SpacerSebben Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 (edited) TL;DR - Give companions a buff that enhances their performance in their role when they are in a 2 man party, and further more when they are in a 3 man. Enough to where they can be a fully viable and effective replacement if for example no tank or healer is available and you have a team. DPS - Raw damage buff. Healer - Raw heal buff. Tank - Increase armor by X% buff. The intent is not to buff them to where they become more desirable than players. The intent is to buff them to where if absolutely no other players are available to play that role, and the other roles are present, the companion can be a manageable substitute. Players would still be more desirable because they'd still have access to emergency defensive cooldowns, interrupts, and crowd control abilities, as well as freedom of movement and autonomy. Full explanation - Even with the new super servers, I'm still finding that it's not always possible to find the necessary roles to do Heroic 4's with. And it is terribly frustrating when you wait in Group Finder queue for such a long time, only to find that as soon as the queue is ready and everyone travels in, the tank (or healer) for some reason suddenly leaves and you have to wait in queue all over again, sometimes for hours. Companions were meant to be the answer to filling in the roles that weren't available. Unfortunately, it's not always such a viable option. Play a DPS, bring a tank companion and have your DPS teammate bring a healer companion and see how well the two of you do. It may not be pretty. I'm of the understanding that during beta, some companions, such as the tank companions, were too powerful during beta. Enough to where a healer with a tank companion could solo Heroic 4's. What would be a way to increase the effectiveness of companions for a group without making them too powerful for solo play? Give them a buff that enhances their performance. For example, maybe the cooldown on a healing companion becomes faster in a 2 man group, for doing Heroic 2's, and then moreso in a 3 man where the companion must replace that missing person in a Heroic 4. For a tank companion, most of the tanks (with the exception of Xalek) get no armor bonus from going into tank stance. When grouped in a party though, perhaps this is when tank companions can get the bonus. Companions can help fill that missing void if a player is not available, though even with these sorts of buffs, it doesn't negate players. A player will still be better because they can move on their own, have access to their own emergency cooldowns, medkits, interrupts, crowd controls, and so forth. Though for the times when there just isn't anyone available to fill that role, it would be nice if our companions could be able to do the job more effectively than how they currently are. Edited September 24, 2012 by SpacerSebben Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asavrede Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 A well geared companion is actually quite cabable of this already. If you want more out of them, that's what the presence stat is for (which admittedly does too little imo). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pairaka Posted September 24, 2012 Share Posted September 24, 2012 There are ways to increase a companion's effectiveness, too. There are cantina drinks available that are presence bonuses and stack on top of your regular stims, plus there are presence stims available if you want a bigger presence bonus. Take a little time to collect the presence datacrons. Get your companion the best gear you can. Make sure you check their abilities when you level. It seems not all abilities are defaulted to on and need to be turned on when they become available. Make sure they're in the proper stance, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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