Another question about companion for Cleric

sigreg

Hello Guys,

Im currently a lvl 42 DC and suffering a lot because wrong decision when choosing/purchasing companion. Actually i do like a solo content of this game and have a real fun when clening up dungeons on quests, but sometimes im totally encircled by mobs what makes me feel.. a bit uncomfortable lol. As Cleric i dont have armour of GF, dps of TR or AoE and control of Wizards to keep mobs off from me, so such situations are pretty dangerous for my delicate female elf
In such case i would be happy to have some help in form of companion who 1. take some aggro to give me more space, or 2. hit good and hard to help me clean things up. Also in missions from Rhinx (daily skirmish and dungeon) im getting really hard times, not because my own fault actually, typical situation looks like this: random party in Grey Wolf Den, final boss, people are taking TONS of damage, just insane amounts. Im doing my best to keep them alive while getting HAMSTER by adds as looks like my healing is like lighthouse seen from miles and attracting to me ANY bored add lol. Im dieing pretty fast, then rest is dieing. Rinse, repeat.
Right now i do have.. ghost, yea, that was pretty bad idea, as i can say directly this companion sucks badly. What companion would you suggest for leveling cleric ? Maybe for AD, bars, or zen... just in your opinion best choice for "solo" cleric enjoying PVE content. I do know that for end game many (if not all) go for stone or cat, but till end i still have some time and.. im not going to rush

wujorogal1

Well tbh i lvled all the way to lvl 60 with basic "white" rank 15 Man at arms (defender) no dmg at all later on die by 2 hits but can keep agro and thats helps alot. And at lvl 60 i switched to Stone of allure.

odd111out

In Grey Wolf's Den, any basic companion is going to die pretty quick. My basic white dog died in about 30 seconds on my CW. My Phorea on my Cleric really is the only pet I ever saw survive that battle without going down, unless it was a wipe. I just went ahead and bought the stone when I began leveling my tank, and my advice is if you are going to and can, don't wait. You can begin slotting your endgame stuff immediately, from enchants to gear, and it stays alive as long as you do. The added defense, recovery whichever should make more of a difference than a 1 or 2 minutes of relief from agro.

abell39

I also play a DC solo, at level 52 now. I chose the dog companion both for combat and RP reasons, and I'm really pleased with him. Now that my DC is a higher level, I mainly use her phoera, which is also pretty good but sometimes surprisingly fragile in boss fights. The dog still pulls through in a pinch when the phoera's away at training, though. What you need as a DC is a companion that can deal decent damage quickly (the phoera), distract the big bads and knock them prone as they rush you so you can handle minions (the dog), and/or pull aggro (the phoera, dog to a lesser extent, and I imagine the man-at-arms is good for that).

Whichever you choose, I recommend you do it before going on to Pirates' Skyhold; my DC was overleveled with a phoera and still died a couple of times there. The difficulty seems to spike in that area.

sigreg

Im thinking also about getting Stone right now.. but im not sure (dont have experience) if really it will make such difference at lvl 40s when i dont have yet any high rank runestones, rank3 is highest what i got/created. Granted, training stone now will give really nice and advanced aug. pet when i hit 60, but thing is i need to survive till this 60, thats why im looking for some help in form of companion.

And about Pirates, yea, i thinked that Grey Wolf Den is extremally difficult for random parties... till moment when my wizard tried first time skirmish with Dragon in Pirates area (forgot name of this quest). Everything was fine at start, then Dragon with bilions of his adds came and s..t hit the fan i tried this skirmish once and not going to repeat it until i level up a bit.

wholyhandgrenade

sigreg wrote: »

Im thinking also about getting Stone right now.. but im not sure (dont have experience) if really it will make such difference at lvl 40s when i dont have yet any high rank runestones, rank3 is highest what i got/created. Granted, training stone now will give really nice and advanced aug. pet when i hit 60, but thing is i need to survive till this 60, thats why im looking for some help in form of companion.

And about Pirates, yea, i thinked that Grey Wolf Den is extremally difficult for random parties... till moment when my wizard tried first time skirmish with Dragon in Pirates area (forgot name of this quest). Everything was fine at start, then Dragon with bilions of his adds came and s..t hit the fan i tried this skirmish once and not going to repeat it until i level up a bit.

you have to keep in mind that you can equip your minions with level 60 gear even though you yourself can't equip such gear... the stone of allure gives you stats from such equipment and therefore can be a great help... that said, I just use the cheap 5 gold cleric, though I wish I had a stone of allure, heck I wish I had 5 active slots purchased with stones of allure in each of them

varkhus2013

Just to give another suggestion: if you are open to spending Zen, the blue Neverember Guard is a good tank companion. I have him on my cleric. For PVE questing he is pretty good, and at rank 25 with good gear you can get him to around 20,000 HP which means he survives longer in a fight. He does taunt but I actually think the white Man-at-Arms does a better job of grabbing and holding aggro. But while the Man-at-Arms is basically impossible to keep alive after level 40 or so, the Guard will help you learn to be a better healer because you can work at keeping him alive, same as you would with a player tank.

I'm the kind of player that enjoys running with an actual NPC companion while questing, as opposed to a stone which is just a bunch of passive stat boosts. For endgame dungeons (which I don't do) I am sure the stone is optimal. If you want to enjoy yourself while questing, the Neverember Guard is a good choice.

odd111out

I had the Phorea on my Cleric in Skyhold and she worked pretty good. I had her up to 2% Lifesteal with power and defense. All she did was tank the boss, but as long as I kept him Astral Sealed and dropped a Divine FF each time it was up, she never died. She never took a whole lot of damage till Epic Idris where she started getting squashed entirely, and I broke down and bought a stone.

The Blue Guard I have seen perform admirably, especially once you have Astral Shield.

tyrtallow

For the record, our AoE burst DPS is stronger than a wizard's at that level. We simply have far less control. Also, the target limit of many of our spells is 5, which is problematic mostly on Ebon Downs/Hotenow. Happily we strongly outDPS a wizard single-target wise at those levels thanks to Terrifying Insight, though I'm assuming that like most people you decided to skip that power.
Seriously, you people should stop doing that.

Anyway, Chains of Blazing Light/Daunting Light should be enough for most of your AoE needs. You could swap Daunting for Searing Light if you can aim it well, otherwise stick with Daunting. With Forgemaster's Flame as your main heal/primary single target DPS on elites/bosses you should be fine for a long while. Expect changes in mid-Hotenow.

I'd take any other companion, really. I prefer the cleric companion, because we're actually more resilient than most other classes at these levels thanks to Forgemaster's(not affected by righteousness, btw)/Hallowed Ground/all the misc. healing and the extra healing from her means that I'm only spamming potions in dungeon runs or against particularly nasty single content bosses.

Grey Wolf Den boss is an add fight. The boss itself is only dangerous when there are adds around, since all her attacks are slow. They do massive damage though, which is why if you're busy fighting adds those skills will kill you.
Basically, only the tank should be near the boss. All other melee should focus on adds or do hit-and-run attacks because she has a melee attack that spawns more wolves the more players are hit by it. Finally, ADDS FIRST. Always. They will respawn, and sometimes she'll keep summoning wolves and it will seem like you people are going nowhere with this fight, but if you stop attacking those adds then things will get worse. Always kill the black wolves first (and use control powers on them since these things can kill even a GWF on Unstoppable in 3 or so hits) and save aLL your dailies for the 60% and 30% mark.

vverg

First I used the GF (free) companion, later I used Galeb Duhr for my DC during leveling till 60. I had no problems doing quests etc alone with this companion.

morsitans

Also, dismiss companions for wolf den boss fight: every time the boss lands a melee hit, she spawns more wolves. Actual people (well, most actual people) are smart enough to avoid the hits, but companions are incredibly stupid. So if you run in with five LittleMissHealbots, you're going to be wolfswamped incredibly quickly.

It's actually better to have a rogue solo her while the tank takes the adds, to be honest, because a rogue can dodge.


As for solo questing, I don't really think choice of companion matters terribly, especially at the higher level areas. They're there, then they die: it's what they do. All they're providing, for the most part, is an extra second or two of distraction. The best thing you can do as a solo cleric is remain mobile. Use your dodges like they're going out of style. I solo'd up to 50 using sunburst, HW and forgemasters, and up to 60 replacing HW with AS, so it's entirely managable even sticking primarily to heals (I killed most things with sacred flame, embarassingly enough). You just need to move a lot.

Having said that, once at 60 I thought I'd try experimenting with all the other powers I never used, and yeah: damage-dealing stuff makes things soo much easier. Daunting Light is incredible. But still: it can be done with a heal-heavy bar if you're prepared to move around a lot (and I'd argue this is good practice for dungeons, where you'll primarily be healing everyone and running around avoiding stray adds).