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Is there a more useless companion than Lord Scourge?


Lium

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Old thread, I know, but I thought I'd add in my side:

I'm a level 50 guardian, and ever since level 40 when I got him, I love using him. His story is so great, and he can do nice damage. Occasionally he will grab Agro, and that takes some stress off me, so it all works out.

 

Oh, and I'm a tank guardian.

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As in any bioware game, gear matters. I gear my most used companions as I would myself--orange gear and blue mods at a minimum, purple implants, offhand and ear. They all do great. Scourge almost never dies. If he does, I probably do too. Green gear isn't good, whether it be on you or what's provided to the companions.

 

You must be a rich player or know the crafters, cause unless you are talking about level 50 with the mods and the orange gear, then the planets don't give no where nearly enough commendations to even keep your own gear updated, let alone your companions.

 

I am not a crafter, tried it, didn't enjoy it, i lacked the patience for it, all people said, wait until max level, but the point is, is to craft the gear while i level, but to get the good stuff, i need to make 100s of items and by then, they are outdated, it just made it pointless for me to craft.

 

I can pay a reasonable price for mods to put into my moddable gear, but all crafters care about is profit, nothing more, nothing less, so unless they can make triple or quadtriple the costs of the item, they just don't bother.

 

That is the experience i have had in this game with general crafters.

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You must have been lucky then, cause, unless i use Doc, i take MASSIVE damage, thats why it feels like to me that if you don't use a healer companion, you just can't play the game, which makes me feel that bioware outright lied about the companions 'use any of them and not feel weakened by them' i surely do, from experience, its use a healer companion or be extremely weakened.

 

When i was leveling up the guardian, i was passing all the quests that people had trouble with, with no trouble at all with Kira and when it got to the point of getting Doc, the difficulty just got so high, it was use Doc or just die.

are you specced for tanking or DPS? using the proper stance for your spec? you're using all your defensive cds, right? interrupting when needed? killing the weakest mobs in a group first? got stims and/or adrenals? use medpacs? do all quests on a planet to guarantee that you'll be at the very least 2-3 levels higher than the next planet's minimum required level? it's not about being lucky. it's about making use of all your resources, and putting your gameplay knowledge into practice.

 

as far as gearing up goes, if you refuse to craft your own gear, then run flashpoints in your level range. they drop great gear. you can get to level 50 without paying a cent for new gear. the only time i use the GTN to buy gear is to get certain cosmetic looks.

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The agent's Dr. Lokin is a healer companion, but his attacks can't be used in his healing stance, and his heals can't be used in his attacking stance. He is the only companion that works this way. Functionally, he is the worst companion in the game. Edited by Felioats
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As a scoundrel (scrapper), I don't need a healer... with Akaavi Spar (AOE DPS) at my side, we just flatten mobs so fast that they hardly have time to hit us. When I have a heal companion, I tend to blow through more energy and end up recouping anyway at the end of the fight. So the idea that healers are the only option for a dps class is nonsense to me.

 

As for the OP, it seems as though all of the AOE tanks are seen as much squishier than the ranged, single-target tanks. Not really sure why that is, but they seem to be the main source of the complaints...

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As for the OP, it seems as though all of the AOE tanks are seen as much squishier than the ranged, single-target tanks.

 

The melee companions do not have better AoE than the ranged ones, tanks or DPS, and I'm not even sure what give you such an idea. The ranged tanks are generally viewed in a better light because they do take less damage. Especially at the beginning of a fight, any melee enemy has to run up to start hitting a ranged tank whereas a melee tank starts taking it right in the face from the very beginning. They've also go lower comparative damage because they have to spend time running from target to target without getting anything in the way of an appreciable DPS, threat, or survivability increase to compensate.

 

Also, it's generally regarded that the ranged DPS companions have better AoE than the melee ones as well. The ranged companions get a specific AoE stance that lets them spam their AoEs at a much faster rate that that of the melee companions, giving them more out of that. Their single target stance also lets them deal ST damage at a better rate. Assuming you're willing to stance dance your companion based upon what you want him/her doing, you're better served with a ranged DPS companion than a melee one. If you don't really want to bother stance dancing your companion, just go with a melee DPS companion and turn on the only really useful stance (the DoT one).

 

As to the general lack of utility for tank companions, a lot of that comes from the fact that so much a PC tank's survivability depends upon spec, stance, and gear. You don't start getting the gear to be an effective tank until your mid-30s and, even then, unless you're providing the absolute best gear available for your tanking companion, his/her mitigation is still going to be down the tubes. The only thing the tank companions get is a stance that, really, is pretty friggin' terrible. It augments their threat gen even though their damage output is so low that you can pull threat by staring angrily at a target, but provides only 20% shield chance (compared to the 15% + spec + additional armor that the PC stances provide). The only reason that companion tanks are even remotely useful is because they spam the bejeebus out of their taunts. Without those taunts, they would never have aggro. As such, they're pretty much extremely low DPS characters with taunt buttons and generic level survivability. They've got threat, but no real survivability.

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are you specced for tanking or DPS? using the proper stance for your spec? you're using all your defensive cds, right? interrupting when needed? killing the weakest mobs in a group first? got stims and/or adrenals? use medpacs? do all quests on a planet to guarantee that you'll be at the very least 2-3 levels higher than the next planet's minimum required level? it's not about being lucky. it's about making use of all your resources, and putting your gameplay knowledge into practice.

 

as far as gearing up goes, if you refuse to craft your own gear, then run flashpoints in your level range. they drop great gear. you can get to level 50 without paying a cent for new gear. the only time i use the GTN to buy gear is to get certain cosmetic looks.

 

Admittedly sometimes, i miss an interrupt, but i am not on about that and when you say 'do you take out the weak ones first?' sorry, but i tried following that suggestion awhile ago and my companion dies in 2 seconds, while i take out the weaker ones, which leaves me against the strong or the elite and they just out right rip me to pieces.

 

when it comes to crafting, i just HATE it, it just feels like a waste of time, i need to spend hours getting the greens to blues and then they get replaced in 5 levels or so.....such a waste, i don't do crafting to sell, i am not into all that crafting and selling, never see the point.

 

Right now, i really do not see myself getting into the operations or HM phase of the endgame.....i guess i might as well accept that, but it doesn't change the fact that, unless you use the healer companion from a certain point (level 30-35) you will get more and more downtime, or worse....death.

 

When i got Doc, i was like meh......i kept using Kira, loved her personally and attitude, but the combat so stupidly difficult, Kira was dying in 3 seconds against a strong, then i died shortly after when the strong joined in, switched over to Doc, never had any more problems, which caused me to lose out on romancing Kira.......such a pity.

 

Bioware need to sort it out or just remove them all together, because i just feel like alot of the cool companions are wasted, because they can't heal you.

 

I got problems again, when i got to level 50, trying to do the dailies, got as much of the best mods via the GTN (which is very difficult since crafters just don't craft at all, even the ones that love it) and they tend to be quite overpriced, but hey most crafters are greedy anyway, but sadly, i keep getting slaughtered by a group of 3 normals and a strong.

 

I go by everyones' advice and take out the weak ones first, i die......i take out the strong first, the normals kill me....either way i die....so i might as well just enjoy the storylines and just move on to other games..

Edited by JamieKirby
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once you have him end game gear scourge is an absolute beast. The tank companions are very very gear dependent and the catch is you need them tanking the most way before you have the gear to make them shine.

 

or put another way, your tank will be awesome about the time you can solo everything anyways:rak_02:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Answer to thread title- Rusk.

 

My sentinel is 41 and I finished Chapter 2 around 36-37. I love running with Scourge but since I refuse to gear him in Jedi garb the fun is restricted to gray lower level heroics for now. As it is, at this point, with Scourge still in the armor he arrived in, I'd be an idiot with a death wish to have him out with me on Belsavis. It can be safely assumed I've already 'set aside' a certain number of cartel coins for Scourge...

 

So no. He's not useless. He just suffers from the same gear issues as all the other companion tanks, with the added problem of aesthetics dictating that it would be beyond ridiculous to stuff him into Jedi robes (or Trooper armor).

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I don't know where this talk is coming from, my Lord Scourge is fantastic for me. I am a tank so I just set him in his DPS stance and let him go to work while hold aggro. Mob is dead. Repeat.

For me it's just gear-related and my unwillingness to endure constant wipes/shell out for frequent repairs. Once the gear issue is resolved Doc will be spending a lot more time in the medbay :D

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So no. He's not useless. He just suffers from the same gear issues as all the other companion tanks, with the added problem of aesthetics dictating that it would be beyond ridiculous to stuff him into Jedi robes (or Trooper armor).

 

As a dedicated tank myself, I don't particularly need Scourge to take any hits, ever - he's mostly there to add some token DPS when I've got Kira off crit-crafting orange robes (he despises me so he's useless for crew skills) - so I stuck him in light armor. None of the consular robes are perfect for him, but some don't actually look half bad. He also looks good in the Red Reaper chest, if the hood doesn't annoy you too much (sadly it does me).

 

But yeah Rusk is pretty bafflingly useless. Hard to gear, since you can't craft for him or give him hand-me-downs. Inefficient in combat since unlike Kira, none of his abilities synergize with yours. Even his story is ill-fitting, it feels like he took a wrong turn on his way to the Trooper's Chapter I.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm with OP on this. I was filled with excitement when "The Emperor's Wrath" joined my crew! That was all wiped away when a stinking ratattakki dropped him. Seriously - ONE STINKING RATA(whatever) took him out solo. Good job, chief. Emperor's Wrath is really Emperor's Wuss in disguise. That's why he left, because he was found out by the sith and had to flee for his life before the Emperor's Janitor dropped him with a sharp broom handle or something.

 

Now I'm torn between Kira or Sgt Rusk (I'm running as a Guardian). Kira's my girl, and she hasn't let me down yet (a little squishy, but easy on the eyes). Rusk hits hard with his cannon, and he seems to work well with my Guardian. I keep flipping back and forth between the two, wondering who might be the better.

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