So much discussion about pokemons and nothing about classes.
As if there was anyone naive here who didn't know that there will be a new BIS like Fire Archon, Tiger, Xuna, etc... and that in 1 or 2 modules it will be balanced because somehow it had some bug that went unnoticed.
Hello @xalkastiz#5524 and thank you for the thread! Are you planning to change the augment companions as well? In the current state, augment gives 30k rating stats to the owner, splitted into 3 main stats (or only one for Golden companions).
The problem with augments is that these RATING stats go over the cap 99% of the time, making companions useless in the mid and endgame.
I think it would be nice suggestion if augument could be reworked:: instead of giving rating stats it would be more interesting if they would give %stats, Maybe for balance not 30% of %stats but more or less 21% (7% each % stats). Or change Companion Enchantment to give %. Thanks again!
This. +++
I suggest to remove the 2000 stat rating part (currently Augments give 2000 + 7500 for 3 stats). After that keep the 7500 stat rating and convert it to 7.5% (3*7.5% = 22.5% total).
Look you guys need to get your stuff together. This MTOS HAMSTER has completely destroyed certain classes. Developing a Dungeon that less than 1% of the player base can complete all the while completely destroying entire classes that is the dumbest marketing ploy I have seen yet. You wonder why the game is dying? Stop listening to all the 1% elites and open you ears to the 99% of us that pays the bills. You may be smart with development but you guys are complete idiots when it comes to sales and marketing. You need to refocus on where your revenue is coming from if you want to have a job in 2023.
The only true way they can fix the player drain and the non existing progression gap is.
CANCEL private preview! Inside information is allowing people to exploit other players and the devs rewards the exploiters
All latest mod dungeon/trial must be PUG ONLY(like the og tiamat was and people waited before that door forever just so they don't miss it the fake tiamat no one really cares about!). This will destroy XP only content, you must be in x or y chat group to do a dungeon(like it is now) or you must be on discord to do a dungeon. The devs will then be forced to make new content that ALL players can play not the BIS minority (diversity is a good thing and should not be punished like it is being done in this game.) To those that say oh but i will be in a group with weak players.. That means the dungeon/trial is harder... that is what BIS players pretend they want! This will also solve long wait times. Players will not get fed up with the hour + wait for new content then getting frustrated and play a game that you don't wait 1h for the "honour" to play a dungeon or trial!!!!! YES THIS GAME NEEDS AND OVERHAUL , but it is not companions that need to be looked at. THE COMPLETE APPROACH OF DUNGEONS AND TRIALS IS A DISASTER AND NEED TO BE FIXED ASAP.
There are more than BIS players in this game RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ???? FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,405Arc User
Change the rule of the game during the match is unfair . We have a lot of companions that are no longer needed because "balancing" with no compensation. Now a new balancing incoming and i bet will be only new bis companion to buy/upgrade .
There is no rule. If there is a rule, it is a rule you established on your own. Nothing is BiS forever. Whatever BiS stuff you have right now were the replacement of the last generation of BiS stuff which were the replacement of the BiS stuff before them. There have been Nth generations of BiS stuff.
Who say companion/stuff should be Bis forever ? Simply add new that outperform instead of HAMSTER up the existing. True there is no rule but someone here speaks about of quality of life in game and destroy companion/stuff is far to be funny for a player.
Depends on how you view it, for some (if what dev said is what it will be and of course, as always I have serious doubt about anything), certain existing companions will be doing better than before. So, for some, it is an improvement of QoL.
That is what he said "we will also be boosting all companion damage by roughly 20%.".
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
you should make comrades more effective in their role,a healer comrade should heal well or a squire should put a good shield so as to be usable,as for the comrades who do dps they should all make attacks with constant speed,in many they are too slow,if they all had the same attack speed many comrades could be strong in both single and aoe,to differentiate them there is power like poison or a debuff buff etc.so that all are usable in the most suitable content
First - what with the augments? I mean, the community already heavily implies, that if you want to play harder content, you should ditch the augment and stick with a striker. So far, it wasn't exactly truth - I've been pulling satisfying numbers with an augment. Constant, stable stat caps can do wonders, and pretty much fill out the couple-percent damage void from a peaceful companion.
But the gap was very small - 20% boost to companion damage will absolutely destroy this thin margin, giving augments no chance in late game. This very much goes against the "not rearranging companion desirability" thing - you'll either use a striker, or be significantly behind people with those.
Second - Striker damage boost insignia bonus. Is boosting damage of all strikers 20% with no counterbalance actually a good idea, whilst the damage can already be boosted by much more with insignia you already have? This pretty much ends in "rich get richer" type of scenario. Even if you'll nerf certain companions squeezing out insane damage at the moment, overall 20% bonus will not lead to balance; It'll just cause pretty much most of the already well performing companions to be OP.
The one and only true mythic Horse Wizard. Known also as "The one with the biggest horn", "Dancing with Lightnings", "The Horsest of the Wizards"
Augment companions should augment the player's role. They currently do not. They are a detriment. Tanks do not get a debuff with them. So they're terrible for tanks. Healers do not get divinity regen with them, so they're terrible for healers. With gear available from 22k on up to pad stat ratings under most combat circumstances for DPS players (any players, really) augments do not do what we really want them TO do - Augment the role. An augment should enhance the player. It's literally in the name! Consider this, Keep the ratings they currently give (or get crazy and shake them up.. except the goldens.. Their single stat rating boost is just plain stupid.. Yeah, I said it. People PAID for those things. That needs to change.) but add a buff.. Something like 80% resistance to stuns, knockbacks and holds when summoned - like the old elven battle enchant we miss so much. Passive increased divinity regen when summoned. 5% Damage resistance debuff on target on shield break for 15 seconds.. 10% chance to chain lightning on At-Will hit. 15 magnitude fire damage on critical hit.. Etc.)
Change the rule of the game during the match is unfair . We have a lot of companions that are no longer needed because "balancing" with no compensation. Now a new balancing incoming and i bet will be only new bis companion to buy/upgrade .
There is no rule. If there is a rule, it is a rule you established on your own. Nothing is BiS forever. Whatever BiS stuff you have right now were the replacement of the last generation of BiS stuff which were the replacement of the BiS stuff before them. There have been Nth generations of BiS stuff.
Who say companion/stuff should be Bis forever ? Simply add new that outperform instead of HAMSTER up the existing. True there is no rule but someone here speaks about of quality of life in game and destroy companion/stuff is far to be funny for a player.
Depends on how you view it, for some (if what dev said is what it will be and of course, as always I have serious doubt about anything), certain existing companions will be doing better than before. So, for some, it is an improvement of QoL.
That is what he said "we will also be boosting all companion damage by roughly 20%.".
U have serious doubt , i have ZERO TRUST because in the past i saw only cash grab hidden behind rework. If after the rework we don't have a proper bis companion cause they all do a similar dmg increased by 20% of what is now bis than they do what they say otherwise is only the last cheat.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,405Arc User
U have serious doubt , i have ZERO TRUST because in the past i saw only cash grab hidden behind rework.
Cash grab is never a doubt. It is not hidden. I "trust" them on that. It has been like that for years. However, nobody can get your cash unless you pay it out. Yes, they can get others' cash. I always can't understand why someone pay "more than premium" to get "short term" premium product which certainly will not be premium product. How many times people could be fooled?
If after the rework we don't have a proper bis companion cause they all do a similar dmg increased by 20% of what is now bis than they do what they say otherwise is only the last cheat.
I guess you did not read what he wrote. "Some top tier companions" will be lowered their damage but still above others. Then, they add 20% to all companion. So, based on the wording, "Some top tier companions" will not have 20% damage increase from their current damage.
"This change means that some top tier companions will experience a reduction in base damage. More specifically, several companions with AoE powers were using single target damage formulas, and a handful of single target companions were using formulas that did not scale well with player stats (Paranoid Delusion being the prime example). Our adjustments are intended to keep everything at the same relative desirability: if a companion was top tier DPS before, it will still be at the top - just not so far ahead of the pack as to invalidate the use of others.
To further clarify, we are not simply lowering damage across the board. Since much of the high-end content has already been balanced around the current companions, and the overall goal was to achieve a more balanced experience, we will also be boosting all companion damage by roughly 20%. This increase will be applied to everything using the new damage formulas, including those whose damage was initially reduced. NOTE: This change is not yet live on Preview."
Post edited by plasticbat on
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
Greetings, and thank you for the warm welcome! While am unable to respond individually to each post, I do read through every one of them, and I really appreciate you taking the time to provide feedback. It helps me greatly when refining complex systems such as this. I do want to respond to a few of the questions and suggestions that I've seen repeated thus far; quotes have been clipped to keep my responses focused:
Bringing all dps companions more in line with each other sounds great but if you look at what is on preview now PD does even more dmg then it did before.
The Paranoid Delusion companion was the single trickiest part of this task, as it consists of somewhere around 50 different abilities, all of which function differently than most other companion powers. The same tuning method was applied to these as was to other companions, but some versions of it (eg. rogue) were affected differently than others, as many of you have noted. I’ve already done a second pass on these locally, but the changes have not yet made it to Preview. We will have these inconsistencies corrected before the changes go live.
I just hope that people who paid for the premium companions in the packs/offers over the last few years still feel value for their money. One risk of making everything special is that nothing is special.
While the general intent of this change was to reduce damage variance between companions, we absolutely do not want to homogenize them. We want special companions to remain special, and to this end I’ve attempted to improve powers that help certain companions fulfil more specific roles. I am giving the premium companions a more careful look since they are intended to stand out from the crowd a little. As I mentioned above, balance changes are ongoing, so if you have specific suggestions for any of them, now is a good time to get that feedback in!
Are you planning to change the augment companions as well? ... I think it would be nice suggestion if augument could be reworked
This round of changes was focused only on combat companions, but we’d love to take a closer look at augment companions as well. I can’t promise when this will happen, but it’s at the forefront of my list when I have more time to devote to companions! I’ve seen a number of different suggestions posted to this thread on this same topic, and I’ve been saving all of them for future consideration.
Please add some kind of tag to identify a companions "role" (AoE or Single target damage dealer)
This is a fantastic suggestion! It would require some UI additions and a fair amount of case by case changes to companions, so it’s outside of the scope of this particular task, but I like the idea a lot. I’ll put it on the list for future quality of life updates.
One point could be emphasize the 'connection' of a punch of companions with every different classes and roles... Some companions could be the best for Warlocks DPS, while another one's could be the best for a Rogues DPS, and different ones for ranged and close combat DPS, and of course special supporters for healers or tanks, with convenient roles. This way will balance the zillions of companions all trough the tabletop.
I’ve seen this idea put forth a few times in various iterations, so I felt it worth giving my feedback. This is a cool idea, and something I’d love to do if we had the time, but not something we’ll be able to focus on at this juncture. That said, we have been trying to put more emphasis on specific roles for companions, to make them more useful situationally – hopefully this helps address the desire for a more varied selection.
Might be a far fetched idea but I'd like to see Companions of the Hall bonus expanded upon. Currently, there's no reason to run any other than Drizzt, Regis
No promises, but I’ll keep this in mind. Many of us on the team are fans of the Companions of the Hall as well, so I suspect this wouldn’t be a hard sell!
I hope everyone has had a great week, and thank you all once again for providing feedback. I’m sorry if I wasn’t able to address your specific concern, but I’ll continue reading through everything that is posted here, and will reply to as many points as I can.
Balancing companion damage is closely bound to the companion enchantment, which in mythic quality gives 150% damage to the companion, has some IL and no combined rating. Ideally, all companions should be eligible to do enough damage that the sum of PC+companion damage does not drop if you slot the companion gem even in capped content.
20% damage increase will not ensure this for more than half of the companions. (skipping the fact that some healing companions do no damage at all)
Alternatively, you can add combined rating to the companion gem, or add some other enchantment with a different bonus to the damage. To ensure having the companion enchantment is justified in all content with all companions.
First - what with the augments? I mean, the community already heavily implies, that if you want to play harder content, you should ditch the augment and stick with a striker. So far, it wasn't exactly truth - I've been pulling satisfying numbers with an augment. Constant, stable stat caps can do wonders, and pretty much fill out the couple-percent damage void from a peaceful companion.
But the gap was very small - 20% boost to companion damage will absolutely destroy this thin margin, giving augments no chance in late game. This very much goes against the "not rearranging companion desirability" thing - you'll either use a striker, or be significantly behind people with those.
Second - Striker damage boost insignia bonus. Is boosting damage of all strikers 20% with no counterbalance actually a good idea, whilst the damage can already be boosted by much more with insignia you already have? This pretty much ends in "rich get richer" type of scenario. Even if you'll nerf certain companions squeezing out insane damage at the moment, overall 20% bonus will not lead to balance; It'll just cause pretty much most of the already well performing companions to be OP.
Most people who run strikers also run at least one, if not multiple Warlord's Inspirations. Which is getting a nerf. On live, Warlord's Inspiration gives 20%. On preview, Warlord's Inspiration gives 12%. Further testing, the tooltip on Preview shows the amount you get for the total WI that you have. the 12% that it was showing for me was for the two combines WI.
On preview, one WI gives 8%, two gives 12%, three gives 15%, four gives...... 15%
Which means if you have two WI, on live, you get 30%, on preview it's 18%. If you have three, on live that's 35%, on preview 21%.
So, you can see, there actually IS a counterbalance. It just hasn't been discussed by anyone.
-Edited to add in further testing and clarifications
One more "companion thing" which would make more sense for QoL rather than any damage balance: Delete the code in the companion AI which forces companions to avoid giving you CA at all cost. (to chase back the PC if not on the same side of the enemy)
> @liadan1984#8734 said: > Most people who run strikers also run at least one, if not multiple Warlord's Inspirations. Which is getting a nerf. > On live, Warlord's Inspiration gives 20%. > On preview, Warlord's Inspiration gives 12%. > > Which means if you have two WI, on live, you get 30%, on preview it's 18%. If you have three, on live that's 35%, on preview 21%. > > So, you can see, there actually IS a counterbalance. It just hasn't been discussed by anyone.
From all the testing I've seen, Warlords on Live is bugged and doesn't give anything close to what it is listed as. What is on Preview may be accurate to what we have now or possibly even a buff.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
I don't have access to the preview server and therefore I don't know what the current changes look like. I want to leave my thoughts here, regardless.
I hope the balance changes will affect support companions as well. First off, it would be great if the companion enchantment would not just boost a companion's damage exclusively, but their healing as well. Especially, because there are at least 3 support companions, which don't attack at all. These are the Angel of Protection, Fawn of Shiallia, and the Snowy Fawn.
These 3 companions should be looked at, because as already mentioned, they don't attack, and their healing output is atrocious (every other healing companion provides more healing, while also being able to attack and therefore help with damage output). It's totally fine, that non-attacking support companions like these exist, but their healing abilities need to be: A) in line with other healing companions, and B ) accommodate for the fact, that they don't attack (so their abilities should either come with useful party buffs or their healing output should be adequately higher than other support companions, which do attack).
Now about support companions in general. I think it would be greatly appreciated, if all support companions would offer a useful party buff. Currently, every healer seems to run around with a tutor, and I'm getting sick of it. I'm playing a healer myself, and I hate it, when I have to summon him. Especially, because he provides combat advantage stats, which is undesirable/ useless for the healer itself. It would be great, if other support companions would provide similar buffs, but to stats the healer actually can make use of, like power, critical chance, critical severity, outgoing healing, or defensive stats like critical avoidance and awareness. Taking the Tutor as the norm (+5% Combat advantage for the whole group, 100% uptime, except for, when the tutor is in a downed state) other support companions should receive similar party buffs with similar effectiveness. So to speak, +5% in a given stat for 100% uptime, or a higher stat percentage, if the uptime happens to be lower than 100%.
Let's take the Angel of Protection for example. It provides +5% defense with a 100% uptime (unless in a downed state), similarly to the tutor. There's a significant difference between them, though: the tutor's buff is party wide, while the angel's buff only applies to its master. This should be changed, make it party wide.
For the Fawn of Shiallia. While it is one of the most adorable companions, it is at the same time the most useless companion in the game. It provides no buffs, it doesn't attack, and its healing output is atrocious. It has two active abilities, Nature's Vigor (which I'm not even sure, if it works) and Spring of Life. The latter creates a healing spring that lasts for 10 seconds, with a 35 second cooldown. The spring is quite small, the healing is abysmal, and the fawn will cast it anywhere, so also on top of enemy telegraphs and other places, where you don't want to be. But even if the healing was great, why would anyone bother to position their character inside? After all the healer is expected to do the healing. In order to make people bother, it needs to be worthwhile, aka it needs to provide a significant buff. I suggest adding an aura to the tree, that provides a buff to players nearby (and scales with proximity). Let's say, for example, it provides +15% critical chance and +15% incoming healing. The further the player is away, the smaller the bonus becomes. In order to receive the full benefit, the player must be very close or stand directly in it. Upon standing directly inside, the player will also receive healing. The numbers shown are great enough to be considered worthwhile, while they will be balanced around their uptime. Let's not forget, the ability has a 35 second cooldown! Alternatively, the numbers can be tweaked down, along with the cooldown.
In any case, I hope you address those support companions as well. I want to see far more choices, than just the tutor, drizzt and the spined devil.
PS: Please fix the post edit. I tried to edit my post, and it got deleted instead. I had to write half of it all over again.
About changing the status of companions from increase to % I do not agree. Both in my GF Tank and in my GWF I use this type of companion for the simple fact of activating the FEATs that have damage reduction gain for the GF and damage gain for the GWF. These FEAT's are super hard to get, especially in the case of GWF using a striker companion.
My suggestion would be, these companions give buff damage\healing\damage reduction, depending on the role for the summoner. If the pokemons are going to get buffs (which is kind of a joke), the boosting companions should get something too so they don't further unbalance what is already unbalanced.
About changing the status of companions from increase to % I do not agree. Both in my GF Tank and in my GWF I use this type of companion for the simple fact of activating the FEATs that have damage reduction gain for the GF and damage gain for the GWF. These FEAT's are super hard to get, especially in the case of GWF using a striker companion.
That feat is actually easier to chase without the augment bonus - you just must not dump all your stats into one attribute. Yes, you might be taking 1% more damage because you redirected part of your stats which would go to awareness towards crit. avoidance/deflect, so lets not call it a perfect solution, but definitely an easier one.
edit: Plus I have to highlight the potential of running with an augment that would provide 22% awareness as an compensation to the loss mentioned above. I would call it a good trade for the majority of tanks.
About changing the status of companions from increase to % I do not agree. Both in my GF Tank and in my GWF I use this type of companion for the simple fact of activating the FEATs that have damage reduction gain for the GF and damage gain for the GWF. These FEAT's are super hard to get, especially in the case of GWF using a striker companion.
That feat is actually easier to chase without the augment bonus - you just must not dump all your stats into one attribute. Yes, you might be taking 1% more damage because you redirected part of your stats which would go to awareness towards crit. avoidance/deflect, so lets not call it a perfect solution, but definitely an easier one.
edit: Plus I have to highlight the potential of running with an augment that would provide 22% awareness as an compensation to the loss mentioned above. I would call it a good trade for the majority of tanks.
Maybe it would be easy if the ability to exchange enchants and insignias was easy in the game. My characters' builds were assembled in the rework and I even have some difficulty updating them per module. With the new module approaching, I will already have to change 7 insignias (all for mythical) from the GWF, in addition to making the new weapon enchant that will be an encore, try to calculate my expense only with that.
Just to give you an idea, I recently made a change in my gf tank's build (I didn't even finish it) to focus on stamina recovery and recharge speed, it was spending millions of ad on teammates and equipment, not to mention the tokens companions used. It's still in my plans to finalize this build, as well as create some more specific loadouts, but all of this will of course be done after the investment in dps.
Hello. I don't know if this topic has already been discussed. Recently most endgame players are focused in doing content asking players to have the Tamed Raptor, even for tanks. My main endgame toon is a tank and trying to find a group without the Tamed Raptor is complicated. My defensive stats are well balance and don't like the idea to give away some defense because others are asking for more power. I've noticed both Tamed and Feral raptor companions share the same "Part of the Pack" bonus description, with the exception that Tamed gives power and Feral gives awareness. Since devs are making some companion changes in the preview shard, I would like to ask that Tamed and Feral are able to stack the bonus given by them. Lets say a tank uses Feral, healer and 3 dps are using Tamed, tank should get 5x awareness and healer/dps should get 5x power, that way everyone is happy. Of course, only one raptor can be equipped as a bonus companion, otherwise having tamed and feral at the same time can be overwhelming lol Anyway, get my point? Well, I hope the devs take into consideration this idea and would like to know what the community thinks about this proposition. Regards.
I would like to see a lot more focus in the future on companions that give utility to the player/team, not just deal damage or heal. The player base tends to hone in on just a few companions that have the best performance in their category, and virtually all other companions that do the same thing (e.g. just deal damage) fall into disuse. Companions that perform other important utility functions tend to retain value very well and remain popular, for example: Spined Devil, Stalwart Golden Lion, Black Death Scorpion, Drizzt, Energon, Tutor, Angel of Protection, Staldorf, and the Companions of the Hall.
On the subject of the Companions of the Hall, I think Drizzt and Bruenor's bonuses (3% increased outgoing damage/3% decreased incoming damage) are useful and fair, but the other companions of the Hall have far less useful utility bonuses at the current magnitudes. AP gain, movement speed, and recharge speed are far less impactful per percent point than incoming/outgoing damage buffs. I would consider 10% AP gain, recharge speed, and movement speed a closer balance to 3% damage increase/reduction.
First, I like the idea of more companions being viable in group content. Just like the old Band of Air, companions feel like a division between "have" and "have not". e.g. if I'm an end-game support and I don't have a Black Death Scorpion or Tutor or one of maybe 3 or 4 companions, that is currently frowned upon -- and perhaps for good reason given the gap in companion performance.
Second, I love what you did on the preview server to make several items claimable for free for the sake of testing. Has that been done with companions though? That would make a lot of sense.
2b, I'm not sure the training room within the Adventurer's Guild in Protector's Enclave is sufficient for testing healing companions. If you have counsel on how we might do that, please advise.
Third, I believe Companion Enchantments claim to add companion damage but not companion healing. My opinion is that should either be amended, or if it does affect companion healing, have the tooltip corrected.
Fourth, I think most people on PC use third-party software to aggregate combat logs. Is there any Cryptic-sponsored software that would make it easy to aggregate test data? Seems a bit strange to rely on outside software.
Howdy all, Brett Norton, the executive producer on Neverwinter, here to provide some more insight on the upcoming companion changes, with a focus on a few specific companions and some more general notes.
More Updates to Preview We have another set of internal changes, with a lot of Companion tweaks, we hope to get to Preview at some point this week.
To give some context on these changes, there are roughly 3 archetypes of companions we're balancing towards for M25:
Single Target - Companions with abilities that deal high damage to one target. These often have a strong 'boss killing' focus. We recognize this is what end-game players often focus upon, and we hope to have a viable pool of companions that perform well here. BUT, not every companion is being adjusted to be a purely single-target DPS companion; many fall into the other two categories based on how many targets their abilities can hit. This is akin to our class abilities, which have different magnitudes based on expected # of targets hit.
Multi Target - Companions that focus on area-of-effect (AoE) or other abilities that can hit 3+ targets. These companions are often very valuable for questing and other solo content. We generally balance these such that you need to be hitting 2-3 targets to 'break even' on their DPS vs single target companions. They will perform poorly in tests against a single target (relative to other archetypes), but will average substantially higher DPS when 4+ targets are present.
Hybrid - Companions that have a mix of single target, multi target, or support abilities. Many of our companions fall into this category, including ones that have been popular at times like Xuna, Regis, and the Succubus/Incubus. These companions are versatile and, while lacking the focus of the above archetypes, have fewer drawbacks and perform the most consistently in mixed combat situations.
Impacted Companions of Note
Our changes will impact several old companions in notable ways, namely a few that were substantially overperforming. Regis, Succubus/Incubus, and several versions of the Paranoid Delusion were specifically targeted in this update.
To be open about our mistakes, Regis and Succubus were never expected to deal as much multi-target damage as they did. Each of them was released with an ability that was incorrectly balanced, dealing single target levels of damage to multiple targets. That will finally be changed in M25. Their original ability layout was for them to be Hybrid companions, and post M25, they will function as Hybrids. We've tried to give these two some additional love, as we know players have invested a lot in them since their release, but there was no way to 'improve' balance with Multi Target and Hybrid companions without making a big correction to these outliers.
The Paranoid Delusion was specifically targeted for M25. It was, being a bit blunt, overperforming significantly for some classes, while underperforming notably for others. We have redone the balance of every class's Paranoid Delusion, reigning in some significant overperformers, but bringing up a few noted underperformers. However, the Paranoid Delusions are unique per class and each fits a different archetype. Some are single target, some are multi target, and some are hybrids. We did not change the per-class archetype, and have rebalanced them a bit as to their intended archetype. We know that some classes will wish their Paranoid Delusions was X archetype instead of Y archetype, but we have not refactored the design of the delusions for M25, we've just adjusted the balance.
Changes to the Honey Badger will also happen before M25 goes live. We want it to be a solid single-target companion, but, its ability that increases its damage at high-health has already been internally revised, and, we've cleaned up some bugs and rebalanced it accordingly.
Xuna, who's seen a lot of changes over the years, has had her abilities fixed (one was very buggy and had led to prior problems) and balanced as a Hybrid companion. We hope she represents a solid, versatile companion, but she will likely not top the single target damage charts.
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blackmagidMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 111Arc User
Just a thought but could the archetypes of companion be shown on the companion overview page please. At least this way we could actually get an idea of what the companion is actually supposed to be doing or for which scenario
Thank you for the update but I could you please give some love to the non-striker companions? There are so many out there that some of us would love to use but they are pretty useless. For example, some of the healing companions only heal for a few hundred HPs and that's pretty much all they do. In fact, some of the most fun companions are non-strikers and it seems like such a shame we can't use them as they don't provide almost any benefit. Some of these companions really are "old school" D&D types that add so much flavour and fun to the experience. I feel so bad when one of my guild mates is excited about getting something like the Snowy Fawn but soon realises it's more a decoration than a real companion.
Look you guys need to get your stuff together. This MTOS HAMSTER has completely destroyed certain classes. Developing a Dungeon that less than 1% of the player base can complete all the while completely destroying entire classes that is the dumbest marketing ploy I have seen yet. You wonder why the game is dying? Stop listening to all the 1% elites and open you ears to the 99% of us that pays the bills. You may be smart with development but you guys are complete idiots when it comes to sales and marketing. You need to refocus on where your revenue is coming from if you want to have a job in 2023.
The only true way they can fix the player drain and the non existing progression gap is.
CANCEL private preview! Inside information is allowing people to exploit other players and the devs rewards the exploiters
All latest mod dungeon/trial must be PUG ONLY(like the og tiamat was and people waited before that door forever just so they don't miss it the fake tiamat no one really cares about!). This will destroy XP only content, you must be in x or y chat group to do a dungeon(like it is now) or you must be on discord to do a dungeon. The devs will then be forced to make new content that ALL players can play not the BIS minority (diversity is a good thing and should not be punished like it is being done in this game.) To those that say oh but i will be in a group with weak players.. That means the dungeon/trial is harder... that is what BIS players pretend they want! This will also solve long wait times. Players will not get fed up with the hour + wait for new content then getting frustrated and play a game that you don't wait 1h for the "honour" to play a dungeon or trial!!!!! YES THIS GAME NEEDS AND OVERHAUL , but it is not companions that need to be looked at. THE COMPLETE APPROACH OF DUNGEONS AND TRIALS IS A DISASTER AND NEED TO BE FIXED ASAP.
What do you mean it has to be PUG ONLY even at the time that you're refering to, there were private channels of "endgame" players where they would call exact time of entrance just so they can avoid pug's/pugging it. It doesnt matter what they do this is not gonna change, people who are heavily invested into the game will seek for people who are invested as much as they are, or to put it more simple "endgamers" will always find a way to play together so they can waste as less time as possible + resources along side that. In regards of alpha testing it's nice to have it around but to avoid it being exploited the way it's being exploited these days is basically just remove everything except the content that needs to be tested that is if we're talking about same thing because i didnt quite understood it. In regards of master trial, it has been mentioned that new master content will require highly coordinated groups to finish it, so i dont see a problem with that all i can say to people who has issue with this is basically grind the game get gear and knowledge to beat the trial the sooner to accept that and move forward with future plans of your character development the sooner you're gonna end up in given content.
Howdy all, Brett Norton, the executive producer on Neverwinter, here to provide some more insight on the upcoming companion changes, with a focus on a few specific companions and some more general notes.
Thank you for the transparency . I come to ask you for the future to take into consideration the compounding effect of many very reasonable changes. By taking many steps to ensure fairness, we got to a place where players do not have any meaningful choice. Our characters have become standardized to a point that we might just well have 1 weapon set, 1 gear set, 1 arti set , 1 companion, 1 belt item and no boons. And since 1 for everyone is as good as none, you might just as well put all items into the Fashion category. Just let us play naked and upgrade the Item Level with ad or zen , because it is the only metric with impact on combat. 1. We can not have good gear that drop from hard content because it is exclusionary. 2. We can not have impactful boons because would be gatekeeping the new players. 3. We can not have better companions because they should be balanced . 4. We can not gain advantage by upgrading items because it would restrict the content. 5. We can not become better by leveling because it takes 3 days of after-work playtime to reach level 20. How can I, by my own choice and my own effort to test, and learn, and complete content and synergize my build and my items perform better in combat? Where is my agency? I used to have one.
One thing that companions have always presented as "dumb" was their in-ability to get out of the red.
We know that certain companions provide a buff when the companion is up or the Soul Puppet for the Warlock with Risky Investiture but the comps just rush into battle, regardless of a red warning area on the ground and then get killed, especially in boss fights.
Something I'd personally like to see would be a way to set companion AI to favour certain actions.
Evade : The companion will dodge or block as appropriate when an attack is incoming. Their first priority is to get out of danger but remain close enough to the fight to provide buffs.
Defend : The companion (mostly for tank-like comps) will always attempt to block incoming damage to the player, the companion will, as a result, have very little in the way of outgoing damage.
Targetted attack : The companion will focus on a specific type of enemy first, like a healer/spawner. Example: Player has engaged a mob, the mob has 1 tank-like enemy, 3 dps and one healer/spawner. The companion can be set to focus its attack on the mob's healer/spawner. [Should also remove the player attacks being aimed at a "Tank-like" enemy even when the red highlight is on another enemy, I've been targetting an enemy and then the server just turns my toon over 90 degrees left and fires my attack to a different enemy even when Auto-targetting is off and no where near the hitbox of the enemy]
The ability to have the companion fight in a way that will fit with the player's play-style would be a great adjustment.
Companion bonuses becoming party-wide or, in the case of trials, instance wide would give more flexability for the players and allow greater variety for companions.
Regarding the Paranoid Delusion, I think it would be great if the at-will of the Paranoid Delusion could be set by the player; even if this is just what the player has assigned to right trigger/left mouse button. Having the Paranoid Delusion using a single target or AoE at-will in different situations would be a great feature to introduce.
To further clarify, we are not simply lowering damage across the board. Since much of the high-end content has already been balanced around the current companions, and the overall goal was to achieve a more balanced experience,
This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen honestly. So the endgame content was already balanced a certain way involving the existing damage output of companions, but now all that damage is being drastically changed, so how does that affect the balance of the endgame content now. Will it now be unbalanced because you're changing a major variable you used in the first place to balance it properly? Seems problematic. Change one thing, something else changes as a result, fix that, something else changes blah blah blah. So will it be that now the content itself will need to be re-balanced because you're changing this important variable.
I'll put my two cents in on companions. Less focus on damage output and more focus on abilities like aggro, heal, disables, buffs. Most players focused on strikers will ALWAYS go for the best one even if it's half a percent more than the next one down, that's what they've always done and what they will always do, they're going to do what they want to do and get the companion everyone says is BiS they don't care about what it looks like or if everyone else has it too, they just want the highest damage output to keep competitive with everyone else. So my personal view is that if you devs continually try to micromanage how the players use things and try to push people in this direction or that, you will just be wasting your time for the most part because they're just going to gravitate towards the best one anyway and you have to know that the moment it hits live, all the tests will have been done on every single companion and they will know down to the nth degree which one is best and go for that and all your work to 'balance' damage output and push players to use varied different comps will have been for nothing.
Instead, we have a plethora of under-performing support companions who can't tank, heal or whatever. They're next to useless but they could add so much. Like I used to run an Iron Golem purely because it stunned mobs really well. Rubbish damage but I used it exclusively for that specific ability in certain niche situations where I knew in advance it would be handy and help the team out and take some pressure off. We have loads of companions which are supposed to have special abilities but don't really do it properly, p-weak heals, non-existent tanking, I would look at those way before the damage aspect personally. Fix what's broken first.
Augments, I used to exclusively use years ago when it was not in vogue and everyone else used strikers, back then you got a ton of stats from them and I personally found it a worthwhile tradeoff for losing their damage. My own damage went up accordingly anyway and I was still on a par with those who used actives. Then they got badly nerfed and after years of loving using them for various reasons I had to begrudgingly use an active because it just made no sense anymore, the payoff for using an augment was no longer viable. It would be nice if it could return to the way it was once so long ago where augments actually are comparable with actives. Orange wasted stats make no-one happy. Give them something else if it's not damage, like less aggro for the owner, more aggro for the owner, extra heal, buffing teammates, I dunno, just things you would find as a useful and fair tradeoff for the damage an active does. Or make them rollable like we had with the now deleted (why do you keep deleting things smh) artifact weapons and cubes of aug, have augment companions have a choice of 12 potential bonuses and you can choose which one you want it to supply by rolling it and unlocking it and spending AD to change around once unlocked same as we did for the weapons system, that way people can choose an augment, customize it according to their specific needs and have the skin they want on it.
Post edited by rockster#6227 on
Apparently pointing-out the bleeding obvious is a 'personal attack'.
The allisoarus (however you spell it) would be wonderful for a tank, he always defends me and he doesn't die easy. I hate seeing my companions die so I have been using an ioun stone but I guess augments are a thing of the past. What might be nice if could use those cubes of augmentation on our companions to develop specific traits we designed. I just wish my hit points didn't go down everywhere but my stronghold or P.E,
Comments
Introduce a new passive power to augment companions to make them unique and have room to make new augments.
Some "damage" companions have already cool passive powers and they are used because of that (Ej Drizzt, tutor, etc.)
Lower the stats they give if you want to 5k x 3 but make make them more fun and give them more diversity allowing new builds and combinations,
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
As if there was anyone naive here who didn't know that there will be a new BIS like Fire Archon, Tiger, Xuna, etc... and that in 1 or 2 modules it will be balanced because somehow it had some bug that went unnoticed.
I suggest to remove the 2000 stat rating part (currently Augments give 2000 + 7500 for 3 stats). After that keep the 7500 stat rating and convert it to 7.5% (3*7.5% = 22.5% total).
CANCEL private preview! Inside information is allowing people to exploit other players and the devs rewards the exploiters
All latest mod dungeon/trial must be PUG ONLY(like the og tiamat was and people waited before that door forever just so they don't miss it the fake tiamat no one really cares about!).
This will destroy XP only content, you must be in x or y chat group to do a dungeon(like it is now) or you must be on discord to do a dungeon. The devs will then be forced to make new content that ALL players can play not the BIS minority (diversity is a good thing and should not be punished like it is being done in this game.)
To those that say oh but i will be in a group with weak players.. That means the dungeon/trial is harder... that is what BIS players pretend they want! This will also solve long wait times. Players will not get fed up with the hour + wait for new content then getting frustrated and play a game that you don't wait 1h for the "honour" to play a dungeon or trial!!!!!
YES THIS GAME NEEDS AND OVERHAUL , but it is not companions that need to be looked at. THE COMPLETE APPROACH OF DUNGEONS AND TRIALS IS A DISASTER AND NEED TO BE FIXED ASAP.
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
That is what he said "we will also be boosting all companion damage by roughly 20%.".
you should make comrades more effective in their role,a healer comrade should heal well or a squire should put a good shield so as to be usable,as for the comrades who do dps they should all make attacks with constant speed,in many they are too slow,if they all had the same attack speed many comrades could be strong in both single and aoe,to differentiate them there is power like poison or a debuff buff etc.so that all are usable in the most suitable content
First - what with the augments? I mean, the community already heavily implies, that if you want to play harder content, you should ditch the augment and stick with a striker. So far, it wasn't exactly truth - I've been pulling satisfying numbers with an augment. Constant, stable stat caps can do wonders, and pretty much fill out the couple-percent damage void from a peaceful companion.
But the gap was very small - 20% boost to companion damage will absolutely destroy this thin margin, giving augments no chance in late game. This very much goes against the "not rearranging companion desirability" thing - you'll either use a striker, or be significantly behind people with those.
Second - Striker damage boost insignia bonus. Is boosting damage of all strikers 20% with no counterbalance actually a good idea, whilst the damage can already be boosted by much more with insignia you already have? This pretty much ends in "rich get richer" type of scenario. Even if you'll nerf certain companions squeezing out insane damage at the moment, overall 20% bonus will not lead to balance; It'll just cause pretty much most of the already well performing companions to be OP.
If after the rework we don't have a proper bis companion cause they all do a similar dmg increased by 20% of what is now bis than they do what they say otherwise is only the last cheat.
"This change means that some top tier companions will experience a reduction in base damage. More specifically, several companions with AoE powers were using single target damage formulas, and a handful of single target companions were using formulas that did not scale well with player stats (Paranoid Delusion being the prime example). Our adjustments are intended to keep everything at the same relative desirability: if a companion was top tier DPS before, it will still be at the top - just not so far ahead of the pack as to invalidate the use of others.
To further clarify, we are not simply lowering damage across the board. Since much of the high-end content has already been balanced around the current companions, and the overall goal was to achieve a more balanced experience, we will also be boosting all companion damage by roughly 20%. This increase will be applied to everything using the new damage formulas, including those whose damage was initially reduced. NOTE: This change is not yet live on Preview."
While the general intent of this change was to reduce damage variance between companions, we absolutely do not want to homogenize them. We want special companions to remain special, and to this end I’ve attempted to improve powers that help certain companions fulfil more specific roles. I am giving the premium companions a more careful look since they are intended to stand out from the crowd a little. As I mentioned above, balance changes are ongoing, so if you have specific suggestions for any of them, now is a good time to get that feedback in!
This round of changes was focused only on combat companions, but we’d love to take a closer look at augment companions as well. I can’t promise when this will happen, but it’s at the forefront of my list when I have more time to devote to companions! I’ve seen a number of different suggestions posted to this thread on this same topic, and I’ve been saving all of them for future consideration.
This is a fantastic suggestion! It would require some UI additions and a fair amount of case by case changes to companions, so it’s outside of the scope of this particular task, but I like the idea a lot. I’ll put it on the list for future quality of life updates.
I’ve seen this idea put forth a few times in various iterations, so I felt it worth giving my feedback. This is a cool idea, and something I’d love to do if we had the time, but not something we’ll be able to focus on at this juncture. That said, we have been trying to put more emphasis on specific roles for companions, to make them more useful situationally – hopefully this helps address the desire for a more varied selection.
No promises, but I’ll keep this in mind. Many of us on the team are fans of the Companions of the Hall as well, so I suspect this wouldn’t be a hard sell!
I hope everyone has had a great week, and thank you all once again for providing feedback. I’m sorry if I wasn’t able to address your specific concern, but I’ll continue reading through everything that is posted here, and will reply to as many points as I can.
Cheers!
Xalkastiz
20% damage increase will not ensure this for more than half of the companions. (skipping the fact that some healing companions do no damage at all)
Alternatively, you can add combined rating to the companion gem, or add some other enchantment with a different bonus to the damage. To ensure having the companion enchantment is justified in all content with all companions.
On live, Warlord's Inspiration gives 20%.
On preview,
Warlord's Inspiration gives 12%.Further testing, the tooltip on Preview shows the amount you get for the total WI that you have. the 12% that it was showing for me was for the two combines WI.On preview, one WI gives 8%, two gives 12%, three gives 15%, four gives...... 15%
Which means if you have two WI, on live, you get 30%, on preview it's 18%. If you have three, on live that's 35%, on preview 21%.So, you can see, there actually IS a counterbalance. It just hasn't been discussed by anyone.
-Edited to add in further testing and clarifications
Co-Guild Leader
Ghost Templars L20
Alliance: Tyrs Paladium
Main: Cleric (Heals|DPS)
Alt: Warlock
> Most people who run strikers also run at least one, if not multiple Warlord's Inspirations. Which is getting a nerf.
> On live, Warlord's Inspiration gives 20%.
> On preview, Warlord's Inspiration gives 12%.
>
> Which means if you have two WI, on live, you get 30%, on preview it's 18%. If you have three, on live that's 35%, on preview 21%.
>
> So, you can see, there actually IS a counterbalance. It just hasn't been discussed by anyone.
From all the testing I've seen, Warlords on Live is bugged and doesn't give anything close to what it is listed as. What is on Preview may be accurate to what we have now or possibly even a buff.
I hope the balance changes will affect support companions as well. First off, it would be great if the companion enchantment would not just boost a companion's damage exclusively, but their healing as well. Especially, because there are at least 3 support companions, which don't attack at all. These are the Angel of Protection, Fawn of Shiallia, and the Snowy Fawn.
These 3 companions should be looked at, because as already mentioned, they don't attack, and their healing output is atrocious (every other healing companion provides more healing, while also being able to attack and therefore help with damage output).
It's totally fine, that non-attacking support companions like these exist, but their healing abilities need to be: A) in line with other healing companions, and B ) accommodate for the fact, that they don't attack (so their abilities should either come with useful party buffs or their healing output should be adequately higher than other support companions, which do attack).
Now about support companions in general. I think it would be greatly appreciated, if all support companions would offer a useful party buff. Currently, every healer seems to run around with a tutor, and I'm getting sick of it. I'm playing a healer myself, and I hate it, when I have to summon him. Especially, because he provides combat advantage stats, which is undesirable/ useless for the healer itself. It would be great, if other support companions would provide similar buffs, but to stats the healer actually can make use of, like power, critical chance, critical severity, outgoing healing, or defensive stats like critical avoidance and awareness.
Taking the Tutor as the norm (+5% Combat advantage for the whole group, 100% uptime, except for, when the tutor is in a downed state) other support companions should receive similar party buffs with similar effectiveness. So to speak, +5% in a given stat for 100% uptime, or a higher stat percentage, if the uptime happens to be lower than 100%.
Let's take the Angel of Protection for example. It provides +5% defense with a 100% uptime (unless in a downed state), similarly to the tutor. There's a significant difference between them, though: the tutor's buff is party wide, while the angel's buff only applies to its master. This should be changed, make it party wide.
For the Fawn of Shiallia. While it is one of the most adorable companions, it is at the same time the most useless companion in the game. It provides no buffs, it doesn't attack, and its healing output is atrocious. It has two active abilities, Nature's Vigor (which I'm not even sure, if it works) and Spring of Life. The latter creates a healing spring that lasts for 10 seconds, with a 35 second cooldown. The spring is quite small, the healing is abysmal, and the fawn will cast it anywhere, so also on top of enemy telegraphs and other places, where you don't want to be. But even if the healing was great, why would anyone bother to position their character inside? After all the healer is expected to do the healing. In order to make people bother, it needs to be worthwhile, aka it needs to provide a significant buff.
I suggest adding an aura to the tree, that provides a buff to players nearby (and scales with proximity). Let's say, for example, it provides +15% critical chance and +15% incoming healing. The further the player is away, the smaller the bonus becomes. In order to receive the full benefit, the player must be very close or stand directly in it. Upon standing directly inside, the player will also receive healing. The numbers shown are great enough to be considered worthwhile, while they will be balanced around their uptime. Let's not forget, the ability has a 35 second cooldown! Alternatively, the numbers can be tweaked down, along with the cooldown.
In any case, I hope you address those support companions as well. I want to see far more choices, than just the tutor, drizzt and the spined devil.
PS: Please fix the post edit. I tried to edit my post, and it got deleted instead. I had to write half of it all over again.
My suggestion would be, these companions give buff damage\healing\damage reduction, depending on the role for the summoner. If the pokemons are going to get buffs (which is kind of a joke), the boosting companions should get something too so they don't further unbalance what is already unbalanced.
edit: Plus I have to highlight the potential of running with an augment that would provide 22% awareness as an compensation to the loss mentioned above. I would call it a good trade for the majority of tanks.
Just to give you an idea, I recently made a change in my gf tank's build (I didn't even finish it) to focus on stamina recovery and recharge speed, it was spending millions of ad on teammates and equipment, not to mention the tokens companions used. It's still in my plans to finalize this build, as well as create some more specific loadouts, but all of this will of course be done after the investment in dps.
On the subject of the Companions of the Hall, I think Drizzt and Bruenor's bonuses (3% increased outgoing damage/3% decreased incoming damage) are useful and fair, but the other companions of the Hall have far less useful utility bonuses at the current magnitudes. AP gain, movement speed, and recharge speed are far less impactful per percent point than incoming/outgoing damage buffs. I would consider 10% AP gain, recharge speed, and movement speed a closer balance to 3% damage increase/reduction.
First, I like the idea of more companions being viable in group content. Just like the old Band of Air, companions feel like a division between "have" and "have not". e.g. if I'm an end-game support and I don't have a Black Death Scorpion or Tutor or one of maybe 3 or 4 companions, that is currently frowned upon -- and perhaps for good reason given the gap in companion performance.
Second, I love what you did on the preview server to make several items claimable for free for the sake of testing. Has that been done with companions though? That would make a lot of sense.
2b, I'm not sure the training room within the Adventurer's Guild in Protector's Enclave is sufficient for testing healing companions. If you have counsel on how we might do that, please advise.
Third, I believe Companion Enchantments claim to add companion damage but not companion healing. My opinion is that should either be amended, or if it does affect companion healing, have the tooltip corrected.
Fourth, I think most people on PC use third-party software to aggregate combat logs. Is there any Cryptic-sponsored software that would make it easy to aggregate test data? Seems a bit strange to rely on outside software.
More Updates to Preview
We have another set of internal changes, with a lot of Companion tweaks, we hope to get to Preview at some point this week.
To give some context on these changes, there are roughly 3 archetypes of companions we're balancing towards for M25:
Single Target - Companions with abilities that deal high damage to one target. These often have a strong 'boss killing' focus. We recognize this is what end-game players often focus upon, and we hope to have a viable pool of companions that perform well here. BUT, not every companion is being adjusted to be a purely single-target DPS companion; many fall into the other two categories based on how many targets their abilities can hit. This is akin to our class abilities, which have different magnitudes based on expected # of targets hit.
Multi Target - Companions that focus on area-of-effect (AoE) or other abilities that can hit 3+ targets. These companions are often very valuable for questing and other solo content. We generally balance these such that you need to be hitting 2-3 targets to 'break even' on their DPS vs single target companions. They will perform poorly in tests against a single target (relative to other archetypes), but will average substantially higher DPS when 4+ targets are present.
Hybrid - Companions that have a mix of single target, multi target, or support abilities. Many of our companions fall into this category, including ones that have been popular at times like Xuna, Regis, and the Succubus/Incubus. These companions are versatile and, while lacking the focus of the above archetypes, have fewer drawbacks and perform the most consistently in mixed combat situations.
Impacted Companions of Note
Our changes will impact several old companions in notable ways, namely a few that were substantially overperforming. Regis, Succubus/Incubus, and several versions of the Paranoid Delusion were specifically targeted in this update.
To be open about our mistakes, Regis and Succubus were never expected to deal as much multi-target damage as they did. Each of them was released with an ability that was incorrectly balanced, dealing single target levels of damage to multiple targets. That will finally be changed in M25. Their original ability layout was for them to be Hybrid companions, and post M25, they will function as Hybrids. We've tried to give these two some additional love, as we know players have invested a lot in them since their release, but there was no way to 'improve' balance with Multi Target and Hybrid companions without making a big correction to these outliers.
The Paranoid Delusion was specifically targeted for M25. It was, being a bit blunt, overperforming significantly for some classes, while underperforming notably for others. We have redone the balance of every class's Paranoid Delusion, reigning in some significant overperformers, but bringing up a few noted underperformers. However, the Paranoid Delusions are unique per class and each fits a different archetype. Some are single target, some are multi target, and some are hybrids. We did not change the per-class archetype, and have rebalanced them a bit as to their intended archetype. We know that some classes will wish their Paranoid Delusions was X archetype instead of Y archetype, but we have not refactored the design of the delusions for M25, we've just adjusted the balance.
Changes to the Honey Badger will also happen before M25 goes live. We want it to be a solid single-target companion, but, its ability that increases its damage at high-health has already been internally revised, and, we've cleaned up some bugs and rebalanced it accordingly.
Xuna, who's seen a lot of changes over the years, has had her abilities fixed (one was very buggy and had led to prior problems) and balanced as a Hybrid companion. We hope she represents a solid, versatile companion, but she will likely not top the single target damage charts.
Thank you
Black
I come to ask you for the future to take into consideration the compounding effect of many very reasonable changes.
By taking many steps to ensure fairness, we got to a place where players do not have any meaningful choice.
Our characters have become standardized to a point that we might just well have 1 weapon set, 1 gear set, 1 arti set , 1 companion, 1 belt item and no boons.
And since 1 for everyone is as good as none, you might just as well put all items into the Fashion category.
Just let us play naked and upgrade the Item Level with ad or zen , because it is the only metric with impact on combat.
1. We can not have good gear that drop from hard content because it is exclusionary.
2. We can not have impactful boons because would be gatekeeping the new players.
3. We can not have better companions because they should be balanced .
4. We can not gain advantage by upgrading items because it would restrict the content.
5. We can not become better by leveling because it takes 3 days of after-work playtime to reach level 20.
How can I, by my own choice and my own effort to test, and learn, and complete content and synergize my build and my items perform better in combat?
Where is my agency? I used to have one.
We know that certain companions provide a buff when the companion is up or the Soul Puppet for the Warlock with Risky Investiture but the comps just rush into battle, regardless of a red warning area on the ground and then get killed, especially in boss fights.
Something I'd personally like to see would be a way to set companion AI to favour certain actions.
Evade : The companion will dodge or block as appropriate when an attack is incoming. Their first priority is to get out of danger but remain close enough to the fight to provide buffs.
Defend : The companion (mostly for tank-like comps) will always attempt to block incoming damage to the player, the companion will, as a result, have very little in the way of outgoing damage.
Targetted attack : The companion will focus on a specific type of enemy first, like a healer/spawner. Example: Player has engaged a mob, the mob has 1 tank-like enemy, 3 dps and one healer/spawner. The companion can be set to focus its attack on the mob's healer/spawner.
[Should also remove the player attacks being aimed at a "Tank-like" enemy even when the red highlight is on another enemy, I've been targetting an enemy and then the server just turns my toon over 90 degrees left and fires my attack to a different enemy even when Auto-targetting is off and no where near the hitbox of the enemy]
The ability to have the companion fight in a way that will fit with the player's play-style would be a great adjustment.
Companion bonuses becoming party-wide or, in the case of trials, instance wide would give more flexability for the players and allow greater variety for companions.
Regarding the Paranoid Delusion, I think it would be great if the at-will of the Paranoid Delusion could be set by the player; even if this is just what the player has assigned to right trigger/left mouse button. Having the Paranoid Delusion using a single target or AoE at-will in different situations would be a great feature to introduce.
I'll put my two cents in on companions. Less focus on damage output and more focus on abilities like aggro, heal, disables, buffs. Most players focused on strikers will ALWAYS go for the best one even if it's half a percent more than the next one down, that's what they've always done and what they will always do, they're going to do what they want to do and get the companion everyone says is BiS they don't care about what it looks like or if everyone else has it too, they just want the highest damage output to keep competitive with everyone else. So my personal view is that if you devs continually try to micromanage how the players use things and try to push people in this direction or that, you will just be wasting your time for the most part because they're just going to gravitate towards the best one anyway and you have to know that the moment it hits live, all the tests will have been done on every single companion and they will know down to the nth degree which one is best and go for that and all your work to 'balance' damage output and push players to use varied different comps will have been for nothing.
Instead, we have a plethora of under-performing support companions who can't tank, heal or whatever. They're next to useless but they could add so much. Like I used to run an Iron Golem purely because it stunned mobs really well. Rubbish damage but I used it exclusively for that specific ability in certain niche situations where I knew in advance it would be handy and help the team out and take some pressure off. We have loads of companions which are supposed to have special abilities but don't really do it properly, p-weak heals, non-existent tanking, I would look at those way before the damage aspect personally. Fix what's broken first.
Augments, I used to exclusively use years ago when it was not in vogue and everyone else used strikers, back then you got a ton of stats from them and I personally found it a worthwhile tradeoff for losing their damage. My own damage went up accordingly anyway and I was still on a par with those who used actives. Then they got badly nerfed and after years of loving using them for various reasons I had to begrudgingly use an active because it just made no sense anymore, the payoff for using an augment was no longer viable. It would be nice if it could return to the way it was once so long ago where augments actually are comparable with actives. Orange wasted stats make no-one happy. Give them something else if it's not damage, like less aggro for the owner, more aggro for the owner, extra heal, buffing teammates, I dunno, just things you would find as a useful and fair tradeoff for the damage an active does. Or make them rollable like we had with the now deleted (why do you keep deleting things smh) artifact weapons and cubes of aug, have augment companions have a choice of 12 potential bonuses and you can choose which one you want it to supply by rolling it and unlocking it and spending AD to change around once unlocked same as we did for the weapons system, that way people can choose an augment, customize it according to their specific needs and have the skin they want on it.