Companion even worth it?

dethsdezyn · November 2013

Sorry another **** question. I am a wizard with a MAA companion, he is lvl 12 I think. SO far, i do not see what he contributes really. In fights he takes a swing once every 5 seconds or so, and when he does swing he does 90 dmg. DO I have a setting wrong or something?

TIA

denverralphy · November 2013

The MAA is a tank. You really don't need him to do damage so much as you need him taunt and generate threat to grab aggro to keep the monsters off you. Runes and items with Recovery stats are usually better (in my opinion), as that will increase how often their skills are triggered.

tinukeda · November 2013

You're not completely off base, but you could do several things to improve him. Grab some cheap level 60 stuff off the AH that he can use (companions are apparently not level restricted on the items they use); a few items with 100+ power or armor pen or crit should help. Plus you can add enchantments to the items as well.

I rolled the MaA with my CW at first until I was about level 35-40, then it was better to switch over to the healer companion (and in my book, the green cleric that comes from an IGN account (and is account-wide) has been the best investment by far).

dethsdezyn · November 2013

denverralphy wrote: »

The MAA is a tank. You really don't need him to do damage so much as you need him taunt and generate threat to grab aggro to keep the monsters off you. Runes and items with Recovery stats are usually better (in my opinion), as that will increase how often their skills are triggered.

Hmmm monsters seem to scoot right by him and still come after me LOL

dethsdezyn · November 2013

tinukeda wrote: »

You're not completely off base, but you could do several things to improve him. Grab some cheap level 60 stuff off the AH that he can use (companions are apparently not level restricted on the items they use); a few items with 100+ power or armor pen or crit should help. Plus you can add enchantments to the items as well.

I rolled the MaA with my CW at first until I was about level 35-40, then it was better to switch over to the healer companion (and in my book, the green cleric that comes from an IGN account (and is account-wide) has been the best investment by far).

Ok may need to unbind some runes and make sure they have recovery stats as well to the ones I have, I wil check out the AH thanks.,

tinukeda · November 2013

Another $0.02, I was reading some other stuff about companions and runes for them and apparently Recovery doesn't help them. Not 100% sure on the veracity of that, but it might be something to keep in mind as well.

dardove · November 2013

tinukeda wrote: »

Another $0.02, I was reading some other stuff about companions and runes for them and apparently Recovery doesn't help them. Not 100% sure on the veracity of that, but it might be something to keep in mind as well.

Could also just be that the tooltip for companion powers only shows the base cooldown timer and doesn't reflect the new cooldown when you slot recovery onto the companion. I haven't done any testing on it though.

tinukeda · November 2013

dardove wrote: »

Could also just be that the tooltip for companion powers only shows the base cooldown timer and doesn't reflect the new cooldown when you slot recovery onto the companion. I haven't done any testing on it though.

Excellent thought. I hope someone does some testing

walk2k · November 2013

the cleric pet is the only free pet worth using period.
just deactivate or delete the man at arms, 100% completely useless.

sockmunkey · November 2013

tinukeda wrote: »

You're not completely off base, but you could do several things to improve him. Grab some cheap level 60 stuff off the AH that he can use (companions are apparently not level restricted on the items they use); a few items with 100+ power or armor pen or crit should help. Plus you can add enchantments to the items as well.

This is actually really bad advice. Power has zero effect, pet damage seems to be on a fixed scale. Armor pen has also been shown to have little to no effect. Crit is debatable, but hardly worth stacking if the best you're going to get. Is going from a 10% chance to do 150 points of damage, instead of the normal 90, to a 12 or 15% chance.

Recovery, has been tested and most agree, it has a noticeable effect. Defense stacking will help your pet live longer. Life steal, has one of the strongest effects on pets, they seem to get near 100% return on it. These should go much further to helping your pet stay alive longer, and therefore more useful. Then trying to increase its direct damage.

bioshrike · November 2013

I just got the hunt rider tank companion to 20 the other day. Both of his attacks taunt. one is on a 3 sec timer, and the other is on a 6 or 8 sec timer. Slotting +recovery into his offense slot, and slotting gear that also grants +recovery reduces those cooldowns, so that he is taunting more often. Don't use a tank/defender companion for their damage. You might be better off w/ the wayward wizard or dog if that's what you're after...

pitshade · November 2013

I slotted my Skeleton with a rank 6 runestone for power and checked the damage of its attacks before and after. There was an increase.

denverralphy · November 2013

tinukeda wrote: »

Another $0.02, I was reading some other stuff about companions and runes for them and apparently Recovery doesn't help them. Not 100% sure on the veracity of that, but it might be something to keep in mind as well.

I dunno what you've been reading, but from play-testing and general consensus... Recovery has the most influential impact.

vasdamas · November 2013

Stack Defence/Regeneration on your Man-At-Arms. Those are the only stats working perfectly on him.
Others are just broken and don't work at all.

Recovery is good on the companions with CC like panther or a dog.

UPD I have got 30 lvl Cold Iron warrior/Neverember guard/Skeleton warrior/Faithful initiate myself.
Had much time to test all the things and may tell you almost everything about companions if you want.

dethsdezyn · November 2013

Awesome thanks all. Ended up getting a belt at the auction house (only wearable item for my comp so far) had +100recovery and a couple other things and was able to add a rune that added recovery as well. He still seems to be slow in between attacks and at times he just sits there while fighting goes on around him.

lemartes99 · November 2013

From my own testing with Advanced Combat Tracker, recovery does nothing for companions. It made zero difference testing on Caleb Durr and Dancing Shield. Power & Armor pen do very little as well (10% gain), a small amount of crit (300) will double there crit rate.

For a tank pet the only worth while stats are Defence and Health really.

Also to note, companion stats max at about 500, and really at 300 you will get 80% of the bonus.

I would love to get an official responce from Cyptic on how companions and stats work.

lemartes99 · November 2013

dethsdezyn wrote: »

Awesome thanks all. Ended up getting a belt at the auction house (only wearable item for my comp so far) had +100recovery and a couple other things and was able to add a rune that added recovery as well. He still seems to be slow in between attacks and at times he just sits there while fighting goes on around him.

Recovery doesn't work on Man at Arms, as others have said. This has been confirmed 100% through the comabt log.

xcessiveforce40 · November 2013

Each companion comes with base stats. Exampled Lillend 12 regen 12 defence. My advice is to to get a balance of both of what they come with and then defence. If your companion is power/armpen/crit then get a balance of those 3. Also as others have stated, lifesteal is like companion gold. If you get to 120 its like 100 percent life steal. I just roll with companions for fun since I have a blue ion stone but I've been parsing a lot with ACT for the base companions and some of the purple ones. The sellsword is the worst of all. With an avg of 60dps wherever she goes. MAA (base tank) has very little dps but even at level 15, stack def and regen and he lives even in MoH. I am a GF with over 16k gearscore so that helps as well. The best dps base companion is the dog or wizard. The wizard can get to 110 dps with the right stat combo. I don't have the badger, others have stated that is the best dps companion of all. I have the purple dire wolf and sprite. The wolf is around 180-210 dps most of the time and the sprite is around 160-200 most of the time. It depends on the fight. I am leveling a Lillend now so I can parse lillend vs a level 15 DC (white cleric). I think recovery has a limited impact on the lesser of the companion powers. Not so much on the greater. (each companion seems to have 1 weak power and 1 strong power). Recovery seems to impact the weak power and not so much the strong. Sorry for the wall of text. Good Luck!

valetudo78 · November 2013

Recovery works really good on the dire wolf.

frishter · November 2013

walk2k wrote: »

the cleric pet is the only free pet worth using period.
just deactivate or delete the man at arms, 100% completely useless.

Sell over delete... It's worth over 1 gold a believe. Cleric companions are the most useful free ones. YOu will also get passive boosts in module 2, although the free ones are next to nothing.

stercogburn · November 2013

Tank pet is HAMSTER for wizzy I found. For solo play my experience is that the Healer, while not brilliant, is at least useful. Wolf pet that came with the Guardian of the North founder pack when leveled up to 30 is good as it stuns and knocks back but I still tend to prefer the healer just because it eliminates some pot-usages and downtime.

wimpazoid · November 2013

After seeing this thread, I went and put some rank 5 +recovery into my companions. Turns out they did nothing to reduce cooldowns on both attacks on the ones I had, Pheora and Skeleton Warrior. Got over 700 recovery too on Pheora. Wasted many rank 5's.

xcessiveforce40 · November 2013

Told you, Limited impact from Recovery. Only the weaker powers mostly. Wimpazoid, go to a sharandar daily like Celadaine. Parse inside there and notice the frequency of your companions powers. ACT will break it down for you. With 700 recovery if your phoera did like claw rake (or whatever its called) 46 times during the run without recovery, he may get off like 49 times with 700 recovery. Its not much.

lemartes99 · November 2013

So any chance of someone from cyptic confirming if this is the way it is supposed to be or is recovery / power / armor pen / deflect just broken for companions, because they all pretty much do nothing right now.

jazzneo · November 2013

when ranger come out i going to buy pets not the humans one

axan22 · November 2013

There is going to be a Ranger pack with a purple lvl forest hawk pet

sedaiyus · November 2013

Its hard to say that my investment will be worth it for others as I am not one who personally minds spending a great deal of AD since I can buy zen no problem. But I have found besides the obvious augments that for my Great weapons fighter, Acolyte of Kelemvor level 30 is a tremendous benefit. Between the almost unnoticeable on its own 10% damage reduction, great life steal benefit and 5% max health heal my Great Weapons Fighter does very well staying alive in any dungeon no problem. I have had very few occasions where the Acolyte of Kelemvor has died in normal cases and I don't put it in situation where its going to die in one shot anyhow which is only a couple dungeon boss's.

For my CW just for questing and running people through low tier dungeons the level 30 panther is very nice. I stacked recovery on it, like people said the difference is minor however it is there. Its 'frequent' knock down along with my control abilities can make things much smoother than if I just had the extra damage from my allure stone in some situations I have found. I don't think I have ever brought it through any serious dungeons though, not any boss's anyways. I had the unfortunate pleasure of getting galeb dur and ranking him up to 30 and I will say that the little guy is one tough son of a gun to kill and can hold aggro well, issue is, he only aggro's one person at a time which doesn't help anyone. Honestly I think he would make a excellent tank if he could aggro more than one target, cryptic dropped the ball on this guy.

I cannot speak for the higher levels, however the phase spider seemed quite competent. I enjoyed having it on my Gaurdian Defender at low levels, I just kept my shield up and it teleported around one shotting enemies. Later on I would find this teleportation attack would inadvertently make it quite adept at avoiding attacks, specifically from bosses. It was quite interesting to watch. I leveled it to 25 and havent had any issues howver my GF is only level 49 so I cannot say for end game. But I wouldn't be surprised if its luck with avoiding attacks and doing alright damage proved the same at higher levels. Can't say it would replace an augment, but a competent companion for a high level dungeon, possibly.

Companion even worth it?

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