dizzyMongoose Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 I have him geared in almost all blue with implants/earpiece. Pretty easy since str heavy armor gear is plentiful on the AH unlike aim (or med cunning armor). I'm 26 and he's just alot clunkier to use then Corso despite wanting to like him better. With Corso I can tranq a mob then initiate combat with Corso harpooning the mob I target away from the cced one. The Wookie breaks my CC half the time because he rushes up to the mobs and unleashes one of his many AE abilities. Turn off his AoEs. Turn off Corso's (he has the exact same number of AoE attacks), too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utuwer Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Turn off his AoEs. Turn off Corso's (he has the exact same number of AoE attacks), too. The problem is if you turn off their AoE attacks which include threat generation, they cannot hold aggro well, especially if you are a dps. At lvl 50, even if i turn on all of his skills, he lose elite/champ aggro quite frequently (when his skills on cd ). I rather use Akaavi than Bowdaar, her dps is just insane and she is more durable than Risha, she usually kill 2-3 mobs before i finish 1 thank to her jumping+AoE skill. Furthermore, she can hold agro from champ/elite with her dps, and she can kill them by herself easily as long as you keep her healthy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turuce Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Why you hatin on Browdaar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightchrome Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Browdaar also has a nasty habit of turning off his shield stance randomly.So it's possible to miss that and wonder why he's croaking faster than usual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ugugg Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Did you put defense chance stuff on him? Like player tanks, shields kind of tend to suck untill you can get the shield chance/absorb amount up in the 30s. Before then just focus on blues with defense chance. You can get a tank dodging a good 20% of all attacks if you stack defense. I think this might be the reason. When i geared him, this stat was neglected. So although he was geared up, he didn't have any 'tanky' stats. Anyways I use akavi for tanking/leveling/questing and occasionally risha when i need cc or single target dps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anactafamily Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Bowdar would be great if he could wear medium armor. i craft my companions armor so im using sparr as my tank with lvl 40 medium crafted equip. my only problem is that i cant find a lvl 40 techstaff on galactic network... so her damage is really low. funny this is though im using the pvp lvl 40 gear set for my sawbones... go figure. for bowdar, u really have to buy equip with the same level as he is. may at 50 i might use him for dailies when i get lvl 50 drop equips. as of the moment, im using companions that i can equip with my crafted stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blurps Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 You can work with Bowdaar it just takes much more effort for no benefit other than looks. If that's worth it for you then go for it, by all means. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnoams Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Ah the Bowdar issue. I've been experimenting with him at lvl 50, right now I have him with mostly blues and he does ok, not great, but ok. One of his issues is that he holds agro better than Corso, which means that he is taking more damage so he goes down quicker. But I've also noticed that he has less health than corso does. This may be a difference between aim and str gear, I'm not sure, but my Bowdar has better gear than my Corso and yet has less health. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wraithwarr Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 (edited) Ditch Bigfoot. I've been using Risha ever since I got her. ^ This! I now have her geared up in mostly Columi/Champion gear and she destroys other players when we are doing dailies on ilum. My guildie and I were actually short a dps for a hard mode taral V and I used Risha and she tore it up! granted we were a little over-geared for the instance, but still...It was fun to see her spill some blood in an endgame dungeon. Bottom line is, she is amazing. Totally agree with the OP on Bowdaar, he is a broken companion sadly. Edited February 28, 2012 by Wraithwarr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dizzyMongoose Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 (edited) Ah the Bowdar issue. I've been experimenting with him at lvl 50, right now I have him with mostly blues and he does ok, not great, but ok. One of his issues is that he holds agro better than Corso, which means that he is taking more damage so he goes down quicker. But I've also noticed that he has less health than corso does. This may be a difference between aim and str gear, I'm not sure, but my Bowdar has better gear than my Corso and yet has less health. This is likely entirely from your Bowdaar gear having less Endurance than Corso's. Their Presence bonuses are obviously exactly the same, and last I checked they had the same base HP. Easy enough investigation, though: Hover your mouse over Corso's hit points on the character sheet; note the bonus breakdown; do the same for Corso; compare. Edited February 28, 2012 by dizzyMongoose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twoosh Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Bowdar is the best tank hands down. I put columi and champion gear on him and he has 43% shield chance and like 35% defense. He tanks Champion mobs and I can solo the Belsavis 2 Heroic with him. You need better gear for him to shine. I have almost full Rakata as a sawbones so healing him is equally easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macabakur Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 I've found through two advanced classes of play (gunslinger and another one, not smuggler) that guardian companions suck heh there's another class who gets one a bit later than we get our Bowdar and I count how many times they just stunk at taking hits heh. I use corso, didn't really like what's her face the sith chick, and I haven't really tried out risha yet.. My slinger is 40 at the moment Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohoni Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 I just got Bowdaar with my Scoundrel and I really wanted to like him because I really didn't like Corso, but he really sucks. Obviously the big problem is that he dies too easily. He dies, or nearly dies in fights that Corso would escape with half his life or more. He's also terrible at gaining and keeping agro, usually only snagging one enemy out of a pack, if that. He's also much slower to get into the action, since he has to run up to the enemies, while Corso can just shoot from where he is. Given how he can't attack from range, he should do WAY more damage, have WAY better defense, etc., but he isn't even close on any. Now maybe he gets better later, but he should be plenty good when you get him, and maybe if you upgrade his equipment he improves, but he should come with all the gear he needs to compete at the level you get him. You shouldn't need to overhaul his kit until at least after Tatooine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wiggin Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Once I put them in comparable gear, I noticed no obvious survivability difference, but it did take some time to make sure Bowdaar's gear was up-to-date when I hit Tatooine (headpiece, earpiece, implants too). I thought some of his starting gear seemed statted quite a bit below level. For me, in base gear he was considerably weaker than Corso, with sub-20% damage reduction and fewer HP than my slinger. Anyway, if I need a tank I almost always use Bowdaar. For me a melee tank just makes it easier to "manage" the combat area -- I worry less about unintentional aggro and I find it easier to just yo-yo a melee tank out of AOE damage if needed in the more challenging encounters. In any case, not every companion synergizes well with every Advanced Class and spec, but if you've geared up Bowdaar and he still keeps dying a lot on you, you might want to check your own gear, spec, or rotation as well and make sure that you aren't "giving away" potential dps that is causing fights to last longer than they need to resulting in the wookie taking more damage than HE needs to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohoni Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 In any case, not every companion synergizes well with every Advanced Class and spec, but if you've geared up Bowdaar and he still keeps dying a lot on you, you might want to check your own gear, spec, or rotation as well and make sure that you aren't "giving away" potential dps that is causing fights to last longer than they need to resulting in the wookie taking more damage than HE needs to. If the problem was that all pets were dying too often, they yeah, not Bowdaar's fault, that's bad playing. If the problem is that Bowdaar dies (and/or fails to manage agro well) against opponents where Corso handles them perfectly fine, then clearly there is a problem with him, as they are both tank pets, and should each do equally as well at it. Bowdaar should not need any extra attention to do just as well as Corso does. Likewise, you shouldn't EVER have to gear Bowdaar for Tatooine, as Tatooine is the first place where you are able to use him. He should start out with gear that is comparable to whatever players are likely to have on Corso at that level. After that, of course it's your responsibility to keep him geared up properly, but you should never have to regear a companion immediately after acquiring them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carbonated Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Wookie toss. Comedy comes first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stenrik Posted May 6, 2012 Share Posted May 6, 2012 (edited) I usually didn't use Bowdaar, but I got him out when doing the Ilum daily heroic (where you smoke out those Sith). Just for kicks and giggles. Bowdaar's gear was decent. Tionese and some centurion and an orange weapon. Nothing great though.The Sentinel I was running it with had a pretty poorly geared companion.And I was sawbones spec, in mostly columi. Anyway, right at the beginning of a fight, my friend accidentally pulled a whole other group of mobs, in addition to the ones we "smoked out". Whenever that happened before, that was pretty much guaranteed a wipe. We were contending with like 6 strongs and 2 or 3 elites at once. We actually lived, due to having Bowdaar! Normally, I'd take way too much aggro from healing in a fight like that because I'd have a dps companion or Corso... But because of Bowdaar's AOE threat and the fact that he wasn't TOO squishy, it worked pretty well. It was the first time we'd ever lived through a double pull like that. Thank you, Bowdaar! Not sure we could've done that with any other companion. Edited May 6, 2012 by Stenrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grandmthethird Posted May 6, 2012 Share Posted May 6, 2012 my wookie dies all the time too. but the job of a tank is to take all the fire so i can kill all the mobs. this is done. bowdaar dies alot. but i don't, by the time he dies i got full energy and my opponent(s) almost dead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synche Posted May 7, 2012 Share Posted May 7, 2012 You guys make sure he's in tank stance right? I mean the guy is nuts, make sure you fit him out correctly, with absorption rating. Put him in tank stance and he's got like a 25% chance to absorb shots, with some good absorption gear he's crazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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