Best animal companion?

[DruidX]

Hey so I was planning on playing as a Druid, and I had a poll here:

 

Best Druid Spiritshift?

 

Which asked you guys whats the best spiritshift to choose

 

But apparently people are saying that I should go with another class so I might roll a Ranger instead

 

so am doing a similar poll to find out whats the best ranger animal companion

 

Again, this site has a good overview of all the animal companions, I put summary below.

 

The choices are:

 

Antelope - has good defense

 

Bear - has damage reduction

 

Boar - can do lots more damage towards the end of a battle

 

Lion - can do a terrify status effect

 

Stag - has a melee AoE

 

Wolf - Has a good movement speed

 

Cant decide which one to choose. Am thinking either:

 

Wolf, since it moves fast and will engage the target sooner

 

Bear, since it will last a long time in battle, long enough for me to resolve it

 

Though am open to other possiblities

 

Anyway vote on which animal companion you guys think is best!

 

[Luckmann]

Oh man, I don't think anyone said anything about taking another class. Yeah, spiritshifting is terrible, but druids are quite, quite powerful.

And I don't know how to break it to you, but.. rangers are easily worse than druids, hands down, and their animal companions are not as gimp as the druid's spiritshift, but they're pretty awful, the lot of them. Really, if you're going for a ranger, it's ultimately down to the same thing as spiritshift for druids; pick any one you want, that you feel fits you the best, because as of right now (again, things may change before the game is finished) it doesn't really matter much, they're all pretty bad.

[Valmy]

Yeah don't go with another class, Druids are one of the best classes in the game.

[W.MacKinnon]

Having played the ranger in the Backer Beta, it's the weakest class of the lot.  A ranger shares his Stamina/Health pool with his animal companion. The companion can't equip any magical protections so it's defences lag behind a full character. Arguably the ranger's companion has one excellent defence; for instance the Stag has good saves, but woe be the player that let's that companion enter into melee. (As other defences suffer for high saves. Low deflection)

  In my experience playing with an animal companion is just allowing your ranger to be hit from two locations, to the point if the animal is within range your character can be hit twice from an AoE.(Instant kill ;o ) In practice the animal companion is "decent" against it's strongest defence. (Bear can tank against physical strikers.) Playing the ranger class, there were encounters in the first forest against the savage druids which AoE a Lightning attack. First time killed Bear and Ranger one hit. After reloading a few times only strategy that worked was making the Bear not participate in the battle at all. So look forward to removing your animal companion from encounters that it's weak against. Otherwise your ranger will be defeated as well.

 

  Dont' expect a pathfinder ranger; that's as good a damager as a rogue without the squishy-ness. It's not a melee fighting class and sadly it's companion is designed to melee. So your ranger pittling away with arrows suddenly dies because your bear/wolf/etc was just downed by big bad in melee.

[Tamerlane]

Obsidian hates wild animals confirmed.

 

EDIT: As depressing as "spiritshifts are bad, animal companions are bad" is, remember that this is all as of... when was the last BB build released? Like, a month ago? And the game is another month out, so there's time for balancing and revision yet. I wouldn't hold out a ton of hope for spiritshift (druid shapeshifting is infamously finnicky in any game that features it, as was pointed out in that thread) but I still have hope for the ranger.

Edited March 6, 2015 by Tamerlane

[Valmy]

A ranger shares his Stamina/Health pool with his animal companion.

 

That design decision was why I decided not to play a ranger.  That sounded like a huge weakness and it seems like it is.

[Voss]

Anyway vote on which animal companion you guys think is best!

 

Not having one. Having a good class with a terrible class feature is still better than just a worthless class, though obviously both are design problems.

[Lephys]

Yeah don't go with another class, Druids are one of the best classes in the game.

Bear in mind... advice such as this may not hold true for the final game.

 

I would say that if you're playing the current beta build, definitely don't go with class X for reason Y. But, avoiding a class at the game's release wouldn't be very prudent, since the class could very well be "fixed" at that point in time.

[Voss]

 

Yeah don't go with another class, Druids are one of the best classes in the game.

Bear in mind... advice such as this may not hold true for the final game.

 

I would say that if you're playing the current beta build, definitely don't go with class X for reason Y. But, avoiding a class at the game's release wouldn't be very prudent, since the class could very well be "fixed" at that point in time.

 

Enitrely disagree.  Best way to operate is based on available evidence, and not fantastical hope that an entire class was rebuilt in crunch time. (especially after lasting this long).

[Valmy]

Of course this being a single player game if you want to play a shape shifting Druid or a Ranger it still might be a lot of fun.  It is not like you have to worry about being worthless to the big raid guilds.

[Sensuki]

 

A ranger shares his Stamina/Health pool with his animal companion.

 

That design decision was why I decided not to play a ranger.  That sounded like a huge weakness and it seems like it is.

 

 

They dropped this mechanic because it was terrible.

[Tamerlane]

 

 

Yeah don't go with another class, Druids are one of the best classes in the game.

Bear in mind... advice such as this may not hold true for the final game.

 

I would say that if you're playing the current beta build, definitely don't go with class X for reason Y. But, avoiding a class at the game's release wouldn't be very prudent, since the class could very well be "fixed" at that point in time.

 

Enitrely disagree.  Best way to operate is based on available evidence, and not fantastical hope that an entire class was rebuilt in crunch time. (especially after lasting this long).

 

That's why I plan on playing a paladin from four months ago!

[Voss]

Of course this being a single player game if you want to play a shape shifting Druid or a Ranger it still might be a lot of fun.  It is not like you have to worry about being worthless to the big raid guilds.

But you do have to worry about being killed over and over again by encounters you can't handle because the class design is terrible.  I'm not sure where 'raid guilds' enter into anything.  Terrible game design is quite feasible (and evident) in single player games.

[WotanAnubis]

 

 

A ranger shares his Stamina/Health pool with his animal companion.

 

That design decision was why I decided not to play a ranger.  That sounded like a huge weakness and it seems like it is.

 

 

They dropped this mechanic because it was terrible.

 

 

That's good to know.

 

Still gonna roll a Druid for my first playthrough, though.

[DarkWanderer]

 

 

A ranger shares his Stamina/Health pool with his animal companion.

 

That design decision was why I decided not to play a ranger.  That sounded like a huge weakness and it seems like it is.

 

 

They dropped this mechanic because it was terrible.

 

They did? Any confirmation?

[Lephys]

Enitrely disagree.  Best way to operate is based on available evidence, and not fantastical hope that an entire class was rebuilt in crunch time. (especially after lasting this long).

You seem to be operating under the assumption that one simply must assume either that the class will go completely unimproved between the last beta build (what... almost a month ago, now?) and release (and simply never even bother to check that class when the game releases), OR that the class will definitely be perfect (and plan to definitely play THAT class without even checking out any others or forming any contingencies).

 

There's a third option, called "take 10 seconds to see if the class is actually better, lest you avoid it for no reason at all."

 

But, maybe that's just crazy talk... *shrug*

[Sensuki]

They did? Any confirmation?

Yep. The latest BB patch ...

 

Mind you, Rangers (and animal companions) are still the worst class. Animal Companions have no endurance and go down like a sack of potatoes every encounter.

[egfy]

 

 

 

A ranger shares his Stamina/Health pool with his animal companion.

 

That design decision was why I decided not to play a ranger.  That sounded like a huge weakness and it seems like it is.

 

 

They dropped this mechanic because it was terrible.

 

They did? Any confirmation?

 

Current Backer Beta has the stamina/health pools seperate. Rangers get a debuff if their companion goes down.

[Lephys]

It's too bad there's not some kind of reptile companion. Like a big lizard, or a large snake.

[DarkWanderer]

Well i planned creating ranger as the last hero (or maybe before priest who will be very last) so by the time i'll create one, hopefully he will be fixed by patches/expansions

 

 

It's too bad there's not some kind of reptile companion. Like a big lizard, or a large snake.

 

 

Thane? xP

 

But i agree it would be neat

Edited March 6, 2015 by DarkWanderer

[Lephys]

The next comedic RPG that gets made needs to have the muppet Animal as the only Ranger companion.

 

"Hey guys, this is my Animal companion."

"Muh-NAH-muh-NAH!"

[Suhiir]

 

They did? Any confirmation?

Yep. The latest BB patch ...

 

Mind you, Rangers (and animal companions) are still the worst class. Animal Companions have no endurance and go down like a sack of potatoes every encounter.

 

VERY glad to hear this.

While I wasn't in the beta it seemed obvious to me the shared stamina/health pool was a HUGE weakness, unless the ranger class had a 50%+ higher pool then any other class to start with, and this would be just as silly as the shared pool.

[Voss]

 

Enitrely disagree.  Best way to operate is based on available evidence, and not fantastical hope that an entire class was rebuilt in crunch time. (especially after lasting this long).

You seem to be operating under the assumption that one simply must assume either that the class will go completely unimproved between the last beta build (what... almost a month ago, now?) and release (and simply never even bother to check that class when the game releases), OR that the class will definitely be perfect (and plan to definitely play THAT class without even checking out any others or forming any contingencies).

 

There's a third option, called "take 10 seconds to see if the class is actually better, lest you avoid it for no reason at all."

 

But, maybe that's just crazy talk... *shrug*

 

It is crazy talk, because it isn't possible.  The character creation screens clearly don't break down the mechanics of the classes, let alone over twelve levels, so 'checking for viability' isn't something you can do at a glance... or in 10 seconds.    The summaries and limited explanation you get during character creation are going to frustrate a lot of people when they get into the game and discover they've chosen a dud (or in a couple cases, the easy mode classes, depending on individual views of the benefits of hard/easy games), for many it isn't going to be apparent for a few levels, and then they get the joy of dumping their starting character and starting over.

 

And no, unimproved or perfect aren't the options. There are playable classes and extremely bad classes, of which, sadly the ranger is only one (though easily the worst). 

[Cantousent]

Since most folks playing the game probably won't have the beta and probably won't even come here to get the lecture, I imagine they'll have to learn the curve the same way we did in my day, installing the game and playing it.  I agree with the idea of using best evidence, but I also believe in keeping in mind that the best evidence at an earlier stage of development might be incomplete or flawed.  I imagine, if they've done a halfway decent job balancing the game, that even classes that aren't the most powerful will still be viable.  At least, with Sawyer's inclination to put balance on a pedestal I would expect it.

[PBJam]

Hey so I was planning on playing as a Druid, and I had a poll here:

 

Best Druid Spiritshift?

 

Which asked you guys whats the best spiritshift to choose

 

But apparently people are saying that I should go with another class so I might roll a Ranger instead

 

so am doing a similar poll to find out whats the best ranger animal companion

 

Again, this site has a good overview of all the animal companions, I put summary below.

 

The choices are:

 

Antelope - has good defense

 

Bear - has damage reduction

 

Boar - can do lots more damage towards the end of a battle

 

Lion - can do a terrify status effect

 

Stag - has a melee AoE

 

Wolf - Has a good movement speed

 

Cant decide which one to choose. Am thinking either:

 

Wolf, since it moves fast and will engage the target sooner

 

Bear, since it will last a long time in battle, long enough for me to resolve it

 

Though am open to other possiblities

 

Anyway vote on which animal companion you guys think is best!

 

No love for the Stag?

 

I'm going to be playing a ranger and that's what I'll pick

 

I think the melee AoE can be pretty useful for handling big groups of small mobs