Zenith or Nadia

[Calairian]

I am changing things up on my shadow and I want to start doing dailies with a DPS companion.

 

I bought the recruit PvP gear for myself (which I dont use anymore) and recruit gear for Theran.

 

I have equiped the shadow PvP set on Nadia and the healer set on Zenith... (I dont think he benifits from the alarity though). I may buy the gunslinger set for him though.

 

Just curious who like which one best and why?

[ChicagoBearsFan]

If you want to use a DPS companion, do the quest and get HK-51. He is one of, if not THE best DPS companions. He also comes with tionese level equivalent gear.

[Kitru]

If you want to use a DPS companion, do the quest and get HK-51. He is one of, if not THE best DPS companions. He also comes with tionese level equivalent gear.

 

He's in grade 51 blue gear. Tionese gear is grade 51 purple gear. His gear is actually worse than Tionese.

 

As to whether he's the best DPS companion depends heavily on 2 things: are you willing to give him 6 seconds every pack or 2 to one-shot a strong and are you fighting packs of standard/strong enemies or groups with the occasional elite?

 

The first question matters because, without Assassinate, he's not as effective as he with it. Once you reach a certain gear level (my Shadow *tank* is here actually), the 6 seconds of out of combat time you spend waiting for him to cast could've been spent just killing said strong and hitting the rest of the group with incidental AoEs. At this point, Assassinate is largely useless, except as an amusing gimmick because seeing 40-60k damage numbers fly up as an unsuspecting strong just falls over is enough to bring a smile to almost anyone's face.

 

The second question matters because HK has no AoEs. If you're doing AoE fights, HK is still only going to be doing ST attacks. If you're fighting multiple standard/strong enemies at a time (re: doing most dailies except for soloing group content with a lot of elites), you're better off just using a standard DPS companion because their AoEs are going to be more useful than the comparatively harder burn that HK provides to a single target, especially since one of his primary advantages is his execute-esque attack which is largely useless against most standards/strongs because they often just drop from above 30% to dead with a decent hit or the execute itself is mostly wasted as overkill.

 

HK is the best DPS companion for certain things, like soloing H2 content: his ability to nuke a strong right from the start, especially a healer, can help and his superior damage on elites is great (though he's still not as useful as a healer for soloing H4s). For most stuff though, his lack of AoEs makes him worse than the existing DPS comps.

[anstalt]

Personally, I would go for Zentih assuming equal gear levels.

 

Me and a sage in guild did some testing on this. My Nadia versus his Zenith. Nadia was in full rakata level gear, Zenith was in mostly tionesse / columi. Zenith tore Nadia a new one. this was repeated over the 4 duels we had. We then switched (my Zenith versus his Nadia). My Zenith was also in full Rakata, versus his Nadia in lesser gear and the difference was even more pronounced.

 

The primary reason for this was armour rating. Both their damage was roughly comparable, but Zenith has more armour and could thus take much more of a beating. Both companions have AoE stances which make dailies very quick.

 

 

So, thats primarily why I now use zenith for most dailies. does good damage, survives longer and is less annoying. Also, if you forget to turn off Nadia's knockback ability then she gets even more annoying!

 

If you want to take this sort of thing further (and have the time and patience!) then gearing up Qyzen in full DPS gear is great. Being heavy armoured, he lasts a long time and he can do good DPS too.

[Sepyuff]

Nadia, because she wears hand-me-downs.

[feliix]

Another vote for Nadia. She wears the same gear you do, the

rewards from dailies tied to your class? Shift some over to Nadia

when they're no longer a direct benefit to you. Give her a crit/surge

oriented focus, and a dps oriented dual bladed lightsaber. Add some

power after you get her to 30%+ crit and 70%+ crit damage. Turn on

all of her offensive abilities (even the blast them hither and yon thing).

 

If you want to have the option of vanishing out of combat, turn off her dot.

Then all you have to do is keep aggro off her! Do everything you can as

tank to keep from hearing her distressed emote, and you'll clear through

the dailies very fast.

 

You'll still need a geared up Theran for soloing some of the white starred

champions, h2s and h4s, but even there... As you gear up it's much more

interesting to make it work with Nadia.

 

That's assuming you're a tank spec of course. Maybe, Zeniths heavier armor

is a factor when you expect your companion to semi-tank. But if you yourself

are the tank, the fun of having a super dps Nadia can't be matched by Zenith.

Zenith also does not share your gear rewards, making him more problematic

on equipment.

[Elyx]

Personally, I would go for Zentih assuming equal gear levels.

 

Me and a sage in guild did some testing on this. My Nadia versus his Zenith. Nadia was in full rakata level gear, Zenith was in mostly tionesse / columi. Zenith tore Nadia a new one. this was repeated over the 4 duels we had. We then switched (my Zenith versus his Nadia). My Zenith was also in full Rakata, versus his Nadia in lesser gear and the difference was even more pronounced.

 

The primary reason for this was armour rating. Both their damage was roughly comparable, but Zenith has more armour and could thus take much more of a beating. Both companions have AoE stances which make dailies very quick.

 

 

So, thats primarily why I now use zenith for most dailies. does good damage, survives longer and is less annoying. Also, if you forget to turn off Nadia's knockback ability then she gets even more annoying!

 

If you want to take this sort of thing further (and have the time and patience!) then gearing up Qyzen in full DPS gear is great. Being heavy armoured, he lasts a long time and he can do good DPS too.

 

duels are different then PvE mob groups. it's like comparing two classes in a 1v1 instead of a group of mobs with one or two silvers. I could see zenith doing well there, mostly because he only has one target, and his skills orient towards that. in larger groups I find Nadia to be more effective...her AoE's are pretty potent and kill groups of normals and weaks very fast.

 

Doesn't mean that a well geared Zenith cant burn stuff...hes does great damage. but its and apple oranges thing IMO. against single targets I'd go zenith, and against groups (regular farming/dailies) I'd go nadia. Especially if your a tank based spec...nadia rarely if at all gets hit when i run with her. I don't use either in DPS spec. even with theran, i kill fast enough that a DPS comp wouldnt' have much uptime anyways. when you add to that the leftovers principle (she actually wears my DPS set when im in tank spec), gearing her up was pretty quick.

 

And I agree with Kit...HK is fun and a good companion but SITUATIONAL. most the DPS and healing specs in the game would do better with another Comp unless going up against large single targets (soloing Heroics where you have CC in the mix is a great example of this). I tried HK on two different healing toons, 3 DPS specs, and a tank. out of all of those, the only one that felt right with was the tank. the rest i spent more time getting whacked by the other mobs he wasn't on then I do with any other comp....even comps like zenith (as he actually has a small AoE). HK is just too narrowly focused to be called the "best" companion.

[toyfanatic]

Since this is the shadow forums,

I will send a vote for Nadia. She is just like you, a Shadow.

Her AoE's are awesome and remeber she uses a doublebladed saber. The twin blade has a higher base damage than a sniper rifle. If you are a spec'ed tank you will finder her higher AoE damage more usefull than Zenith's ranged. Also most people put their take off gear on Nadia. So her gear will be better.

However I will mirror other comments that Zenith and HK are totaly awesome in the RIGHT situation. There is situations that a DPS shadow can't take Nadia in the game. Take Zenith or HK for those fights. But if you are a Shadowtank you can live with Nadia as your sole compainion once you put her in Rakata /Black Hole.

There is no " only use this pet all the time " in this game. Certain fights require a healing pet , others a ranged. I use a very well geared Nadia as my go to pet for most fights. The preference of self and the fight I am in determans which pet to use.

DPS is science, Healing is a art and Tanking is strategy.

[anstalt]

Just like to say, in defence of Zenith, that he has an AoE stance where he prioritises AoE skills. This brings his AoE damage up to that of Nadia's.

 

So, assuming equal gear, both Nadia and Zenith do roughly the same amount of damage but Zenith has greater survivability. Also, he is less annoying than Nadia! You also get Zenith sooner than Nadia so if you are looking for a good DPS companion then Zenith will be the first good one you get.

 

Additionally, Nadia is only good if you are tank spec. If you are DPS spec, especially inf, then Zenith will be superior due to survivability. Nadia simply takes too much damage compared to Zenith so downtime will be higher.

 

 

Ofc this is all kinda moot as for anything challenging you are better off using Tharen anyway, and for easy stuff (dailies etc) it really doesn't matter which companion you use, they are all OK because the content is easy.

[TheNegotiator]

My advice is to use them all. I try to keep their affection all around the same level, except for umm...the lizard. I use Iresso the most as he lets me back stab.

 

Tharan is a power house brute and is 3x as effective as any other companion with his cc. Zenith is good for kiting. Nadia is good all around dps, her affection very easy to raise.

 

Zenith is without a doubt the darkest of the companions and it can be a pain to raise his affection. He hates the Sith but he acts just like them lol.

[SamuelAU]

My Zenith and Nadia are in almost identical gear, both with about 1630 main stat. I parsed each of their DPS and Nadia beat Zenith by about 100, but to be honest I prefer using Zenith,

 

It's good to be able to switch between both when you get sick of hearing them saying the same lines in combat over and over again.

[ruminate]

The primary reason for this was armour rating. Both their damage was roughly comparable, but Zenith has more armour and could thus take much more of a beating. Both companions have AoE stances which make dailies very quick.

 

While the conclusion that ranged DPS comps completely blow melee DPS comps out of the water is true, your reasoning is flawed.

 

Melee DPS comps in light armor have a hidden +30% armor modifier and an extra +5% defense. Their survivability is on par with each other.

 

This is the real reason:

 

Melee DPS have 2 single attacks, 2 aoe attacks, 1 attack that they only use as a closer, and 1 non-damaging snare.

6s single, 15s single, 18s aoe, 30s aoe.

Their DoT stance only has 4 skills in which it can activate on, and it isn't a 100% chance.

Their armor pen stance really only affects half their skills: their 6s skill and 30s skill.

 

Ranged DPS have 4 single attacks, 2 aoe attacks.

6s single, 6s single, 12s single, 15s single, 9s aoe(7s in aoe stance) aoe, 15s aoe(12s in aoe stance)

 

The kicker here is that all the skills for both comps have roughly the same damage coefficients depending on activation, channel times, and whether its single or aoe.

 

As you can tell by now, the real reason why ranged DPS comps > melee DPS comps is because melee DPS spend the majority of their time "auto-attacking".

Edited December 15, 2012 by ruminate

[Mirandel]

There is one more useful thing about Zenith: he is using same gear with same stats as Theran. Means, if you need a healer, all you have to do is take all the gear from Zenith and put it on Theran. Saves tons of money.

[darkov]

Nadia, the aoes make a difference.

[slafko]

As a Shadow tank, I've used Nadia on my dailies ever since I got her. Absolutely love her. Our aoe's work great and she also keeps my inventory cleaner by wearing my dps set.