Companion's Builds, ouch.

[mazeltov]

Reading through the list, I thought Eder was going to shape up to be a half-decent tank. But then: no Weapon and Shield Style, no Wary Defender. 

 

THAT Field Triage pick on Kana. 

 

Aloth's wand spam build looks interesting at least. Heard rumblings in various places about the wander build, though I'm sure Aloth is missing several key ingredients.

[Daemonjax]

I just use console commands to swap around their stats and add/remove talents/abilities.

 

It's more fun than rushing through the areas to pick up companions early.

 

My only real self-imposed rule is to not change stat numbers, just swap them.

 

I stick with whatever spell selection choices they made.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Daemonjax

[Luckmann]

Reading through the list, I thought Eder was going to shape up to be a half-decent tank. But then: no Weapon and Shield Style, no Wary Defender. 

 

THAT Field Triage pick on Kana. 

 

Aloth's wand spam build looks interesting at least. Heard rumblings in various places about the wander build, though I'm sure Aloth is missing several key ingredients.

Actually, no. A better wand spam build would perhaps be high-Might, but it's mostly built around Talents and it's easy to make him into one.

 

Also, Edér is actually a great tank, or at least he was before the changes (Intellect is arguably more important to him). Just give him a shield, a sabre and some heavy armour if he can't hack it. He could be built better, yes, but you get him at such a low level and none of his Talent are wasted.

[mazeltov]

The list in question is in the last post of page 15. It gives the full level twelve builds for some companions, with their dev picked talents. Amusing to say the least.

 

In the actual game, I recruited Eder at level two and built him into a very effective tanky 2H'er. He actually blew out the rest of my party for total damage and enemies tanked by the time all was said and done. 67% overall crit rate using The Hours of St. Rumbalt  from level seven or so.

[Nadrac]

Trying to only rely on companions leads to issues even first time around, optimal parties have 2 tanks and companions only have one and also none of the companions is that great in mechanic, you can get up aloth or durance later, but you will longing for a real expert. Even if they were good at it, they are not meant for the front row, so their spotting is delayed and possibly tanks will still run into a trap.

 

I love making the best of what i get, currently i am enjoying a potd with companions but they took identical roles, eder is a must, i am really tempted to hire a mechanic, finding pallegina early gives you a tank but later she is a melee dps, kana is not the best tank around, but i guess he is the least bad option, unless the main character is one.

 

Tweaks i would make to them

Aloth +1 bonus mech, -1 bonus to lore

Durance +2 bonus mech, -1 bonus to lore and athletic

Mother + 3 int -2 per

Pallegina lvl 6 talent superior deflection to keep her more open ended, little deflection never wrong

[Odd Hermit]

Reading through the list, I thought Eder was going to shape up to be a half-decent tank. But then: no Weapon and Shield Style, no Wary Defender. 

 

THAT Field Triage pick on Kana. 

 

Aloth's wand spam build looks interesting at least. Heard rumblings in various places about the wander build, though I'm sure Aloth is missing several key ingredients.

 

Aloth is just missing the Might to make a low damage weapon deal substantial enough damage. I gave him an Arbalest to make up for it, ignoring his Blast talent entirely.

 

Actually, no. A better wand spam build would perhaps be high-Might, but it's mostly built around Talents and it's easy to make him into one.

 

Also, Edér is actually a great tank, or at least he was before the changes (Intellect is arguably more important to him). Just give him a shield, a sabre and some heavy armour if he can't hack it. He could be built better, yes, but you get him at such a low level and none of his Talent are wasted.

 

 

I consider Rapid Recovery a waste. However if you get him @ 3 instead of two he sort of makes up for it with a free Ruffian focus, although it's not great for tanking either it's sort of redeeming .. a little bit.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Odd Hermit

[mazeltov]

Then Durance still has 1 Athletics at level 12 (Kana still has 0!). They'd still get winded after two encounters, like noobs fresh out of Cilant Lis. I thought the devs were trying to discourage rest spamming 

 

It's like the companion builds were designed by a junior art dev who never bothered to go past level four in game: "Bloody Slaughter sounds like a fun talent. Stick that on a couple on them." Meanwhile BS only procs around 10% Endurance, meaning there's rarely a window to even be able to use it. Or, when handed a cheat sheet stating Aloth was the "Loreful" companion, an intern set his Lore to increase to 13, without a second thought.

 

Someone might respond: "they probably didn't care how the companion builds developed after level X because most players would have picked them up by then already and taken over their builds." Yeah, but would it have been that hard for Josh to take 15 minutes out of his day to write up coherent builds for the companions?

[Achilles]

Based on the (clearly outdated) info in the strat guide, level 12+ lore was required for the top tier scrolls. At some point this was brought back down and capped at 10. I'm assuming that Aloth's build wasn't updated.

[mazeltov]

Based on the (clearly outdated) info in the strat guide, level 12+ lore was required for the top tier scrolls. At some point this was brought back down and capped at 10. I'm assuming that Aloth's build wasn't updated.

 

I was expecting someone to pop in here and claim 13 Lore and 11 Athletics and so on is just being ahead of the curve for the expansion. 

[Achilles]

Scroll of Maelstrom = 15 Lore. I count 8 others that required 12. Thank god that got changed.