First of all let me say I am a lvl 50 merc who has done several HM flashpoints and inbetween now and when I first got them I have been very dissapointed with blizz and skadge.

 

My blizz even with good gear and half epics dies incredibly fast. I find it just better to use torian or mako with full epics while doing ilum dailys or w/e. Torian with an epic techstaff that I crafted just tears **** up. Skadge on the other hand just dies too fast and I have to spend more downtime waiting for them to heal up while I never have much down time with torian or mako.

 

Anyone else have any thoughts on our "tank" companions? They just seem to make downtime during trash pulls in dailys/quests take longer to me.

Never tried Blizz, but Skadge sucks hardcore. I can't imagine using him on purpose.

I can agree that Blizz takes too much dmg. I love Skadge however. I've geared him pretty good and he can take a good beating. Not as much as a player tank though, but still good.

I'm a heal merc, so I use him all the time. I can heal him and dps while he holds aggro. Done

lvl 50 heroic q with him solo. He's awesome.

Just to be safe... I assume you are putting them in the proper tank "stance"?

 

Easy mistake when you summon a companion, or switch roles, you might forget to put them in the right role to do the intended job

 

I've done it a few times with Mako and wondered why i'm getting no love on the heals!

i tried using a tanking comp but it's just so much harder than with Mako... tbh i only use Mako now.

They're both pretty invaluable to me, as a healing mercenary. I pretty much have to use one of them to solo harder enemies. I've also used Blizz to duo almost every flashpoint with my BF. He seems pretty awesome to me

Eh? Blizz holds all my tanking gear.. which is a mix of columi/rakata etc etc.. all pretty much 136 epics

 

He is a beast at tanking.

 

Me and my merc buddy... he uses gault I use blizz.. we do ALL the dailies with no problem (and no skipping packs etc) Blizz tanks them just fine. He does take a bit more damage than a player tank; of course. But he still is able to take damage a LOT better than me, and if he actually DOES die.. by the time he's dead most of the pack is dead anyhow.. dismiss and resummon. (I'm DPS spec'd in DPS gear, raid DPS)

 

He actually holds threat pretty well, considering how much DPS I do... His damage mitigation leaves me wanting, though.

I just got Skadge and haven't had a chance to fully gear him yet. But his starting gear is really weak considering I'm supposed to use him to tank on Belsavias. Even in tank stance last night, if I sent him in first and them DPS'd like normal, he'd almost always die or be down to 20% or lower. I actually died once because of how poor he did.

 

Then I tried another strategy. Don't send him in at all, just let him taunt stuff after I pull. That worked a lot better. I took some moderate damage, but he was always able to pull aggro off of me and this helped spread it out a lot more evenly (and reduce downtime).

 

I tried the same strat with Blizz and found that it worked very well. But in neither case did it work better than Mako. Aggro generation is great, damage mitigation is just a bit too low.

I love using Blizz personally. I have specced heals and just send him in and do some dps (starting with a dot and something else with reasonable damage), and when he gets down to half health, I stop dps and heal him back to full and refresh the healing buff on him and go back to dps after that. I take a couple of seconds after combat to refresh anything and then move onto the next group.

 

My only real issue is with elites that self heal. I CAN kill them, but it take forever. Blizz doesn't really get hurt in this case, it's just a matter of our combined dps is pretty poor and their healing can't be interrupted all the time, so it just take a while.

 

Everything else is great. And to be honest, Blizz has no purple gear and has about 14k health. I think it really comes down to your spec and playstyle.

 

Oh, and as a side note...while he does take more damage than a normal player tank, I have found that it actually helps me learn to heal those oh sh*t moments pretty well cos they come up every so often, which means flashpoints are a little easier.

 

Just my two creds anyway.

As a heal spec, I find that Blizz is best when I'm duoing with someone else. (I don't use Skadge at all) Blizz goes in first, gets aggro and I keep him alive while the other player throws damage safe and sound. When I'm soloing, I use Torian. He's easy to gear by taking my most recent cast offs and I plucked a nice puprle staff for him off the trade network. Torian doesn't grab aggro like Blizz can, but a standard pack is just a DPS mow down and elites are CC'd until they're all alone and Torian can get their full attention.

 

But yeah, for solo work, Blizz and Skadge are pretty sub-par.

I have to disagree. As a Bodyguard specced Merc I outfitted Blizz in all DPS gear, and keeping him in tank stance I've been able to solo content 4 or 5 levels over my head. The trick is to keep constant uptime on your heals and buffs and micromanage his targeting so he can hold aggro. It's basically the same way you would use Torian, but with a much easier time holding aggro. He also seems to have more mobility than Torian or Skadge, and I like that a lot. He's probably my favorite BH companion, if a little hard to use at first.

So if I can summarise:

 

i. if you are a Bodyguard/Healing spec, the tank companions are the best for Heroic-level content. Otherwise, you should be able to waltz through more simple content with a properly-geared DPS companion.

 

ii. if you are a DPS spec, the healer companion is optimal, since your gear and her healing will allow you to tank and destroy most opposition fairly easily. Doubt you'll be able to solo a lot of Heroics unless you have very good gear for your companion and above average Presence.

 

Certainly, that's how I managed it back when I was levelling

I lvled to 50 always with Mako, the best companion for Merc in my opinion.

HK-51 its good companion too.

Edited March 4, 2013 by chaosmadness

Tank companions are actually "tanky" at Columi+ level of equipment.

 

My Blizz/Skadge have Rakata/Campaign and they hold their own so well that I do dailies with them as Arsenal because I never get hurt and don't have to worry about them gettin' fried.