Rank 50 Lana Healing Companion Worthless Against Named Champion Mobs in Star Fortress

[Halinalle]

OK i keep hearing heroics 2s cant be solo'd my companion no longer makes me a god. Umm did you miss the HEROIC 2 part? It's supposed to be hard to near impossible to solo.

 

That's weird. I used to solo H2/H2+s at level or 2-3 levels above especially on tanks pre-4.0. I only used healer companion for bosses and difficult pulls. I even did H2s on my Commando healer and used dps companion as a tank.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Halinalle

[Shaji]

When entereing heroic Sf it is described as " intended for 2 player or 1 well geared player with high lvl companion."

Got pretty much 220 gear, 50 companion and overall confident playing my class - so thats me. Lets get started..

 

 

Short version:

logged in after patch, did heroic Sf on my main and completed it solo.

 

 

Now to be a little bit more accurate...

 

This was done with mostly 220 gear, max level companion and with a class that has superb self -healing and dots (so perfect for kiting mobs) and considering what you get out of it is just not worth the time - period.

Fun fact - already soloed the last boss pre patch (solo as in my companion died before entering the final fight after clicking the hook to get up there) which was just painful and slow, not challenging in any way.. just annoying to do.

 

 

Now what do you do if you dont have self heals and have to channel your spells?

What if you dont have been raiding before to get the best gear possible?

You grind your companions level to max via credits (to buy gifts) and doing dailys (which turn out to be easy or just painful depending on gearlevel and class) ... just to see that a lvl 50 is pretty much a waste of time.

 

 

Levelling up companions is considered to be end game (besides pvp and raiding) to be able to do heroics (including star fortress -as stated in its description) and it is nowhere as easy for a new player as most people claim.

 

Story was nice and all but very short, and i pretty much doubt anyone will do it on every alt.

So thats alliance and companions for endgame - which noone in their right mind wild do if they stay as they are now.

 

 

This should not be about people telling other players that anything is doable, it is about getting a game to a state where people enjoy what they are doing.

Companions needed small adjustments, like every class or operations after they get released if they turn out to be out of line - but making a core component almost useless is just wrong.

 

So please use the forum to give honest and valuable feedback to get this game back where it could be, because right now it certainly is not.

There is no new group pve content (for 8/16), no new pvp content but being able to get a good amount of solo play is what made this game unique - you take that away, people will just play something else and stop subscribing.

[ShinDoRai]

its funny to see how the crowd goes mad about a thing, that realy nobody cares, who knows to play his toon.

second thing is this; they made dat update with the hot needle again like 3.0 .

 

1. they gave us no infos about changes. then comes the switch from one extrem to the other. and guess why.

they never test their stuff.....so now at start for 4.0 they gave us op companions. then they looked at the data and seen, oh we gave em to much power to the companions. now they are paddling back to powerless companions ( or u pick the CC op companion treek to get the heal ) and nerfed em to hard.....and after that they pick a middle way with upcomming patches...

 

all i wanna say to dat.....they never test their changes or take the wrong decisions since release of swtor. i´m here since beta and from my point of view....they will always go on like this...

 

so u can do some things...

stay ( after u realized dat swtor is a fastfood commercial game with no depth )

rage ( and even if....they dont listen....slotmachine for example )

or leave.

 

and if u believe that this would change some day.....good luck sir...never happen

 

its like u go to mc dreck ( like we say in germany to mc donalds = mc dreckes = mc rubbish^^ ).

and mc donald is swtor....u order ur food ( cc packages ) and get a piece of **** to eat....after that ur still hungry and it wasnt delicious at all ^^....what i wanna say...go to the big player in the industrie and become a slave and get what u deserve. €A always wannted to bring games to the mainstream....thats what we get from big player

Edited November 18, 2015 by ShinDoRai

[Jedi_riches]

Gear: Mix 192/208/220/224, 4 piece setboni

 

This invalidates your claim, what average/casual player is going to have that much gear 208+ let alone a 4 piece set bonus. For those people who claim to still solo everything easy, do it in 190/192 - 208 gear, no set bonuses augments and then still tell us its easy to solo.

 

Being able to solo something can't be measured by the top 10% of players but the mass 90% of bad to decent players.

 

I am a bad player, I will admit it, I know the basics of my rotation, though I often get it wrong, I never know which defensive cool-downs to use in which scenario and will easily forget during the heat of battle.

 

Being able to solo stuff is very important to my enjoyment of the game as I know I don't want to be pulled through content by someone else, its the whole reason I refused when my guild said that they would run the oricon operations so that I could complete the planet I turned them down.

[ShinDoRai]

so then i dont get it why u folks are here....only 4 story and then.....this is a mmorpg....if u play the rpg part fine...if u wanna be rich learn crafting ( but after 4.0 they messed it up to push cc sells , idicates are gold silver bronze boxes ), if u wannt gear do mmo stuff ( ops, fps, tacticals and "surprise" H2s ) with other ppls.....and if u think ..oh darn it...its too heavy 4 me to solo it...only cos i heared ppls can do that ( but ppls that are here since ages with knowhow and gear )...why i cant do it...

 

so here some few tipps....learn to play....i played almost all alone without a companion on the starter planet...to get movment and learn the trash mechanicals....later i took out my companions...then if u are stuck..get geara from fps....if dat dont work for ya...craft ur stuff...if dat dont work...get good op gear....if u go through tihs process....i learn to play....

but hey....why wait....these days alll idiots want all instant...cos they can....in their minds^^.....guess what....NOPE...ist like RL....u get it or not...if not....mmos are not ur games...go back to ur brainless smartphone games !!!

[ryoutou]

This invalidates your claim, what average/casual player is going to have that much gear 208+ let alone a 4 piece set bonus. For those people who claim to still solo everything easy, do it in 190/192 - 208 gear, no set bonuses augments and then still tell us its easy to solo.

 

I and a bunch of others got through SF heroic with sub 208 gear, low level companions, no buffs. Its gonna be a lot easier on a tank than anything else I warrant, but hey.

 

Being able to solo something can't be measured by the top 10% of players but the mass 90% of bad to decent players.

 

Ain't no way I'm in the top 10% any more...maybe at one time, but I'd think any regular ops/HM person got their stuff together better than me.

 

I am a bad player, I will admit it, I know the basics of my rotation, though I often get it wrong, I never know which defensive cool-downs to use in which scenario and will easily forget during the heat of battle.

 

And so now you have some incentive to learn how to do that stuff. It isn't that hard - if I can do it, anyone can. There are guides out there. Now that there is a need to use those skills and so forth, more will be written.

 

I mean - seriously. It can be done. It can be taught. It isn't that hard, doesn't take a bunch of cartel coins or an elite mindset. Just a small amount of time (an hour) in front of a practice dummy getting your stuff sorted. Reorganizing your bar some. Turning down netflix and focusing on the fight like it matters. Simple stuff man.

[Jedi_riches]

 

And so now you have some incentive to learn how to do that stuff. It isn't that hard - if I can do it, anyone can. There are guides out there. Now that there is a need to use those skills and so forth, more will be written.

 

I mean - seriously. It can be done. It can be taught. It isn't that hard, doesn't take a bunch of cartel coins or an elite mindset. Just a small amount of time (an hour) in front of a practice dummy getting your stuff sorted. Reorganizing your bar some. Turning down netflix and focusing on the fight like it matters. Simple stuff man.

 

I don't play a game for endless practice etc I play the game (and any other game for that matter for FUN), this game is rapidly loosing its fun factor.

[Shaji]

Lets keep these " i did not use my companion to level up" and " it is supposed to be hard and played by groups" nonsense where it belongs - in 2010, because that is when it made sense.

 

10-5 years ago you had to group to get dailys done, you had to look for people to finish trivial content.

 

No game does require this anymore, not because its too hard but because it was just annoying as hell.

H2 quests are considered to be dailys (or stwors version of it) you are supposed to do alone.

And if you "want to learn how to play your class right" you certainly dont do this by doing the starting quests to level 10 not using your companion.

 

Companions are useful additions to your level and solo experience, like using your cars heating if its cold.

You dont get to be a better car driver by turning it off and opening your window when its freezing outside.

[TheWookiee]

When entereing heroic Sf it is described as " intended for 2 player or 1 well geared player with high lvl companion."

Got pretty much 220 gear, 50 companion and overall confident playing my class - so thats me. Lets get started..

 

 

Short version:

logged in after patch, did heroic Sf on my main and completed it solo.

 

 

Now to be a little bit more accurate...

 

This was done with mostly 220 gear, max level companion and with a class that has superb self -healing and dots (so perfect for kiting mobs) and considering what you get out of it is just not worth the time - period.

Fun fact - already soloed the last boss pre patch (solo as in my companion died before entering the final fight after clicking the hook to get up there) which was just painful and slow, not challenging in any way.. just annoying to do.

 

 

Now what do you do if you dont have self heals and have to channel your spells?

What if you dont have been raiding before to get the best gear possible?

You grind your companions level to max via credits (to buy gifts) and doing dailys (which turn out to be easy or just painful depending on gearlevel and class) ... just to see that a lvl 50 is pretty much a waste of time.

 

 

Levelling up companions is considered to be end game (besides pvp and raiding) to be able to do heroics (including star fortress -as stated in its description) and it is nowhere as easy for a new player as most people claim.

 

Story was nice and all but very short, and i pretty much doubt anyone will do it on every alt.

So thats alliance and companions for endgame - which noone in their right mind wild do if they stay as they are now.

 

 

This should not be about people telling other players that anything is doable, it is about getting a game to a state where people enjoy what they are doing.

Companions needed small adjustments, like every class or operations after they get released if they turn out to be out of line - but making a core component almost useless is just wrong.

 

So please use the forum to give honest and valuable feedback to get this game back where it could be, because right now it certainly is not.

There is no new group pve content (for 8/16), no new pvp content but being able to get a good amount of solo play is what made this game unique - you take that away, people will just play something else and stop subscribing.

 

I agree with the above. Personally, I did two of the H2 Star Fortresses last night as one shots for both (Voss and Belsavis). I was also in 220/224 gear with a lvl 30 companion (Lana). I found the fights to be a lot more enjoyable than before the nerf, as I had to plan out Paladin and the Exarch phases before running in blindly.

 

With that said, do I believe the companion nerf were needed? Yes, but not to the extremes that they were done. Sure, I can run these solo, but in NiM ready Ops gear. 90% of the players probably can't do that, nor have the gear to do it. Personally, I wold have tried to put companion power on a slider bar where the player could have scaled the companions difficulty to suit their needs.

[Neoforcer]

Think this was there idea the expac was going to well so they had to go screw it up like last years expac just to repeat Ravagers rather then learning to do small steps they nuke then wonder why subs go down

[Myracarrah]

Yes yes Eric said you could solo the content. He said so. People keep repeating it. Again. And again. AND AGAIN.

 

But did he say when that content would become soloable? Was there a post or a tweet I missed with him saying 'As soon as you land on Odessen you can faceroll everything in your 200 - 208 rated gear'?

 

Did he post somewhere or tweet out that you could do it all using an influence 10 companion?

 

There is a solo mode. Run those. Get your drops. Get your updates. Grab a friend or guildmate for the Heroic SFs. When you are geared up in 216 or better, when your companions are influenced up to 30ish. Then try.

 

Yes companions got hit hard with the nerf bat. I never wanted to see them nerfed. I know to some that OP companions made the trash grinds for alliance influence tolerable. I would run that same trash companion free so I wouldn't fall asleep on my keyboard. Heck I was letting my 2 year old run Korriban heroics companion free for my alliance. No. He can not steer. Yes he can happily bash the keyboard into oblivion hitting my hotkeys for my skills. He is pretty good on a carnage marauder. Terrible on a merc BH, he keeps hitting her heals.

 

But don't panic because the SF Heroics are out of your reach. During SOR how many people could solo the Korriban Incursion and the Attack on Typhon Tacticals right after hitting the end of the story? And yet, it could be done once you geared up.

 

Stop and assess your companions. Stop and take a look at your gear. Look at your skills and think about what skills compliment each other. I know some of you will find that advice insulting. It's not meant to be. I always look at my skills, reread them. Play around with them to make sure when I hit my keys it does the most damage in the least amount of time. Pick up a parser if you need to see your numbers.

 

This isn't meant to be impossible content. It's meant to be hard content. That's why it's a Heroic. And please kindly keep in mind that influence 20 companions were out-healing raid geared players while tanking and DPSing and crowd controlling. That's too much. Did Bioware nerf it too hard? Yeah. I believe so.

 

Tank Companions have no defensive abilities.

DPS Companions are actually just fine. They might have found the balance there.

Heal Companions were over nerfed. They should be slightly under a player in heal output through out the game for playability reasons.

[Loska]

I agree the companions where alittle OP but it was fun and thats whats important.

 

With these changes Bioware have really messed up, Last night after the servers came back online I did the Makeb Heroics I am in 216 / 220 gear with Lana as healer at lvl 36.

 

Lana's healing is shocking she has at best a 4.5k heal and the over time heals around 1k she also has massive delays on when she should heal infact she just spent the fight saying she was nearly dead, only reason she didnt die is because i healed her.

 

Now onto another companion with a twist C2-N2 lvl 1 - Mekeb H2 myself Trooper and partner Smuggler so there are two of us and x2 comps both around lvl 1-2. It took alittle longer and I had to heal but we completed the heroics in a fastish pace only difference I healed most of the fight.

 

So yes they have taken away the solo feel for the heroics in some cases not all! which i agree sucks however with two players its totally doable even with a lvl 1 droid that we all hate.

 

To end and sorry for the long post I totally understand why poeple are angry and BW really does need to buff them back atleast 40 - 50% more than they are now.

[gduber]

Myself and a few others that I know of predicted any nerfs that came down on companions would be overkill. They did this despite the clear desire of most of the player base for stronger companions. I seriously wouldn't have minded a small nerf, but this is a brain-dead decision, and the devs deserve every ounce of ****ing that they get. Edited November 18, 2015 by gduber

[Khiriath]

I call bull.

 

Balance sage, just killed Orus Jind above Voss. NO alliance buffs, NO stim, M1-4X at rank 31 (have rank C2 at rank 50, but skipped him for this test).

 

Fight took 1m6s and I average 6,062 DPS. I apply DoTs and attack him, using DoT spread and FiB to kill the adds. At no time does anything switch to M1-4X. I reached 50% health at one point, which is when I used my stun on Orus. By the time the stun elapsed, I was back up to 75% health.

 

http://imgur.com/tfTqPI3

 

The nerf to healing is definitely large and noticable, and probably worst for low-influence companions. But between the alliance buffs and the special abilities, the heroic SF is still very soloable, even with moderate influence.

 

Please post the "Healing Recieved" tab so that we can see where your healing was coming from. You still only got just over 1k effective healing. That's not that great tbh.

[Shaji]

How i see it, its not about impossible vs faceroll but about risk vs reward (and/or time invested vs reward).

 

Some players are more skilled than others, and ofc you have little measurement unless you are doing the hardest raid or pvp content, and even then its sometimes hard to tell.

So now you have people doing solo instances and get different results - thats how it is.

You have different classes that perform very well or bad doing harder solo play - thats how it is.

 

So unless you can make every player equal (which is impossible) or make all classes equal (impossible as well, unless you homogenise to a point where every class is the same) you have to implement so kind of support - and this support is your companion.

 

Problem is that there is zero reason doing SF atm besides achievements people already have or just dont care about.

 

Doing it with another player is no challenge at all.. none.

Doing it with best in slot gear and max level companion can be done but is just annoying - there is not much mechanice wise, its just too much dmg (at least for your companion to counter).

And a lot of ppl, no mattter how good they are, will keep dieing over and over again while others slowly kill their way until the wont do it ever again.

 

Now to avoid a lot of words i wont be talking about H2 .. which you are only supposed to do to get your alliance and companion level up.

[ibervang]

The fact that bioware listen to the hardcore games just show they aren't to bright and don't play the game themselves. If they played the game, they would use their own experience rather then lists to the few hardcore gamers. I'll bet s majority of the players where happy with how it was before. A reason you didn't see posts about it before. And I'll also bet that the hard core gamers who wanted the nerf. Have already done the achievement where you solo star fortress and maxed out their rep with the alliance. And they used high rating gear and high ranked companion. And they either a-holes who want to ruin it for the rest of us. Or are to stupid to realize others haven't done it yet. And don't come here talking about a challenge. Then don't use a companion or pick one where your rep with them is low. And don't use high end gear. If you so what ever you can to make it easier for you and then go complain its to easy. Then you are just stupid.

[CommanderKeeva]

Merc DPS full 220 gear

4928 Presence

Influence Rank 50

All 4 Alliance buffs active

 

Lana's post nerf HPs (down 30k points): ~81k

Lana's average heal tick: ~1300

Lana's crit heal burst: 4462 (highest value reached)

 

Fight timeline:

 

I aggro champion with electro net heat seeker and then blazing bolts.

 

Moment I switch to two flanking trash mobs targeting Lana to aggro/clear them, Champion immediately leaps to Lana and hits her twice for a total about 45% of her hp. Incoming heals to me stop for rest of fight as Lana turtles.

 

I kill trash and switch back to champion after three more GCDs.

 

Champion health has dropped by 1/4. Lana is near death approx 10% health.

 

Lana attempts to heal herself back to max. I receive ZERO heals rest of fight.

 

I pop all cool downs, knockback and stun just attempting to stay alive. My dps craters as I attempt to self heal until Lana can help again.

 

In approx 45 seconds from fight start, I am dead and Lana had only reached 50% hp again focus healing just herself.

 

 

After two further attempts, now using cc on champ to kill two trash first, then Heroic Moment from main fight start, was barely able to kill the champion on third try. Lana was dead, of course.

 

 

I'd like to take this moment to thank BW for the much needed nerf from orbit. I was enjoying myself way too much pre-patch running things like the Star Fortress solo. In fact, I was wasting entirely too much time running them. Now I have all the time in the world to log off and boot up Fallout 4.

 

This is interesting because I just did the Alderaan heroic Star Fortress like an hour ago in a mix of 220/224 gear with a rank 50 Lana WITHOUT any buffs (as if I was going for the achievement) on a Sharpshooter Gunslinger and I was really surprised at how easy the supposedly most difficult solo content in the game was. I was never in any danger of dying, in fact I don't remember my HP dropping below 60% at any point, and even that only at the final boss. (Granted, I took full advantage of DCDs, Unity, Heroic moment and droid CC at the Final encounter, but everyone has access to those.) I am still of the opinion that they massively overdid the nerf and companions were fine before, but I was honestly surprised how easy Heroic Star Fortresses were after the nerf.

 

Also, please explain how you have close to 5000 presence. I have a rank 50 companion and every single datacron unlocked, but I only have 3678 or something (off the top of my head.) Even if you use presence boosters, 4928 sounds extremely exaggerated.

[Shaji]

Well, the funny thing is i doubt it is the hardcore elite who wanted companions to get nerfed.

 

Everybody i know in this game who is raiding on a regular basis was ok with how companions were if they got adjusted a little bit (as in 20%). You do your raiding and when you are done some quick heroics before you log out for the day. Pretty much like any other mmo.

 

Now people who were crying about the overpowered companions pretty much did nothing execept leveling alts (or even main chars) and at least the ppl i know had no experience at all when it comes to real endgame.

And even if they were the best players any mmo had ever seen, why would they care about other people doing dailys?

[NRieh]

The fun thing is. The healer is not supposed to soak damage, they are supposed to (surprise!) heal. If you're a DPS and can't keep aggro of your healer - it's not the game's fault, really. Even more so if you're a tank. CCs and interrupts are there for a reason.

 

Those stats you've shown? Those are normal healing numbers, I'd even say she's a li'll bit better at healing than my scoundrel is (208-216 gear + some augments). T7 or Senya healing 20k++ was beyond ridiculous. Now they only need to fix tanks (pulls are broken, but I had an impression that the armor bug had been addressed, at least it does not show as 0).

[towely]

I had an extremely similar experience last night.

 

My gear is a little worse than OP's and my Lana is only ~20, but I got absolutely destroyed fighting the Exarch or whatever in a Heroic SF. Most of the run was OK, but Lana had a lot of trouble keeping us both alive.

 

It seems that companions were much stronger than a player character before the patch, but now they are much weaker. They are fine for some things (weekly heroics), but falter in tougher fights.

[Neoforcer]

ya a lot of uber player seem to think you need to L2P as weekly heroic should feel like hard mode raids.... This is not how a game keeps it player base or gets new players. it is how it kills itself. I can solo all the stuff i been playing my class since beta. I can also say i can wreak those that think there uber hard mode raids. Been called thing from hacker to cheater all because i know my class in a way most can imagine. What i am worriers about is game pop. For that stand point this is to heavy a nerf..

[Beltane]

ya a lot of uber player seem to think you need to L2P as weekly heroic should feel like hard mode raids.... This is not how a game keeps it player base or gets new players. it is how it kills itself. I can solo all the stuff i been playing my class since beta. I can also say i can wreak those that think there uber hard mode raids. Been called thing from hacker to cheater all because i know my class in a way most can imagine. What i am worriers about is game pop. For that stand point this is to heavy a nerf..

 

^^^^^^ This.

 

I honestly can't believe people are saying dailies (heroics) need to be hard lol. Come on.

 

I do raids and HM flashpoints when I want a challenge.

 

It's not that I can't do the heroics anymore, I can, they're just a slog now. CC mob, use more CDs, rest after. That's not challenge. It's just adding time to the thing you've done repeatedly.

[AshlaBoga]

I was curious whether the Alliance buffs and 4 trinkets made a big difference.

 

Answer: Big Yes.

 

I just soloed Heroic Tatooine WITHOUT a companion on my 208 geared Merc.

[RaGiNDon]

[quote=

I'd like to take this moment to thank BW for the much needed nerf from orbit. I was enjoying myself way too much pre-patch running things like the Star Fortress solo. In fact, I was wasting entirely too much time running them. Now I have all the time in the world to log off and boot up Fallout 4.

 

i got some bad news for ya bud, fallout 4 is not worth the money, tried it they killed the rpg aspects of the game in their genius, read the forums on it there is huge backlash from the gamer community of this butchery of fallout title.

 

that being said may i be so bold as to suggest world of warships or armored warfare.

[Draqsko]

Those stats you've shown? Those are normal healing numbers, I'd even say she's a li'll bit better at healing than my scoundrel is (208-216 gear + some augments).

 

1.2k EHPS is not normal healing numbers, and if your scoundrel does worse than this at level 50 in level 50 gear, then healing is not your thing. That healing is normal, for when SWTOR was still at game update 1.4, and player tanks had 20k HP max. It's not even close to what a bad player can put out today just spamming a basic heal. A DPS commando spamming Med Shot heals for more EHPS than a companion healer does now. That is clearly not normal.

 

Players are hitting 6k to 8k EHPS in 216 gear. They haven't hit under 2k EHPS since before 2.0. If you think companions were vastly more powerful than player healers, remember, players hit 6-8k EHPS in operations, companions were hitting 4-5k EHPS before 4.0.2. Sure their heals looked big before, but they have to be big because companions don't have brains and can't use skills effectively. They were hitting 70% EHPS at best, and at max influence that went down to about 50% EHPS. That means that half of their overpowered heal was completely ineffective and meaningless.

 

There's a reason no raider looks at HPS when judging a healer, because it's really easy to make HPS look sexy when you go around topping people off with big heals, but it really isn't showing you how effective you really are. It's just like DPS spreading dots and padding meaningless damage in warzones for the scoreboard, yet the more effective person is usually one of those that has lower total damage but more total kills simply because that person's damage is killing people instead of letting them hang around and get healed. HPS is for people who like to pad numbers, EHPS is for people who are adults and actually serious about stat comparisons.