However, my main source of AD income is not in the form of rough AD. I have a crafting profession (mailsmith) at 20. I used to make a *lot* of AD by buying T2 gauntlets and re-selling the reinforced version at a VERY nice profit. When the gauntlets were made BoP that income went away, but I still do a steady business selling gemmed shirts/pants - maybe 75.000 profit per day on the average.
Hmm, I heard that making gemmed shirts/pants are very risky, taking up a fair amount of money to make them. How much money on average do you need? Is it really based on luck?
Ok, so if (for example) one didn't have leadership at 20, didn't have mailsmithing at 20 and didn't have 7 slots for professions, oh, and didn't have the time/access to check into the gateway every 8 hours, one might expect to see lower returns. Ok, fair enough.
I think it *might* be a tad overzealous to call not having all those things ....."doing something wrong", though.
Anyway, thanks for breaking it down!
Indeed, my leadership is still not at level 20, and i've been here since open beta :P. Leadership takes a loooong time to level up, so you won't quite make it there just yet.
Good luck on making AD!
My personal pet experience (I've bought all the freebie white ones) is:
Dog: surprisingly underrated. Ok, the damage isn't great, but if you can get him combat advantage, his knockdown can be really, really helpful. And seems to work on a lot of things you wouldn't expect, like bosses, and even some giants. Nothing quite like seeing a boss draw back to unleash epic facepunches or something, only to suddenly fall on their <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> coz a puppy bit their ankle.
Other advantages: is a dog. Call it wuffles or captain waggypants or something. D'awwwww.
Downsides: dies almost effortlessly anywhere from hotenow upward.
Wizard: spams AoE slows with surprising frequency. Given that you may often be soloing, if you're sub 50 (so you can't just pootle around in the blue), mobility is key (also, learning how to scoot around with and without using holy rollerskates is useful). Having all the monsters slowed down helps more than you'd think. He doesn't seem to draw much aggro, so he'll be spamming the slows and they'll still all be trying to gank you, but at least it means he'll live a second or two longer.
Downsides: dies almost effortlessly anywhere from hotenow upward. Has annoying animations. SRSLY WHUT IS SO FUNNY, WIZARD
Striker (GWF chick): terrible. Ok, I only bought her out of boredom, because I was earning tons of useless exp in the whispering caverns and I couldn't afford a stone yet, but anyway: she dashes around and smacks things with her giant sword and looks really dynamic and awesome, but then you notice the numbers: "47", "23", "76".
Yeah, she's 'lightly exfoliating' the drow, at best. On the other hand, this means she doesn't draw aggro. On the other other hand, if she doesn't draw aggro or do damage, why is she here? Correct: she's terrible.
Might be useful in levelling, though? Pet damage doesn't scale well at higher levels, and she's basically just damage, without the tankiness of tankman, or the knockdowns of the puppy.
Dies almost effortlessly in the whispering caverns, if anyone actually bothers to pay attention to her. They rarely do, though.
Tankman: Taaaankmaaaan! Ok, the Man at arms is easily the tankiest of the cheapo white pets, but sadly this is sort of like being the tastiest of the petrols: essentially meaningless. He can take more little hits than the other guys, but at hotenow and up, a single hit is often enough anyway. And he will take those hits, because he can actually draw aggro.
Sadly, he usually does this by simply sprinting off into the middle of a pack of monsters that you had no intention of engaging. Then he dies. Then they turn to you.
To a certain extent, all the companions have a tendency to attack stuff when you don't want them to, but tankman seems particularly prone to it. Maybe it just sticks in my mind more, because standing around leafing through your quest journal, only to hear WHOOOSH/THUNK/ARRRRGH "your companion has fallen!" is fairly memorable. Especially when your first thought is "again??"
In solo dungeons, he's not bad, since they're usually linear (so you can plan around his eagerness) and you can dedicate some actual effort to keeping him alive. And you should, actually, be able to keep him alive. Boss fights are considerably less frenetic if the boss stays in one place and tries to smash your tankman. He'll probably die eventually, but that's a lot better than the rest, who will die immediately.
Cleric companion: oh, everyone who's ever played "not a DC" will have tried LittleMiss Healbot, because if you don't have much self-heal, she's by far the best pick. Hell, with an inherent self-heal debuff, she's also surprisingly useful for clerics (which is a sad, sad state of affairs, cryptic). I'd tend to suggest not using her, though: ideally you'll be working toward an Ioun stone eventually, so learning to self-heal effectively (even gimped as we are) is very useful.
Also, she has an unerring skill for finding the reddest patch of ground, and then standing in it. Dies almost effortlessly almost anywhere. Can draw aggro like crazy, for some reason. Even from an ACTUAL DC. Healing aggro is weird.
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
Hmm, I heard that making gemmed shirts/pants are very risky, taking up a fair amount of money to make them. How much money on average do you need? Is it really based on luck?
It is really only feasible to make shirts/pants if you have 4 purple tools, and they cost...well, a lot. The only reason I was able to afford them in the first place was because of the reinforced gauntlets (which, as I said, used to be very profitable).
However, even with 4 purple tools, you only have a 60% chance of getting the tier-3 (gemmed exquisite) result. The rest of the time you will get the tier-2 result, which can typically be sold at a break-even price, that is - covering the cost of the dragon egg, but nothing more. The gemmed version can be sols for maybe 140.000-150.000, so yea...60% of the time you make a nice profit.
Finally, remember that if you are going to finance the tools by selling shirts/pants, expect to have to sell 40 shirts/pants before you reach the break-even point.
Hoping for improvements...
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areys77Member, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 19Arc User
edited August 2013
Forgive the crappy quality of the pictures.
It will take a long time to get the kind of gear/Stats that my stone has for some people but at least you can get an idea of how awesome having this little guy CAN be once you work up the money/resources to equip him well.
I used the Tank companion for ages. Gave him really cheep Epics from the AH. Simply ran the daily foundry a few days and got enough AD for the very very cheep 60 epics. This helped me with leveling (Companions don't have levels and can wear epics no matter your level). He did well until I got into the very later levels but before I got AS. Once I got AS it was fine again.
Fast forward to getting the Stone. To level him quickly I went into the level 50 zones and asked people to share quests with me and I repeated them until the stone was a bit higher level (15+) then I took it easy and did the same thing but in the higher level zones to do level 55+ quests. A guildie was in his mid 50's and we duo'ed his last levels and the stone was rank 25 in no time. This is how he stayed until expansion. They made it so that I can raise the rank to 30 and I did dailies to get the stone to rank 30. No matter if I am solo or in a group I use the stone. Non-Augment Companions (even the epic ones that you get like Pheora) just don't stack up for me. That being said, before you get your stone geared out you will probably not need to worry about it too much and just use what you've got.
Hope that helps someone out there. Just my 2c.
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mrspumaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
My personal pet experience (I've bought all the freebie white ones) is:
So far I think this is the best response, especially regarding the "white" cleric companion. Not a huge deal getting used to not having her healing around, later, but it's something to consider. I wouldn't use her past clvl 40-45 or so, at any rate. She is great for/makes early leveling a lot easier, however.
My experience with Strikers (as a DC) is that once you have them geared up fairly well - not necessarily uber-ly well, but fairly well - they can be moderately useful, at least in terms of solo-play, and don't die too often. But this is when they're Rare/Epic ones. I personally find the white/green Strikers to be rather useless (die too much) before too long.
I don't have much experience with the tank/control companions, can't comment there.
I think one thing to consider is one's own playstyle - is one largely a soloist or a group dungeon run or a PvP sort, a sneaky type, a run-in-guns-blazing type, etc. What's "best" or what works well is/may be different depending on that, as morsitans already mentioned, so you might find yourself switching between two or three companions fairly regularly, or be fine with one that many players don't seem to care for. I'm pretty much a soloist, so min/maxing the "best" companions is not high on my list of priorities, because it's largely not necessary when soloing. I just use one that fits my playstyle.
Btw, nothing to do with the OP question, but the lvl30 panther has decent (soloing) survivability and also does knockdown and interrupts casters etc. A lot. Course you have to wait until lvl30 for panther to have this ability, but I personally love the panther and find it fine for soloing. Definitely doesn't pull a lot of aggro, even with the damage boost they got with one of the patches...but since I don't rely on it for aggro I don't care. Thus ...
On the other other hand, if she doesn't draw aggro or do damage, why is she here?
Because I like playing with one for roleplay/aesthetic fondness vs. only the max it can do for my stats?
I'm finding the lvl30 snake-woman (Lillend, Leader) to be pretty awesome for soloing. I used AD to get one from the auction house (didn't pay real-cash like I did w/my panther). Not so much the healing but the Piercing Damage. Not that that helps the OP either, since I'd guess they're far away from having that much AD. But I'm finding her worth the AD I spent...at least as far as wonky-AI companions go.
It will take a long time to get the kind of gear/Stats that my stone has for some people but at least you can get an idea of how awesome having this little guy CAN be once you work up the money/resources to equip him well.
Yikes, are you doing all Radiants in your gem slots? I would have figured you'd have stacked way past the softcaps, but it's all in Power, which is how it should be done.
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whichwitch01Member, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited August 2013
I only have one zen store companion and it is for my cleric. My Man at arms was getting one shotted a lot around Hotenow, a bit before actually. I stayed with the defender and purchased the bear. He does a great job. I solo mostly and he rarely dies even during boss fights. I have not upgraded him, he is still green. Maybe I shouldn't have let that out or he may get nerfed:)
On another note, they definitely need more defender choices. I have all the other companions, as I have 3 level 60s. For the cleric, this is my favorite so far. I am sure the stone is wonderful, but for solo, I would prefer not to have enemies crawling all over me.(actually prefer that in group also, but that is for another thread.....)
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areys77Member, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 19Arc User
Yikes, are you doing all Radiants in your gem slots? I would have figured you'd have stacked way past the softcaps, but it's all in Power, which is how it should be done.
Yes, I find that what my gear gives me is enough to be soft-capped on everything except defense. Socketing Def or Power in their respective slots works best for me.
Comments
Hmm, I heard that making gemmed shirts/pants are very risky, taking up a fair amount of money to make them. How much money on average do you need? Is it really based on luck?
Indeed, my leadership is still not at level 20, and i've been here since open beta :P. Leadership takes a loooong time to level up, so you won't quite make it there just yet.
Good luck on making AD!
I'm Scottish dude. We spelled it our way first.
My personal pet experience (I've bought all the freebie white ones) is:
Dog: surprisingly underrated. Ok, the damage isn't great, but if you can get him combat advantage, his knockdown can be really, really helpful. And seems to work on a lot of things you wouldn't expect, like bosses, and even some giants. Nothing quite like seeing a boss draw back to unleash epic facepunches or something, only to suddenly fall on their <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> coz a puppy bit their ankle.
Other advantages: is a dog. Call it wuffles or captain waggypants or something. D'awwwww.
Downsides: dies almost effortlessly anywhere from hotenow upward.
Wizard: spams AoE slows with surprising frequency. Given that you may often be soloing, if you're sub 50 (so you can't just pootle around in the blue), mobility is key (also, learning how to scoot around with and without using holy rollerskates is useful). Having all the monsters slowed down helps more than you'd think. He doesn't seem to draw much aggro, so he'll be spamming the slows and they'll still all be trying to gank you, but at least it means he'll live a second or two longer.
Downsides: dies almost effortlessly anywhere from hotenow upward. Has annoying animations. SRSLY WHUT IS SO FUNNY, WIZARD
Striker (GWF chick): terrible. Ok, I only bought her out of boredom, because I was earning tons of useless exp in the whispering caverns and I couldn't afford a stone yet, but anyway: she dashes around and smacks things with her giant sword and looks really dynamic and awesome, but then you notice the numbers: "47", "23", "76".
Yeah, she's 'lightly exfoliating' the drow, at best. On the other hand, this means she doesn't draw aggro. On the other other hand, if she doesn't draw aggro or do damage, why is she here? Correct: she's terrible.
Might be useful in levelling, though? Pet damage doesn't scale well at higher levels, and she's basically just damage, without the tankiness of tankman, or the knockdowns of the puppy.
Dies almost effortlessly in the whispering caverns, if anyone actually bothers to pay attention to her. They rarely do, though.
Tankman: Taaaankmaaaan! Ok, the Man at arms is easily the tankiest of the cheapo white pets, but sadly this is sort of like being the tastiest of the petrols: essentially meaningless. He can take more little hits than the other guys, but at hotenow and up, a single hit is often enough anyway. And he will take those hits, because he can actually draw aggro.
Sadly, he usually does this by simply sprinting off into the middle of a pack of monsters that you had no intention of engaging. Then he dies. Then they turn to you.
To a certain extent, all the companions have a tendency to attack stuff when you don't want them to, but tankman seems particularly prone to it. Maybe it just sticks in my mind more, because standing around leafing through your quest journal, only to hear WHOOOSH/THUNK/ARRRRGH "your companion has fallen!" is fairly memorable. Especially when your first thought is "again??"
In solo dungeons, he's not bad, since they're usually linear (so you can plan around his eagerness) and you can dedicate some actual effort to keeping him alive. And you should, actually, be able to keep him alive. Boss fights are considerably less frenetic if the boss stays in one place and tries to smash your tankman. He'll probably die eventually, but that's a lot better than the rest, who will die immediately.
Cleric companion: oh, everyone who's ever played "not a DC" will have tried LittleMiss Healbot, because if you don't have much self-heal, she's by far the best pick. Hell, with an inherent self-heal debuff, she's also surprisingly useful for clerics (which is a sad, sad state of affairs, cryptic). I'd tend to suggest not using her, though: ideally you'll be working toward an Ioun stone eventually, so learning to self-heal effectively (even gimped as we are) is very useful.
Also, she has an unerring skill for finding the reddest patch of ground, and then standing in it. Dies almost effortlessly almost anywhere. Can draw aggro like crazy, for some reason. Even from an ACTUAL DC. Healing aggro is weird.
It is really only feasible to make shirts/pants if you have 4 purple tools, and they cost...well, a lot. The only reason I was able to afford them in the first place was because of the reinforced gauntlets (which, as I said, used to be very profitable).
However, even with 4 purple tools, you only have a 60% chance of getting the tier-3 (gemmed exquisite) result. The rest of the time you will get the tier-2 result, which can typically be sold at a break-even price, that is - covering the cost of the dragon egg, but nothing more. The gemmed version can be sols for maybe 140.000-150.000, so yea...60% of the time you make a nice profit.
Finally, remember that if you are going to finance the tools by selling shirts/pants, expect to have to sell 40 shirts/pants before you reach the break-even point.
It will take a long time to get the kind of gear/Stats that my stone has for some people but at least you can get an idea of how awesome having this little guy CAN be once you work up the money/resources to equip him well.
I used the Tank companion for ages. Gave him really cheep Epics from the AH. Simply ran the daily foundry a few days and got enough AD for the very very cheep 60 epics. This helped me with leveling (Companions don't have levels and can wear epics no matter your level). He did well until I got into the very later levels but before I got AS. Once I got AS it was fine again.
Fast forward to getting the Stone. To level him quickly I went into the level 50 zones and asked people to share quests with me and I repeated them until the stone was a bit higher level (15+) then I took it easy and did the same thing but in the higher level zones to do level 55+ quests. A guildie was in his mid 50's and we duo'ed his last levels and the stone was rank 25 in no time. This is how he stayed until expansion. They made it so that I can raise the rank to 30 and I did dailies to get the stone to rank 30. No matter if I am solo or in a group I use the stone. Non-Augment Companions (even the epic ones that you get like Pheora) just don't stack up for me. That being said, before you get your stone geared out you will probably not need to worry about it too much and just use what you've got.
Hope that helps someone out there. Just my 2c.
My experience with Strikers (as a DC) is that once you have them geared up fairly well - not necessarily uber-ly well, but fairly well - they can be moderately useful, at least in terms of solo-play, and don't die too often. But this is when they're Rare/Epic ones. I personally find the white/green Strikers to be rather useless (die too much) before too long.
I don't have much experience with the tank/control companions, can't comment there.
I think one thing to consider is one's own playstyle - is one largely a soloist or a group dungeon run or a PvP sort, a sneaky type, a run-in-guns-blazing type, etc. What's "best" or what works well is/may be different depending on that, as morsitans already mentioned, so you might find yourself switching between two or three companions fairly regularly, or be fine with one that many players don't seem to care for. I'm pretty much a soloist, so min/maxing the "best" companions is not high on my list of priorities, because it's largely not necessary when soloing. I just use one that fits my playstyle.
Btw, nothing to do with the OP question, but the lvl30 panther has decent (soloing) survivability and also does knockdown and interrupts casters etc. A lot. Course you have to wait until lvl30 for panther to have this ability, but I personally love the panther and find it fine for soloing. Definitely doesn't pull a lot of aggro, even with the damage boost they got with one of the patches...but since I don't rely on it for aggro I don't care. Thus ... Because I like playing with one for roleplay/aesthetic fondness vs. only the max it can do for my stats?
I'm finding the lvl30 snake-woman (Lillend, Leader) to be pretty awesome for soloing. I used AD to get one from the auction house (didn't pay real-cash like I did w/my panther). Not so much the healing but the Piercing Damage. Not that that helps the OP either, since I'd guess they're far away from having that much AD. But I'm finding her worth the AD I spent...at least as far as wonky-AI companions go.
Yikes, are you doing all Radiants in your gem slots? I would have figured you'd have stacked way past the softcaps, but it's all in Power, which is how it should be done.
On another note, they definitely need more defender choices. I have all the other companions, as I have 3 level 60s. For the cleric, this is my favorite so far. I am sure the stone is wonderful, but for solo, I would prefer not to have enemies crawling all over me.(actually prefer that in group also, but that is for another thread.....)
Yes, I find that what my gear gives me is enough to be soft-capped on everything except defense. Socketing Def or Power in their respective slots works best for me.