Re: Companion Healing too Weak Now

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.

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. 

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.

I'd try figuring out which flashpoints give companion influence, and which other quests you can do that make the companions happy.

The thing that really bothers me about 4.0 is the older players/companions really do not have a competitive way to level up their influence as we've already completed a lot of, if not all of, our companion's conversations. They did nothing to retroactively give those companions an average boost to their influence or do anything to help us since we will not be able to naturally level them through story progression.

Through story progression I have a trooper that is sitting on an influence level 24 or so companion - she didn't gift that companion at all, but I have level 60+ that are running with level 10 companions because there was no influence conversion for those older characters so I'm now stuck having to gift them up.

That all said, I do have all but one of the class perks  and I am sitting at 498 bonus presence at level 65. I have all datacrons and the race bonuses figured into that. 

I was able to solo heroics on an instant 60 with an influence level 1 companion, but it was a horrible struggle and not one I would ever want to repeat. It was doable, the first two had me thinking it was great, me not having too many issues must have meant the scaling would make up for it, the companion nerf wasn't that bad. After the 3rd I didn't want to hit the 4th, I was playing carefully and trying not to over aggro etc. For a new player or someone without all the buffs I have it's going to be a struggle for a lot of things till they find a happy medium for the nerf/buffs.

I may have gifted that companion a little pre 4.0 while the trooper was sitting in limbo at 11 or so. It was my first companion on her and I had a habit of gifting companions just for crafting even with the alts (I think the trooper just finished alderaan and is on to balmora), but I definitely noticed a difference on how fast my companions gained inf beyond that companion. 

I don't remember where Trais falls in the story vs Balmora for pub vs imp at the moment. 

The big problem I saw is the older companions/players are at a bit of a disadvantage regarding getting companion affection up.

That is what's annoying with those who already had rank 9 and 10 companions coming into the xpac, followed by this nerf. I would not doubt for those struggling with the rank 9 or 10 companion on alderaan, if they had a rank 20 they would have a significantly easier time. Older players are just not able to benefit from the pay off the newer players will see with the companions ranking up faster as they have completed all of those conversation paths while leveling already..