Favorite Operative Companion

[Jahobe]

I want to know what everyone's favorite companion to use while questing is.

[Telos]

not kaliyo... for some reason, she turns completely worthless around lvl 28.

 

i'm using vector right now (still working through taris) and he takes less damage in his light armor than kaliyo does in her heavy...

[Deannie]

Where u get vector at?

[Spatzimaus]

not kaliyo... for some reason, she turns completely worthless around lvl 28.

 

Pretty sure this is gear-related. Kaliyo was getting squishy for me at 28-29, and I eventually realized why that was. It was a combination of a few things:

> A couple slots were hand-me-downs from me, and so were particularly weak, OR were things made for Cunning users instead of Aim users.

> She has no relic slots/matrix cubes, and this is generally the point where you start using those for yourself. When the level 32 matrix cube adds 39 Cunning and 23 Endurance, it's not a small difference to go without any relics at all.

> She has no stimpacks or adrenals. When you can buy skill stims that boost your key stat by 30ish for an hour, or an adrenal that can add something like 850 armor for a short period (15s on a 3m cooldown), it starts to really reduce her tanking ability to not have those. (Especially for us Biochem types who have those nice reusable stims, to where I can ALWAYS have one active.) And then there are the healing stims; we can get good ones for ourself, but the ones that can heal her as well are a lot less efficient. If we could hand her healing packs to use, it'd be very different.

> The mission-reward gear for her is all green. That's fine at low level, but at higher levels it really starts to suck relative to the enemies you're fighting (and you'll often be in full orange-purple mode by this point), meaning you now have to go out of your way to find her good equipment. And you have to find Aim-boosting Heavy Armors in at least blue? Not easy, and not cheap. You could buy an orange/purple for her (or gain it with commendations from a low-level planet's Heroics) and just keep upgrading it with mods, but that can get REALLY expensive.

> She just doesn't get skills as fast as a player does, and so even if her Armor rating IS well above yours, she's not going to tank particularly well. She can draw aggro, because a lot of her skills are made for that, but she lacks a lot of the damage-reduction abilities since she's more of a hybrid DPSer.

> On Alderaan especially, a LOT of the enemies have either an armor debuff ability that lets them rip through heavy armor over time, or poison/internal damage (just like us) that ignores armor. I think her shield helps with this somewhat, but she's still more vulnerable to those foes than someone with a dodge-based defense (like Vector).

 

So since I expect to basically be tanking for myself when soloing, my choice is Lokin.

Edited January 7, 2012 by Spatzimaus

[Zaikrem]

Vector

[Selais]

Heal spec I went Kaliyo > SCORPIS.

 

Never had any problem, kept them both geared to match my level.

[marshalleck]

Temple. Range/AOE turret blasting everything while I kill.

[uruz]

Heal spec'd Operative - Kaliyo.

 

I tried Vector but I didn't see any abilities to draw aggro to him. I mainly use Vector for Flashpoints which I can solo.

 

Lokin - his alternate form is a lot of fun but I haven't had a chance to do some real testing. I don't like that he switches back to human form whenever entering stealth.

[Iivewire]

as concealment i use lokin, the downtime is zero unless i fight an elite, which he can easily heal through but will usually require a recuperate afterwards.

 

the problem with lokin is he doesnt come with weapons equipped, and i didnt realize this right away and thought he sucked. thats ALOT of missing stats between the blaster pistol and vibroknife he isnt wearing at first

[YpaWinz]

I've been using Ensign Temple pretty much since I got her. Geared her up pretty good and gave her two nice pistols and leveled to 50 w/ her. On fights where I didn't require a lot of CC I would turn all of her abilities on and she'd wreck pretty much everything. Her snipe shot, whatever it's called, would hit for 2k+ pretty regularly.

 

We did pretty good smashing elites. I'd usually tank them w/ my defensive CD's, flashbang to heal back to full, and by then it was pretty much over.

[Ulthwithian]

As a healing operative, I used Kaliyo more or less exclusively.

 

The point about her gear is well taken, but it's not like you can't strip the mods, etc., out of Heavy Armor gear and outfit it with Aim gear for her.

[Spatzimaus]

it's not like you can't strip the mods, etc., out of Heavy Armor gear and outfit it with Aim gear for her.

 

And there's even a trick for that: when you're offered mission rewards, sometimes it's droid armor for your ship droid (and layer SCORPIO). Kaliyo can't wear it of course, but droid gear is all fully modded (albeit with greens) and it's all Aim gear. So pick that, and voila, three or four instant green mods to slot into her armor.

 

Of course, she still won't be THAT good of a tank. Without relic slots, stimpacks, etc. and a small number of tanking skills, she won't be able to soak up damage like a heavy-armor player would. But it might be enough.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Spatzimaus

[AgentDib]

Temple is a sniper agent and by far my favorite companion as a healing operative.

 

I have her decently geared but with a couple of KPs she can take a beating and does great damage in return. Against normal or tough mobs I'll just have her attack her own targets and she usually kills a couple on her own without losing more than 20% health.

 

I will often end up with aggro against elites, but that's no problem for a healing operative as long as you stagger your Shield Probe, Evasion, and Debilitate cooldowns while keeping KP up. With those cooldowns and her DPS, I very rarely need to use injection on myself before the elite has died.

[Sinemetu]

Medic: Temple, for sure. The fact that she wears the same gear as I do means I can give her all those quest rewards that I'm supposed to want, and/or I can give her hand-me-downs. I two-man heroic 4's with a tank, and we've decided she does more damage than the average pug player. She takes more damage than Scorpio, but she also kills a lot faster. Don't forget to turn on her crit cooldown.

[Warjunkie]

For me temple is the best companion for she could ditch quite some decent dmg too, kaliyo getting squishy at times and doesn't do much dmg than temple.

[Spifnar]

As full Conceal in the mid 40's, I use Lokin. There are some dicey moments with powerful melee elites, but kiting works wonders there. Once you gear him, which is easy because he wears medium with cunning, he's an amazing healer and you have no downtime

 

When I was mostly Medic with 12 in Conceal I used Kaliyo (or Scorpio a bit) for the hard fights. Turn her damage mitigation shield to auto so it turns on at 50%. That's a great reminder to heal her. And use Temple with full AE's on for the packs with only 1 strong

 

 

At no point can anything but a tank with taunt keep the attention of a mob I am attacking. But Lokin's heal aggro usually grabs everyone else's attention, allowing me to Acid->BS the mobs on target switch.

 

I have never been impressed by Vector's damage output, but that's because I never geared him. Willpower/light armor? Tough to find/make

 

For all companions, make sure they have their auras on. They drop for random reasons, and help out 20% at least.

[Democratus]

I use Kaliyo for several reasons.

 

1) I got her first and have had the longest amount of time to develop tactics with her.

 

2) Our gear doesn't compete with each other. I can give her Aim and keep Cunning gear.

 

3) I'm tracking my story Dark Side and she fits that much better than most other companions.

 

There are times when I wish I had a healer (my spec is Op, Lethality). But overall I like having her pull aggro so I can get Backstabs and Disables up and running.

[zootzoot]

Scorpio by far for me.

 

Amazing Tank that can easily hold multiple mobs.

Good damage in Tank stance and very good damage in DPS stance.

 

Plus she uses duplicate pieces like 2 Motors etc which means I can buy 2 Orange moldable pieces for her for multiple slots on Voss and Corellia.

 

 

As far as Kaliyo...

 

 

****SPOILER****

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since she gets taken from you for the last few levels it's painful to gear her up. You lose the gear AND her Tanking.

Edited January 9, 2012 by zootzoot

[Grimshi]

Once I hit 50 I started using Lokin, now that he's almost fully epic he heals like a beast. Gold's die while I still have full health.

 

Wish I used him while leveling, I used Kaliyo for all my leveling.

[chuixupu]

As concealment, usually Lokin. When I find I am taking very little damage and want to kill stuff faster, I take Temple.

[Nemularr]

I'm using Vektor, however I don't have all companions at this point lvl 39. He just does too much damage to sideline him. As concealment the two of us rip through stuff fast enough that I don't need a healer. Tried Lokin but that slowed down kill speed quite a bit.

[GeoLager]

I prefer Scorpio.

 

 

Scorpio is a better tank than Kaliyo plus since she is melee rather than ranged you can get most mobs grouped together.

[saethone]

i'm underleveled atm (started hoth at 33) so i've been using kaliyo, need her tanking to handle the elites

[Marcato]

As a healer, I prefer to use Raina. Helps to make up for my damage deficiencies, can gear her easily with my hand-me-downs, and manually controlling blaster sweep can be pretty potent.

 

I like the voice as well.

[Brightglade]

I want to know what everyone's favorite companion to use while questing is.

 

As an OP Medic, Kaliyo is by far my favorite. Temple is a close second when I need a dps helper.