Why do my companions suck?

mithrosnomore

I started a new toon (unfortunately, too late to really take advantage of the recruiting event, but anyway...), and I had some companions available out of the gate (a couple of greens that I earned account-wide in the past and I gave them a Con Artist that I had lying around as well), so I thought 'Hey, I'll give them a little help out of the gate'.

Yeah, very little help.

They hit for 1.

Every attack they make is dealing 1.

I haven't come across any equipment for them, but I shouldn't have to, should I? I am talking about fighting against level 20 and lower enemies with companions at a fair level. A level 5 companion against level 10-ish enemies should be doing more than 1 damage with attacks. A level 8 companion against level 15-20 enemies should be doing more than 1 damage with attacks, gear or no gear.

Is there some trick that I am missing?

regenerde

Nope, companions are pretty much broken since the release of Undermountain, and i haven't seen any other officials word beside the "we're looking into it" regarding healer companions from several months ago.

hustin1

They nerfed the hell out of companions with Mod 16, presumably because some hardcore player and/or dev thought the game should be harder.

mithrosnomore

Well, starting to see some 2s, 3s, and on occasional 4 that I can only guess are critical hits now that I am in my 30s.

You know, I tested a fair bit for mod16. I am not going to say that I am a great numbers guy in the game or anything, but when I was using my spiky dwarf... The one you get from the vampire story? Anyway, when I would use him I would see crazy damage spikes from his attacks and a steady flow of large heals coming to my character.

I reported this, they said that they couldn't find it.

Now companions are dealing pretty much no damage, so I guess they fixed all the problems with all of them.

I never used augments because I am basically a solo player. My Paladin could have gotten away with an augment prior to mod16, but other classes? I felt having a companion fill a role of some sort was more important.
I could have been way off, but that was how I felt.

Now? I wonder if augments might not be the only companions worth using.
And I wonder if it will matter at all for my Paladin and Ranger, since those are the classes I most want to play.

But lately my Paladins have been spending way too much time near campfires and I am struggling to find a build that works for me along either path, and I have never felt great about playing my Ranger because I do not like melee with them. I want to play a 'pure' archer but they are not set up that way in this game and with the difficulty at higher levels, especially now with companions being useless, I think that to have a chance I have to switch back-and-forth. I have to play a style that I have never liked, and I have doubts that it would matter, anyway.

I want to like this game, but it seems more and more that the game doesn't like me.

melotai

Hello,

For companions as far as I know the non-healer invoker types still work but I only use a non-augment companion when I have no choice as the augments cannot trigger some in-game stuff that will literally prevent you from completing a quest. (actually only two I am aware of but I only really remember one of them as it is part of a repeatable quest that I currently do 3x's a week.)

It is possible to play the ranger pretty much the way you describe. I already do that with my current ranger in most instances. Although for the tougher content I do end up switching between the two in order to make use of all my encounter powers.
(for me, without switching it sometimes makes me feel like I am just fighting at 50% power although I still do it. Turns out I like the battles where I am able to just go all out and use all of my available encounter powers.)

I also did the same with a MOD 16 ranger that was created for temporary purposes and had no problems soloing undermountain. For this MOD 16 ranger I pretty much only used an epic augment companion except when I was leveling one of the other ones and I always switched back to the augment on the retry whenever I lost a real battle while the other companion type was summoned. Soloing the 1 rune ME's, at least for me, required the use of my augment companion only.

The paladin can easily solo anything as a healer but the tank side seems a bit more fun.

If you want to solo the paladin as a tank without spending as much time at the campfire then I would suggest purchasing an Epic Astral Deva for its equipable power and acquiring mounts that allow you to add at least two types of triggered healing.

I have done essentially something similar with all of my non-healer types and the MOD 16 character and it works.

greywynd

Because you named them "Kirby" and "Hoover"?

abwabwaba

https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/11238533

"Combat companions no longer deal an absurd amount of damage."

Every non-augment companion damage was decreased down to 3/10 as they previously had. Healer ones not even working since the introduce of mod 16.

hustin1

Indeed. For a very brief window after Mod 16 launched, companions were actually useful again, but then someone decided that Xuna was doing too much damage so they nerfed everyone. This is why we can't have nice things.

regenerde

Well, i think there was something about changing the power of a companion to use the player's weapon damage as base a few updates ago, and i'm still wondering why that wasn't done for all companions and all their damage/healing powers.

There it is:
https://www.arcgames.com/index.php/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/11269933-patch-notes:-version:-nw.115.20190826c.23

Sprinkle some bonus related to the level of the companion on top, plus a few reasonable decreases to the cooldowns of companion powers on the side, and all companions should be usefull again for now and probably any future module too.

mithrosnomore

melotai#0794 said:

Hello,

For companions as far as I know the non-healer invoker types still work...

If by 'work' you mean deal damage then yeah, okay, whatever. They work.

But did you not see where I said 1 damage?

I am now over level 30 and using level 11-15 companions. They are now doing more damage, too.

I see an occasional 2 or 3, and even a rare 4. Must be a critical hit.

That is not "working".
That is standing around and taking up space.

"Oh, but they offer a bonus to your character". Not enough of a bonus to justify their near-complete lack of combat effectiveness.

I get that they game needs to make money, but I shouldn't have to buy some magical companion, or magical combination of companions, to get one that works, or to get some combination of powers that makes the others work.

I do not expect the common companions to be particularly useful after a certain point. After a point.
That's how it is for all companions, with that point and the relative usefulness at cap increasing based upon the rarity of the companion.
It's fine that common companions of max rank are not great at 70 or 80. It's not fine that perhaps outside of the bonus they offer that they are useless at level 20.

I am not taking out brand new rank 1 companions and expecting miracles.
I am expecting a rank 15 DPS companion, of any quality, to be dealing more than single-digit damage against level 30 opponents.


Edit: I took my level 71 Paladin out for a spin, largely neglected for a while but he has a purple DPS companion and was outfitted with the basic Undermountain gear, but not the Undermountain/Barovia artifacts.

That companion was hitting for ~1500 points of damage with attacks against some spiders I found crawling around Chult.

Now, I can not say what that is in terms of proportion, but it certainly seems better to me. I still ran from the fight, mind you, as I was not capable of fighting off the five of them, but at least it seemed that his companion was dealing enough damage to not just be there for looks. That if I was competent, maybe if I had a class that I felt comfortable playing these days, that that number might actually be useful.

When and if I get my Wizard to 70 we'll see what his companions are doing then, but right now? At level 33 or whatever?
Companions should be doing more than single-digit damage with attacks if they want to be seen as being useful, DPS or otherwise.

But again, I do not know the proportion. When my companions are dealing single-digit damage at the lower levels?
Maybe in terms of enemy HP my striker companion dealing ~1500 at rank 35 with me being level 71 is basically the same.

sgtpostal

@mithrosnomore
with evrythin theyve done to the whole "damage equation" in the game
now ... u got a comp put gear on it.... dont expect anything from them damage wise with all the new "equatiomns" they got for the game as far as damage goes unless u got gear/runestones on them
the better comp gear/ runestones you got..... the better the comp perfoms/shares stats with you.... simple as that