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"New" player w/ a couple questions, your time is appreciated.
trickshaw
Member Posts: 497 Arc User
in The Citadel
Firstly, I get how annoying it is to have newbies come in and ask questions that they should be looking up themselves, rest assured I've tried to do exactly that before coming here. I googled these questions and some of the answers I got were preeeety dated, from like 2yr's + ago, so I figured I'd stop frustrating myself and just ask you guys for some enlightenment. I tried to ask players in-game, heh, but that's just an exercise in futility.
So, here are my questions:
Owlbear Cub, is this thing bugged, busted, nerfed or what? In a 3-5 minute play period I might MAYBE see this thing proc once possibly twice. With my crit, deliberately, as low as it is it seems to me this thing should be proc'ing a helluva lot more.
Galeb Duhr + Frozen Galeb Duhr? Do these things stack with one another and, if so, how exactly can you tell if they're working aside from anecdotal observation of your damage numbers?
Tenebrous Enchants, I read a post dated some time ago that says having more than one of these things equipped bugs them out. Is that accurate? Also, what is the proc chance? Does it scale with Enchantment rank?
Finally, Bonding Stones. Now, I've managed to gather a couple Bondings and one Lesser and threw it on one of my pets. Firstly, I didn't notice any stat increase OTHER THAN power. Soooo... is that the only thing that gets buffed by these things? Secondly the power buff I *DID* get didn't seem to outweigh just throwing them on one of my Augment pets. In fact it was like, WAY less. Do these things only really benefit you once you get into the Greater+ ranks because as is it's not making sense for me to have an Active pet out when the Augment pet is netting me far more return. And on a related note, should I even bother with Active pets to begin with given that I'm shooting for a solo/tanking type build and these guys seem to go down preeeeety quick when bosses are around.
Thanks everyone for your time, I'm most appreciative.
So, here are my questions:
Owlbear Cub, is this thing bugged, busted, nerfed or what? In a 3-5 minute play period I might MAYBE see this thing proc once possibly twice. With my crit, deliberately, as low as it is it seems to me this thing should be proc'ing a helluva lot more.
Galeb Duhr + Frozen Galeb Duhr? Do these things stack with one another and, if so, how exactly can you tell if they're working aside from anecdotal observation of your damage numbers?
Tenebrous Enchants, I read a post dated some time ago that says having more than one of these things equipped bugs them out. Is that accurate? Also, what is the proc chance? Does it scale with Enchantment rank?
Finally, Bonding Stones. Now, I've managed to gather a couple Bondings and one Lesser and threw it on one of my pets. Firstly, I didn't notice any stat increase OTHER THAN power. Soooo... is that the only thing that gets buffed by these things? Secondly the power buff I *DID* get didn't seem to outweigh just throwing them on one of my Augment pets. In fact it was like, WAY less. Do these things only really benefit you once you get into the Greater+ ranks because as is it's not making sense for me to have an Active pet out when the Augment pet is netting me far more return. And on a related note, should I even bother with Active pets to begin with given that I'm shooting for a solo/tanking type build and these guys seem to go down preeeeety quick when bosses are around.
Thanks everyone for your time, I'm most appreciative.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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The Duhrs: Get rid of them. You only really get the damage bonus when you are almost out of HP, and as an OP, you are almost always topped up on HP, if not waaaaay over your max HP due to temp HP. In those instances, you get absolutely no bonus from those companions.
Tenebrous: Can't comment as I have never used them.
Bonding Runestones: At lower levels, you probably won't see much of a bonus, but at R10 and above, they blow right past an augment (I am assuming your are using an Owlbear cub); you get full R12s and it changes the game entirely. And yes, you get bonuses from all the equipment and stat bonus' they provide that you have on your companion; at legendary, you also get an addtiional 15% of all their stats.
Your priority of enchants should be Bonding Stones, Weapon Enchant (ideally to Trans), and then work on your other enchants as you can.
The cub used to be all sorts of broken especially with Damage-over-Time powers, but has since been largely fixed.
For OPs, here's a relevant discussion of how to get it to proc:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1231999/owlbwear-cub-pc
It's also worth noting that it doesn't appear to enhance TW temp HP:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1227726/owlbear-cub-tw Galeb Duhr increases your damage, Frozen Galeb Duhr increases your damage resistance. On paper, they are separate and should both work (because they are doing different things). But I haven't tested to see whether they are both working as intended.
Do note that since these require you to be low on health, they are usually considered less awesome for end-game parties where a healer or self-heals have you at full health most of the time. You don't want to have more than one of each rank, because they won't stack and share a cooldown. But the damage here is not amazing, and the internal cooldown following every proc is pretty long. So you might not want any at all
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1227756/tenebrous-damage Bondings are tough. If your combined stones offer less than 100% stat transfer, then an augment will result in better stats.
Ideally, 3x R12 bonding stones + Legendary Active Bonus allows you to transfer 3*95% + 15% = 300% of bonding companion stats. Compares with 100% + 15% = 115% of augment companion stats.
Bonding stones transfer all "primary" stats (power, crit, recovery, arpen, defense, deflect, lifesteal) and regeneration, but not HP or any other secondary stats (AP gain, combat advantage bonus, etc.)
They are working, but note that companions don't usually have a lot of base stats. And depending on the type of companion they may not have any base stats of a certain type (defenders won't have many offensive stats). A maxed out companion's base stats are in the 100's, not 1,000's.
BUT
Bonding stones transfer buffed stats, including any gear that the companion is wearing or auras / buffs that the companion is affected by. That's why you see folks decking out their bonding companions with R12 enchantments before the put them on their own characters.
That's also what makes power sharing very sought-after in end game. Because a +5,000 power aura can be applied directly to a player, but also to their bonding companion, resulting in 5,000 directly + 300% * 5,000 = 15,000 for a total of 20,000 power in this example. Bonding companions amplify power auras significantly.
ALSO, ABOUT ACTIVE PETS
They can provide a pretty solid boost to personal dps or survivability. If you're soloing, I'd aim for personal dps boosters. Air / Fire / Earth archons, siege master, and repentant dragon cultist have solid dmg multipliers. Some of the new pets also give +dmg against specific enemy types or when you're hitting enemies from behind.
Since damage buffs are multiplicative with each other, they can help bring up your dps quite a bit. And it sounds like for the new zone you might want that (dino skin is thick ftw)
FINALLY, ABOUT SUMMONED PET
There are many more options viable now than before the bonding rework (if you don't know what that means, ignore this comment... bondings used to be broken in a lot of different ways). But you might want to consider debuff pets (at least for now). I mean pets that have an attack that reduces enemy DR, so that you deal more damage. This is unlocked at rank 30 as one of their attacks, and is not part of the Active Bonus. Common debuff pets include Sellsword, Con Artist, Rebel Mercenary, Ambush Drake, and Dancing Shield.
Galeb Duhr - active bonus is based on the actual HP, not damage taken. So just like Aura of Wrath - useless for OP.
Tenebrous - I used it on Dev at the beginning. At lower level with reasonably high HP it's nice additional damage, but later when having higher rank bondings, Radiants for more power share that goes back to you through bondings is better.
Any bonding companion is better than augment for couple reasons. The argument that 3x R7 bondings grant only 60% of companion's stats while augment give 100% so it becomes better than augment only starting from 3x R8 bondings (105%) is invalid. Companion can be affected by power share and pass that extra power to summoner. Can also provide debuffs (e.g. Sellsword/Con Artist) and it's source of combat advantage (for more damage) if you position yourself.
Secondly, See, that's the thing, I stand there and let my pet just wail away while I stand there with my character sheet open and I'm observing zero stat increase other than power. Not recovery, not Defense, not anything other than power. I'm not sure if this pet is bugged or what. Are they supposed to transfer over the stats from equipped items as well? To be clear I was using the Blacksmith pet blue quality.
Finally, is there a pet you ladies and gents would recommend for active use that doesn't get curb stomped at the first sign of a boss? Or is it simply a matter of none of my pets being of Legendary quality yet?
Thanks again in advance.
Yes, I'm 100% certain bondings _should_ transfer crit, recovery, etc. They were working as of last night on all of my toons.
Are you certain that your pet has recovery and defense? What gear do you have on there? For instance underdark rings and artifact equipment don't work on companions. Is it possible you equipped something that's not giving any stats to your companion? Maybe try a different piece of equipment or a different enchantment?
It is also possible that your pet is bugged. There have been times in the past that pets have not proc'd companion's gift well. But to have it work with power and nothing else is a little... strange...
As far as pets getting killed by bosses? Yeah pretty much all pets die.
A Liira's bell can help bring them up faster and gives 10sec of invulnerability (and is cheap on the AH).
Defender pets have immunity to certain AoEs, so they tend to stay upright a little better. But they usually have hard taunts where they steal aggro, which can be frustrating for a tank if you are running group content with a party. So it's generally not recommended to have a defender companion if you are doing group content (unless you're the tank, and you are comfortable controlling your pet).
But if you are soloing, some defender pets can be helpful.
I would recommend dancing shield because it has a special debuff attack (specifically, shield slam is a 20% uncapped non-stacking debuff) that is pretty amazing for your dps. But it has 3 defensive runeslots and limited gear options.
If that's not your thing, then Yeti can be pretty solid defender. It has 3 offense slots, and the active bonus isn't the worst (the uptime isn't great, but 10% damage is nice... plus you get big for the funnies). I used to use my Yeti to tank Orcus (before they neutered him) if we didn't have a strong tank in party.
But again, if you are going to be in a party with a real tank player, have another companion you can switch to or be prepared to explain why it's OK that your pet is spinning the boss.
And no, increased pet rank doesn't _significantly_ help their survivability. It might help a bit in lower level areas, but in the end game everyone is hitting so hard that pets die in one hit regardless their color or rank.
For me as a paladin levelling up it was trial and error, see what works and does not.
With the most recent changes/nerfs to the paladin and binding oath in particular i believe a lot of the old "good" guides you can take inspiration from like cptn spicy pants for example has become unusable mainly because stacking recovery i believe has been shifted to stacking offensive attributes such as power, crit, health and a splash of recovery with a dread/vorp to maximise the dps of TW (Templar's Wrath).
Long story short, stick with bonding in your companion and stick as much power/crit/health/defence as you can get (in that order of importance) and maximise your dps to buff TW to a point where your yellow over shield can survive the damage coming in from the adds and your all gravy and IMO still very overpowered especially since with a combination of feats you can passively heal, dps and tank very successfully.
One place I am very new to is getting a paladin from fresh to high ilvl in this current state it'd be real interesting to see how they play out in the 2/3k ilvl area (refusing to use the new ilvls i can't gauge tiers yet using that system)
4,300 Tankadin