People who ninja for their companions

BioWare needs to add a "Companion" option apparently...that works the same as "disassemble"...that is, gives it a Greed roll, and lets people know what they are after.

Unless your group says "Need for companions", Greed rolling should be the norm. There's an appropriate etiquette, where you DONT need roll for characters that weren't with you when you were in the group...whether it's alts, companions, friends, guildies, etc. You don't do it, plain and simple.

A lot of people don't Need for stuff THEY need without asking permission. Why is it so hard for this community to ask.

In short..Need rolling for your companion characters is Ninja'ing, unless you get expressed permission to do so.

If he helped take the boss down he has a right to have a roll, and as he won the roll you have no right to critisise him for what he does with it.

Just wait for dual specs! More Needing for things people won't use.

Companions are a necessary part of the game until you reach 50th, and they're necessary at that point when you aren't in a Flashpoint or Operation, and are out doing dailies. Companions require upgrades. Ergo, if someone sees an upgrade appropriate for a companion they're going to use, it's a valid "Need" roll.


The existence of companions as vital parts of this game largely invalidates the common sense approach behind the Need Before Greed system to begin with, since as you've not-so-eloquently pointed out, everyone can conceivably need something with "valid" reasoning solely because it would go to a companion with appropriate stat priorities. As a result, I feel this game would more properly benefit from a "Roll/Pass" system. If you want it, you roll for it, if you don't want it, you pass on it. If everyone's rolling, everyone has an equal shot at the drop. Nothing could be more fair. You don't get exclusivity on loot due to being a particular class, even if the drop was meant for that class. You're in a group, they all helped down the boss, they all have an equal right to stake a claim on gear the boss drops.

Put another way: unless the piece of gear in question has a class requirement built into it (and many do), it's not "intended" for a given class, even if its stat allocations lead it to one or two classes over a couple of others. Everyone helped down the boss, everyone has a fair shot at it.


In your eyes, maybe. Their necessity all throughout the leveling process would point to a different reality. Don't push your particular priorities on others. You don't get to determine how another player upgrades their character, of which their companions are a part.

This doesn't solve anything, as "Companion Need" simply becomes the new Greed. It also doesn't give you priority for what is an actual need. Whether some players agree with it or not, companion gear requires regular upgrading for the companion to continue functioning. I'm running around with Jaesa Willsaam right now, and if I don't keep her gear upgraded, then we don't have the combined damage output to kill mobs before they kill us (at least Silver mobs; most of the time I have to use my healer on Gold mobs, as the Marauder just doesn't have the right damage mitigation to survive otherwise). I keep her gear upgraded, and "nearly impossible" fights become "challenging but possible" fights.

A valid perspective, and here's the primary flaw I see with someone treating this game like WoW's loot: in WoW, you didn't immediately equip the gear. You waited til you could get back to a city so you could enchant it and gem it (and more recently, reforge it). In the last guild I was in before my current WoW guild, all of us in leadership set a requirement for someone rolling Need on a BOE item: equip it so it binds to you. We didn't force you to wear it in the instance, as it needed adjustments to be optimal, but we just wanted to make sure we could see it bound to you so the guild's efforts weren't just turning into meaningful pocket cash for one person. Guild members had no issues with this, as we all benefitted greatly from the guild policy of free consumables and enchants/gems to guild members. The rare PUG we pulled in occasionally griped, at which point they were usually ejected. Our guild run, our rules.

This is why a Roll/Pass system makes more sense in light of companions being very viable and realistic upgrade needs, alongside our characters. Sure, we aren't using the companions in that particular Flashpoint. Then again, once we're done in that Flashpoint, we aren't benefitting those people with our upgrade either. Roll/Pass removes the drama and reduces it to what it should have been all along: if you want it, roll for it. You don't need to explain the reason for your roll, and it's no one else's business what you're going to do with something you contributed to get, and won via an impartial distribution system.


It doesn't matter if the companion took part in the instance or not. You, the companion's player, did. You helped contribute to killing the boss, you staked an equal and valid claim to a boss' drop. If someone else in your group gets the item, you no longer benefit from said item once the group is done. They're out there using that upgrade for their own purposes and goals, just as you are when you put it on a companion. It's a valid upgrade if it's for your character, which includes your companions. There's no way around this. You're appealing to a social contract which not every player agrees to, and is ultimately unenforceable. I'm appealing to a reality which results in someone getting loot, which means someone else didn't. Usually, the one who didn't gets upset to a degree equal to how badly they wanted it, but that's not an issue. The issue is simple: someone won the item, and they're going to use it. That's all that matters. It doesn't matter if they're going to vendor it for a couple hundred credits, it doesn't matter if they're equipping it on themselves, it doesn't matter if they're equipping it on a companion, hell, it doesn't even matter if they're sending it to an alt or guild member. They're making use of it in keeping with their personal goals. No other player has a right to tell them what they can or can't do with the loot they won on a fair roll.

Gotta love it when people reduce themselves to name-calling because they can't argue a point. Player characters > companions according to whom? Can you show me something BioWare said that would back up that statement? They're the only authority in this game. Oh, you can't show me where they said something like that? It's because they never have. Gear goes to a player who plans on using it. It's none of your business where or how they plan on using it.

I'd have to say that companion's are part of the gameplay and we'll need to adjust some of the rules of polite behavior to accomodate that.

In other games its really ****** behavior to snag non-class items to auction or breakdown. But here we often have a legitimate need.

We have a team we are responsible for and do need these guys up-to-spec.

You need it for your companion, which you did not even use? That's cool...
I need it for the credits I can sell it for. Credits are a part of my character.

Oh look, it's this thread again.

Again, I reiterate that I am absolutely fine with people asking if it's okay to roll Need on an item so long as no player character in the group needs it. However, none of the people who automatically assume that their companion has equal entitlement to the loot has been able to answer the following question:

Since we all have five companions who can use a wide variety of gear, where do you draw the line between Need and Greed?

This exactly, you will always run into selfish people in PUGs. The only PUG's I do are warzones where there's no loot worry about.

Honestly though I don't know why people get so worked up about it. Good modable gear is extremely easy to get in this game. So's the pvp gear.

Good for him.

Bad argument is bad.