With Khem Val setup, my companion is the tank and I am the DPS.

When I get Ashara who is a dps, I changed my toon into a tank. Of course, I geared up Ashara with the same gear level like mine. I did a lot of quests and elite kills in Taris with her and it was fine.

When I got Talos in Hoth, the healer companion, with me tanking, I realized how slow we killed mobs. But my hp never goes down though.

Mob killings are faster with Ashara but there is downtime after every kill becoz I have to heal myself with Seethe.

So to me, Talos and Ashara is almost the same. It's a matter of preference. And I am choosing Ashara coz it really looks cool when we are both in action.

My only problem with Ashara is she gets negative affection everytime I choose Dark Side choices. But I could easily fix it since I have tons of companion gifts from my Diplomacy skill.

Okay well im currently a lvl37 Hybrid DPS Sorc and i think Ashara is working fine. Yeah in the beginning shes missing half her equipment and a lightsaber making her weaker than your already set Khem and Andro but fit her with some orange blue or purples (for customizations mainly) and shes great. For me i can do crowd control with Force Storm on weaker foes while she picks em off. Also against elites as long as you shield both yourself and and her up it shouldnt be an issue. Again for me its 2dps so we handle things easily.

Hope Talos and Xalek are great companions as well though peraonally i like my togruta and will probably only use those 2 durig heriocs/flashpoints

i'm a 50 and tried to gear up ashara as soon as i took her. total waste of credits. Andronikos Revel does significantly more DPS.

Ash is actually better single target dps than Andro, but Andro is ranged so for fights where enemy mobs have good aoe he is the better choice

a) She does very good damage with 2 lightsabers and updated gear

b) She has a defensive cooldown because every DPS companion has one

c) She's not a tank

d) Inq's get 2 tanks, Khem Val and whatever Squidface is called again

e) You don't need a healer companion neither as Darkness nor Deception nor Madness

On my Sin: Khem for everything except when I need Healing

On my DPS Sorc: Ashara for most everything, Khem for really tough groups, Talos for Story Elites.

I use Ashara for tanking all the time a a corruption spec. She's my default companion!

For difficult fights as I leveled, I just focused on keeping her upright and letting her wear down the opponent.

Trying to use a tank character with a corruption spec SI will just lead you to complete disappointment, imho. You either heal the tank but his DPS is crap...or you end up DPSing and you pull aggro anyway.

If you keep Ashara geared in reasonably close to on-level blues, she'll DPS anything down and reasonably quickly.

Alright so I just got Ashara from Taris and left b4 my client crashed (except it did crash and I had to get a GM to move my character off the planet >.>). I find that she is 100% useless, she cant hold aggro, she does no damage, she has a tank cd which again useless if she cant produce any threat, her AOE slow has such a long cd its not even worth it. Maybe she is somehow good for assassins? As far as sorcerer goes I have so many tools for kiting I dont need her slow I need her to either hold aggro, heal me, cc enemies, or actually do viable damage. Does anyone else agree, or am I just terrible and shes actually amazing if you know how to use her?

maybe you should do a better job at reading her skills and you will realized she is only a DPS companion and not a tank...

Cuz she is a really good DPS comp too, my only problem is deciding if i want her melee dps or revel's ranged dps. If I don't just stick with my healing companion.

I'm tank-spec. I don't need healing as much

you will towards the higher levels trust me, I'm tank spec too

i kinda like the idea of two girls with lightsabers running around shredding stuff, personally. my tank-assin is the hotness!

anyhow, all debate of ash vs. andro aside... i'm more curious about those who run ashara as their main dps companion, what stance seems to work better for you? arpen vs. the bleed stance...

there was lots of discussion on the BH forums that Torian (Ashara's mirror for BH) does a ton of dps in bleed stance, so that is what most people use... but i'm curious if that's the same case with Ashara?

i guess it's time to experiment a bit...

PS i should add, there are those in the BH discussions that will say Gault (Andro mirror) is the higher dps comp compared to Torian (Ashara mirror)...

i kinda like the idea of two girls with lightsabers running around shredding stuff, personally. my tank-assin is the hotness!

 

anyhow, all debate of ash vs. andro aside... i'm more curious about those who run ashara as their main dps companion, what stance seems to work better for you? arpen vs. the bleed stance...

 

there was lots of discussion on the BH forums that Torian (Ashara's mirror for BH) does a ton of dps in bleed stance, so that is what most people use... but i'm curious if that's the same case with Ashara?

 

i guess it's time to experiment a bit...

 

PS i should add, there are those in the BH discussions that will say Gault (Andro mirror) is the higher dps comp compared to Torian (Ashara mirror)...

Torian is different from Ashara. He does almost entirely tech/elemental damage, which already bypasses armor. This is the reason that the armor penetration stance makes no sense on him and people (should) always use the bleed stance.

For Ashara I tried out both stances and didn't notice a big difference between either. I'm guessing it depends on how you gear her, if you focus on Power/Surge use her bleed stance, if you focus on Crit/Surge use her armor penetration stance.

My Ashara is in the level 40 pvp gear and uses the lvl42 pvp lightsbares (with the moda stripped and put into an offhand also).

Shes a mean one. Destroys pretty much everything, Can crit for 1.5-2K.

Its dam impressive.

It isn't her job to hold aggro.

Don't ask companions to do things they aren't designed and you have no cause to make bad generalization like "ashara is useless"

She has a use, a very good one. She can in fact kill champions, quickly and easily with you providing support. I use her to kill level 50 champions all the time as a healer.

In short, if you have a problem with Ashara, the problem isn't her.

THe "problem" with her (or any of the companions, really) isn't specific to the companion - it's that certain classes/specs just aren't suited to having/using certain companions.

I play a tankassin. There's no way I'm going to survive any of the fights on Ilum w/o Talos at my back. I need the healing to survive. Would I like to have Ashzara or Revel with me instead? Sure - but it isn't viable (at least not at my current gear level - maybe once I get into nightmare modes it will be).

If I were a class that could heal, that might be a very different scenario; I don't know. However, if I were a healing Sorcerer, I'd likely have no use for Talos at all, as running with 2 healers isn't exactly stellar either.

I like the companion concept, but I don't see why we need 5 of them. 1 DPS, 1 Tank, 1 Healer would be plenty, and to be honest, they should have set it up so that you pick what role you want your companion to be as soon as you get him/her/it. That way my tankassin didn't have to struggle thru 42levels before getting a healing companion while the healing sorc started with a tank companion at lvl 7.

Torian is different from Ashara. He does almost entirely tech/elemental damage, which already bypasses armor. This is the reason that the armor penetration stance makes no sense on him and people (should) always use the bleed stance.

 

For Ashara I tried out both stances and didn't notice a big difference between either. I'm guessing it depends on how you gear her, if you focus on Power/Surge use her bleed stance, if you focus on Crit/Surge use her armor penetration stance.

That's good info. I forgot about the *type* of damage that Torian dishes out being a key factor. Anyhow, running with Ashara by my side for a bunch last night, she's plenty capable of shredding things in short time once you get her some gear. I set her up with level-appropriate orange gear/mods and she's fine (no pun intended). She's not the AOE machine Andro is, but she shreds single targets pretty dang quickly...

It isn't her job to hold aggro.

Nope... people who think otherwise are being silly. That said, she seems to take aggro just fine... moreso since the AI that runs the companions is horrible at simply assisting you on your target. I'll target something, attack it and pwwwwshhh... Ashara leaps off and attacks something else, prompting me to have to run around to collect the off target that she decided needed to die first... kinda frustrating how the companions can act like BAD PUGs...

I forget where I saw it, but someone did a breakdown of the companions and their dps in different specs against some mob with a lot of hp. It wasnt very exhaustive, he just did 3-4 runs per setup, but a general theme emerged.

Ashara DPS with bleed > Ashara with armor penetration > Andro (in sniper since it was single target) > Khem Val (obviously)

The numbers were close in the grand scheme of things for the DPS options. Ashara with bleed did like 10-15% more dps than Andro in sniper. Everyone was in the same gear...centurion, or tionese or something along those lines. Khem val DPS was something like 50% or 60% of the DPS classes.

All this said, I prefer Khem val as my companion 95% of the time. WHen I need DPS, I use Andro. Why? Because range is great. First of all, AOE isnt a problem. And If a fight is close i can run a circle around andro while he does his cast time abilities for mega damage. I'd like for ashara to be better though. Two lightsabers is pretty sexy....plus, shes supposedly my wife...but im pretty sure I kill her every time I do boarding party.

50 sin here.

From a Deception point of view the healer companion was my bread and butter once i got him. When i Finaly got Xelek I geared him in columi / Champ gear. His dps compined with mine is outstanding. Ashara just can't compare.

In testing, Ashara out dpses Revel on single target.

In 20+ attempts against the same mob with 130k health, Ashara does roughly 13% more dps. ( Yes, I farm mobs for orange drops )

577dps vs 505dps. The gear I have them in is as close to the same as I can get it, the level 51 purple mods from dailies. I could post my numbers on each attempt, but the people who like revel will say it is anecdotal. In my testing with a stopwatch and zero help from me, Ashara does better dps in Exsanguination stance against a single target. On packs, Revel does better, but it is much harder to test.

I forget where I saw it, but someone did a breakdown of the companions and their dps in different specs against some mob with a lot of hp. It wasnt very exhaustive, he just did 3-4 runs per setup, but a general theme emerged.

 

Ashara DPS with bleed > Ashara with armor penetration > Andro (in sniper since it was single target) > Khem Val (obviously)

 

The numbers were close in the grand scheme of things for the DPS options. Ashara with bleed did like 10-15% more dps than Andro in sniper. Everyone was in the same gear...centurion, or tionese or something along those lines. Khem val DPS was something like 50% or 60% of the DPS classes.

 

 

All this said, I prefer Khem val as my companion 95% of the time. WHen I need DPS, I use Andro. Why? Because range is great. First of all, AOE isnt a problem. And If a fight is close i can run a circle around andro while he does his cast time abilities for mega damage. I'd like for ashara to be better though. Two lightsabers is pretty sexy....plus, shes supposedly my wife...but im pretty sure I kill her every time I do boarding party.

That was me, I am up over 20 reps (each companion) now. With the same results.

That was me, I am up over 20 reps (each companion) now. With the same results.

That is excellent info... and is in-line with reports on the BH forums in debates of Gault vs. Torian dps (our companion mirrors).

Just curious... on Ashara do you just stack +power on her to maximize the bleed DoT?

Thanks for doing this!