I like to spread the gaming love, which is why I foolishly always play every class in a game. However, as my Knight has officially just received her second companion, I'm curious to know whether or not I SHOULD spread the love with companions. Is it wise to switch them out as you play, giving them each battle time, or is it best to simply pick your favorite and ignore the rest?

its a matter of preference really.

 

if you want to work on affection levels with them you can split them up, but to bypass that you can just give your companions gifts.

 

for me i stick with a companion that will compliment my role, so my operative healer uses kaliyo as a tank, the other companions i just worked up their affection with gifts.

 

the story wont change based on which companion you use

it's really up to your own preference really.

 

Eventhough the story does not change depending on the companion you play with, each companion will react differently in your dialogues. Some will express their approval, other their disgust, one will have a witty retort and the other will be enthusiastic with your actions.

 

from a gameplay point of view, it's really difficult to keep all of your companions' gear up to date. So, especially if you're a beginner, you should pick one companion and travel with him/her/it and gear up a secondary companion "just in case".

One thing you'll want to keep in mind is that depending on your class, some of your story quests may force you to use one or more certain companions, or forbid you from using others. That means if T7's your favorite and Kira's just collecting dust, you might have a tough time when your story forces you to bring Kira (and she's still in her Coruscant-level greens while you're level 30+). So far I've noticed the Jedi Knight and Trooper stories are bad about this. So, either spread the love (which can be expensive) or be prepared to shell out some credits to boost a required companion's gear quickly if the worst happens.

One thing you'll want to keep in mind is that depending on your class, some of your story quests may force you to use one or more certain companions, or forbid you from using others. That means if T7's your favorite and Kira's just collecting dust, you might have a tough time when your story forces you to bring Kira (and she's still in her Coruscant-level greens while you're level 30+). So far I've noticed the Jedi Knight and Trooper stories are bad about this. So, either spread the love (which can be expensive) or be prepared to shell out some credits to boost a required companion's gear quickly if the worst happens.

 

This does happen in the JK story. Instead of spending credits on Kira for one encounter, I died on the first attack, rezzed, called out T7 and finished the fight. Actually, there are two encounters but that worked both times.

One thing you'll want to keep in mind is that depending on your class, some of your story quests may force you to use one or more certain companions, or forbid you from using others. That means if T7's your favorite and Kira's just collecting dust, you might have a tough time when your story forces you to bring Kira (and she's still in her Coruscant-level greens while you're level 30+). So far I've noticed the Jedi Knight and Trooper stories are bad about this. So, either spread the love (which can be expensive) or be prepared to shell out some credits to boost a required companion's gear quickly if the worst happens.

 

This was along the lines of what I was wondering. It seems like, ultimately, there isn't too great a penalty for mostly playing with only one. However, what if affection is low and I don't buy trinkets for them? Do higher level missions fail a lot with low affection?

Edited November 30, 2012 by tylinnara

Is it wise to switch them out as you play, giving them each battle time, or is it best to simply pick your favorite and ignore the rest?

 

it's sound to use mainly one companion - because you need to gear him up to lvl with you.

When you ding 50 - you can up affection of any and each companion with gifts or running dailies and flashpoints

I like to spread the gaming love, which is why I foolishly always play every class in a game. However, as my Knight has officially just received her second companion, I'm curious to know whether or not I SHOULD spread the love with companions. Is it wise to switch them out as you play, giving them each battle time, or is it best to simply pick your favorite and ignore the rest?

 

I personally like to play with one companion. But if I get a companion that makes the strategically is better suited for me [i.e a healer companion] I will switch to that one and just use my favorite during conversations so that my affection gain is with my favorite.

I do however make sure that periodically I pull them out and change their gear. You never know when you will be required to use them for a particularly hard story mission.

However, what if affection is low and I don't buy trinkets for them? Do higher level missions fail a lot with low affection?

 

Affection has nothing to do with fighting performance. It opens up some companion side quests, expands their story background, slightly improves their "gathering" missions performance and crit, etc. You may keep them at affection level 0 the entire time, and won't change your actual combat whatsoever.

 

Companion Affection: What it does and how to get it

IMO, it's not efficient to switch between all companions, as you'll need to update all of their gears... This can take a lot of time.

 

Usually it's best to choose two companions to use. The healer companion is always a useful addition (unless you're healer yourself, in that case it's the tank) and one DPS companion.

Affection level has an impact on two things: crew skill performance, and companion missions.

 

Companions with higher affection level have less chance of failing a crew skill mission, and take less time and have a higher chance of getting a critical success on crafting tasks or crew skill missions.

 

A combination of stage on your class storyline and affection level unlocks companion missions. Most of them are just conversations with them; they reveal interesting stuff about their history, and if you aren't level 50 yet, give a nice XP bonus for zero effort. One companion in every class (usually the first one but not always) also has proper missions that require you to travel to a planet and get into combat.

 

I think it is wise to keep up with all your crew's affection levels as long as you level... but you don't have to use them in combat for that. You can take out a companion for conversations, try to pick answers that he/she will like, and then switch back to your favorite combat comp. Or you can raise their affection exclusively with gifts.

 

As already mentioned, it is best to stick to doing missions with the companion that best suits your playing style, and keep up only with that companion's gear.

The OP also mentioned they are a bit of a completionist, "play[ing] every class in a game". If that's the case, you should know that to completely finish some companions' conversations and questlines, there IS a minimum affection level required to unlock them all and it's not trivial. For example, my Smuggler's melee DPS companion requires more than 8800/10000 affection to get their next quest.

 

I would also recommend that if you have some extra credits, you can immediately push a new companion's affection over 6000 using just buyable gifts, and it only costs about 35k credits (less if you unlock certain Legacy perks). For your first character this is not affordable, but once you have one level 50 character, a couple hours of daily quests is enough to afford that for one new companion on a second character.

Edited November 30, 2012 by CallasPA

One trick that I do with my characters that works really well, is when my combat companion gets close to 10,000 affection (the affection cap), I will stop sending one of my companions on missions and quickly summon them any time I get a quest or turn in a quest. That way my companion that helps me the most in combat still helps me fight all the time, but the affection from doing quests goes to my companions who I want to see all their story conversations.

 

I also go to the fleet companion gift vendor every time I get a new companion and buy my new buddy his favorite level 1 gift until he reaches 6000 affection (It doesn't cost all that much and it really helps toward getting 10,000 affection).

 

If you do those 2 things, you can easily get all your companions to 10,000 affection (except your ship droid - he doesn't respond to quests so don't waste the quest conversations on him) by the time you reach level 50.