Companion Healing too Weak Now

I understand your concern.  As per:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8622525#edit8622525

they made these changes because they were in fact too powerful.  This being an MMO the game shouldn't play itself which is what companions where practically allowing you to do.  Are these changes permanent no, I'm sure they may make further adjustments as needed, its not set in stone.

Yes as you increase their influence level they will heal, tank or dps better which was the original intent.  It would probably be best to go the following forum section:

http://www.swtor.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=255

You'll find at least one or two threads discussing the issue.  This would be the best place to provide constructive feedback with everyone else to help determine how better to make adjustments in the future.  More then likely this is where they will look to see player feedback plus use any game gathering data they get.

As I am not subbed, I can't use the main forum. This is the only avenue open to me at this point. However, the problem is that they were too powerful at higher influences or presence not in all cases.

None of my companions were above rank 10, and I have only a few presence bonuses. I still died while they were "overpowered". In fact, because of level sync I died more frequently than I did before the expansion. However, it was less of a setback then and more just a minor inconvenience to die. at that point, it wasn't draining to finish a mission or to try to get where I was going. Also, the extra healing was offset in my case by the lag I got since the expansion. I needed all of that just to stay alive long enough to take on mobs myself, which I still had to do. I would also like to add that my companions were perfectly capable of dying and periodically did so.

I won't discount the experiences of others. clearly the game was playing it self for some people. However, this was not the case for everyone, yet the nerf affected everyone and affected all influence and presence levels. I can see wanting to leave some challenge for those that wish to be challenged by anything and everything they come across, but I play games for a diversion not a challenge. Once the game becomes a chore, it stops serving it's purpose, especially when the challenge is more tedium than strategy.

I think the issue with dying is the fact that you pulled 4 golds, which, if I parsed your sentence correctly, was a mistake?  The heroic 2s were toned down so there should not be any groups of 4 golds.  They may very well be slower, require more tactical pulls, different specs, companion stances, leveling your companion's influence, etc., which you may find not worth your time, but they should still be manageable.  As mentioned, I'm sure there will be some fine-tuning, but I would not count on a significant amount (imo).  I would see if you can cope with the changes with some changes of your own, and if you're still not finding it fun, evaluate from that point (again, my opinion).

The healing companions will scale up further as you rank them up. You mentioned yours is currently only level 9.

While I know this isn't the answer you're likely to be looking for, newer characters are getting their companions to around rank 20 by the time they're on alderaan - which means that companion you were running with is not yet as high as the current system would have leveled it. 

What this means, since they did not increase the rep we had with older companions - the companions I had at max reputation and were with level 60 characters are at rank 10 affection and need either gifted to be on par with the companion a newer character leveling through would have, or I need to run flashpoints, weeklies etc that I know give affection with the companions I want to use. 

Thank you for your responses.

You are correct about dying, thegodofchuck. I brought it up just to comment on the end result. What actually frustrated me was how long it took to get through mobs that had no relation to the objective. They were simply in the way. I was already many mobs into the heroic and feeling the strain by the time I died, and I was less than a third of a way through the irrelevant mobs. It was the killik hive heroics. Dying was simply the final straw that forced me to ask for help. I'm a firm believer that when the game gives you more stress than it relieves, something is wrong. Lately SWTOR has being doing just that.

Regarding adjusting and compensating, however, I did. That is how I was able to get deep enough into the heroic to get attacked by 4 gold mobs. Yes the heroics can be managed, but I am not getting enough fun back out of it to justify the adjustments it takes to do it, and it doesn't look good for that changing. Combat is merely a means to an end for me, not the fun part of the game. If it becomes the only viable way to do anything else in the game, then I have nothing left to keep me interested in the game aside from speaking to the players I've grown accustomed to speaking to.

As excited as I was for the new story and the promise to shift in the story direction more in the future, I'm not going to strain myself just to hang around long enough to see it. It feels like the game is changing to increasingly force me to play only one certain way which I'm only going to struggle so hard to do. If it only leaves me with options I don't want to deal with then there is no reason to hang around. I will wait and see what happens, but at is stands. It looks like I will be spending less and less time in SWTOR and I will hold back on subscribing like I had wanted to. I was eager to see KOTFE but oh well.

tl;dr It's not dying or whether I can finish heroics solo that concerns me. What concerns me is that I can't personally justify spending that kind of effort on gameplay that isn't fun for me and the game feels as though it is increasingly narrowing down to gameplay I find grating.

Regarding companions, that is just unfortunate that we did not get boosted if the leveling system would have us farther along than we are now. This sadly starts to look like poor planning. However, getting companion gifts means struggling to do what is grating me or spend up what precious credits I have left over from when I could make money decently well. It feels like telling the system you can't see and getting the response to rub sandpaper on your eyes to clear your vision. I'm not saying you are wrong. It's just that this system is going to make me hate the game more before it makes me love it more.

I've been running heroics with a level 19 influence companion and so far I've solo'd all heroics I've tried.  I'm not done yet, going to go through them all but I've done these heroics so far:

Korriban, Ilum, Corellia, Dromund Kaas, Voss, Belsavis

Working on Makeb right now, so far so good, died a few times but it's been soloable still.

Also as far as the nerf to companions, they did nerf a lot but as stated before I'm sure further changes will be made, it's all about looking at data and feedback and unfortunately may be a few tweaks to get it right.  Companions should be strong to help you clear content, but they shouldn't outclass you as a player and do far better tank, heals or damage then you.

They should compliment you to where you can do the content without too much difficulty not completely dominate which is what they were doing before the nerf.

Out of curiosity do you have presence buffs? I've only completed two class stories and I've only found a few datacrons per most planets and they usually aren't the presence ones.

My companion actually did complement me before the nerf. That is actually my issue. To say they dominate does not take into account that not everyone had that issue. It only performed me in some respects and half of that was due to my inconsistent lag. I still had to work for those battles. Yet, even with lag, I could still keep us alive even when I had HK set to DPS mode so it's not like only overpowered healing could do that. When I felt like it, I would switch to DPS and let HK out DPS me while I kept him healed. When I felt like it, I would switch him to heals and trade roles with him, so I could do the damage while he kept me healed. I had a different experience but not a different nerf and now I'm even more behind because I didn't rush to level influence. The companion is not complementing me now. He is something else I have to drag around.

The problem is not that I think heroics can't be soloed now. I know can solo heroics. The issue is that now I have to carry too much of the load and it just takes too much time. it's not worth the time to solo heroics. It would be one thing if it truly required strategy. I wouldn't like it but it would make some sense at least. However, It mostly just requires taking much more time in the fight and devoting more time to watching the cooldown for your next attack. That's when it starts to feel like my time is being wasted. It's not requiring significantly more thought, it's requiring significantly more attention investment and that's not where I want to devote all my attention.

I understand that they are waiting for data but I am here to say that somehow data like mine is part of the pool too. However, it might get lost as I am not likely to be playing often enough for it to really show up. I don't like playing it the way it is playing now and putting myself through a game that is grating on the hope they change it in my favor just doesn't seem like a good gamble. I use games to waste time in a fun way, not just waste time.

tl;dr: This is my problem, my comps weren't dominating before and they aren't complementing me now. Currently, I have to go through this grind I already don't want to do just to try to get the influence up to hopefully make the rest of the grind more fun to do. That seems like it is more likely to end in a cycle of not fun than it is to get my fun back.

That might work although now I shudder to think what a completely new player goes through. I don't have all companion conversations finished on my characters but I have several. I may not have anywhere near what is possible but I have more than someone just starting out and I actually know how to play the game now. Yikes. I'm pretty sure at this point just rolling back to the way it was is not going to happen but there will definitely need to be adjustments on the lower end the scale.

However, there was one issue that I am unclear on. Part of the reason I did not load up my companions with gifts is that I thought KOTFE was suppose to organically level your influence with missions. Basically, Comp approves or disapproves now you get your influence. Are companion gifts the only real way to get influence up in a reasonable amount of time? If so, they may be able to buy time with companion gift tweaks while they try to try to find the sweet spot with influence and presence.