Some improvements to companion abilities (this isn't about companions being OP or UP)

[Loc_n_lol]

A few things that stick out to me :

 

Healer companions :

 

seem mostly fine, but I don't use them much on principle so I don't have a strong opinion here. There's one notable exception : Treek. Treek has one ability that's very broken, a channel that ticks for upwards of 30k on crits. Should rename "heal2full". Treek's other abilities may or may not need improvements but this one is far too strong.

 

DPS companions :

 

• The 30% ability is of questionable usefulness. It's very strong but rarely used. It is also a cast. You don't really want to use a cast on an enemy that is about to die, you want to finish them off instantly. If anything should have a castbar, that would be the ranged dps' blast ability.
  
• AoE damage sucks. The cooldown on the only AoE ability is too long, the area covered is small. They make scoundrels look like a good aoe class... I think it would be a good idea to swap the execute ability for another AoE, and/or greatly reduce the cooldown of the existing one.
  
• Other suggestion : branch the companion dps role into 2 roles : AoE dps and single-target DPS, with appropriate abilities for each.
  
• The DoT ability is nice for its sunder debuff, but the DoT itself is extremely weak. Maybe take some damage from the burst ability and put it on the DoT instead ?...
  

 

Also : double-bladed weapon users use something that looks like shatter or plasma brand as their leap animation. This animation doesn't move, so they just jump in place and then teleport to the target. Looks very wrong.

 

Tank companions :

• Their dps is very weak. I would expect them to be about half as strong as a dps companion, maybe a little less but they're far below that. Main reason is, their taunts are on a short cooldown, they are not off the GCD, and they do no damage at all. The mass pull is also not doing any damage.
  
• They seem to suffer from the bad tank syndrom : taunt early, do very little damage, lose aggro.
  
• I would suggest adding some damage (more than just a basic attack's worth) to one or both of the taunts, and/or outright replacing a taunt with another ability that deals big damage and a lot of threat.
  
• Armor seems very low for a tank, compared to players. It's barely more than what dps players have, maybe even less in some cases. Also my eyes could be deceiving me but their shield appears not to work (0% chance) ?
  
• On the other hand having 2/3 uptime on a cooldown that reduces all incoming damage by 50% is ridiculously powerful.
  
• Finally it seems a bit off that tank companions are the only ones to have neither a CC nor an enemy debuff.
  

Edited December 2, 2015 by Loc_n_lol

[LordFell]

Looks like you've done your research. I approve of this message.

[Siefer]

Agreed.

 

The Tank companions have needed an armor boost for a while (even before 4.0). Also, the lack of a shield/absorb is REALLY bad. All tank comps prior to 4.0 pretty much HAD to have a shield/absorb to be viable. No amount of defense would save them. Now, they just get a large health pool. Not enough.

 

Also, their AI has been in need of some tweaking on how to maintain threat better, especially AOE threat, for a while. Pre-4.0 Xalek was pretty hardy and able to do fine, but not a lot of the others.

 

In addition to your suggestions, I would add the following suggestions:

1.) A modular ability bar for companions. Can chose their stance, and based on their stance they have 5-7 abilities that you can select from the global pool of companion abilities available. Can add in debuffs if two abilities would compliment each other in a game breaking way. This would enable a lot more flexibility in how companions fight. By global list I mean the generic list of 15 or so abilities all companions have now (not literally EVERY companion ability that is or ever was).

2.) Bring back the OLD companion abilities. A lot of the old abilities were just fine and added a lot of uniqueness to how each comp fought. This list of old companion abilities would be added to the global pool of 15 on a comp by comp basis. Example: Kira Carsen is not getting the grenades the Vette has, and Khem Val is not getting Power Strikes that Ashara had.

Again, this could really help make each companion fight in a unique way and prevent each comp from being a clone of a generic archetype (rDPS, mDPS, etc.).

For NEW comps (4.0 onward), they can just keep the generic set of abilities. Perhaps some special ones, such as Niko, can have a few unique ones (he has a ship, why not his own Freighter Flyby?).

3.) As per 2, but much more emphasis on Treek and HK. They had very unique abilities that chained together. That's what REALLY made them standout. Even if no. 2 is somehow impossible or impractical for all companions AT LEAST DO THIS for Treek and HK (especially since you have to essentially pay to unlock them).

[JediJuliusDavin]

I'd probably add an ability for each class.

 

Healer: ?Maybe a long duration sunder? Or an interrupt?

 

DpS: An off the GCD attack that deal X amount of damage.

 

Increase DoT damage by 100%

 

Increase execute health limit by 5% and remove channel.

 

Tank: Add a ranged blast (30m) that does significant damage,high,threat, a bit of healing to both tank and owner. (1.6k?) and increases armor rating by 15% for 12 seconds (21 sec Cooldown)

 

Increase base damage reduction by 2%

 

Give them a shield!

Increase damage of leap attack by 5%

Increase heal percent of leap attack by 5%

 

Just as a start.

Edited December 13, 2015 by JediJuliusDavin

[Muljo_Stpho]

Some good posts in here already.

 

My thought that I've added into other topics on this subject has been that each companion should be allowed a couple of signature moves alongside their role-based set of generic moves. These would be abilities unique to each companion and available for them to use regardless of which role you set them in. This would give each companion something special that they bring to the fight, something different from any other companion.

 

But of course other reasonable thoughts would be adding something that resembles each original companion's original moveset (as closely as possible) as either a replacement for the generic moveset in their original role or as a fourth option which is an alternative for their original role.

 

A more complicated suggestion that would be an entirely new addition to the game system might be to suggest something like in the previous posts in this topic, some sort of skill tree / discipline path type of interface to customize companion abilities by offering options between parallel alternatives (like in GSF ship component upgrades where there are two parallel options and only one may be active at a time) or some sort of utilities-like interface to select a limited number out of a tiered pool of available options.

[LordFell]

Yeah... I don't even necessarily think a move has to be "signature" to provide uniqueness. For example, one of my big disappointments was with Guss Tuno; while he's still a contact he waves a Light Saber around. Once he joins your crew, he doesn't use it at all.

 

For Guss, whether you have him in DPS, Heal or Tank stance, I'd like to see him add a single Light Saber attack; I was thinking Leg Slash would be perfect. If he's DPS or Heals, it would let him get distance from attackers, and if he is a Tank, it helps him keep Mobs under control.

 

I'd also like to see each Companion get a nod to their "classic" role. So, once again, looking at Guss, he was a Healer. So, regardless of whether he is DPS, Heal or Tank, his "classic" ability would be a some sort of Healing ability. This might make him a better healer, when he is in Heal stance, or it gives him a tiny nod to Hybrid Utility.

 

So... what I'd like to see, is each companion gets 8 abilities. The first is their Basic Attack (blaster shot, melee smite, whatever). Their Signature ability (whichever ability that is). A "Classic" ability, from their original Role. A Utility ability (a Crowd Control, or a Movement power), and 4 abilities from the appropriate Role and Type (eg. Ranged or Melee, Force or Tech, DPS, Heal or Tank)

[Siefer]

A more complicated suggestion that would be an entirely new addition to the game system might be to suggest something like in the previous posts in this topic, some sort of skill tree / discipline path type of interface to customize companion abilities by offering options between parallel alternatives (like in GSF ship component upgrades where there are two parallel options and only one may be active at a time) or some sort of utilities-like interface to select a limited number out of a tiered pool of available options.

 

The companion tree system would be interesting. Probably really difficult to do, but interesting. I think the system in Marvel Heroes has a semi-tree based system for their team-up characters.

 

The signature abilities thing would work well for pre-KotFE comps. Can just grab several of their original spec abilities (power strikes for the DPS Kira for example). The new comps would need some work. What should their signature moves be? I have a feeling all of them were designed with the 'can be any spec' role in mind, so finding signature moves may be difficult.

Some thoughts:

Lana - in the Revan fight she was a healer. So some kind of healing ability? Maybe a bubble heal?

Senya - based on the cinematics in KotFE, she seems like a tanking type. Maybe a hilt bash / backhand for threat, a non-channeled force choke / stasis (as per a guardian tank), or a Guardian-slash-like ability.

Niko Okar (sp?) - He's a gunslinger smuggie and has his own ship. Why not a freighter flyby? If not that, maybe a penetrating rounds type channeled ability (I guess it'd be a ranged version of power strikes)

Choza Rabaat - He seems to be a guardian. If his role was to be 'tank' - suggestions along the same line as Senya. If dps - maybe some kind of vigilance type ability that burns his targets in an AoE (similar to the Vigilant Thrust but causes a burn instead of spreading burns)

Hemdil Tre - He's a gunslinger type. Talks about how good he is. Penetrating rounds? Quick shot? (perhaps some of his abilities cause this to proc and lets him get a free off the GCD attack for more dps)

Theran Shan - He's a gunslinger. Threw out a lot of grenades in the Revan fight? Maybe some kind of grenade/explosive type abilities, similar to a saboteur Gunslinger, for his signature moves? Or the deployable shield that Gunslingers have (he did it in Revan fight)?

Koth Vortena - He seems to be a vanguard type. Also, likes to set booby traps and has a super tactical mind. Maybe some stuff from the tactics tree? Maybe even using the knife blade on that gun of his (or just one on hand) to do some stabs?

HK-55 - Abilities similar to HK-51 and HK-47.

Edited December 18, 2015 by Siefer

[JercGhyron]

I use tank companions a lot, and they really need an armor boost,I would say increase it by 15% or more.

[Mubrak]

I use tank companions a lot, and they really need an armor boost,I would say increase it by 15% or more.

 

They need a shield. Right now it's better as a dd to divide aggro between yourself and a dd companion than having a tank companion take all the aggro and fail miserably. Not that much of a problem for melee, but ranged dds prefer a certain professional distance

Edited December 28, 2015 by Mubrak

[JercGhyron]

They need a shield. Right now it's better as a dd to divide aggro between yourself and a dd companion than having a tank companion take all the aggro and fail miserably. Not that much of a problem for melee, but ranged dds prefer a certain professional distance

 

Yeah,they really need a shield,it needs to work all the time and not only when taunting.

[Ayakin_Solaris]

Companions have stats for shield and absorb rating; them not having a shield is a bug introduced with 4.0 as the game requires a shield offhand and you can no longer equip one on your companions.

 

Agree that they do need to be doing more dps; a damage sponge is not very useful if it can't hold aggro and tank companions need to be doing a bit more dmg to hold aggro effectively.