This has been mentioned in previous threads but I'll summarize below the case against this particular companion being balanced. In my view it's not just unbalanced, it's an insult to to the very concept of balance.
First of all, I'm going to preface my comments by saying that I'm referring to the Level 30 Bear. This is the best possible Bear available in the game and requires a pure class Druid or Ranger to receive.
Characteristics AB - The Bear has good AB, better than many companions and epic summons. For example it's about 5 higher than the equivalent Badger Companion. Not as good as a PC by a long shot, but good.
Damage - Damage dice 4D6 on 3 attacks. Strength is decent (30 unbuffed) but not outstanding. For comparison, the Pre-Epic Summon Elemental Swarm has an unbuffed 33 STR. It should do good damage. Again, not even remotely close to a PC but better than most companions in non sneak situations. Criticals only on a 20.
DR - This companion only has the base Familiar/Companion DR. NO additional DR.
Feats - Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Knockdown (not Improved). Not sure what it most commonly uses but it has only a few feats at it's disposal.
AC - Base of 31. Sure it can be buffed somewhat but it's way lower than every companion and summon I've ever seen and by a significant amount. It's far lower than the AC the Badger Companion has and he's sporting buckets of DR on top of the Base DR. As a reference, the Pre-Epic Elemental Swarm Summon has an unbuffed AC of 43.
Hitpoints - It has an unbuffed HP of 376. Sounds decent but do the math. It needs a 22 CON and the Toughness feat to reach that. Back those out and you find that this Bear gets a measly 5.5 Hit Points per level. It gets fewer HP per level than a Rogue or Bard! This is baby bear territory. Bears in Brog have 650 HP and they are low epic spawns. A Forstakyrr Cave Bear has almost as many HP as a Level 30 Bear Companion and it's a mid/high teens spawn.
Summary Due to extremely low AC this companion gets hit by more attacks than any other Companion/Summon, even those available at much lower caster levels. In a situation where a normal summon is getting hit by only the top attack, this companion is getting hit by the top 3 attacks. It has only base DR and low HP. Therefore it dies at an astonishing rate. It's far worse than any EMD I've ever seen, and that's available at level 21. I tested the EMD Elemental in the same zones and it was no comparison, the Bear died in the first spawn and the EMD made it through 4 spawns remaining at Uninjured. Recommendations Assuming the team would like to keep the theme intact that this is a damage dealer HP Tank.
1) Leave the AC, AB, DR, and Damage as is.
2) I'd say pump up the base HP to around 700 unbuffed. That might mean adding Epic Toughness on every epic level up from 21 to 30 (+200HP) plus giving it a CON boost of +1 every Epic Level (+10 CON = +150hp). This gives him a chance to remain alive to be healed after most spawns.
3) Give it IKD and have him use it to keep one enemy pinned down. Have you seen the trailer for Revanent? It's a bear for gods sake, it can knock a freaking tree down if it wants. One swat from a bear will knock almost anything down.
4) Give it a good discipline score (it's presently pathetic). Nothing should be knocking a 600lb bear to the ground.
_________________ Tark Hammerfeast - Immovable Object True Greenspan - Bendir's Boy Wonder
I agree. I used the bear in early levels because people told me it was the 'tanky' companion. Only when I tried switching to other companions did I realize how wrong that was. The bear gets gibbed in 2/3 combat rounds consistently despite being a level 25 bear buddy; he dies faster then elemental swarm elementals. Having an AC that low and literally nothing to compensate means he's always going to die. Doubling his HP would change his lifespan from three rounds of eating full attacks to six or seven and thus still make him really useless. I'd say give him oodles of HP and DR (bears are actually pretty well known to shrug off even a .44 and thus they actually make anti-bear sidearms irl) but little regen and no rage, to separate him from the badger. I think giving it the ability to knock stuff down would be a huge misstep and really throw off the whole animal companion 'thing' which is that you basically just have a 'warm body' soaking up attacks and doing some damage, and giving it a knockdown would be crazy stupid good.
Honestly though, I'd propose a total homogenization of the animal companions into either 'fragile and high damage,' or 'ultra-tanky low damage,' so you could just pick what kind of stats/abilities you wanted and then just pick what you thought looked cool as a player; clone the badger's abilities and stats onto all the 'tanky' forms only adjusting base stats a bit (a bit more dex less con for bird, a bit more str less dex for bear) and clone the dire-wolf for the 'dps' companions only adjusting their base stats a bit as was done for the tanky forms.
Because right now it really doesn't feel like there are a whole lot of viable options when it comes to animal buddies if you actually want to go fight things with it.
My druid has a Bear companion, I changed from Dire Wolf to bear after the wolf "died" in RP and I wanted a companion that came from an animal found in Barak Runedar for RP consistency. I'll be honest here and say I greatly regret the decision. Any and everything gets past the Bear's AC, and I personally think that if that isnt changed, no amount of HP will help much, as spawns in Amia are usually 5+ enemies. I'll also be honest and say it rocks against NPC casters, but that is because of a Spell Resistance buff from a level 30 Druid.
_________________ I play: Frums Deedone, the Green Child Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum
My druid has a Bear companion, I changed from Dire Wolf to bear after the wolf "died" in RP and I wanted a companion that came from an animal found in Barak Runedar for RP consistency. I'll be honest here and say I greatly regret the decision. Any and everything gets past the Bear's AC, and I personally think that if that isnt changed, no amount of HP will help much, as spawns in Amia are usually 5+ enemies.
I should also say I think part of the issue is that it feels like Amia is balanced around high AB/fullplate + tower shield PC's with Tumble dump (key word "feels", I dont know if that was the intent when making the NPC enemies, but I did hear from dev team members that it was meant to "make things hard for boss hunters").
The problem with balancing for boss hunters is that you are balancing for powerbuilds with a number of epic items. This makes most PCs and all summons that dont get to the cutting mark of 50 AC/50 AB suffer the consequences of the server having players who will hop servers killing boss after boss.
In my particular case, I dont really need an Animal Companion for my druid that can kill bosses, really. It would be pretty awesome if it could survive ONE Yeti spawn when the PC patrols the mountain IC, tho (not that a pure class druid can reach even 50 AC with epic items, of which he has none =P ).
_________________ I play: Frums Deedone, the Green Child Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum
Joined: 02 Jun 2015 Location: Georgia, United States.
exquisitelyme wrote:
I should also say I think part of the issue is that it feels like Amia is balanced around high AB/fullplate + tower shield PC's with Tumble dump (key word "feels", I dont know if that was the intent when making the NPC enemies, but I did hear from dev team members that it was meant to "make things hard for boss hunters").
The problem with balancing for boss hunters is that you are balancing for powerbuilds with a number of epic items. This makes most PCs and all summons that dont get to the cutting mark of 50 AC/50 AB suffer the consequences of the server having players who will hop servers killing boss after boss.
In my particular case, I dont really need an Animal Companion for my druid that can kill bosses, really. It would be pretty awesome if it could survive ONE Yeti spawn when the PC patrols the mountain IC, tho.
I should also say I think part of the issue is that it feels like Amia is balanced around high AB/fullplate + tower shield PC's with Tumble dump (key word "feels", I dont know if that was the intent when making the NPC enemies, but I did hear from dev team members that it was meant to "make things hard for boss hunters").
The problem with balancing for boss hunters is that you are balancing for powerbuilds with a number of epic items. This makes most PCs and all summons that dont get to the cutting mark of 50 AC/50 AB suffer the consequences of the server having players who will hop servers killing boss after boss.
In my particular case, I dont really need an Animal Companion for my druid that can kill bosses, really. It would be pretty awesome if it could survive ONE Yeti spawn when the PC patrols the mountain IC, tho.
50 AC.. Is nothing, honestly.
Imagine how my 42 AC druid feels having to patrol Grundek Murr with his 37 AC bear =D
Edit: And I do think 50 AC being nothing is very very bad. I know taking a tumble/UMD/discipline class dump is basically mandatory in Amia, but balancing things so that it is HARD for those PCs, makes for basically a slap to the face to anyone who wants to play a pure cleric, druid. ranger, etc. No matter how much your character works on getting items, or even getting a party, you will get absolutely destroyed, lvl 30 Animal Companion included, even with others around. Its the main reason why I actively avoid partying with my druid, I really dont want to be reminded of the liability he is mechanically speaking.
_________________ I play: Frums Deedone, the Green Child Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum
Last edited by exquisitelyme on Thu, Dec 31 2015, 18:35 PM, edited 1 time in total.
Joined: 02 Jun 2015 Location: Georgia, United States.
exquisitelyme wrote:
LibrisMortis_666 wrote:
exquisitelyme wrote:
I should also say I think part of the issue is that it feels like Amia is balanced around high AB/fullplate + tower shield PC's with Tumble dump (key word "feels", I dont know if that was the intent when making the NPC enemies, but I did hear from dev team members that it was meant to "make things hard for boss hunters").
The problem with balancing for boss hunters is that you are balancing for powerbuilds with a number of epic items. This makes most PCs and all summons that dont get to the cutting mark of 50 AC/50 AB suffer the consequences of the server having players who will hop servers killing boss after boss.
In my particular case, I dont really need an Animal Companion for my druid that can kill bosses, really. It would be pretty awesome if it could survive ONE Yeti spawn when the PC patrols the mountain IC, tho.
50 AC.. Is nothing, honestly.
Imagine how my 42 AC druid feels having to patrol Grundek Murr with his 37 AC bear =D
In my particular case, I dont really need an Animal Companion for my druid that can kill bosses, really. It would be pretty awesome if it could survive ONE Yeti spawn when the PC patrols the mountain IC, tho (not that a pure class druid can reach even 50 AC with epic items, of which he has none =P ).
Really think the badger stats/abilities just need to be copy/pasted onto the bear and any other companion desired 'tanky' until an actual balance pass happens.
I actually really liked having an animal companion larger then my character. But I can't because it's more important to have an animal that doesn't die in one or two spawns.
One thought I had now, and something I've seen done in other servers, is completely remove the stupid "feed your animal companions some non-existing meat to heal it fully". It makes no sense, and maybe it could be considered by the developers when buffing them (if buffed they shall be). Giving them a little more survivability at the cost of even more consumables may help?
_________________ I play: Frums Deedone, the Green Child Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum
One of the advantages of any companion is the ability to heal them between spawns. It's going to be balanced for that since the frequency is mechanically unrestricted. If anyone isn't taking advantage of that they should be. There's no reason a companion should be charging into a melee at injured.
I guess I disagree with the argument that no amount of HP is sufficient and only more AC is a feasible solution.
Doubling HP isn't going to double the duration the companion lives in melee, because during all those extra rounds you and your party are killing spawned creatures so the damage absorbed per round keeps going down every round. You take the most damage from the spawn in round 1. By round 5 the damage taken should be far far less. So doubling HP more than doubles the time the companion survives and as long as it survives the spawn as noted above it can be healed without using your heal and mass heal spellslots.
The addition of IKD also ensures that it's going to generally be able to pin down one enemy, further reducing the damage taken every round compared to what happens today.
Personally I like varied companions with themes. A cookie cutter approach doesn't hold much appeal IMO.
_________________ Tark Hammerfeast - Immovable Object True Greenspan - Bendir's Boy Wonder
One of the advantages of any companion is the ability to heal them between spawns. It's going to be balanced for that since the frequency is mechanically unrestricted. If anyone isn't taking advantage of that they should be. There's no reason a companion should be charging into a melee at injured.
I guess I disagree with the argument that no amount of HP is sufficient and only more AC is a feasible solution.
Doubling HP isn't going to double the duration the companion lives in melee, because during all those extra rounds you and your party are killing spawned creatures so the damage absorbed per round keeps going down every round. You take the most damage from the spawn in round 1. By round 5 the damage taken should be far far less. So doubling HP more than doubles the time the companion survives and as long as it survives the spawn as noted above it can be healed without using your heal and mass heal spellslots.
The addition of IKD also ensures that it's going to generally be able to pin down one enemy, further reducing the damage taken every round compared to what happens today.
Personally I like varied companions with themes. A cookie cutter approach doesn't hold much appeal IMO.
I dont completely disagree on the more HP thing, Maglorine, I only dont think it is going to make the biggest difference because of how the AI works. In my example with the Yeti, even if I ask the bear to Stand Ground while Oaru rushes in with Premonition up, as soon as it is in range the ranged Yeti all focus him. Playing some other characters with summons (as I said I hardly ever party because I dont powerbuild and all my characters are liabilities mechanically) I can confirm the AI will immediately target the lowest AC in the group. Again in the case of the Yeti, who can eat thru a lvl 30 Premonition + Energy Buffer in no time, I had the bear die as soon as he reached the spawn, as I was trying to cast a Quickened Heal on it!
Maybe if the extra HP gives the bear some Mega Bison HP numbers =)
_________________ I play: Frums Deedone, the Green Child Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum
Heya, sorry for the bump, but could we have any insight from the Dev team regarding this? Is the bear considered ok, not a priority, anything in between?
Thanks!
_________________ I play: Frums Deedone, the Green Child Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum
Would like to know if the "complaint" on the Bear's status sits well with the Dev/DM team, because as much as I would like to keep the bear for RP reasons, I am considering RPing getting a new companion and asking for a 1-xp-delevel to fix my choosing a creature that is really pushover.
_________________ I play: Frums Deedone, the Green Child Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum
It is my last try tho, no offense or aggression meant but if the thread doesnt get a single staff comment in the next days, I will just ask for a replacement of the animal companion, and hope for the best.
Thank you for your time.
_________________ I play: Frums Deedone, the Green Child Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum
You have to be patient. You are barely giving them much time at all to read it over much less comment. The staff have a lot of shit on hand to keep them busy.
Even if they all rushed in here this second, agreed with you, found a good adequate change and declared it going in. It would probably take months to get it coded, etc since it isn't high priority. Just switch out the bear, no one is going to judge you.
You have to be patient. You are barely giving them much time at all to read it over much less comment. The staff have a lot of shit on hand to keep them busy.
Even if they all rushed in here this second, agreed with you, found a good adequate change and declared it going in. It would probably take months to get it coded, etc since it isn't high priority. Just switch out the bear, no one is going to judge you.
Just to clarify further, I was never expecting a "fix" in any workable time window, really. I was only asking for a comment, either "yes, this is an issue" or "no, this is not an issue". That would more than suffice. And I wouldnt mind keeping the bear for months if it was agreed that there is a serious problem with it, because RP. But I see where you are coming from, and will forget about this thread and just request a change.
_________________ I play: Frums Deedone, the Green Child Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum
As long as the 'equalized' companions can actually last through a dungeon (assuming you have a level 25 pal at least), great. Because right now, it's ONLY the badger that can last past a pack or two.
The badger has the Defensive Awareness Feat, so it doesn't melt instantly when you hit a spawn with sneaks. In my opinion EVERY companion should get that feat at 30 (or pick some high epic level). But it's only situationally useful in certain zones. It's not like the badger can't die. I've seen them go down many times, it's just that they actually hung around for a while first.
The Bear's problems on the other hand start every day when it gets out of bed and end 4 rounds into it's first combat of the day.
Speaking of too good. This is too good. When you have level 30 companions who can't get past the first spawn in an epic zone (in a party!) and you've got players with certain builds boasting in other threads that they can solo EVERY BOSS I think we've got bigger balance issues than a certain badger with one good feat.
Lethaux wrote:
Screens or it didn't happen!
The trick is to have about 19 shifter levels + anything :]
_________________ Tark Hammerfeast - Immovable Object True Greenspan - Bendir's Boy Wonder
I just hope whenever a balance change hits I still have a buddy that can live through a dungeon. I mean, you only get one per rest. If he dies, that's it.
I also thought about just perhaps making the level 25 animal pal boost fuckin absolute defensively huge for the people that actually go THAT DEEP into animal friend.
Joined: 22 Jul 2015 Location: Lincolnshire, United Kingdom
I honestly thought this thread said 'Beer Companion' and i was going to jump in and say yay to that! As a slightly flawed ranger build my badger keeps me alive in most areas... but he isn't invincible! I have had him go down a few times on me which normally results in me running away.
By and large though, a bear should last longer.
p.s.... can we have beer companions?
_________________ When it rains, look for rainbows. When it's dark, look for stars.
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