26/09/2016

The Companion Comparison: The 'Bog Standard' vs. The Cartel Beasts

Of all the Companions we can get in 4.0, very few are as infamous as the Cartel Companions. These are unique creatures and droids which are for most intents and purposes standard Companions; they can Tank, they can DPS, and they can Heal. They can't be sent out on Crew Skills, but otherwise there's nothing that should be standing out.

I was helping a guildie with their Legacy of the Rakata HM requirement for Dark vs. Light the other day when we turned to discussing Companion Tanks. A third guildie who suggested this Flashpoint as the first was using their Vette to Tank (a crime almost as heinous as making T7 and Scourge Heal) rather than my dedicated Tank Bowdaar.

For those who don't know, when Vette tanks she doesn't 'animate' properly; when leaping she stays frozen in place for a few seconds and then magically teleports. Unfortunately, this also results in grouping-up being much harder since mobs will rush to her previous 'reported' position first and then follow her back.

One such pull led to us commenting on how Bowdaar would have made the pull more convenient, and the first guildie opined that the K'lor'slug would also be a viable option.

According to them, at Influence 50, their K'lor'slug Companion would outperform their own Influence 50 Bowdaar as a Tank. This piqued my interest because unlike the vast majority of Companions, some of the Cartel Companions have no weapon slot whatsoever. While equipment is largely no factor for Companions, a different grade of barrel or hilt will still increase damage readouts in the tooltips (and thus actual damage output as well).

Being the proud owner of an Influence 50 Nexu - I'm quite fond of felines in general - I decided to investigate this further.

Long story short, he's (mostly) absolutely correct.

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For this test, I decided to go through the vast majority of Companion 'types' in their DPS Specs and compare their base damage to damage augmented by a rating (208) barrel or hilt. If I really wanted, I could have continually ripped out the spare 220 hilt and barrels I had and sent them around places, but for the sake of this comparison, I figured that the more easily-accessible (read: substantially cheaper on the GTN) would suffice.

This test is done with the DPS Spec for three reasons. Firstly, it's far easier to tell how damage 'changes' with DPS specs over a Tank Spec. Secondly, all Tech Companions - including the Cartel ones - are bugged in Tank Spec so that their AoE ability is a Force Attack. This means that it only deals 3,531 Damage at Influence 50 compared to a Force Tank's 4,533 Damage. Thirdly, Healing does not change depending on weapon grade and should be even across the board unless Z0-0M enters into proceedings.

Incidentally, the Nexu's Kolto Scan ability is substantially lower than a standard Healer's, as it Heals for 9,388 rather than 12,517.

Anyway, back to Damage comparison.

As it happens, the only Companion 'types' I do not have at Influence 50 are the Electrostaff wielder and the Sentinel (edit: and the Commandos). I don't particularly like the Sentinel (or Commando) characters that we currently do have, so there's a chance that I'll never get one of them up to 50.

I suppose if I really wanted I could go reclaim my favourite Electrostaff-wielder Vector on my Sniper and begin working on his Influence, but given that she romanced him I'd far rather be patient and get that nice long-awaited reunion scene in the main story first.

First, here are the totals for each Companion type using just their base weapons:

Companion
Burst Attack
Periodic Sunder
Execute
AoE
Blaster Pistol
10,187 – 10,222
11,291
18,999 – 19,065
4,493 – 4,508
Blaster Rifle
10,193 – 10,216
11,291
19,011 – 19,054
4,496 – 4,506
Gunslinger
10,199 – 10,245
11,291
19,022 – 19,107
4,498 – 4,518
Lightsaber
10,193 – 10,216
11,291
19,011 – 19,054
4,496 – 4,506
Saberstaff
10,202 – 10,230
11,291
19,028 – 19,079
4,500 – 4,512
Sniper Rifle
10,210 – 10,224
11,291
19,042 – 19,068
4,504 – 4,509
Vibrosword
10,195 – 10,215
11,291
19,014 – 19,051
4,496 – 4,505

Now with (208) rating weapons:

Companion
Burst Attack
Periodic Sunder
Execute
AoE
Blaster Pistol
11,156 – 12,020
11,291
20,804 – 22,414
4,917 – 5,296
Blaster Rifle
11,299 – 11,876
11,291
21,071 – 22,146
4,980 – 5,233
Gunslinger
11,458 – 12,582
11,291
21,367 – 23,460
5,049 – 5,542
Lightsaber
11,299 – 11,876
11,291
21,071 – 22,146
4,980 – 5,233
Saberstaff
11,530 – 12,220
11,291
21,502 – 22,787
5,081 – 5,383
Sniper Rifle
11,703 – 12,048
11,291
21,824 – 22,465
5,157 – 5,308
Vibrosword
11,328 – 11,847
11,291
21,126 – 22,092
4,993 – 5,220

This comparison is interesting in of itself, of course (I find it interesting how blaster rifle and lightsaber Companions deal the exact same damage), but how and where do Companions such as the Nexu fit in all of this?

Companion
Burst Attack
Periodic
Execute
AoE
Nexu
20,295
11,291
22,963
5,430

As you can see, these numbers are higher than the vast majority of standard Companions in nearly every single regard, with only Gunslinger (and presumably Sentinel) besting them somewhere along the line. The only ability which does not outperform the other types even with a 208 hilt/barrel is the Periodic ability, which incidentally is not a Sunder for the Nexu. 

So what does this mean? Not a lot, really. It's just fascinating to see a Companion who can't possibly have their damage augmented beyond increase of Influence deal just so much more damage than its (unaugmented) fellows. 

To say that you need to give an 'actual' fleshed-out Companion a (208) Barrel/Hilt or higher to even stand a chance at competing with a weaponless Cartel Companion just feels so very, very wrong. It's clear that they accounted for the lack of weaponry with Companions such as this, but if they were able to clamp down on all Companions such that weapon grade wouldn't play any role whatsoever in Companion damage as originally intended then this wouldn't even be an issue to begin with. 

As things are, at least we can augment the other Companions to compete better. If every Companion was locked at their base values and the Nexu still ended up doing the same numbers then that really would be messed up. 

5 comments:

  1. I'd be interested to see how the droids do, though I would expect they match their weapon types.

    I suppose the Assault-cannon-wielding comps are a bit exotic (there's 3 that I know of: Rusk, Personal Warbot, and K'krohl)

    While I have the Warbot(Cannon), the T4-1D(Blaster? It's not modeled, and since you can't see the crystal color very well, I haven't looked at what it carries), and the QO-77(twin pistols), I don't currently have the resources to crank any one of them to 50, much less all of them.

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    1. I totally forgot about the Assault Cannon wielders! It really doesn't help their case that the only ones we can all theoretically get on our characters now are K'krohl and the Warbot since Rusk moved to using Sniper Rifles like Aric. Hopefully we'll get a couple more down the line, but I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't.

      Since the rating of damage dealt by the weapons factors into the standard Companions, I, too would expect the Droids to match their archetypes. I think the T4-1D wields the blaster rifle, if memory serves correctly? Regardless, they certainly seem to be quite varied, with the Probe Droid's pistol, ISO and T4's rifles, Warbot's cannon, and Q0's dual-pistols.

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    2. That's a shame that they converted Rusk to Sniper Rifles. I mean, I get that they were previously rarely used, but so were Cannons. And every companion with a weapons change went to Sniper Rifle.

      Not to mention HK-55's "sniper rifle" that looks an awful lot like a blaster rifle, and fails to distiguish between him and -51

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    3. Got a chance to check - T4 uses a Blaster Rifle. Incidentally, Z0-OM uses a Blaster Pistol (uses the RK-7 Starforged model). I haven't paid enough attention to her in combat to see her using it, though, instead of her built-ins.

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    4. Zeeyo's her own case of bizarre as well, though, so even she can't be compared properly to the archetypes.

      Whilst a lot of her abilities are the same, the biggest difference is her Sunder ability. Rather than simply being a periodic debuff, hers is a very hard-hitting cast (maximum 33,228 damage over 4 seconds), but as with all Sunder abilities it does not improve with Weapon rating. However, its cooldown is such that a more traditional Companion can perform two of its Sunder ability in this time and thus have slightly more uptime even if the damage is ultimately lower.

      Indeed, when I recently pit my Influence 50 Zeeyo against the aforementioned Vette (because having Companions duel is a fun way of testing their short-term capabilities), Vette kept on besting her because she couldn't use her Armaments quick enough.

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