Lack of Companion Abilities Guide anywhere driving me a bit nuts.

[Veratutazz]

I have looked High and Low in the forums, webpages, wikis and guides and I am not seeing a proper explination of what companions do what and how. Here is an example of what I am talking about:

 

We all understand that Companions can now fill one of 3 roles

 

1- Tank

2- Damage

3- Healer

 

But exactly how does that get meeted out?

 

I have been actively studying the different abilities granted to different companions when in the Tank/Damage/Healer roles and ... honestly.. I really cannot figure out a common thread. I know there probably is one out there.. and I believe it to be linked to what type of weapon the char uses.. but.. really. Having to dig all this out and not have it explained is a bit silly.

 

For Instance:

Eckard, Rainia, Kaliyo, Scorpio, Vector, and 2V-28 ALL use the SAME "Heal" abilities regardless of what weapon they employ (which, by the way.. is still limited apparently by pre-change limiters) starting with "Kolto Quick Scan"

 

Can I please just take a moment and mention how BAD that looks to see that homogenity in one char's companions when many other char's companions have multiple different "types" of "skills" when fulfilling that duty?

 

So, apparently whether the companion uses a blaster... one blaster OR two.., sniper rifle, or technostaff.. they all use the same healing abilites. HOWEVER they all do NOT use the same Tank and/or damage abilities (which.. you know.. kinda makes sense.. pretty stupid having a tech staff attack like a sniper rifle)

 

Digging deeper shows even more discrepancies. On the Jedi side as a Defender C2-N2 uses "Kolto Quick Scan" line but T7-01 uses "Quick Kolto Burst".

 

Of course, Kira Carsen healing line is totally different, but its a bit eye-crossing to see Khem Val's heal line mirror Kira's more than, say, Scorpio.

 

I cannot imagine that these differences are completely balanced, but for now I will accept the hypothesis that the ability "names" and "types" are so relatively balanced as to make the differences meaningless.

 

However.. really would be nice if this was spelled out properly & the ability names/descriptions for each type of ?weapon class? was detailed out somewhere.

 

[bigbassman]

Not sure that this answer's your question or not but...from what I've seen, there is no difference in companions abilities. They may use different methods depending on the character, whether they are dark side or light etc...but the results are the same. There seems to be no advantage to using different companions based on strengths and/or weaknesses of the companion. For instance, Kira and Doc now heal equally well and/or tank the same.

 

So choice of companion now boils down to who do you prefer. There is even no advantage to purchasing Treek, and in fact I'd advise against purchasing Treek, since her dialog has been reduced to one irritating statement.

[HoodedRats]

One could argue that "Chatterbox" Treek was already irritating when she had more than one sentence to her repertoire, but, yeah...

[Nightblazer]

The only break down now in the companions strength have a base line stat. Those stats change based in two things now only:

 

Character Presence stat

Influence Rank

 

As their influence increase it also increases your presence stat for your character. That means a companion you are using with an influence rank of 10 will give your character a higher presence stat then a companion whose influence rank of 10.

 

http://dulfy.net/2015/10/21/swtor-fallen-empire-companion-influences-guide/

 

Each influence rank give the following bonuses.

 

+50 Presence

+1.5% time efficiency for crew skill tasks

+0.5% critical rate for crew skill tasks

 

So a rank 50 companion will better at any role then one at rank 1.

 

Presence also increase is you complete the 5 original companion conversation for each class, total of +400 presence and unlock the human as a race +100 presence. Lastly you vain presence as you level.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Nightblazer

[Veratutazz]

So...

Yeah. basic takeaway im seeing is that Group Thought is there is no functional difference between the different 'abilities' that each companion uses. Even though they are named different and show functionally different numbers? (verify or no?) A character at level X with companion Y at influence levels A and presence B would not function any different nor have functional advantages over the same character at same level X with different companion not equal to Y at same influence level A and presence B.

 

In other words- the abilities are not worded the same nor act exactly the same but somehow they are balanced for homogenicity and function exactly the same.

 

With respect, I find this hard to believe because i have characters that fill the "Heal" role with different abilities on the same avatar and they are at the same influence level but one "seems" to heal better than the other.

 

That being said, I have no spreadsheet or flowchart to back up my "feeling" .. so.. maybe im just wrong Maybe I just like one companion better & its all in my head