Elara Dorne Compared to Other Healing Companions

[teambff]

Except for the part where his lack of tanking skills means he has the same or less armor than a DPS or healer. At the moment I have 3% more armor than my forex and I'm wearing half greens and half blues. I'm cybertech so forex is in nothing but blues. Despite outgearing me, I still take a hit better than him as a healer. Way better than him if you include reactive shield.

 

not sure what your level is but at around 34 my forex is in the 9k hp range and closing in on 10k pretty soon and handles his own, i'm not saying he's the best tank ever but he gets the job done for me. when healer i can usually just toss the trauma probe and kolto bomb and dps the rest of the time unless it's an elite or just a deceptively tough guy like those darn sorcerer types.

 

usually have no trouble with elites as long as i do a good amount of dps.

 

i find what works best with him is to sustain him and keep him alive but to do as much dps as possible and get things down, he seems more of a "sustainer" but not a good long term solution. if that makes any sense.

 

i'm still experimenting with things but i've been happy with em. i'm intersted to see how tanno vik plays out when i get him soon, from what i seen he's also a tank? be interesting to see how each one works and which one i'll like better.

 

one thing that really helped for me was breaking down blue items in cybertech and getting a few purples. i have an epic earpiece purple with all kinds of stats on it that i got from breaking down blue earpieces. and had some purpe parts and a purple motor from breaking down the blue parts.

Edited March 12, 2012 by teambff

[uziforyou]

I was a little surprised to read your post. My lvl 39 Trooper (gunnery) is the only character that I have with a healing companion but I thought that Elara was doing a great job. Between the heals and her cc, the only thing that can seem to kill me is a program bug. I have from time to time aggroed mulltipe groups of mobs or aggroed a group while fighting an elite (at or above my level) and Elara has kept me alive (with a health potion thrown in at times of great need) with no problem. Your comments make me want to try one of the other classes because playing a strong dps with pocket healer / ccer is very strong.

 

Well, I don't really have problems with Elara in a general PvE setting. She does 'okay' with multiple mobs but I still normally have to rest between pulls to heal up. With Mako or Doc there was almost zero downtime.

 

I feel like the difference is really noticeable when doing Heroic +2 quests. As a BH and JK (both DPS specced) Mako and Doc made these very doable from the moment I got them as companions. But I really struggle with these with my gunnery specced commando and using Elara. This is probably where most of my impression of Elara compared to Mako and Doc come from.

 

As I mentioned, I've tried different things assuming it's something I'm doing wrong with her. But nothing has changed. She just seems to struggle and I really have nothing else to go on at this point other than for some reason she's inferior to some other healing companions.

[Iram]

I haven't played my 50-Merc in weeks, but I left Mako geared in the level 40 PvP gear.

 

On my 50-Commando, I've got Elara in almost full Tier2 PvP gear (with a few pieces of Tier1).

 

Overall, I find Mako a MUCH better healer. I can get by with Elara, including the occasional champion, but it was a lot easier with Mako.

[xxBreemenxx]

If she's having trouble healing, disable her Carbonized Stream (whatever it is) and her damage abilities and put her in Med Watch. She keeps me healed just fine.

 

Carbonized stream is really all you have to disable. An 8 second channel that cc's her just as much as the enemy she uses it on is rarely useful. Make sure you're on med watch. Her dps abilities are fine to keep on because they are instant cast and on longer cd's when on med watch rather than the alternate stance.

 

I've seen her bug out once or twice and just stand there but that's in all my time playing. (been 50 for some time) I've taken on champion mobs without too much trouble. With cc heroic 2's (solo) are fairly easy and 4's are possible.

[Kabjat]

I've leveled a BH and JK to 50 and used their respective healer companions while doing so, Mako and Doc.

 

I don't know what the story is but Elara seems (and I stress seems with no empirical data) to be an inferior healer to both Mako and Doc. I thought they were awesome but no matter what I try with gearing etc. Elara just seems very lackluster.

 

I tried turning off her attack abilities thinking she's spending too much time dps'ing but that didn't help (she still fires away with her basic attack). I keep her geared and keep her in healing stance so not sure what else I can do.

 

I'm not sure what her major malfunction is but she's just not cutting the mustard especially considering that I never had any similar issues with Mako or Doc.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

My husband will occasionally have an outburst while we are both at our computers playing. All of a sudden he'll be all, "Dammit Elara! Some heals would be just dandy!"

 

Then his toon's dead waiting for the medical droid.

 

I always snickered when this would happen as Elara would always call out, "I'll help you!!!!" The husband would be like, "Oh really??? That's some help, thanks for that."

 

He really REALLY noticed Elara's heal-fail after hitting 50.

[aarka]

Lol there's the exact same thread in the Knight forums but asking why Doc is inferior to Elara and Theran. They all have the same skills with just different animations.

[Aaoogaa]

Hope you are putting her in aim gear.

 

She has the same abilities as doc and mako...the same. If her gear is comparable she will put out the same healing. So either your other healers are geared better or your trooper is geared worse...or you don't have her in aim gear.

[Savish]

The problem is with the AI if Elara engages a mob and you happen to be standing outside of her 30m radius while she is attacking said mob she won't bother moving in range to heal she will just continue to attack that mob unless you either A. move inside her range or B. toggle her passive on and off this will force her to move right next to you.

 

A simple fix would be to either increase the range for her heals or reduce the range of her attacks with them both set at 30m its not hard to be "outside" of her healing radius when fighting multiple mobs.

Edited March 13, 2012 by Savish

[ArtMonster]

I find Dorne heals so well with good gear that I have to 'work' at getting damaged.

 

'good gear' may be the keyword(s) here.

.

[Sith_Cho]

Quinn is by far the worst healer in the game.

I equally geared with modded sets and Elara is leaps and bounds better and attentive.

 

Quinn just stands there, I even turned off his offensive abilities to just auto shoot and heal me on my jugg and he just watches me die.

[XaddaX]

I used Doc all the way to 50 on my Knight and loved it. I have my trooper to 40 so far, and tried to change up a couple times with different companions but once I used Elara with equivalent Aim/power/alac gear as I did I never seem to suffer damage. I agree with the posts that say they're all the same. I'm sure they all glitch once in a while under certain situations but overall I think pet AI has come a long way and I'm pretty happy with my little medic.

 

I might add to check and make sure she's set to Medwatch mode. I didn't at first and took me a while to figure out what was wrong with her.

[btsager]

I've never had any problems with Elara. I even solo level 50 Heroic 2's no problem with her healing.

 

While leveling my friends who play a sage and sentinal always needed help with their class quest bosses while i soloed them no problem.

[MefuneAkira]

I've leveled a BH and JK to 50 and used their respective healer companions while doing so, Mako and Doc.

 

I don't know what the story is but Elara seems (and I stress seems with no empirical data) to be an inferior healer to both Mako and Doc. I thought they were awesome but no matter what I try with gearing etc. Elara just seems very lackluster.

 

I tried turning off her attack abilities thinking she's spending too much time dps'ing but that didn't help (she still fires away with her basic attack). I keep her geared and keep her in healing stance so not sure what else I can do.

 

I'm not sure what her major malfunction is but she's just not cutting the mustard especially considering that I never had any similar issues with Mako or Doc.

 

Thoughts?

 

Hey that's my girlfriend you're talking!! I slept with her! Have you?....oh right. Everyone has. Bah!

 

Never had an issue with Dorne on healing. Then again, I play WZ, so I'm always a few levels above my current planet's level.

[XaddaX]

I've never had any problems with Elara. I even solo level 50 Heroic 2's no problem with her healing.

 

While leveling my friends who play a sage and sentinal always needed help with their class quest bosses while i soloed them no problem.

 

Well, that's not because their medic is flawed. My Sent/doc never had a problem with any of the class quests, even the final one. I played a Sage to 25 and didn't like it, but I can say that Jedi's are a tiny bit trickier than other classes so I'm betting they needed help for other reasons than faulty companions.

[Smuglerrun]

Well i realy dont know if other healers heal more than Elare(or whatever shes called) as i havent tried the others. But i am pretty sure that they need to hell of a lot better for you to notice that if you use ion clip. As the damage mitigation is awsome and hence troopers dont need all that much healing compared to other classes.

 

I dont mind her doing a little dps and cc of her own as vanguards dont do all that much damage , the cc is very nice as it means free friction bolt opertunitys.

[Arkaydus]

Everyone knows Dorne is an uptight snob anyways. Just be the better Trooper spec and heal yourself.

[Arkaydus]

Also, did you take into account any presence you may have gotten on your other characters?

[Valketh]

The problem is with the AI if Elara engages a mob and you happen to be standing outside of her 30m radius while she is attacking said mob she won't bother moving in range to heal she will just continue to attack that mob unless you either A. move inside her range or B. toggle her passive on and off this will force her to move right next to you.

 

A simple fix would be to either increase the range for her heals or reduce the range of her attacks with them both set at 30m its not hard to be "outside" of her healing radius when fighting multiple mobs.

 

Why the hell would you EVER be 30m+ from your companion. I've never been more than maybe 11m apart to spare one of us AOE dmg, and 99% of the time I'm standing right next to her. I don't blame the AI for failing there cause I myself can't see the logic in it.

 

Me: "Where's my heals dammit!?!"

 

Elara: "Where the hell are you?!?"

[Bofromkentwood]

Commandos she does pretty good healing, as she is normally standing right next to us because we don't like to get up close and personal. The Vanguards however like to get closer to the enemy, and upon entering combat, she stops where she is at and engages there. So it is very easy for a Vanguard to advance outside of her range to pick off a few ranged imperial snipers hiding in the corner. If you are outside of her heal range, as has been stated earlier, she won't move to within healing range. There is also the issue that if you start combat near a door, and move into the room, you can be 5 feet from her, but if she is on other side of doorway, she many times will just stand there. They need to make the A.I. to where she actually tries to get into range or LOS in order to toss you a heal, instead of standing on the other side of a pillar and saying "oops" after you died.

[ounkeo]

Elara does a great job of healing. I notice the healing tics she puts out on me and frankly, it's pretty impressive. at higher levels, it's just enough to keep me alive against the horribly tuned mobs but otherwise, she keeps me up and herself up.

 

My trooper is a shield defence spec vanguard.

 

On my Bounty Hunter, Mako seems to heal about the same as Elara. I'm not really sure what the difference is. I put Mako in Slave girl outfit but that doesn't seem to have affected her level of survivability either although I do notice that Elara can tank about 3 normal mobs pretty well. Mako, not so much, even in medium.

 

The only real problems I have with either of them is their CC abilities. on mobs that are un crowd controllable, they will burn through cooldowns attempting to stun/frezze the mob; completely ignoring doing any damage or healing. So I switch those off for both healers.

[Albertwang]

Dudes major disagreement. I kept up to date with Elara and M1-4X with moddable gear and slaughtered a lotta stuff up to Hoth now.

 

No complaints. I'm just worried that I'm leveling up too quickly now.

[Philosomanic]

Yeah, I have no issues with Elara healing. I keep my companion bar showing. Now that we have UI customization, It's at 80% scale and it's 2 rows of 6 skills, next to the companion portrait. As far as I can tell, while in healing stance she uses every healing skill on cooldown. I have Carbonized Stream turned off (and manually keybound), but I leave everything else on.

 

What gear do you have on your companions? The important numbers are Tech Bonus Damage, Crit Chance, and Crit Multiplier. Is there a big difference between them?

[Ancaglon]

My level 50 Gunnery Commando in a mix of Recruit, Battlemaster and Tionese gear has no complaints about Elara's healing -- Elara is mostly in orange gear with level 45-49 blue mods. Sure, I use my defensive cooldowns when I come under focussed fire, but I'd do the same if I was in a group and pulled aggro. The only times that I wish for a smarter AI is when she (and all other companions) stand in AE damage effects -- and Force Storm seems particularly bad for that in that the area indicator is significantly smaller than the actual area that you get damaged in.

[Mistress_Ivi]

I've had no problems with Elara, I use her 90% of the time when fighting things my level range.

 

My problem with healers in this game, the AI doesn't seem to make sure they keep within 20m of you and no closer than 5m. If the Dev's could get around that coding issue... alot of PvE problems would be solved.

[wyosammy]

She is 50% 50% at healing