Combat vs Non-Combat Companions?

solanthar

How do non-combat companions behave? They stick to you right? Then just continually confer their stats to your character. If this is so, then they're relatively safe from attacks from minions and bosses alike (relative to combat companions who charge into the fray).

So... given that high-level raids would understandably wipe the floor with combat companions (given that they're substantially weaker than player characters) won't that make non-combat companions superior in all respects compared to combat ones?

I'm playing a trickster rogue and people keep saying "get a cat/ioun stone" but I want to deviate from the "meta" and get an Acolyte (rogue = massive damage + life steal = makes life easier) for raids or maybe a Galeb Duhr (to take all the heat from me) but they all say "they just take one hit from bosses and then they're down. What then?"

In a nutshell, the question is: are combat companions useless in high-level raids (and are we better off getting non-combat ones)?

Thanks for any helpful replies!

knightfalz

They tend to die quickly, save for the stat boosting ones.

I have more luck with combat pets in higher levels on some classes than others, but TRs don't really have any tools to help keep them alive. So, for now, you'd be better off with a stone or cat.

However, there will eventually be a way too boost up pets to higher levels, so that will help them. So, you should probably level up the pet of your choice so you can be as ready as possible for when boosting pets becomes available.

I expect the developers will want to do more to make a variety of pets viable in the end game, too.

I don't know of the Acolyte or Galeb Duhr would be the best choices. I don't know if the life steal is that great on the Acolyte, and you already have a distracting flare with your double.

If you can get a Dire Wolf, the incentive for the $60 founder pack, that pet is very aggressive, and can often interrupt enemies, which can be very helpful. It can get up to level 30, which is pretty good.

One other thing about pets, if you have the resources, you can place 60 level items into their slots as soon as they open up. The pets ignores the level requirements for equipping items. That can help a fair bit while leveling.

solanthar

knightfalz wrote: »

They tend to die quickly, save for the stat boosting ones.

I have more luck with combat pets in higher levels on some classes than others, but TRs don't really have any tools to help keep them alive. So, for now, you'd be better off with a stone or cat.

However, there will eventually be a way too boost up pets to higher levels, so that will help them. So, you should probably level up the pet of your choice so you can be as ready as possible for when boosting pets becomes available.

I expect the developers will want to do more to make a variety of pets viable in the end game, too.

I don't know of the Acolyte or Galeb Duhr would be the best choices. I don't know if the life steal is that great on the Acolyte, and you already have a distracting flare with your double.

If you can get a Dire Wolf, the incentive for the $60 founder pack, that pet is very aggressive, and can often interrupt enemies, which can be very helpful. It can get up to level 30, which is pretty good.

One other thing about pets, if you have the resources, you can place 60 level items into their slots as soon as they open up. The pets ignores the level requirements for equipping items. That can help a fair bit while leveling.

Thanks. So as it stands now, combat companions are pretty much useless against boss with massive AoEs? Devs should fix this. I understand they shouldn't be as powerful as player characters but there's something really wrong if you shell out 3,000 zen for something that goes to the Good Old Hunting Grounds if a boss so much as winks at them.

Beef them up. Not so much they'll be anywhere near player characters but just so that they won't be the mobs' laughing stock (as they are now).