Companions - Obikin89's Guide to Neverwinter (2023)

AGAINST 21

⚠ Please note that summoned companions are constantly being tweaked or modified, I can't give proper advice on them as the best one is the one that survives Cryptic after they failed by being reworked countless times...

It's very important to level up companions, at least the ones you use for summoning and the ones you use for their equip powers. Gear powers give you both high item level, almost always 100% combined ratings (so your percentages stay the same), and percentage bonuses to your stats. Bolster improves the item level and damage of your summoned partner fighting with you.

• summoned companion
• Quality, Enhancement, Item Level and Stats
• comrades in arms
• Extension Add-Ons
• power of improvement
• equip forces
• tank friends
• Companions for healers
• Companions of the Damage Dealer
• Companion Update
• Additional equipment
• Runensteine

summoned companion

Since companions are being "reworked" (broken), I'll pass you onAragon, who made a really good series of videos about scholarship holders. There are many options, from Boosts/Tanks/Buffers/Debuffers/Single Target Damage Dealer/Aoe Damage Dealer/Healer, and each companion has its own powers, and their positioning (which is important for combat advantage) is also different.

Quality, Enhancement, Item Level and Stats

Your summoned companion grants you an item level based on its quality. This stat is the only stat affected by Companion Bolster:

• Common: 10 item levels (20 with 100% boost)
• Uncommon: 100 item level (200 with 100% boost)
• Rare: 300 item level (600 with 100% booster)
• Epic: Item Level 600 (1200 at 100% boost)
• Legendary: Item level 1000 (2000 with 100% boost)
• Mythic: Item Level 1500 (3000 at 100% boost)

The quality of your summoned companion also affects the quality of your buff power, giving you an even higher item level (although this is NOT affected by companion buff) and an effect that triggers often when you hit/heal, giving an improvement of 1 value means . , a debuff to your enemy's 1 stat, or a heal that restores a portion of your health and your teammate's health:

• General: 5 item level, Effect: 0.05%
• Uncommon: 50 item level, Effect: 0.5%
• Rare: 150 item level, Effect: 1.5%
• Epic: 300 item level, Effect: 3%
• Legendary: 500 item level, Effect: 5%
• Mythic: 750 item level, Effect: 7.5%

So you can get up to 3750 item levels from your summoned companion, which is nice for regular content, but how does that affect the stats?

Companions give you 85% of their own item level as a combined rating (2550 for all stats on Mythic at 100% boost). That means your own stat percentages drop by up to 1.2% for each stat as you get better and better companions, and that's not really offset by the Buff Power effect if you're playing alone... and that's just a sheer loss in scaled content!

Also, improving your summoned companion's quality will NOT improve their powers' damage output (bye AD and companion upgrade tokens used for testing). Its damage output will increase a bit thanks to the item level achieved, but that's about it: a mythical pet deals just as much damage as a common pet if we neglect item level and stat loss.

However, Augment addons provide 85% of your item level as combined ratings + 15% split across up to 3 stats. Therefore, their overall stat percentages remain unchanged on them. That means they're only good for rebalancing your stats a bit and giving you a bit of item level. Almost dead on scaled content.

So this is another messed up system from Craptic, as each companion should give 100% of their stats as combined ratings, and boosts should also provide stat bonuses in the form of percentages so they aren't completely useless.

comrades in arms

Battle partners are essential in solo content to give you a battle advantage, meaning you increase your damage by your battle advantage percentage as you orbit monsters, and they have blue stripes on their feet (position is key!). They are also usually better than augment plugins in group content.

Companions fight using their own stats. That's hugely disappointing in terms of game design (once again) because it means what you're missing, your partner is missing, too. Need a tank? Your partner cannot be harmed. Do you need more damage? To. want some healings I think that's not bad for a damage dealer, although the healing out will be its lowest stat, but very sad for a low power tank with crits...

Your companion's efficiency depends on your overall item level, stats, and companion boost... But NOT your companion's quality... Which means that everything you gain from leveling up your summoned companion is some level item bonus , some boost (it may be one of your top 10 companions) and lower stat percentages (up to -1.2% on all stats, since companions only grant 85% of their item level as stats and your partner's quality affects the quality of the Your partner's buff power affects what is a completely detrimental stat, so the higher your summoned partner's item level and quality, the more stats they're missing compared to the item level). Therefore, a common companion is almost as efficient as a mythic one in normal content (although the item level achieved is not negligible, especially if your item's overall level is low to begin with). But a common pet is more efficient at scaling content than a mythic one (because stat loss and item level are meaningless there).

if you are a...damage dealer, you can use any partner that deals more damage to further boost your damage.

but if you are onePanzero einsCurator, it's good to have a partner that provides utility (damage reduction, buffs or debuffs).

the healersThey can also use some pretty decent fellow healers to help them out.

Extension Add-Ons

Having an unboosted companion is important for solo play to give you an advantage in battle. But there are places (recent FBI and MSPC bosses, CODG, ToMM) where non-boosted companions can be annoying if they deal too much damage and/or target things that shouldn't be hit, so it might be a good one Idea to have scaling if non-scaling teammates are still an issue (considering the amount of damage we're dealing now, I don't think they'll still be an issue...but you never know.. .).

The best enlargement companion for aCuratoris hePolar Bone Dog(Might, Critical Strike, Awareness). The best enlargement companion for aPanzeris heWatt(Combat Advantage, Defense, Awareness). The best enlargement companion for adamage dealer, but theWattIt is for defense stats tooMini Aparato by Gond(Combat Advantage, Critical Gravity, Accuracy) or theIkosaeder-Ionenstein(Power, Combat Advantage, Critical Hit Rating). theCute dog(Power, Combat Advantage, Defense) is still a very solid option.

power of improvement

Enhancement powers increase one of your stats for 15 seconds, decrease one of your enemy's stats for 15 seconds, or heal some of your HP and your partner's HP for 5 seconds (Redemption). With the exception of revive (which is triggered by healing friends), most buffs are triggered by hitting enemies. The chance of activating the force is quite high.

The value of the buff/debuff or HP healed depends on itQuality of your summoned partner(not the quality of the partner you have this power on, nor amplification):

• General: 5 item level, Effect: 0.05%
• Uncommon: 50 item level, Effect: 0.5%
• Rare: 150 item level, Effect: 1.5%
• Epic: 300 item level, Effect: 3%
• Legendary: 500 item level, Effect: 5%
• Mythic: 750 item level, Effect: 7.5%

The problem is that buff power doesn't give you combo ratings, so with a mythic power you're effectively losing 0.75% on each stat for a 7.5% gain on one stat when the buff kicks in. (either heals or weakens). ...which is detrimental to their overall stat percentages (but can be positive for damage output or mitigation depending on the stat). Debuffs are much better than buffs because they affect the whole party while buffs are personal.

In solo content,repaymentHealing a portion of your and your partner's HP over 5 seconds is great when you need it.

For group contentarmor breach, which lowers the defense of enemies is the best!deadened senses, which lowers enemies' consciousness (yes, below 0%) is another option if you don't have an Armor Break (there are cases where Dulled Senses can work better than Armor Break, especially if your combat advantage is low or you're fighting against opponents with high armor decay). Awareness in PVP, but much less practical than Armor Break).vulnerabilityIt's okay to reduce enemy crit avoidance (even below 0%) if most of the people in the party have high crits.

If you are (rich enough).Curator, otherwise you can boost your own healing starting withrevitalize(comes from the Golden Bulette Pup). Or for much cheaper your power (and that's better for improving power if your outgoing healing is higher than your power to begin with).perfomance.

if you are a...Panzer, you can usesharpened instinctsto raise your awareness, orattachmentto increase your defense. Another way to help the group as well isweapon breakageto decrease the critical severity of enemies.

equip forces

The companion bonuses are pretty much the only positive things in the game with team bonuses and set elements. They grant as many combined ratings as your item level (meaning their overall stat percentages remain unchanged) and grant percentage bonuses on top of that!

The item level and efficiency of your powers depend solely on the quality of your partner with that power (unlike augment power, which only depends on your summoned partner). It's not affected by boosts, and most powers grant a certain number of stat percentages (some have different effects, like increasing damage to a specific monster type by up to 11%, or dealing direct damage under certain conditions):

• Common: 5 item level, total stat bonuses: +0.05%
• Uncommon: 50 item level, Total stat bonuses: +0.5%
• Rare: 150 Item Level, Total Stat Boosts: +1.5%
• Epic: Item Level 300, Total Stat Boosts: +3%
• Legendary: 500 Item Level, Overall Stat Bonuses: +5%
• Mythic: 750 item level, Overall stat bonus: +7.5%

Here are some of the “best team skills”. Other options may or may not be good or better depending on your build and what you are fighting.

companion forPanzer

Best team forces:

• Browns: 3.75% Awareness/3.75% Defense (+25% to Bonus% with Catti-Brie/Drizzt/Regis/Wulfgar equipped, up to 7.5% Awareness/7.5% Defense with five, though only Regis is good to have as a tank)
• Registration: 3.75% Deflection / 3.75% Gravity Deflection (+25% Bonus % with Bruenor/Catti-Brie/Drizzt/Wulfgar equipped, up to 7.5% Deflection / 7.5% Gravity Deflection with all five, though only Bruenor good to have is a tank)
• golden deep raven: 7.5% Knowledge (very expensive, comes from the Zen Market in a limited-time 9.8k Zen Pack that drops a random pet)
• Frost mimic: 3.75% Awareness / 3.75% Defense
• fighting dog: 3.75% Awareness / 3.75% Defense
• father die: 7.5% defense

Other options :

• Chicken: movement speed bonus for you and damage debuff for your attacker when taking damage over 25% of your HP; for 10 s, once every 30 s
• Renegade Evoker - Chance to be hit to damage nearby enemies
• Myconid: 3.75% Awareness / 3.75% Critical Evasion
• Dragonborn Brawler: 3.75% Awareness / 3.75% Deviation
• Sehanine Moonbow Priestess: 3.75% Awareness / 3.75% Block Chance
• Lizardfolk Shaman: 3.75% Awareness / 3.75% Incoming Healing
• Harper Bard: 3.75% Consciousness / 3.75% HP
• Skeleton: 3.75% Defense / 3.75% Critical Evasion
• Makos: 3.75% Defense / 3.75% Block Chance
• Werewolf: 3.75% Defense / 3.75% Healing Received
• Duergar Guard: 7.5% critical dodge
• Blink Dog: 3.75% Critical Avoidance / 3.75% Block Chance
• Black Ice Prospector – 3.75% Critical Evasion / 3.75% Deflection Chance
• Goldfish: 3.75% Critical Evasion / 3.75% Incoming Healing
• Deva Champion: 3.75% Critical Avoidance / 3.75% Healing Incoming
• Citadel Vanguard: 3.75% Critical Avoidance / HP
• Watler: 7.5% chance to deflect
• Kelemvor's Acolyte: 3.75% Defense / 3.75% Healing Received

companion forthe healers

Best team forces:

• Deepcrow Hatchling: 7.5% performance
• Alpha-Build: 7.5% Power (doubled on Chult)
• Golden Meatball Puppy: 7.5% Healing Out (very expensive, comes from the Zen Market in a limited-time 9.8k Zen Pack that drops a random pet)
• Polar Bone Dog: 3.75% Healing Out / 3.75% Defense
• Neverland guard: 3.75% outgoing healing / 3.75% consciousness
• quickling: 3.75% Healing Out / 3.75% Critical Chance

Other options :

• Spirit: 3.75% Potency / 3.75% Critical Chance
• Kenku Archer: 3.75% Potency / 3.75% Critical Gravity
• Bard: 3.75% Power / 3.75% Consciousness
• Drizzle: 3.75% Critical Strike / 3.75% Critical Gravity (+25% to Bonus % with Bruenor/Catti-Brie/Regis/Wulfgar equipped, up to 7.5% Critical Strike / 7.5% Critical Gravity with all five, but only Bruenor, if you want to be more tanky, he's good to have as a healer)
• Bruenor: 3.75% Consciousness/3.75% Defense (+25% Bonus % with Catti-Brie/Drizzt/Regis/Wulfgar equipped, up to 7.5% Consciousness/7.5% Defense with all five, although only Having Drizzt good is healer)
• Frost Mimic: 3.75% Awareness / 3.75% Defense (if you need defense stats)
• Warhound: 3.75% Awareness / 3.75% Defense (if you need defense stats)
• Vallenha's Elite Soldier: 2.5% Healing Outgoing / 2.5% Awareness / 22% Bonus Damage vs. Avernus Devils

companion fordamage dealer

Best team forces:

• drizzle: 3.75% Critical Strike / 3.75% Critical Gravity (+25% to Bonus % Bruenor/Catti-Brie/Regis/Wulfgar equipped, up to 7.5% Critical Strike / 7.5% Critical Gravity of damage with all five, but only with Wulfgar, and Bruenor if you want more tanks it's good to have him as a damage dealer)
• Wulfgar: 3.75% Accuracy / 3.75% Combat Advantage (+25% to Bonus % with Bruenor/Catti-Brie/Drizzt/Regis equipped, up to 7.5% Accuracy / 7.5% Combat Advantage with all five, although only Drizzt and Bruenor if you want more tanks it's good to have him as damage dealer)
• Staldorf: 7.5% combat advantage
• golden cat: 7.5% Combat Advantage (very expensive, comes from the Zen Market in a limited-time 9.8k Zen Pack that drops a random companion)
• Deepcrow Hatchling: 7.5% performance
• Alpha-Build: 7.5% Power (doubled on Chult)
• Drums: 11% additional damage against bosses

More Options (Statistics):

• Bruenor: 3.75% Consciousness/3.75% Defense (+25% Bonus % with Catti-Brie/Drizzt/Regis/Wulfgar equipped, up to 7.5% Consciousness/7.5% Defense with all five, although only Drizzt and Wulgar are good damage dealers)
• Frost Mimic: 3.75% Awareness / 3.75% Defense (if you need defense stats)
• Warhound: 3.75% Awareness / 3.75% Defense (if you need defense stats)
• Intelligence Devourer: 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Awareness
• Dragonborn Raider: 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Awareness
• Flaming Skull: 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Defense
• Man-at-Arms: 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Defense
• Laughing Skull: 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Defense
• Barbarian Shaman - 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Potency
• Mercenary: 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Potency
• Phase Spide: 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Critical Chance
• Alchemical Experimenter: 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Critical Chance
• Dancing Blade: 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Critical Gravity
• Mystagogue: 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Critical Gravity
• Book Imp - 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Accuracy
• Fallen Redeemed: 3.75% Combat Advantage / 3.75% Accuracy
• Spirit: 3.75% Potency / 3.75% Critical Chance
• Kenku Archer: 3.75% Potency / 3.75% Critical Gravity
• Black Dragon Ion Stone: 7.5% Critical Strike
• Flame Spirit: 3.75% Critical Chance / 3.75% Accuracy
• Red Slaad: 3.75% Critical Gravity / 3.75% Accuracy
• Drake Slayer: 3.75% Critical Gravity / 3.75% Accuracy
• Cambion Magus: 3.75% Critical Gravity / 3.75% Accuracy

Other options (additional damage):

• Cold Iron Warrior: 11% bonus damage against Fey creatures (does it work on Sharandar?)
• Vallenhas Elite soldier: 2.5% Healing Out / 2.5% Awareness / 22% Bonus Damage against Avernus Devils (yes, that's too much damage, albeit very situational)
• Steadfast Golden Lion - 50% chance to use the companion's power to gain a 7.5% damage bonus for 10 seconds (the problem is that it's 7.5% of the damage dealt after taking into account the enemy's stats were...and the enemy reduces damage a second time) stats...yeah, that's screwed up...so effective that you only deal 5% more damage when you have the buff, which averages between 2 , 5% and 3.33% bonus damage means depending on how often your summoned partner attacks. ).
• Netherese Arcanist: 11% bonus damage against targets you have combat advantage against (no need to be behind them, contrary to what is written...). Note that this suffers heavily from a 1 second internal cooldown, meaning it's not good for area of ​​effect situations (it will only hit one target) and basically halves the damage if you hit it twice attack per second (because it won). not trigger on every hit). In addition, it inflicts another hit, affected a second time by Defense and Aim Deflection, making its effective damage done less than 7.33% (6.7% at 70% accuracy, 6.3% at 50% accuracy) . So it's only good if you have low attack speed (very bad for rogues, barbarians, rangers...) and only in single target situations.

I had high expectations for the powers below, but it seems like the damage is calculated based on your damage stat and definitely not the normal damage formula. So neither its stats nor its bonus damage affect it (so if tapped at 150 power, it effectively deals 1.5x its stat damage, the damage is reduced by the target's defenses, and it can be deflected but it doesn't benefit from its power bonuses or damage done, they don't crit, they don't benefit from combat advantage...) ...which means they're very overwhelming and very deceptive... Craptic™ has struck again. ..

• Grung: 10% chance on critical hit to deal a total of 0.9x your stat damage (reduced by enemy stats) over 10 seconds (0.09x your stat damage per second).
• Snow Leopard: 10% chance on critical hit to deal damage over 10 seconds
• Rat Pup: 30% chance to cause bleeding on encounter (damage over time over 5 seconds)
• Vicious Dire Wolf: 10% chance to deal additional damage and interrupt your target
• Death Slaad – 10% chance to deal damage over time (stacks 5 times then explodes)
• Manticore: 10% chance on critical hit to knock down your target and deal additional damage
• Xuna: 10% chance to deal additional damage at will.
• Aranea: 10% chance to deal additional damage
• Black Death Scorpion - 10% chance to deal extra damage (poison?)
• War Boar: 10% chance to use at will to deal damage over time
• Tomb Spider – 10% chance on encounter cast to deal damage over time for 5 seconds
• Astral Deva: 10% chance to heal players and teammates on hit
• Remorhaz: 5% chance to deal additional damage over time

Companion Update

The best way to upgrade your companions is by using Companion Upgrade Tokens. You can get them for free in Dungeons, Juma Bags, and some events. You can buy them for 3 Tarmalune Trade Bars each (2 during a sale, these are obtained by opening Lockers). You can also wait for a sale on the ZEN market (you can also get 25% coupons from time to time by summoning your god) and buy additional upgrade packs (that's 75 tokens for 375,000 AD if there aren't any Sale there provided you can trade AD for Zen).

If there are no offers in the Zen Market, a supplemental Upgrade Token will cost the equivalent of 5,000 AD. With a -20% coupon, the tokens cost the equivalent of 4000 AD. With a -25% coupon, the tokens cost the equivalent of 3750 AD. With a -30% sale, tokens cost the equivalent of 3500 AD.

• Common (grey) to Uncommon (green): 30 tokens or 50,000 AD - always use AD (you'd be wasting 20 tokens for nothing).
• Uncommon (Green) to Rare (Blue): 60 tokens or 250,000 AD – Use tokens to save at least 10,000 AD.
• Rare (Blue) to Epic (Purple): 90 Tokens or 500,000 AD: Use tokens to save at least 140,000 AD.
• Epic (Purple) to Legendary (Orange): 120 tokens or 1M AD: Use tokens to save at least 520,000 AD.
• Legendary (Orange) to Mythic (Teal): 150 tokens or 1.5 million AD – Use tokens to save your home, organs and family.

It's not worth upgrading an uncommon companion this way. But it's still worth upgrading a follower from Rare to Epic (unless you want to save time and Zen, which is totally understandable considering how long it takes to switch AD to Zen...) .

So this is a completely dumb system where tokens are valued between 1667 and 10,000 AD depending on the quality of the follower you are upgrading. If the developers applied some logic and wanted people to use AD more often, the AD price would always be 5,000 AD per token. Even then, it would be more interesting to buy tokens in the Zen Market with coupons or during the sale... But it would be much less cheating to use AD to upgrade a companion to the highest qualities...

Additional equipment

Companion gear is just another type of gear, designed solely to give you an item level (great on normal content, useless on scaled content) and to align your stats with those that are most useful to you.

Their main attribute are rune stones (impeccable) that you can place on them. So you pretty much need Double Offense Side Gear (which are all Epic quality as far as I know) if you want to take full advantage of it.

Considering that there are only 5 of the 12 epic addon teams from the rewards in Sharandar that have double attack slots and the chance of getting an epic is about 1 in 40. I take an average of 288 rewards (144 days). on a single character) to get 3 of the Dual Attack Supplemental Gear. On the other hand, it takes 12 days to complete the Stardock quest line in Undermountain to get a guaranteed double attack partner team with the value of your choice... The only downside of the Stardock quest line is that you can only do it once per character can complete . (But the supplemental gear is linked to the account and can be shared with your other characters). I'm pretty sure Stardock Expeditions have a much better drop rate to begin with.

Runensteine

Most runestones are the same as individual stat enchantments, except they are twice as effective at balancing your stats. But some of them are way more interesting than just balancing your stats. Here's what they do at rank 15 (give 200 level items each, same as enchantments):

Attack slots only:

• Indomitable: Increases your partner's damage by 20% (can stack up to +120% of your partner's damage with your partner's current gear, does not increase your damage but is strong enough), -0.04% to all your stats.

Only in defense slots:

• Sereno: When your partner is hit by an attack, your partner has a 5% chance to gain 10% HP, -0.04% on all your stats.

In one of the slots:

• empowered: attack : +0.56% power ; in defense: +2400 HP; -0.04% on all your stats.
• Rethink: in attack : +0.56% accuracy ; in defense: +0.56% awareness; -0.04% on all your stats.
• Enigmatic: attacking : +0.56% combat advantage ; on defense: +0.56% critical dodge; -0.04% on all your stats.
• Desecrate: in attack : +0.56% critical hit ; on defense: +0.56% defense; -0.04% on all your stats.
• your back: on attack: +0.56% critical severity; on defense: +0.56% deflection; -0.04% on all your stats.

Indomitable Runestonesthey are simply the best.SerenoThey're pretty much useless as your partner is usually pretty tanky to begin with and will automatically revive in a few seconds after death anyway. Other runestones are pretty lackluster, as are the stat enchantments.

Binding Runestones

Binding Runestones are now obsolete and can be exchanged for (tons of) AD at the barter vendor in the Protector's Enclave.