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Powers of non-augment companions
erevel09
Member Posts: 177 Arc User
I've given it some thought. We have basically two types of companions in game: augments which only boosts our stats and the active ones that fight alongside doing various things (be it healing, stunning, dealing damage). Situation with augments in mod22 is actually pretty decent with the new companion enchantment which boosts the boost of stats they provide, so let's leave it at that for a time. I wanted to focus more on actual active companions.
I checked powers some companions use. I understand that making them somewhat diffrent grants them unique perspective, unfortunately there are about 10 companions in the game that are actually decent. Succubus/incubus, pseudodragon, mystagogue/wayward wizards, spined devil, stalwart golden lion, drizzt, regis, bruenor, dedicated squire, helmite paladin ghost, intellect devourer and maybe some others. That's not much. Why is that? When checking collections there are a lot of companions in each section, at least 30+ for many. Why only a few are actually decent while all the rest are left forgotten unless they provide passive bonus that can be slotted into offensive/defensive/utility/universal slots?
I thought about it and came up with conclusion: it's because of the diffrence in powers assigned to them. That and 2 extra "powers" which serves pretty much no purpose (other than redundancy) and are used with every single one of them. Role Expertise and Enhancement.
First of all: those two powers should be merged and apply to all active companions, but not listed under powers. There is no reason for every single companion to have them listed in their list of usable abilities. If we remove those two infamous "powers" we are left with usually 2-4 powers depending on the companion.
Second: tooltips. The tooltips, everyones favourite thing. Like enhancement says: it grants additional combined rating. How much? 1000? 2000?
Let's look at Drizzt Do'Urden. He has the followind powers:
The reason people run with Drizzt is only because of his passive power: Stab the Way. 3% boost to damage for everyone in the party. Pretty nice. What about the other two powers? I'd best describe them as his "at-wills". And not even that, because the are exactly THE SAME. The only diffrence is the animation that plays upon using them. In terms of damage they are THE SAME (both weak), they share THE SAME properties such as cast time, cooldown, arc, range, all of that.
Now let's take a look at Succubus. She has the following powers:
Necrotic Claw is her "at-will" power as it has 1s cast time and 1s cooldown.
Draining Kiss has 2s cast time and 15s cooldown and I'd consider it her "encounter" power.
Deadly Kiss however is boosted by Enhanced Deadly Kiss, has 5s cast time and whole 30s cooldown. I'd consider it her "daily" power.
See the diffrence? Drizzt has one passive power and 2 almost identical at-wills only, while succubus has at-will, encounter and daily in her arsenal along with passive that boost daily. Not only that, all of those abilities deal really good damage, with Deadly Kiss oneshotting weaker mobs while questing and severaly damaging any in the dungeons.
My question is: why can't every single companion be like succubus? And I don't mean it in terms of damage done. Succubus is basically a player after finishing tutorial. At-will, passive, encounter and daily power. Most companions have something like 1 at-will and 1 encounter + passive that usually boosts one of those, but they are so weak, they are not worth using.
Companion abilities have diffrent cast times and cooldowns. It also makes a diffrence if those are meant to be used on single target or as AoE, but in my opinion in general: the longer the cast time and cooldown the more power the ability should have. And if companion does not have "big blast" skill, all of the other skills should be improved.
I realize it would take a lot of work, but in my opinion every "common" companion should share this characteristic, unless they are designed otherwise. It might be even dependant on rank they are at, but this already took place in old system when companions had levels and you didn't seem to like the idea (hence removed).
As for named companions, such as Corbin the Venerated, Xuna, Knox, Zariel, Soradiel, Celeste, Makos... they should feel unique. Companions of the Hall (Drizzt, Regis, Bruenor, Catti-brie, Wulfgar) already are somewhat like this with their unique passive bonuses and boosts they grant, but all the others shares just usual generic powers (Xuna might be an exception with Bloodbath, but this was already nerfed to the ground).
One extra thing: every player power is measured in Magnitude. Can you please make it so companion powers are also measured this way and put values in the tooltips?
Please consider doing so in the future. It would make a lot of companions worthwhile or at least more interesting.
I checked powers some companions use. I understand that making them somewhat diffrent grants them unique perspective, unfortunately there are about 10 companions in the game that are actually decent. Succubus/incubus, pseudodragon, mystagogue/wayward wizards, spined devil, stalwart golden lion, drizzt, regis, bruenor, dedicated squire, helmite paladin ghost, intellect devourer and maybe some others. That's not much. Why is that? When checking collections there are a lot of companions in each section, at least 30+ for many. Why only a few are actually decent while all the rest are left forgotten unless they provide passive bonus that can be slotted into offensive/defensive/utility/universal slots?
I thought about it and came up with conclusion: it's because of the diffrence in powers assigned to them. That and 2 extra "powers" which serves pretty much no purpose (other than redundancy) and are used with every single one of them. Role Expertise and Enhancement.
First of all: those two powers should be merged and apply to all active companions, but not listed under powers. There is no reason for every single companion to have them listed in their list of usable abilities. If we remove those two infamous "powers" we are left with usually 2-4 powers depending on the companion.
Second: tooltips. The tooltips, everyones favourite thing. Like enhancement says: it grants additional combined rating. How much? 1000? 2000?
Let's look at Drizzt Do'Urden. He has the followind powers:
The reason people run with Drizzt is only because of his passive power: Stab the Way. 3% boost to damage for everyone in the party. Pretty nice. What about the other two powers? I'd best describe them as his "at-wills". And not even that, because the are exactly THE SAME. The only diffrence is the animation that plays upon using them. In terms of damage they are THE SAME (both weak), they share THE SAME properties such as cast time, cooldown, arc, range, all of that.
Now let's take a look at Succubus. She has the following powers:
Necrotic Claw is her "at-will" power as it has 1s cast time and 1s cooldown.
Draining Kiss has 2s cast time and 15s cooldown and I'd consider it her "encounter" power.
Deadly Kiss however is boosted by Enhanced Deadly Kiss, has 5s cast time and whole 30s cooldown. I'd consider it her "daily" power.
See the diffrence? Drizzt has one passive power and 2 almost identical at-wills only, while succubus has at-will, encounter and daily in her arsenal along with passive that boost daily. Not only that, all of those abilities deal really good damage, with Deadly Kiss oneshotting weaker mobs while questing and severaly damaging any in the dungeons.
My question is: why can't every single companion be like succubus? And I don't mean it in terms of damage done. Succubus is basically a player after finishing tutorial. At-will, passive, encounter and daily power. Most companions have something like 1 at-will and 1 encounter + passive that usually boosts one of those, but they are so weak, they are not worth using.
Companion abilities have diffrent cast times and cooldowns. It also makes a diffrence if those are meant to be used on single target or as AoE, but in my opinion in general: the longer the cast time and cooldown the more power the ability should have. And if companion does not have "big blast" skill, all of the other skills should be improved.
I realize it would take a lot of work, but in my opinion every "common" companion should share this characteristic, unless they are designed otherwise. It might be even dependant on rank they are at, but this already took place in old system when companions had levels and you didn't seem to like the idea (hence removed).
As for named companions, such as Corbin the Venerated, Xuna, Knox, Zariel, Soradiel, Celeste, Makos... they should feel unique. Companions of the Hall (Drizzt, Regis, Bruenor, Catti-brie, Wulfgar) already are somewhat like this with their unique passive bonuses and boosts they grant, but all the others shares just usual generic powers (Xuna might be an exception with Bloodbath, but this was already nerfed to the ground).
One extra thing: every player power is measured in Magnitude. Can you please make it so companion powers are also measured this way and put values in the tooltips?
Please consider doing so in the future. It would make a lot of companions worthwhile or at least more interesting.
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Extra problem with healing companions is balance: if they would perform well, who would even need healers for dungeons? It is possible to run VoS with 5 Dedicated Squires and for the most part it's a breeze, but for now there are mobs that can kill with 1-3 hits, so healers are still needed, as companions can't heal by 200k per heal.
As for tanking companions, not really sure what can be done. They might have extra mechanic that would make them good for solo questing. Something like: the more damage you deal, the more threat your companion gets - or, in case of tanks - increase threat generation by %. That value should be adjusted so that tanks remain relevant.
As for the whole Magnitude part, I'd like to add something like this (these are only an example values):
- For every second of cast time and cooldown, Magnitude of powers is increased by 10;
- Extra magnitude is added based on type of power that is used: at-will - 15; encounter - 40, daily - 80;
- If a power is meant to deal Single Target(ST) damage, add 15 magnitude;
- If it's AoE add 10 magnitude;
- If companion does not have the daily power, divide magnitude bonus by 2 and add to every other power;
- In case of companions such as Drizzt who only has at-wills, add the extra encounter bonus, also divided by 5.
With that example let's look at Succubus powers:
- Deadly Kiss would deal 440 magnitude damage (5s cast time+30s cooldown+daily buff+AoE buff);
- Draining Kiss 225 magnitude (2s cast time+15s cooldown+encounter bonus+ST buff);
- Necrotic Claw 50 magnitude damage (1s cast time+1s cooldown+at-will bonus+ST bonus).
For Drizzt it would work like this: he has 2 at-wills that are identical with 0.3s cast time and 5s cooldown.
53(cast time+cooldown) + 15(at-will bonus) + 40(daily bonus/2) + 8(encounter bonus/5) + 10(AoE bonus) = 126 magnitude
It might seem like a lot, but Drizzt is a unique NAMED companion + he does not have any other powers and because of that he is left behind the others in terms of damage dealt.
Same could be applied to the healing companions. Again, those values are not final, all of it could be adjusted. It's just the logic behind the scenes that would help when it comes to giving specific powers the magnitudes.
In my opinion it would help greatly.