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Best Companion for Soloing as a Healer?


Xanyr

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Normally one would think that a Tank would be best but I've heard through the grapevine that the Tanking Companions are underpowered and that it would be better to go with a DPS. What would you say fellow Sorcs?
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Adronkius Revel is your best friend while leveling as a healer. He provides the most dps out of all our companions. You should only need to bust out a tank companion against certain difficult elites. Other than that keep your dps geared and you'll have no problems.
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Adronkius Revel is your best friend while leveling as a healer. He provides the most dps out of all our companions. You should only need to bust out a tank companion against certain difficult elites. Other than that keep your dps geared and you'll have no problems.

 

This.

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At level 29, and fairly pure healing spec, I still prefer Khem. It suits my playstyle more, I think. I find that I have more downtime recovering force between battles when I'm using Andronikos.

 

I'm sure that both are generally fine though. I think that players that use Andronikos tend to tank a bit more themselves... though again, I think that leads to more downtime between battles.

 

To be honest, it's likely that there's not a huge amount of difference between the two and that you can choose which you prefer for your own playstyle.

 

X

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At 33 I find Khem to be lacking even tho he is well geared. Switched to Andro for the Legacy quests(exept against a certain boss) and it was alot easier.

 

I need to heal alot more when Khem is out due to his low damage, altho he survives a hell of a lot longer ;)

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As a healer, I have used Khem so far all the way up to level 41 which is where i'm at right now. I have kept him well geared and focused on getting his Affection up where it currently sits at about 9,900 out of 10,000 and I can honestly say he has not once failed me in combat.

 

I have no clue why people find him ineffective, because for me he has performed exceptionally well.

 

My only issue with him is the speed it takes for him to enter battle, even with his dash ability active, there is still an annoying delay in him moving from me to the enemy I want him to kill.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've tried andronikos and the jedi, but like others have said, my playstyle seems to best suit khem

 

he's up for everything i encounter - i just defeated 2 gold star elites guarding a chest with him, and @ lvl 32 i was able to easily finish the class quest to obtain our jedi companion which had me fighting lbl 36 strong mobs - that and my khem has crappy greens from 5 levels ago since i spend all my commendations on myself and refuse to buy him gear.

 

with khem i find the encounters slower, and that is why people probably prefer the dps companions, but slowing down encounters is fine by me - if we can slow down the toughest encounters, we can have a higher success rate

 

another note - i am a quest skipper - i've got 3 alts i rotate, and if i've got the class quests on a planet done, and there are no commendation rewards left that are the next level or two above me, then i abandon all quests and move on to the next planet - khem allows me to do this as this style of play means that i'm constantly fighting mobs higher level than myself - if i were doing green quests all the time i might prefer the dps companions too.

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I use Khem with his dps toggle and full dps gear. Andro is ok but I do not notice much difference in kill speed so I prefer Khem.

 

I think if Andro spent too much time around me our relationship would drop into the negatives. Besides, Khem has a decent amount of AoE and self healing and though I specced corruption using Khem lets me do a good bit of DPS.

Edited by Anrix
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I rushed the class quests a bit and had Andronokis at about lvl 20 or 21. It was easy to do Into the Pit and the harder elites as a corruption spec at that level by myself.

 

I then had Andronokis who's gears, when you get him, is optimized for around lvl 27-28ish 6 or 7 levels early and went back to the planets I skipped to do the other quests. It was easy mode. He tanked better then Khem at that point because his gear was way better then the best gear I could get for Khem and his DPS was so much higher he had no problems holding agro.

 

I don't know if this actually made it any faster for me to level though since I was basically having to run through areas twice, once for class quest and then again when the planet quests brought me to them. It did make it easy though. But really as corruption spec everything is easy mode anyways.

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I really prefer Ashara. Fully geared in orange/blues she's a DPS monster. She got buffed in the patch too. I usually just bubble her and don't need to heal much at all. Her melee ward makes her pretty tanky too.

 

One thing I tried was having each comp out and dps the same type of elites with each a couple times. Ashara killed the fastest of all, but she's also very geared while Andronikas is only decently geared. The tanks aren't that great at all as a healer (for me) since they DPS so much slower and don't really provide much more survivability than a well geared Ashara. Besides, having your only available love interest with you for affection bonuses on quests is nice too.

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I tried leveling as a healer and found myself still casting a lot of lightning spells while dropping heals once in a while...so I went back to dps! Life has been good ever since haha. Once I got AOE lightning Khem ran in and wacked everything once then I burnt it all down. Kinda boring but effective.
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I've had a full healing build since the start and as soon as I got Andro I quickly realized he was superior to Khem in all possible situations. His health goes down a bit faster, but he has a crapload more DPS so stuff dies really quick and in the end, I can move on to the next fight faster.

 

I've been using Ashara now that I have her.. I geared her well and she does just as good as Andro IMHO. Whenever I get Khem out, I notice a HUGE difference in fight length, he really has next to no DPS so not only do you need to heal him, you also don't have DPS... Works, but it's hardly effective.

 

I got the Doc now... As a healer he's useless, but I hear the Doc with a DPS build is the ticket. I'll try that next time I log and see what happens.

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I agree with Andro on this. Not only does he do the most single target damage, he also does the most AoE and him being ranged makes his target switching and opening instant.

 

Anyone know what Ashara is like now after her buff?

Edited by Omeqa
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Khem here, as well. Orange gear, on par with my own. He tanks everything, all I have to do is bubble him, send him in, then I'm free to DPS. Once in a while I have to drop a heal on him, otherwise I just keep the bubble refreshed on long fights.

 

One thing about his gear, I am using the 'Guardian' style mod/armor plug ins for his gear, not the standard 'Might' ones. That's STR/END with an emphasis on END. All his gear buffs his shield rating and absorption, too. He's reliable, hard to kill, and I have yet to pull aggro off of him. He is always in Shadow Killer stance (increased shield chance, and threat).

Edited by Pekiti
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I prefer Ashara, shes got great DPS and as a melee she moves away from me so the mobs are aggro'ing on her first just because she's there and when they are attacking her with AOE's they don't affect me. I agree that Andors is better DPS but he stays close and doesn't attract attacks the same as Ashara.

 

Plus I tend to use Whirlwind alot, CC'ing 3 mobs out and then sending Ashara in to do the real killing, while I drink and smoke, tossing a few heals and shields on her to keep her healthy, then finishing off a mob here or their with FL. Andrors has a couple of good AOE attacks, which I have to turn off when using alot of CC, Ashara how ever only has 1 AOE attack that is so-so.

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I think it really doesn't matter which companion you choose. As long as you keep them well geared. The only difference is how much you need to dps, heal your companion or yourself.

 

Personally, I'm kind of cheap and lazy, so I gear up one companion, Khem. Especially once you get Force Storm, why wait for your companion to take them down one at a time? Just use Khem as an aggro magnet and AoE everything down. Sometimes, your bubble doesn't even break.

 

Not to mention with Khem, I can farm Champions for orange gear to sell on GTN. People have mentioned that with a DPS companion, we can kite the boss and let the companion DPS, but that's a lot riskier than just using Khem.

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I think it really doesn't matter which companion you choose. As long as you keep them well geared. The only difference is how much you need to dps, heal your companion or yourself.

 

Personally, I'm kind of cheap and lazy, so I gear up one companion, Khem. Especially once you get Force Storm, why wait for your companion to take them down one at a time? Just use Khem as an aggro magnet and AoE everything down. Sometimes, your bubble doesn't even break.

 

Not to mention with Khem, I can farm Champions for orange gear to sell on GTN. People have mentioned that with a DPS companion, we can kite the boss and let the companion DPS, but that's a lot riskier than just using Khem.

 

Hey, quit stealing all the thoughts from my brain you guy

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At lvl 50, you can have Khem tank all of the [HEROIC 4+] bosses if you know what you are doing.

 

The only lvl 50 Heroic4+ that is better to have a DPS compaion for, is the one on Corelia, all the others you can just tank'n spank as a healer(ecept for the HEROIC4 on belsavis that requires you to destroy 3 consoles, that one you just solo by dying once, no point waisting time by trying to kill anything on that quest).

 

Also, Xalek's tanking stats are bugged, and he currently only gains benefit from +defense rating. So úntill they fix him, Khem will always be the supperior tank (and probably even after that since he uses heavy armor = more mitigation) Xalek's 42% armor buff just doesnt cut it, way too big of a diffrence in armor still.

Edited by Miothan
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You really can't go wrong with any of them, provided you keep them properly geared. All have strengths.

I use Ashara myself, but that's just because I prefer her melee nature. If I give her a couple seconds head start, she'll hold aggro long enough on strongs for them to be dead, and elites I throw in one cloud mind and I just keep her upright. Khem's a better pure tank, but she compensates for it in DPS.

 

Andro's great too, if you don't mind doing all the tanking as a sorc. He does more burst DPS then Ashara, but it's just my own experience that as a melee, Ashara generates more threat with her DPS. Andro's great for not generating threat. Amazing actually.

Edited by islander
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I leveled with Khem until I got Xalek. What I like about Xalek is that he picks up aggro faster than Khem since he can leap into the targets and he seems to do more DPS as a tank than Khem.

 

I think either is fine really but my prefence went with Xalek do to his instant aggro capability.

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