Wererat Thief Companion - KD on a companion is awkward

krastei · May 2013

I recently picked up a Wererat Thief companion, but was very disappointed with the fact it has an aoe knockback on an 8s cooldown. It's great that it interrupts, but I wish it was merely an interrupt and not a KB. In general striker pets are extremely underwhelming, and this one doesn't seem to be an exception. I picked it up mostly as a novelty item, however when it starts knocking stuff around all over the place in group...pushing enemies out of aoes, I end up having to shelve it, which is very disappointing because it's a slick looking companion. I could care less if its not very effective, but when it starts to become a hindrance thats just too much. Anyway we could get this changed? As in replace the Knockback with an interrupt?

xxhumorxx · May 2013

Companions in general are all garbage compared to what they used to be in "Closed Beta".

I remember back in the day when companions would actually attacked at the same speed as the actual player themselves. Now they're useless, and slow as sh_t. I mean honestly. Do they really expect me to believe a thief companion (Cash Shop Kobold), using dual daggers would swing every "Once" in a while, compared to the Dwarven thief companion they had in closed beta which actually felt useful having around?

Honestly, the only companions I can say that feel worth a damned are the clerics (Stones, and cats). The entire companion system in general needs to be fixed, not just a tiny knockback.

However, I do agree with you though. But, if you're running dungeons, that does come in handy if you're staying near the edge, where you can knock off some enemies, or when you're trying to get enemies off of you, or a cleric. I wouldn't say change it completely. Knockback does come in handy. Maybe they could simply change one of the skills around, or give the Wererat a new skill that interrupts.

krastei · May 2013

Knockback isn't necessarily a bad mechanic in and of itself, but it is a bad mechanic on a companion thats randomly spamming it. I know its not the only issue with companions, but I was hoping it'd be a quick fix that would at least render the Wererat usable in some shape or form [i.e. as a novelty for its looks] whereas atm I more or less have to put it away because it's actually helping the enemies more than it helps me or my group. Very awkward.

stormdrag0n · May 2013

Just don't understand the rationale behind companions. No customization, you can only gear them slightly, and they just stand there hitting every now and then with this blank stare on their faces.

It's sad....not spending a dime on companions until the have the customization that STO's away teams have and they actually do damage/heal

enderlin50 · May 2013

krastei wrote: »

I recently picked up a Wererat Thief companion, but was very disappointed with the fact it has an aoe knockback on an 8s cooldown. It's great that it interrupts, but I wish it was merely an interrupt and not a KB. In general striker pets are extremely underwhelming, and this one doesn't seem to be an exception. I picked it up mostly as a novelty item, however when it starts knocking stuff around all over the place in group...pushing enemies out of aoes, I end up having to shelve it, which is very disappointing because it's a slick looking companion. I could care less if its not very effective, but when it starts to become a hindrance thats just too much. Anyway we could get this changed? As in replace the Knockback with an interrupt?

The knockback could be useful in the future. I would keep it leveled up and if you get a fight in later Tiers where your kiting or protecting someone for whatever reason the knockback could come in handy to push back adds while giving the cleric breathing room.

krastei · May 2013

First off I am the Cleric, but man you guys need to understand, that there is no situation in which a RANDOM knockback is going to be beneficial. It has quite a cast time on it as well, so if I'm kiting, and the Wererat tries to KB enemies, they are just going to run outside of its radius before the Wererat knocks anything back, if anything at that point the Wererat will be knocking things into me. I really wish people would understand that Knockback on a pet is a really really bad idea. They don't intelligently cast it, they just spam it randomly. There is no situation where it would be (reliably) good, not to mention classes like Cleric and CW already have vastly superior KBs themselves. The vast majority of the time the KB is a huge detriment. My complaint really boils down to the fact I feel as though I cannot use my Wererat because it is a detriment to the group, KBing things randomly is very bad. It doesn't need to be good, but it can't be bad >.>

In the later Tiers I will definitely be using a Cat or one of the Stones (soon as I can get my hands on it) so the Wererat was just something interesting while my Cleric was leveling. But mobs randomly getting Knocked around is negative fun.

morbidthought666 · May 2013

xxhumorxx wrote: »

Companions in general are all garbage compared to what they used to be in "Closed Beta".

I remember back in the day when companions would actually attacked at the same speed as the actual player themselves. Now they're useless, and slow as sh_t. I mean honestly. Do they really expect me to believe a thief companion (Cash Shop Kobold), using dual daggers would swing every "Once" in a while, compared to the Dwarven thief companion they had in closed beta which actually felt useful having around?

Honestly, the only companions I can say that feel worth a damned are the clerics (Stones, and cats). The entire companion system in general needs to be fixed, not just a tiny knockback.

However, I do agree with you though. But, if you're running dungeons, that does come in handy if you're staying near the edge, where you can knock off some enemies, or when you're trying to get enemies off of you, or a cleric. I wouldn't say change it completely. Knockback does come in handy. Maybe they could simply change one of the skills around, or give the Wererat a new skill that interrupts.

I didn't realize that the combat companions were actually useful at some point, sad they got nerfed to near uselessness. I do hope they fix them to be better than they are now.

jnaathra · May 2013

Yeah they are 100% inferior to the existing STO away teams. There is no reason at all to buy them at this time.

devocut · July 2013

krastei wrote: »

I recently picked up a Wererat Thief companion, but was very disappointed with the fact it has an aoe knockback on an 8s cooldown. It's great that it interrupts, but I wish it was merely an interrupt and not a KB. In general striker pets are extremely underwhelming, and this one doesn't seem to be an exception. I picked it up mostly as a novelty item, however when it starts knocking stuff around all over the place in group...pushing enemies out of aoes, I end up having to shelve it, which is very disappointing because it's a slick looking companion. I could care less if its not very effective, but when it starts to become a hindrance thats just too much. Anyway we could get this changed? As in replace the Knockback with an interrupt?

The Wererat Thief works well with my CW skill set that uses Steal Time and Repel. Her first strike is always the knockback so I set her up real good. We have fun knocking mobs around that can be controlled.

For any of my other CW skill sets, particularly when trying to stack chill, she can be a nuisance

deistik · July 2013

You think that's annoying, try running a dungeon with 4-5 people all using the $60 pack wolf. It knocks mobs back constantly, and with 3+ of them, they will literally knock mobs all the way across the room from you. Of course, I'm beyond thinking this company can do any good for this game, they've proven time and time again they can't

Wererat Thief Companion - KD on a companion is awkward

Comments