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Best companions for DCs
adinosii
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,294 Arc User
So, what are the best companions for a DC to use?
There is no argument that there should be one augment companion, although opinions may differ on which one is the best, but what about the other four?
Stat-boosting companions are easy to obtain, but not really that useful - at least not unless you get them up to purple level. They can be weclome if you need to boost a particular stat - for example, I have a Cleric Disciple that gives me +300 regeneration, but once you get decent gear, the stat-boosting companions don't really do that much, compare dto the other ones.
So...what to use?
Well, here are those I see as options:
Rust monster - damage debuff
Dancing Blade and Erinyes of Belial - +Critical Severity. Useful if you like "Crit Builds", with vorpal enchants and such.
Lightfoot thief - Bleed damage (but notoriously hard to obtain)
Wererat thief, Tomb spider - Poison damage
Renegade Evoker - fire damage
Aranea - Lightning damage
Lizardfolk Shaman, Battlefield Medic and Acolyte of Kelemvor + to incoming healing
Astral Deva - self healing when doing damage
Leprecchaun - AoE damage resist
Pseudodragon - Stamina regen
Sprite, Flame Sprite - AP gain
Honey Badger - reduced damage taken
Lillend - Heal others
Book Imp - recharge speed
Laughing skull - +500 Recovery and +500 Power at start of combat for 25 seconds. Quite helpful when soloing
There is no argument that there should be one augment companion, although opinions may differ on which one is the best, but what about the other four?
Stat-boosting companions are easy to obtain, but not really that useful - at least not unless you get them up to purple level. They can be weclome if you need to boost a particular stat - for example, I have a Cleric Disciple that gives me +300 regeneration, but once you get decent gear, the stat-boosting companions don't really do that much, compare dto the other ones.
So...what to use?
Well, here are those I see as options:
Rust monster - damage debuff
Dancing Blade and Erinyes of Belial - +Critical Severity. Useful if you like "Crit Builds", with vorpal enchants and such.
Lightfoot thief - Bleed damage (but notoriously hard to obtain)
Wererat thief, Tomb spider - Poison damage
Renegade Evoker - fire damage
Aranea - Lightning damage
Lizardfolk Shaman, Battlefield Medic and Acolyte of Kelemvor + to incoming healing
Astral Deva - self healing when doing damage
Leprecchaun - AoE damage resist
Pseudodragon - Stamina regen
Sprite, Flame Sprite - AP gain
Honey Badger - reduced damage taken
Lillend - Heal others
Book Imp - recharge speed
Laughing skull - +500 Recovery and +500 Power at start of combat for 25 seconds. Quite helpful when soloing
Hoping for improvements...
Post edited by adinosii on
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I agree with you that pure stat companions are not that useful, we can easily get into the "diminushing returns" zone with them.
These are the companions I use. My active bonus setup and even some gear setup makes you LOSE Gear score, so if you want a high gearscore for pugs, don't look at this. I focused at survival and abit at output mostly(I run a crit build p. vorpal):
Leuprechaun: 10% AOE Resist
Cave Bear: 1200 HP
Sprite: 2% AP gain
Ioun Stone of Might: 5% Stamina Regen (I also have Elven Resolve Boon, and another boon that gives Stamina Gain + HR Artifact that also gives Stamina Gain).
Angel of Protection: 10% Shield when ressurected. This is my Active companion right now and has 3 Bonding Runestone.
Right now, I am thinking at replacing my Angel of Protection for Erinyes (10% crit severity at purple) and equip her with my Bonding Runestones.
Erinyes has an attack with 1,2 sec cooldown, she gives me a Temp HP shield each 15 seconds (more or less).
I am also unsure about the Sprite and Cave bear right now. I finally have enogh divinity generation and no longer use Divine Fortune, I run Holy Fervor now, so Sprite is not doing much there.
And the Cave Bear, well, I am replacing my defense stones with HP already, so I think I could get another thing there.
Right now I was thinking of using this:
Erinyes(X3 Bond - active), Leuprechaun, Ioun Stone of Might + 2 I don't know what yet ( maybe a 300 Power companion and Pseudodragon or Honey Badger, I really don't know). The main focus is getting Erinyes.
Pig's not bad at all for a DC turtling in an AS.
That's why the most useful companions are those, who still grant us a remarkable bonus.
I'm not sure about the Erinyes, because my test with perfect vorpal was uttlery bad. The difference between a perfect vorpal and wearing no weapon enchantment at all was ~700k damage and next to no additional healing in Castle Never. Using a vorpal is a waste of buff potential, using a crit severty pet is personal preference. It doesn't matter anyways.
I do value the Honey Badger, Rust Monster, Leprechaun as well as the Cave bear. Our job is to survive the worst and with eLoL and SoT we have new challenges.
Pets like the Sprite, Aranea and Wererat are not useful to say the least. You won't feel a difference at all anywhere else except when questing solo.
Lilend is not needed, since DCs aren't healbots anymore. You won't do anyone a favour having one. Astral Devas heal is only for the pet itself, so it's more useless than the Duergar (if this is even possible).
If I had to pick my favourite loadout of pets I'd choose Stone, Cave Bear, Leprechaun, Honey Badger and Rust Monster or a stat pet with useful stats (Helmite Ghost, Moonshade Druid, ...).
@almondum: You surely haven't done the math for bonding stones. The overall benefits of having a Stone vers. having an active pet with bondings is heavily in favour of the stone! Even if you wear perfect bondings, your ioun stone will grant you more over the race of a dungeon, not to mention the burden of having a pet getting trapped in holes and aggroing enemies.
My best friends are:
Cat, Imp, Both Sprites, Owl and Erinyes.
My DC is back-line Primary Healer/DPS Dealer. She simply doesn't like to be 'yet another tank class' in game.
The threat reduction pets aren't bad: owl and war dog.
Astral deva is a pet buff, not a self buff.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
I'm just stacking regen on my DC for some increased sustainability.
I did take a long break but lets see what I think about the Wererat Thief when it is max level without buying more maximum level. I am still levelling it up towards level 25. Yeah it costs 200 Drake Zeals, but 2 out of 3 of my max level characters have 200 Drake Seals.
I don't like the idea that I should upgrade my Cleric Disiple at all... what good does it do in PvP? Nothing. Wererat Thief at least gets to level 25 , but I was not at all happy or content with the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> Dancing Blade you get from PvP. To begin with I hate that I can not find my Dancing Blade companions corpse in Dungeons. Sometimes I do resurrect my companion during a fight.
Action Points:
I agree about the small utility of Sprite alone, just don't forget that you can use your Spite + Boon, it will result in 4% of Action Point Gain. Not to mention those sets that award Action Point Gain. All these "small buffs" add to each other.
Some people don't use Holy Fervor, 4% of Action point gain is alot of recovery when you have alot of it (diminushing returns).
These 4% of AP gain are given to your directly and do not suffer the diminushing returns. I doubt that with 300 recovery (epic companion active bonus) you can increase your action point gain by 4% (assuming you have already a healthy ammount of recovery, I can't use exact numbers here because the point when you get big diminushing returns depends of your ability scores).
Cleric role:
I don't need stats outside of combat, I need the stats when I fights (Rising Hope for example). Another thing, I am a healer - Anoited Champion (not a debuffer). I have the High Prophet set, I used it, but I don't like being that (when the party forces me in a polite way to use it, I use it).
I like to prevent my allies from taking damage and from diying from red zones. I try to "prepare" my allies for damage, because I know alot of times they take the damage, so my goal is to make sure they don't die instantly so I can quickly overheal the damage they took.
I buff them with damage resistance(Anoited Army, HG, DA), stats increase (AA, Linked Spirit) and healing overtime (depending of the fight it can be FF, HW, Exa).
The new dungeon makes my cleric very useful because I can literally make my allies immune to red zones and have them standing inside of them damaging the boss and grant them Immunity when I see that they won't move away or took alot of damage.
One thing is certain High Prophet is awesome, it makes Life steal more offective that indirectly increases the healing the allies receive from it. It also increases the damage the whole party does. The thing is, don't like it and I prefer pure healing and buffing.
Perfect Bonding Runestone:
Equip: When your Companion activates a power, it has a chance to grant you Companion's Gift. Companion's Gift grants you 65% of your Companion's stats for 20 seconds.
Companion Offense Slot: 380 Power. Companion Defense Slot: 380 Defense
Perfect is too expensive, let's stay by the Greater which awards 50% of stats.
Notes: -Bonding Runestone does not have/has a very short internal cooldown
- It stacks 3 times
- Lesser version is equal to rank 9 runestone, normal is equal to rank 10 runestone and greater/perfect give more stats than a rank 10 runestone
3 stacks of buff (greater) = 0,5x3 = 1,5 stats from my pet. 150% of stats from my companion.
Companion example:
-Eriryes Jab: 1,2 sec coodown (attack power) / Bloody Spiral: 15 sec cd, Temp HP shield (survival) /rank 30 power gives more temp HP when I am below 50% HP.
In 5 seconds, Erinyes will hit the enemy at least 4 times....with 50% proc chance in less than 10 seconds I will have 3 stacks of Bonding Buff. Also, I will have extra HP from her shield that will make me more tanky(and this can proc Bonding aswell). Not to mention 10% of Critical Severity she awards, this can stack with the last Tyranny of Dragons Boon (5% crit severity) + Half-Orc 5% critical severity (racial).
I'm a half-elf, so I only get 15% of crit severity from this. A Half-Orc would get 20% Critical Severity.
15%+50 = 65% critical Severity/ 70% critical severity fro Half-Orcs (I imagine how far could their dps go since ArmPen has been fixed).
For healing purposes, this works great for me.
I sometimes wish the Temp HP from DA/AHS/SF could crit or increase with my Power/weapon damage/Health points.
Right now I am using Lesser Bonding enchantment on my Angel of Protection and when I take strong damage, I receive a strong shield(-50% of all damage for 10 seconds) + 1-2 stacks of bonding runestone buff.
Angel is very good for survival, but I only receive stats when I take damage, so to optimize that I want to try Erinyes; she has a quick attack to proc Bonding Runestone and a defensive power for me and herself.
I rarely have my companions dead, I can heal them if needed and if in some case they die, I use my Llyra's Bell.
About the aggro holes/stucks/whatever. I just resummon, works with my angel, don't see why it won't work with another companion.
Thanks for reading,
Have fun,
Almondum.
Using the barbarian shaman as the primary companion might help when soloing, just like a good tank companion (Galeb Duhr or Frost mimic), but you really don't want a killable companion in a dungeon - in particular not in boss fights.
I just assumed people will want an augment companion as the primary companion - I was more thinking about what would make good secondary companions.
Erinyes(of course)
Dancing Blade
Sprite.
Well I am unsure of the last
E.Sellsword; Laughing Skull (more power for battle fervor)
or Boar.
Dancing Blade, Erinye and stuff might be good in Mod 5, but up to now, Crit Severity is next to useless for a DC. During my guild runs in CN i tried several enchantments and the perfect vorpal gave 600k damage increase compared to perfect terror only! That's next to nothing. The group does benefit much more from any debuff enchantment.
You are better of with defensive companions.
My choice up to now would be
Stone
Honey Badger (as good as the feat we have)
Leprechaun (you will be in red trying to resurrect fallen mates)
Cave Bear
Rustmonster/Reg Companion like Helmite Ghost
In Mod 5 the Wild hunt rider or Blink Dog could be worth it, because our damage will be increased by alot.
Heroes of Darkness
Retired since 02/15
My opinions are my own. Please do not judge my friends nor guild for my statements.
Crit severity is giving more healing. I didn't go for the extra dmg. I use GPF on my DC btw.
I refuse the idea of dpsing DCs instead of debuffing and healing.
The Owl is a striker and is a rather tough little bird and the Active reduces your threat by 12% or something. The Galeb Duhr's strength is that it is a hard taunter - it takes agro directly from the toughest of all mobs, including and especially any Boss. Though the Active bonus of the Galeb basically sucks, as a summoned companion it does wonders for keeping brutes and Bosses occupied while everyone else is pummeling.
Both of these, of course, are Zen market companions (both are level 20 Purple).
If you're not interested in Zen market versions, there is more than a baker's dozen of freebies available. The two best freebies I've personally used is the freebie ranger female (I forget her name) - which is a great account-wide, and that freakin' Powrie... which is awesome. But even though its damage is astoundingly heavy, it just takes forever to strike - but does got on Brutes and Bosses. Unfortunately these two are Zen Promo companions. All the in-game earned freebies are pretty much interchangeable in terms of usefulness.
You can get the Powrie in AH until they're all gone. That thing is definitely worth it.
As for active bonus considerations: you're seriously better-off with an augment; any augment companion that is properly enchanted and geared.
The wolf from the first starter pack has a 5% interrupt ability. It can interrupt stuff that are 'red non-interruptable'. Not only can it do it, but it's active bonus lets you do it. Dots, fast strikes, anything has that chance and can really stop the offense of an enemy in it's tracks. That's money, of course, however it is something to consider.
VERY true. The Dire Wolf and Sylph are the *the* *best* companions to ALWAYS keep in active slots (Wolf for the chance to Interrupt - even most bosses, and Sylph for "always on" 50% CC reduction against you). I did;t mention these because they are only available in add-on pack (Guardian of Neverwinter and Knight of the Feywild)
the only companion u can use in DC is Rust monster and Lillend any other is waste of money.
the other two remain slot better use stats companion some this green companion with 55power-55recovery or 55power-55life steal etc and make them epic, better some rly stats than Laughing skull stats becose only 25sec stats!
Hmmm Book Imp is good but i think is to low 4%(or 5%?) Recharge Speed in epic...
Sry i forgot ioun stone ofc!!!!
Taylor DC/DO & AC Buff/Debuff - Guild Gutbusters Brigade - PVE
Checked on ACT.
That its good for me
little more for my super healing is good!
Taylor DC/DO & AC Buff/Debuff - Guild Gutbusters Brigade - PVE
ńèЪùŁâ 70 acDC
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