Funnily enough, out of combat passive regen was something I got on my mind lately.

 

I don't mind the regen ability system, but i find the situation we are now a bit inconvenient, where even being only slightly harmed forces you to use the ability... Even if you plan to travel while or to pause a few sec.

 

So lately I took a look at regen rate and the ability so far it looks like passively we're regenerating 2% every 3 or 4s. Also I noticed that where we actually need to use the whole 15s to "heal2full" a companion, with very low percents, we only need 10s or so for our characters.

 

Personally i think there's room to increase the passive regen rate without harming the overall design of the regen abilities. I think that a steady 1-2% per sec instead of the discrete 2% every 3-4s would improve the pace a bit, without killing the utility of the regen abilities : regenerating after a harsh battle, 30% HP left for ex, would still take a between 45s and 70s to regen without the ability. But the times when you only need to regen 10-15%, travel times/looting times would be able to take care that, speeding up a bit the overall pace.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Altheran

the melee dps often just stands around doing nothing as if they had some targeting computer running in their brain that has lag.

 

Though I'm not talking about efficiency here, just something that would make the experience feel smoother and would make dps companions look a lot more appealing than what they are now, imo the most flawed companion type of them all, by far.

 

I prefer playing tanks and once geared up well enough it's dps companions all the way. Juggernaut and Jaesa have no trouble with Oricon named, and I'm only halfway of a full set of black market. In fact some bosses are significantly easier with dps because they die before I run out of stuns.

I am aware of these "workarounds" but thank you for your input.

 

You're welcome

 

If you're aware of the work arounds and you are still finding yourself sat around after every fight having to regen for yourself and your companion then the game is trying to tell you are under-geared and/ or under-levelled for the content you are trying to clear.

Or, you are just trying to faceroll through combat without paying attention to a proper rotation, use of tactics, use of defensive cool downs, use of consumables.

Or, you are unlucky enough to be trying to level through the content in a poor spec/ companion pairing. Honestly the long slog (all be it nigh on immortal) of levelling in tank spec with a healing companion persuaded me it was DPS spec for all other characters.

 

This is one of the few ways in which the game can incentivise you to play more of the content to earn the credits and/or coms to upgrade your gear, or go as far as to level more characters to get the additional class buffs, heroic moments, presence buff from unlocking companions.

 

On companions, the AI can be a bit of an issue with melee DPS if you are not giving them guidelines on which mob to attack. By default a companion will attack whatever you do (or at least that seems to be my observation), if you are killing the mobs quickly enough (that is while the companion is preparing their attack) they do just stand around in a daze.

1) Direct the companion to attack a different mob from you, this is part and parcel of sending them into attract aggro before you attack.

2) Go into the companions abilities and turn off all abilities that have a cast time.

The only recuperation I don't like is that of the Inquisitor. They start pacing, and if there is a little pebble in the way, the skill gets interrupted. And movement also makes the map transparent.

The only recuperation I don't like is that of the Inquisitor. They start pacing, and if there is a little pebble in the way, the skill gets interrupted. And movement also makes the map transparent.

You can buy different Health recovery animations from the GTN (they are in the toys subsection if I recall). I liked the old Life Day orb from the first Christmas bundles, a nice 'fortune teller' look.

The only recuperation I don't like is that of the Inquisitor. They start pacing, and if there is a little pebble in the way, the skill gets interrupted. And movement also makes the map transparent.

 

I HATE that! I usually get regen items off the CM just because I like them better, but that one is actively obnoxious.