolf, has a flat bonus active bonus that’s useful for literally everybody. Verdict? Get it. Love it.
Overall Quality: 5/5
Name: Frost Mimic
Role: Defender
How To Get It: This is another Winter Festival companion, and thus can currently only be found on the auction house.
My Thoughts: Hoo boy, where to start? First, it’s a mimic, one of the most iconic dungeon crawl monsters ever, and that alone makes it interesting. Add in that it’s a defender and thus has an actually respectable amount of HP and you’ll get people who want it. Now, realize that it also does surprising levels of damage, and if you get it to rank 30 it can actually go invulnerable in short bursts, and you have a winner. Oh, and look at the active bonus – that’s right, a flat bonus to Defense. If you get it to rank 30, which you would anyways for the invulna-tanking, that’s +300 defense to you right then and there. That’s almost, once again, half the cost of an azure enchantment of the same level and you get a companion that can keep a dungeon boss occupied for quite a while.
Overall Quality: 5/5
Name: Hawk
Role: Striker
How To Get It: 800 Zen
My Thoughts: Well, it’s a striker. I’m not a fan of strikers, I’ll have you know. Much less so if they actually cost me money to get. Stylistically, I could see why someone would want to get one, but for the same price you could get the cave bear! If you want an animal companion, why would you go for a hawk over a bear? And then you get into the fact that its active bonus is only beneficial to other strikers, and you see a problem with the quality here, since you can’t keep it alive.
Overall Quality: 2/5
Name: Helmite Paladin Ghost
Role: Leader
How To Get It: Call To Arms: Straight To Helm skirmish, or the auction house
My Thoughts: Well… he’s only useful as a leader when you get him to rank 30, and being a green companion most people won’t do that for him. Until then, he’s a sub-par striker, and you should know by now that I see Strikers as sub-par already. The active bonus isn’t great, but it’s good. Might be worth it.
Overall Quality: 2/5
Name: Ioun Stone of Might
Role: Augment
How To Get It: 1000 Tarmalune Trade Bars
My Thoughts: This is the first of the Augment companions, and it’s not exactly the easiest sucker to get. Either you won the trade bar lottery, or you bought it off the auction house, in which case I ask you why didn’t you just go for the ioun stone of allure? Give it a pass unless you really love the color red over blue. Still, if you somehow got it for free, more power to you, it’s good quality, just not as good as it’s blue brother.
Overall Quality: 4/5
Name: Ioun Stone of Radiance
Role: Augment
How To Get It: An unannounced zen charge promo.
My Thoughts: If you got it, awesome! Good for you! It’s a red account-wide Ioun stone without the crappy active bonuses of other ioun stones, instead giving you even more stat boosts. Absolutely wonderful little trinket if you got it, as the rest of us stare in envy at your good fortune.
Overall Quality: 5/5
Name: Mercenary
Role: Striker
How To Get It: CD Action Magazine had this companion’s code in it. Or rather, it comes with a disk that has the code printed on it. Weird, I know.
My Thoughts: Well, it’s a striker. For the same reason I dislike the hawk here, I dislike this guy as well, though once again the active bonus is theoretically useful. Has the added benefit of being capable of doing a teleport strike like the blink dog, but I still wouldn’t really use him.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Pig
Role: Controller
How To Get It: Midsummer Festival Event, or, as always with unbound companions, the Auction House
My Thoughts: By Ohgma the active bonus! At purple quality, that’s 2% of your HP restored for every second you’re controlled. Now let me ask you, how long do you get controlled in epic dungeons? In Dwarf King’s crypt, an iron golem can stun you for three seconds. In Valindra’s Tower, the grasping hand will stun you until your buddies break you out. And so many others. The level of healing from this is phenomenal if you’re expecting to get controlled at all. It’s not that great a companion for actually having summoned, but having one in your active slot is an absolute must.
Overall Quality: 4/5
Name: Portal Hound
Role: Defender
How To Get It: Feywild Starter Pack
My Thoughts: I’m pretty sure this is the only canine or lupine companion to not be a striker, and it does its job well. The active bonus, which is another one of those flat single stat bonuses I’m so fond of, is deflection this time. It also has the ability of some strikers to teleport to an enemy to deal damage, which is great, though only if you get it to rank 30.
Overall Quality: 5/5
Name: Quickling
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Part of a zen charge promo long past, it’s now unavailable to those that didn’t get it.
My Thoughts: While I don’t really like strikers, this has a saving grace in that it can knock back enemies, which saves it as a summoned companion. Its active bonus is a flat single stat bonus, which I’m fond of, until you realize that it’s a buff to movement. At rank 30? That’s +300 to movement. That’s about +2.5% speed, which is completely negligible.
Overall Quality: 2/5
Name: Renegade Evoker
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Valindra’s Tower, or for relatively cheap off the Auction House
My Thoughts: This is a fun one. Despite being a striker, the Renegade Evoker has combat AI that gets him out of harm’s way rather well. Furthermore, he deals considerable damage, and his AoE actually does surprising damage, particularly on a critical hit. His active bonus is nothing to write home about, but if there’s any striker from the green roster you want, it’s either the blink dog or this guy.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Renegade Illusionist
Role: Controller
How To Get It: Promo, using an Arc Code to get.
My Thoughts: This guy is nowhere near as HAMSTER as his Evoking buddy over there, but at the same time he can be useful. Beyond being a completely free controller that’s account-wide, he’s got a good active bonus and at rank 30 can daze enemies every half minute, which can save you. Still, he’s not someone I’d go out of my way to upgrade
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Skeleton
Role: Striker
How To Get It: 600 Masquerade Tokens during the Masquerade of Liars, or the auction house
My Thoughts: For all the necromantically inclined, this armored skellington has power and lifesteal active bonuses and attacks that are named after his lack of meat. He’s not great, but we’re severely limited on our necromantic companions.
Overall Quality: 2/5
Name: Storm Rider
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Long Passed Promo. Sorry boys and girls, if it’s not already in your inventory, you aren’t getting one.
My Thoughts: This is an archer companion and, like the Renegade Evoker, has a smart enough AI to get herself out of melee. The problem, unfortunately, is that while she deals respectable damage, it’s all single target, and her big shot does a slow at rank 30. Nothing special, move along, nothing to see here.
Overall Quality: 2/5
Name: Swashbuckler
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Call To Arms: Storming The Keep skirmish, or the auction house.
My Thoughts: The active bonus requires you to eat a critical hit to activate, which anybody can tell you isn’t something we want to do. Furthermore, she’s a striker, of all things. Swashbuckler or no, this companion just isn’t really worth using.
Overall Quality: 1/5
Name: Wild Hunt Rider
Role: Defender
How To Get It: 800 Zen
My Thoughts: He’s got a spear! Do you realize how rare spear combat is in MMOs? Even better, he’s a defender that somehow still has the striker-esque leap through the air movement style. His active bonus procs so rarely that it’s next to useless, though.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Wolf
Role: Striker
How To Get It: 800 Zen
My Thoughts: It’s the armored Orc Wolf! He has the exact same stats except for the active bonus, which is two stats at +55 rather than one at +100.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Acolyte of Kelemvor
Role: Leader
How To Get It: 1200 Zen
My Thoughts: I don’t see this character being as good as the white Cleric Disciple. The Acolyte of Kelemvor gives you lifesteal instead of just healing you, which is terribly ineffective if you nowhere near an enemy. Great if you’re in combat, but between-battle heals are non-existant.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Blacksmith
Role: Striker
How To Get It: 1200 Zen
My Thoughts: Well, he’s a big burly man, so that already earns points with me, but as a companion he’s just not that good. He’s a striker, so he doesn’t have anything but damage going for him, but even worse his active bonus requires you to get hit! Maybe that might be worth it for a tank, but they have enough problems holding their health together already.
Overall Quality: 1/5
Name: Cantankerous Mage
Role: Controller
How To Get It: 1200 Zen
My Thoughts: Pushin! AoEs! This guy is actually pretty good. If you get lucky, he’ll even push monsters off the edges of a stage, though I wouldn’t bank on it. That said his active bonus is wonderful if you specialize in putting control effects on people
Overall Quality: 4/5
Name: Cat
Role: Augment
How To Get It: Wondrous Bazaar for 833,000 Astral Diamonds
My Thoughts: This is the only augment companion in the entire game that isn’t an Ioun stone, which appeals to me on a fundemantal level. Plus, it’s a kitty! Unfortunately, there’s a few problematic factors involved here. First, at 833k, it’s about twice the cost of an ioun stone of allure. Second, the slots on It aren’t that great. Third, visually you can easily tell the model that’s being used for the cat was made for much larger predatory felines, such as the panthers, which looks extremely weird on the little domestic cat. Still, it’s an augment companion, and one that gives a flat stat boost as well.
Overall Quality: 4/5
Name: Dancing Blade
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Wondrous Bazaar, 765,000 AD
My Thoughts: Well, it’s kinda cool to have a flying sword with you, but I can’t think of any character that’s thematically appropriate to. It does, however, give you extra critical severity, which is apparently valuable to justify the cost, or something. I don’t know what people are thinking with that, since it’s only 3%, but there it is. Costly and overrated – give it a pass.
Overall Quality: 2/5
Name: Dancing Shield
Role: Defender
How To Get It: Wondrous Bazaar, 722,500 AD
My Thoughts: The only defender without the ability to taunt an opponent! The piddly damage that defenders deal means this is basically useless as a summoned companion, and it only increases your deflection chance by a miniscule chance. So not only is it costly, it’s active bonus isn’t very useful.
Overall Quality: 1/5
Name: Dread Warrior
Role: Leader
How To Get It: 1200 Zen
My Thoughts: This is one of our few other necromancy focused companions and it’s a bit of an odd duck. While supremely HAMSTER looking, the active bonus is horrifyingly bad if you’re not a tank – it forces you to generate more threat than normal if you take damage which is a terrible if you’re a squishy caster. If you’re a guy who can take a few hits, though, it’s absolutely great. He also has a siphoning heal – it’s a lifesteal attack, so don’t expect to get too much out of it, but it goes for crazy amounts if he does it when he’s below 50% HP.
Overall Quality: If you’re squishy, 2/5. If you’re a tank, 4/5.
Name: Fey Panther
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Did you know Steam released a starter pack for Neverwinter? I somehow managed to miss it.
My Thoughts: This is a cool thing. It’s not monstrously huge like the epic panther, but it’s a sort of hybrid striker controller, intended more for knocking opponents down and then dealing damage That’s useful if you have abilities that enhance you when your opponent is down, such as the Guardian Fighter’s Trample The Fallen. Looks cool too. And if you get it to rank 30, all of its damage skyrockets. This is one of the companions I plan to get in the future, but don’t have the ability to get right now.
Overall Quality: 4/5
Name: Ghost
Role: Controller
How To Get It: 1200 Zen
My Thoughts: Besides the Neverember Guard, this is probably my favorite blue companion. The damage she deals is nothing to write home about, and she’s a bit squishy, but where she truly shines is her possession ability. Yes, It only works on Minions, but if she targets a minion, she one shots it and then uses its damage until it expires at the end of the possession. Level 60 minions can deal around a thousand damage per hit, which is such a huge upgrade that it’s worth mentioning and then some. And then that minion dies at the end of the possession. And the best part is that she scales with the minions you’re fighting, so if you’re in Malabog’s Castle and she possesses a Redcap, she can heal you, deal crazy damage or any number of things before the possession ends. She also has the only “Affects summoned companion” active bonus that I actually like, increasing the damage of the summoned companion directly, by 5%, or 10% when upgraded.
Overall Quality: 5/5
Name: Hunting Hawk
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Hunter Ranger Booster Pack, 3500 Zen
My Thoughts: Another striker, and this one not so great as far as direct attacks go. It’s not truly worth getting the hunter ranger booster pack by itself, but it is account-wide and the active bonus is great for any ranged class. When you upgrade it to purple, every ranged attack you do gains +1% damage for every 10 feet away your enemy is – for a Ranger, than can be as much as +10%, though it’s less (but still considerable) for other characters. The active bonus definitely saves this one.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Ioun Stone of Allure
Role: Augment
How To Get It: 1200 Zen
My Thoughts: This is the big kahoona, the one everybody uses at high levels. It’s blue quality, so it has all of its item and runestone slots unlocked. It’s an augment companion, so it’s awesome. It’s inexpensive compared to the other Augment companions. There’s not much else to say, but by the gods, what else needs to be said?
Overall Quality: 5/5
Name: Jagged Dancing Blade
Role: Striker
How To Get It: 14,000 Glory, Trade of Blades Vendor
My Thoughts: It’s a floating dagger. It’s kind of a crappy striker, and the active bonus is a “Affect summoned companion” one. There are much, much better uses for glory than this. I recommend only grabbing it if you intend to get if you the sake of collection completion.
Overall Quality: 1/5
Name: Leprechaun
Role: Controller
How To Get It: 1200 Zen
My Thoughts: This little guy is an oddball as far as companions go, and was probably slotted into Controller just because nobody knew where else to put him. Cut and Run means he disappears every time he’s targeted, so you don’t have to worry too much about him dying, and every 25 seconds he stuns your opponent, which is cool. The level 30 ability is just weird though – extra gold gain? Is that seriously something some people are worried about? Still, the active bonus is extra damage mitigation, so that’s pretty good.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Lightfoot Thief
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Haha, if you choose to go after this guy, I wish you luck. You need to complete the tier 6 dungeon of Sword Coast Adventures to get him, and he has something like a 1% drop chance. They go for millions on the auction house because they’re ludicrously rare.
My Thoughts: The Active bonus is the real selling point here. Look at that beauty – at level 60, every time you critical hit you deal an extra 900 damage to the target and his buddies. Otherwise, though, it’s basically just a blue quality Mercenary. I’d say give it a pass, but you really shouldn’t. If you have the companions you need to farm tier 6 SCA, do so. Then sell it.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Neverember Guard
Role: Defender
How To Get It: 1200 Zen
My Thoughts: Alright, so bear with me as I say I have personal reasons to prefer this companion. No, he’s not that great – his damage is absolutely abysmal, and his active bonus requires you to be hurt – but he’s still a quality companion. If you slap some regen and defense items on him, he can charge dungeon bosses and stay standing the entire time despite having their focus on him thanks to his Rank 30 ability. So, yeah, he’s my favorite. Not because of mechanical reasons, oh no. He’s cool due to his ability to shrug off dungeon bosses kicking him in the teeth, but he’s not a great companion.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Phase Spider
Role: Striker
How To Get It: 1200 Trade Bars
My Thoughts: It’s a teleporting striker, however, special note goes to the active bonus – it reduces the effectiveness of combat advantage against you. The suggests a defensive stance, making it a sort of weird sword and board combo with the spider and player as the sword and board. It’s still not that great a companion, though.
Overall Quality: 2/5
Name: Slyblade Kobold
Role: Striker
How To Get It: 1200 Zen
My Thoughts: The active Bonus is another Trample the Fallen-esque ability, which is great since literally everybody has at least one form of control ability. As a striker though, it’s not a great companion, and there’s much better uses for 1200 Zen, such as the ghost.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Tomb Spider
Role: Controller
How To Get It: 1500 Zen (Yes, I know it’s higher than normal. I don’t know why.)
My Thoughts: there isn’t really much that’s remarkable about this companion. As a controller, it’s kinda weak, and it doesn’t get an actual control ability until rank 30. It’s not bad, but it’s not good either. It’s just… mediocre.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Wererat Thief
Role: Striker
How To Get It: 200 Drake Seals
My Thoughts: This is one of those companions that got a purchase requirement that can basically be summed up as “Eh, I’ve got nothing else to get with these”. It’s not really worth grabbing for itself, but the wererat can be fun if you use a poisoner build, as poison damage ignores damage resistance. That’s why Bilethorn is such a popular enchantment.
Overall Quality: 2/5
Name: Angel Of Protection
Role: Leader
How To Get It: 360 Ardent Favor Coins
My Thoughts: My god, just look at this thing. You can see her appearance in the companion collection page, and she’s beautiful. And then you get into the mechanics, and realize she’d also pretty HAMSTER. Now, to be fair, she has no offense at all. But She doesn’t need it. Her basic spam ability is that she restores 5% of your HP, which makes it run at a much faster rate than the cleric disciple or Faithful Initiate, and even the Lillend. Then, of course, she also takes damage for you. And also increases your damage mitigation by 5%. This is the end-all-be-all of support companions right here. Unfortunately, as the game hasn’t been out a year yet, nobody has one, but I know about half of us are saving up for one. Or five.
Overall Quality: 5/5
Name: Aranea
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Feywild Lockbox. You may have better luck just buying one on the Auction House for 3 Million AD
My Thoughts: The only companion that actually changes form, the aranea is cool, But not really great. This isn’t something I’d bother to spend a lot of money to get, which is what would be required to spam Feywild Lockboxes or buy one directly off the auction house.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Book Imp
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Achieve Dungeon Master Rank 6 in the Foundry
My Thoughts: Very, very few people have this little guy, which makes me want to use him just to spite other people and show off how creative I am. Or, well, once I have him. He’s a striker, and thus not amazing, but he gets points for being another teleport striker, and as one of the only conjuration style companions I’d love to have one as a familiar for my wizard. Furthermore, the active bonus, while not terribly great, is still considerable. +2% recharge speed is very much different from recovery, after all. And Further, it’s an epic companion unlocked across your entire account –what’s not to like there?
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Fire Archon
Role: Striker
How To Get It: 1000 Trade Bars
My Thoughts: This is a DPS companion par excellence. Not because of it’s innate ability to deal damage, but because of the active ability it bears – specifically, when an enemy is below 30% health, you deal an additional 5% damage to it, which makes the home stretch of a boss fight Faster. Stacks with the tiefling bloodhunt ability, too.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Galeb Dhur
Role: Defender
How To Get It: 2500 Zen
My Thoughts: Alright, so, this companion is a bit controversial. It’s tough and powerful, yes, and like all defenders (save the dancing shield, which cries itself to sleep at night) it has a hard taunt. But the hard taunt is on a 2 minute cooldown, which is absolutely ludicrous. In fact, that’s the reduced cooldown – It used to be 3 minutes, before they buffed it. That said, if you can get around that particular glitch, you have a companion that, once it’s hit rank 30, will be capable of fighting basically everything with high damage and ludicrous tankiness.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Honey Badger
Role: Striker
How To Get It: 2500 Zen
My Thoughts: This little guy is hilarious. The Active bonus gives you extra damage resistance when you’re at low health, but where it really shines is once you finally have it at rank 30. Then, when it’s above 80% HP, it deals double damage, and when it’s below 35%, it takes less damage than usual, and it’s no slouch on the base damage end of things either. It’s not something I’d spend money to get, but come on, it’s a honey badger.
Overall Quality: 4/5
Name: Icosahedron Ioun Stone
Role: Augment
How To Get It: Dungeon Master Rank 9, gotten through foundry authoring.
My Thoughts: I’mnot exaggerating when I say that everybody who looks at this wants it, and then laments how hard it is to get. This is a basically free augment companion to every single character on your account. It’s purple quality, and thus can get up to the lofty rank 30, has two ring slots and a necklace slot, making it perfect for the Hrimnir set, and is purple in color as well as quality. Unfortunately, it’s so prohibitively hard to get that I think maybe five people in the history of Neverwinter, if that, have managed to get it. If you somehow manage to get this floating d20, congratulations, you are a member of the elite.
Overall Quality: 5/5
Name: Lillend
Role: Leader
How To Get It: Since the Limited Time Offer regarding the Lillend is now over, the only place to get them is now the auction house.
My Thoughts: The lillend is a beautifully voiced companion, though I could do without how scantily clad she is. Her ability to heal you is great (though not as much as the Angel, natch) but she doesn’t go full stop on support, instead choosing to slap people with her sword-harp instead, which can be both a good and bad thing. Basically, use her if you got her, and you won’t regret it, but I’m not enough of a fan to dump over 1.5 million Astrals on one.
Overall Quality: 4/5
Name: Panther
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Fork over $200 for the Hero of the North pack!
My Thoughts: This is a good companion if you’re going out of your way to get it. Increased damage against prone targets by 10% is nothing to scoff at for an active bonus, but it’s really meant as a damager. Plus, if you get it to rank 30, the pounce attack it does knocks things over, which is good fun, since it activates the active bonus it gives you. Synergy!
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Phoera/Mystic Phoera
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Nightmare Lockboxes or the Auction House
My Thoughts: I’m covering both Phoeras in one because the only thing different between them is appearance and active bonuses. A constant AoE burn, A cone AoE, and a DoT attack make these companions pretty good as far as pure damage goes, though, like the vast majority of strikers, nothing to write home about. What’s really cool is the active bonus, which gives you ludicrous buffs when you get resurrected, so you can do a gimmicky combo with a soulforged enchantment.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Pseudodragon
Role: Striker
How To Get It: Dark Forest Lockboxes, or the Auction House
My Thoughts: Psuedodragons are extremely cute, but not terribly useful, all told. Giving combat advantage is great, but if you want combat advantage you likely already have it. It deals high damage, but as established earlier, high Damage isn’t what you want a companion for. Still, it’s useful when you have it, particularly for that active bonus, which can make guard blocking or dodging much more useful.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Rust Monster
Role: Controller
How To Get It: Rusted Iron Lockbox or the Auction House
My Thoughts: This is another companion that doesn’t really come into it’s own until rank 30. I find it to look cute and cool, but I know it freaks some people out. It’s also, at time of writing, the single cheapest epic companion on the auction house. I like them because if you can keep rust monsters alive, they’ll increase your damage against a target by 5%, and reduce the damage they deal, which can be extremely valuable in a dungeon, as it benefits the entire party, and not just you. Still, as a melee controller, it’s prone to sudden bouts of death, so be wary of where it’s gone off to.
Overall Quality: 4/5
Name: Sprite
Role: Controller
How To Get It: 2500 Zen
My Thoughts: More Poison damage and an ability to put a target to sleep, which is basically a stun, for one second every half minute. Gives buffs, does good damage… it’s not bad. Not great, though.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Sylph
Role: Controller
How To Get It: The $60 Knight of the Feywild pack
My Thoughts: The companion herself is nothing great. A daze, some wimpy damage, and that’s about it. The Active bonus, however, is +50% control resistance, which basically cuts all control affects on you in half, a hilarious thing all told. Has reverse synergy with the pig companion, though, so be wary.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Vicious Dire Wolf
Role: Striker
How To Get It: The $60 Guardian of Neverwinter pack
My Thoughts: I can’t tell you how many times the Dire Wolf has saved my bacon from getting slapped by a giant axe or something. It has two attacks, one that deals good bleed damage, and one that does a very brief knockback on the target, which is absolutely wonderful for interrupting enemies. The active bonus is great for interruptions as well, and knockdown at rank 30 is icing on the cake. There’s better companions, but having an account-wide purple is just so valuable.
Overall Quality: 3/5
Name: Will-o'-Wisp
Role: Controller
How To Get It: 2500 Zen
My Thoughts: This is another companion I don't particularly like by itself, but has a wonderful active bonus. Much like the Sprite, it's daze only works every half minute or so, and being a controllers it's neither the greatest damager or tank in the world. The Active Bonus is worth it though, providing +15% bonus to control abilities, and +25% control resist. Add in the Cantankerous mage and the Sylph, and you can even be looking at +30% and +75%, making you shrug off controls lightning fast and hitting people for longer than they'd expect. Pretty sweet.
Overall Quality: 4/5
Also, just my$.02, but I'd add "Active Bonus" as a descriptor to each companion and list it on it's own instead of including it's active bonus in your "My Thoughts" section. To that end, you might get ambitious at some point and include a "Sword Coast" descriptor and spell out the extra dice they get as well if you want to put that time in and be ultra thorough.
Nice work, you put a lot of time into this and it should be useful to a lot of folks.
Thank you!
Roland Mac Sheonin GF | Tarron Direheart SW |
Also, thanks for catching the pig typo. edited.
I agree. The active bonus on each companion is not always clear from your descriptions (you'll say stat bonus, but not what stats, for example), and it would add to the guild's utility to have them specified. *If* you feel ambitious enough to add it in.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Now then, several people have expressed a desire to see active bonuses on my list, so I'll be including that in a while, Sometime tonight. For now, I've got a guild to play with.
Just want to say that your ratings seem (to me,) to be a mix of active bonus value and summoned value and are thereby inconsistent, in my opinion.
I suggest a separate rating system.
Active Bonus Rating: 6/10
Summoned Rating: 5/10
Overall: 3/5
I'm no mathematician, but something like that.
I use Stone of Allure for heavy content. When I am soloing, I cycle through my pets, just for a change of pace. Sample of my pets are:
Stone of Allure,
Storm Rider,
Frost Mimic,
Renegade Illusionist, Swashbuckler, or Blink Dog. (I have the Quickling on all, and I love him in solo content.. but his active bonus.. +100 movement.. does absolutely nothing.)
Apart from my Allure Stone, all my pets are there to bolster specific stats as needed.. eventually they will be upgraded, most likely.
I do not at all mean to criticize you. I think you deserve a unique companion for making this guide. I just want you (and your readers) to get the most 'bang for the buck' as they say. Don't get frustrated, mate. Consider the suggestions if you feel like it, and think about it and make what changes you deem necessary, in your own time. Or don't. You've done a service. Thanks!
EDIT: OH- ALL of my pets other than the Stone of Allure, which all my chars have, are selected by active bonus and no other consideration. (Just some more useless information.. lol)
Roland Mac Sheonin GF | Tarron Direheart SW |
Anyways, yeah, you have a point. Given I have to go over every companion statblock anyways to add in the Active Bonuses, I can add in my rating breakdown as I go.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Eldarth, thanks for posting the link. The folks who set this up forgot to put a shortcut up, it looks like. Nice to see that that area hasn't sold its soul, at least. I'm sure they will get around to it, but for now it's nice to see something that doesn't make me think 'BUTCHER SHOP.'
Roland Mac Sheonin GF | Tarron Direheart SW |
I noticed a handful of factual errors on some pets (for example lightfoot thief does 68 dmg per tick at blue and 114 at purple, not 900), and others were unclear or didn't specify what the active bonus was.
Also I disagree with nearly all of your ratings though i'm not sure if you are rating based on how useful a companion is in combat or based on it's active bonus, as your description seems to indicate both. As someone else suggested a separate rating for active bonus and one for having the pet summoned would probably alleviate that. Keep in mind that active bonus usefulness will vary from class to class and i'm not sure from which class' perspective you are rating these. It does seem that you are of the opinion that +Stat bonus pets are better than specific % bonus pets though I believe you'll find that you are in the minority there. By the time you are upgrading all your pets to epic, "more stats" are the last thing and the least effective ways to improve your character, with the possible exception of power in one specific scenario (gwf / deep gash)
Overall it seems like a helpful guide.
My roommate was flipping breakers while i was working on my adjustements to the guide. Because my room lost power, i lost all my changes to it before i could save, and I don't have the heart to go through all that again right now T_T
Roland Mac Sheonin GF | Tarron Direheart SW |
For instance, I'm a cleric with 2.5k defense and like to pull everything. When I do, I pull a lot of aggro so I got the blacksmith and renegade evoker as companions and get hit a lot. The internal cooldown for those two pets seem to be pretty low, and when just one add crits on you it procs damage for all surrounding adds. So when I'm getting hit by 10 adds, it's super likely I'll get hit with a critical.
TL;DR maybe put recommended class under some companions with non-stat active bonuses?
Good point. Definitely worth some thought.
So the rating can be taken to apply if appropriate to your build.
Class recommendation might be good, but only goes so far, because even among classes, you have very different concerns. Example, my cleric is all about crits. It works very well, and I don't need any additional recovery, because it would be lost in DimReturns anyway. Anyone can use more power or HP.
But saying it's recommended for (class) because it gives (whatever) isn't a sure thing.
In the end there are just too many variables. So I think it might be necessary to just generalize and just estimate it's value from the perspective of someone who can use the particular boosts offered. As in maybe another pet does better or worse for any given purpose. Ultimately, its just a suggested value and the reader is hopefully going to think beyond it, anyway.
Roland Mac Sheonin GF | Tarron Direheart SW |
Time to get a new roommate!
I highly recommend you create (or update) a companion page at the Neverwinter Wiki. Simply copy/paste what you've got here and (to be fair for everyone) remove the "ratings" info. The descriptions are highly informative and useful information (for example I was thinking to sell my Ghost companion, but based on your description I might keep her).
And by the way, the the Purple Panther (Hero pack) utterly sucks eggs and the Dread Warrior is stunningly awesome epicwin! And for squishes (Cleric/Wizard) Galeb Dhur cannot be beat in Boss Rooms during solo-play and cool downs only matter if you're zeroing a crypt.dungeon/whatnot (jus saying'). LOL (Hence my point about ratings being subjective and play-style based opinion).
Dunno if it's because of this guide, but the hawk's price in AH dropped down from 400k to less than 300k.
Anyhow - thanks for a really nice guide. It deserves a sticky IMO.
I'm a bit surprised that you rank it higher than a Cat. Agreed, the mechanism of Possession is unique. You DP in a dungeon and one of the people in the team of adventurers is an archer of the group of foes against whom you just fighted one minute ago. But, the efficiency? The possessed foe usually just wanders around, not attacking anything. So, in a whole fight your ghost just neutralized one minion.
I purpled a ghost and raised it to rank 30 (using Tomes) on my level-30 alt. Well, even in Neverdeath Graveyard or Helms Hold, this maxxed ghost is not OP at all, its damage is low. The survivability is there though, it did not die once during the fight against Chartilifax.
Tired of Dailies/Tyranny of Dailies/Timers of Doom/Tricked Or Duped/Tremendously Obnoxious Dailies/Try Otherwise, Devs
I think it's important to know that different companions are good for different classes. For instance, wild hunt rider is _amazing_ for CW, but less so for other classes. I get the bonus at draco about once every six seconds (upgraded to epic).
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know