Best animal companion?

[Luckmann]

 

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.

 

*snickers*

[PBJam]

wanted to say, in most games I've played the pets were usually weak

 

But the main purpose of having a companion as I see it, is to have it distract the enemy for long enough for you to gain the upper hand in the battle

 

Even if the pet dies quickly, the two turns or so where the enemy was busy dealing with the pets instead of your party can be critical

[DruidX]

wanted to say, in most games I've played the pets were usually weak

 

But the main purpose of having a companion as I see it, is to have it distract the enemy for long enough for you to gain the upper hand in the battle

 

Even if the pet dies quickly, the two turns or so where the enemy was busy dealing with the pets instead of your party can be critical

 

Maybe, but I'd like the companions to be useful on their own rather than just some bait

[rjshae]

How would people like to fix the animal companion so it would be useful but not unbalanced? Give it a hit-and-run attack when partnered with the Ranger?

[Odd Hermit]

How would people like to fix the animal companion so it would be useful but not unbalanced? Give it a hit-and-run attack when partnered with the Ranger?

 

Make them not fall over from a slight breeze and give them genuinely useful and powerful abilities.

 

I made some suggestions here -

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70840-what-to-do-with-the-ranger-ideas-thread/

 

 

give a bonus for characters near their animal companion. "_Animal_'s Presence" for example. DT bonus for bear, defense bonuses for antelope, +might and stam regen for boar, flanking bonuses for wolf(pack-style). Something like that anyway.

 

Some stronger animal abilities would be nice too. Wolf should have a howl that summons wolf spirits to aid it in combat, for example(synergy with its flanking bonus!). Stag could have a super-high damage charging ability. Bear could get some kind of rage giving bonus damage and making it immune to will-targeting attacks.

 

 

Problem is if the animal is weak yet the ranger suffers as an individual unit due to it, it just feels like a tacked on gimmick that ruins a class. The animal has to be reasonable strong or it defeats the purpose of it being a part of the class.

 

Unless they just gave Ranger's non-combat bonus-y animal companions, such as stealth/scouting stuff.

 

 

Personally I've tried Bear and Wolf, neither are great but I ended up getting more use out of wolf if only to cheese its run speed to distract melee enemies and divide and conquer. But that can be done with chanter summons that don't give you a huge debuff if they get knocked out, and can actually contribute a decent amount to a fight as well.

[Lephys]

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.

So true. I mean, if you create a new Ranger, and go to select some abilities, and see that Level 1 ability X now does 30 damage instead of 15, and that Class Talent Y is now twice as good, you have to assume the other 11 levels of Ranger-dom got no love whatsoever.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Lephys

[Tsuga C]

 

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.

 

This is grossly disappointing. If the animal companions are so effete, why the heck wasn't this addressed months ago? From what's being said here, they're a glaringly obvious Achilles' heel in a game that's largely focused on combat. What gives, Obsidian?

[Voss]

 

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.

So true. I mean, if you create a new Ranger, and go to select some abilities, and see that Level 1 ability X now does 30 damage instead of 15, and that Class Talent Y is now twice as good, you have to assume the other 11 levels of Ranger-dom got no love whatsoever.

 

Yes.  Clearly nonsense numbers illustrate your point well, especially since many abilities are multipliers along the lines of 1.2.  But sure, they're clearly going to add 15 points to a level 1 ability when the talent (Brutal Takedown) that modifies a level 7 ability (Takedown) did all of 20 damage at one point in the beta build.  Your expectations are clearly reasonable and born of deep analysis.

 

But if you seriously think rangers are so glaringly bad that they need actual doubling of their damage and effects to be worthwhile, clearly the game is in much worse shape than I thought.  Even if they do manage to bring them up to snuff, I'd expect a much more nuanced approach.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Voss

[Lephys]

I'm glad you caught onto the obvious point of my post: the number 15. Jolly good! 8D

[Lord Wafflebum]

I would 100% play a ranger if I had a python companion named Mandingo.

 

That said, I do intend to play a sword-and-board ranger named Robb with his wolf companion Grey Wind. Admittedly, I haven't played the rangers since the dynamic has been changed up, but I'll probably still try to make it work.

 

Altho my first play through will still be with a Paladin, unless they don't get un-nerfed in which case I might have to go with a monk.

[Valmy]

 

This is grossly disappointing. If the animal companions are so effete, why the heck wasn't this addressed months ago? From what's being said here, they're a glaringly obvious Achilles' heel in a game that's largely focused on combat. What gives, Obsidian?

 

Overreact much?  It may not be that simple.  Balance has been shifting around a lot with each version.

[Tsuga C]

Overreact much?  It may not be that simple.  Balance has been shifting around a lot with each version.

No, not an overreaction at all. If the animal companions lack the ability to evade, shrug off (damage resistance), or regenerate damage, then the ranger is by and large screwed if forced to melee. They'll be dedicated archers in the rear of the party acting as fire support and body guards for the wizards with their animal companions joined to them at the hip lest the critter get surrounded and put down right quick in a fierce battle. If Sensuki's assessment is correct, that which should be an asset is instead a liability.

[Valmy]

 

Overreact much?  It may not be that simple.  Balance has been shifting around a lot with each version.

No, not an overreaction at all. If the animal companions lack the ability to evade, shrug off (damage resistance), or regenerate damage, then the ranger is by and large screwed if forced to melee. They'll be dedicated archers in the rear of the party acting as fire support and body guards for the wizards with their animal companions joined to them at the hip lest the critter get surrounded and put down right quick in a fierce battle. If Sensuki's assessment is correct, that which should be an asset is instead a liability.

 

 

Not an over-reaction to the importance of the mechanic for the Ranger, but rather the outrage at Obsidian for not having it balanced correctly yet.  Right now they are pretty much the only gimpy class, not bad for building a system from scratch. 

 

But yeah they need to be fixed.

[Lephys]

That said, I do intend to play a sword-and-board ranger named Robb with his wolf companion Grey Wind. Admittedly, I haven't played the rangers since the dynamic has been changed up, but I'll probably still try to make it work.

Make sure he attends no weddings.

[Tsuga C]

Not an over-reaction to the importance of the mechanic for the Ranger, but rather the outrage at Obsidian for not having it balanced correctly yet.  Right now they are pretty much the only gimpy class, not bad for building a system from scratch. 

 

But yeah they need to be fixed.

You may have a point if they're the only gimped class, but release is upon us at the end of the month. There's not much time left to get it right before the physical goods start showing up in mailboxes 'round the world.

[Lephys]

^ There's not much time left now, but we don't know what all they've changed since BB v.435. Or even what they were working on but didn't have finalized when they packaged BB v.435. *shrug*

 

I just suspect we'll see more changes than people think.

[Gromnir]

 

Not an over-reaction to the importance of the mechanic for the Ranger, but rather the outrage at Obsidian for not having it balanced correctly yet.  Right now they are pretty much the only gimpy class, not bad for building a system from scratch. 

 

But yeah they need to be fixed.

You may have a point if they're the only gimped class, but release is upon us at the end of the month. There's not much time left to get it right before the physical goods start showing up in mailboxes 'round the world.

 

Gromnir observations about the ranger:

 

"in the early bb releases, we had an extreme useful ranger that were based on an interrupt concept, but as our current ranger's summoned bear is no longer a meat-shield but rather a twisted s&m pain transfer device, our dedicated interrupter no longer has appeal."  from feb 2, 2015.

 

"personally, we tend to agree with mr.monocle at this point.  dump 'em (rangers).  complete opposite o' hermit, we see fixing ranger either by making 'em a ranged weapon damage dealing class without the unnecessary ranger trappings, or cutting 'em out o' the game complete. in our estimation, animal companions and stealth and outdoor affinity is not gonna make rangers better.   get rid o' the ranger crap from the crappy ranger, or get rid o' the ranger.  

 

"'course it is too late for our suggestion, so at best we is gonna get half-measures that make rangers less horrible." march 8, 2015.

 

rangers is not very good.  rangers were Vastly underrated in early betas as people were, for whatever reason, not counting animal companion damage when calculating ranger damage output.  the bear had superior accuracy, were durable, and did dependable damage in the 40-60 range. our ranger could be doing almost negligible ranged damage, but when combined with the bear's damage output, he/she woulda'  been doing more damage than the bb rogue... by a considerable amount.

 

at the moment...

 

the problems with the ranger are rather large.  if the obsidian developers find good balance for the ranger, we expect it to come a few months from now rather than by march 26.  that is ok with us.  have one class that is bad for a couple months is far better than the old ie games with multiple craptacular classes that needed dual or multi-classing to make playable.  a couple months to get the 11th class genuine playable?  we can wait.

 

'course we still think it would be better to scrap the ranger nonsense and redesign as an archer. we suspect it would be easier to balance a ranged weapon heavy-hitter w/o an animal as 'posed to the current ranger... though we would regret the loss o' a potential cassowary animal companion for expansion or sequel rangers. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

 

 

[Cantousent]

Does anyone else have visions of the Dogmeat syndrome from Fallout?  I haven't played a ranger in the beta, but I just can't take another animal companion that will cause me endless ire as I try to keep it from killing itself every chance it gets.  Just what I need, a pet that I keep out of every battle for fear it's going to jump on someone's sword.  It's too late to do anything, of course, and I'm certain that you could finish the game with a ranger.  I would be surprised if there were any classes that were truly not viable.  I'll come back here and eat my words if I'm wrong, though.  I haven't even played that much of the beta after all.

[Gromnir]

on the positive side, when your poe dogmeat "dies" in combat, it ain't permanent.  you don't need reload every time your animal companion gets turned into kibble by beetles, or elder bears, or spiders, or skaen cultist, or... whatever.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Tamerlane]

I got Dogmeat through the laser forcefield alive, god dammit.

[Cantousent]

I got Dogmeat through the laser forcefield alive, god dammit.

So did *I.*  :Cant's crazy eye twitching icon:  ...And it was hell!

[Elerond]

I have played around with ranger in current beta to look if there is any good builds for them, which is still ongoing experiment, but I have come to realize that rangers animal companion is extremely useful because they are currently immortal, which make them excellent scouts (especially wolf) as you can sent them look enemies without any fear and you can use them to clear traps and use them to lure enemies in your ambushes and traps and they also work as meat shield to stop enemies for bit when your party shoots their opening salvo.

[Voss]

I'm glad you caught onto the obvious point of my post: the number 15. Jolly good! 8D

No, I caught onto the lack of actual argument, which was happily illustrated by pulling numbers from nether regions, rather than from the available evidence.  Unsupported optimism because you 'suspect so' isn't persuasive.

[Lephys]

The available evidence is that team Obsidian isn't sitting around picking its nose, nor has it been since the last build came out (which is the last evidence we have of the Ranger needing help, as a class). So, unless you have some evidence that suggests there will be absolutely no improvements to the Ranger class whatsoever, in almost 2 months worth of development time, I fail to see the lack of my argument, or the presence of yours.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Lephys

[Faerunner]

I hope Lephys is right and they fix the ranger between the last beta release and the final game release. Ranger was the class I was looking forward to most, along with the Druid. If they both turn out as gimped as people say, I'm gonna cry.

 

EDIT: OP, why don't you choose the animal companion that speaks to you? Or turns out to work best with your chosen style of tactical combat? It just seems like a personal decision that should go with how you imagine your character, not based on what a bunch of random strangers on the internet tell you is "best."

Edited March 12, 2015 by Faerunner