What are your top and low tier companions and why

[Vi]

Let's discusss xD

[Mauman]

My tier list based on a combination of use and personality.

Regill - Awesome story, personality, and useful in combat to boot.

Lann - He's not what I thought he would be and he's very powerful. His stats are set that you can stay in Zen Archer and just explode everything or you could diversify him into something with a pet maybe (Druid Drovier buffs are actually pretty good, plus NOBODY in this game naturally has druid spells). I do hate when he uses modern jargon like "awesome" in a medieval setting, but that's just me I suppose.

Greybor - No-nonsense cool dude who's straight to the point whether he's talking to you or in combat. Slayer is simple, but effective.

Ember - despite being horribly non-min maxed (an elf in a charisma casting class....seriously?!), she's pretty good at what she does. Her slumber hex will make her MVP for most early fights.

Camilla - probably the best tank in the game. She can even do some decent damage and has a lot of support utility if you set her up right. Unfortunately her personality can be a bit hard to reconcile with.

Daerun - The walking talking bandage dispenser. Because of his curse he can a little hard to get some use in most combats. Shame they didn't make him divine herbalist with channel/life mystery. Then he would have been the ULTIMATE healer (would have been ridiculous). As for everything else, I admit he grew on me but YMMV. He is a hedonistic ass, but he has hidden depths.

Woljif - ok rogue ok mage. He's essentially neeshka 2.0

Sosiel - Clerics are good. Hard to screw em up. He's just so BORING.

Wenduag - YEEEEESSSSS MMMAAAAAAASSSSSTER. Oh boy, female Igor is here. Mechanics wise she's fine. She's set perfectly for a variety of multi-classes or you can just keep her fighter.

Nenio - I like her class, I hate her school choice and feats. Also her personality grates on me. For the record, I rather liked Jubilost in the first game, but if they were going for something similar here Owlcat failed.

Seelah - also boring. Oh, yeah, she's a paladin.

[Frostfeather]

Originalmente postado por Mauman:

Sosiel - Clerics are good. Hard to screw em up. He's just so BORING.

Seelah - also boring. Oh, yeah, she's a paladin.

Yeah, they're both so incredibly boring it's painful.

Good thing Daeran is interesting so there's a solid Divine caster choice at least.

[XartaX]

Pc obviously the best, but this is about companions:

0. Mercs if you know how to make good builds
1. Arushu. Broken statline (13/22/16/18/14/21 baseline stats on lvl 1, okay)
1.5. Finnean :^)
2. Nenio if you're not a wizard yourself.
3. Wenduag/Lann
4. Daeran is okay as a healbot if that's your thing
5. Regill/mounted Seelah (if you can bear with the pathfinding bugs)
6. Ember (blackened suuuucks, but it's still a witch)
7. Sosiel (medium armor spec??? Still a cleric tho which saves him from the very bottom)
8. Woljif (You should always have a full wiz, which makes his archetype pointless. If you want a rogue go build a knife master merc or something)
9. Camilla.

I haven't played enough with Greybor or the lich companions to really put them anywhere.

[Shadowmail]

Woljif has been my MVP so far. I have a bunch of magic items that support a scorching ray build. He has +7 from items alone for ranged touch attacks, and like 28 spell pen at this point. Also 1d8+5 on any fire damage ring, 1d8 on sneak attacks gloves. I also got crit focus ray and such. He just melts anything with high AC. Sneaking attacking adding onto each rays is nice.

[AzureTheGamerKobold]

Ember is probably the MVP
Wenduag is just trash...
Lann is pretty decent but i tried to kill him soooo
Daeran is a treat, also a really good support but i'm partial to oracle healers
Wolf is just terrible in general i'd rather have a proper MT then what ever he is
Camellia is --- i don't know, she's not bad but she's not good either
Seelah is trying to be a tank but doesn't have the stats for it
Sosiel, seems to want to be a healer but is following the wrong deity for that
Nenio is a riot, and a scroll savant whats not to love?
Regill --- well he's not bad but he's not good either. Also why a gnome? ugg i was excited for hell knights to!

All in all the companions in this one aren't that great mechanically even if they are more tolerable then kingmaker companions. Ember stands out above them but even she would be better as a regular witch, or an elemental witch.

some of this can be fixed with multi-classing or respecing them but out of the gate they aren't all that great sadly.

[Quacksalber]

I must be a weirdo, because I actually like almost all of them, love some and don't hate any of them, so I don't get all the whining. In other games I usually hate at least some and often don't like any, and in some games I end up not bothering with any of the romances on the umpteenth playthrough, as they are either meh or I'm just not interested in/dislike the available options or how the romances are written (e.g. DAI, Deadfire, Kingmaker) - granted I haven't finished any in this so I can't comment on that. My least favourite is Camellia, or however she's spelled, simply because she's just not very pleasant and it's too obvious she's up to something. Nenio is too much like an AI and the elf witch who's not a child but acts like one or something just feels a bit creepy to me.

I love Daeran, Woljiff, Lann, Arueshalae & Regill. Sosiel & Seelah are a tad bland imo but I like them. Bit miffed I can't use Arueshalae b/c it messes up my party on the skill check front. Oh and the dwarf I haven't used much yet b/c he prattled something about getting annoyed if we don't do his mission asap, so idk about him, but he seems both useful and at least somewhat interesting. I didn't recruit Wendaug.

As regards usefulness, Woljiff, Lann and Arueshalae do a ton of damage, and the rest of them seem about equally useful if you've got the hang of how to use them.

[Quacksalber]

Originalmente postado por Shadowmail:

Woljif has been my MVP so far. I have a bunch of magic items that support a scorching ray build. He has +7 from items alone for ranged touch attacks, and like 28 spell pen at this point. Also 1d8+5 on any fire damage ring, 1d8 on sneak attacks gloves. I also got crit focus ray and such. He just melts anything with high AC. Sneaking attacking adding onto each rays is nice.

Yeah I don't get why people think he's bad? I'm in the "pretty clueless" camp, so I doubt I did much if anything to make him OP; I have him dual wielding and he even dishes out high damage with the level 0 ranged spells if he can't get up close, whereas my main does like 2 damage max with them (usually it's 1 or miss) :D

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

100 hours in

S - None, simply because S rank involves min maxing and none of the companions are min maxed to the extreme.

A - Wenduag: give her a vivisectionist dip and keep her a fighter focusing on longbows and she deals insane, reliable, constant damage. Best archer in the game by far.
Arueshalae; less damage than Wenduag overall, but her stats are stellar. Solid, reliable character.
Delamere: Doesn't come with rapid shot so it takes a couple of levels to get her going but, again, tons of damage, undead immunities.
Skeleton Guard (Tank): Exclusive for the Lich mythic path. Essentially the best tank in the game: tower shield, fullplate armor, undead immunities and resistances, if it dies it pops back when you rest at full health, so even when you don't have raise dead it's one less problem during hard fights. It manages to reach 40+ AC shortly after your get it, and later on you can get him whatever from other classes, like cleric for instance (self healing with inflict wounds, divine power and other buffs), as long as he gets magic, he'll be golden. Oh, he also doesn't occupy a slot.

B - Regill: you need to set him up correctly but he's a very durable fighter, gets a lot of attacks and provides some nice utility for hard fights.
Woljif Jefto: solid character, even if you're not supposed to spec him like an Arcane Trickster, there are so friggin many enemies with insane AC that having him dish out sneak attack damage on several ranged touch spells is a real boon, plus the occasional CC early-mid game.
Ember: Utility, healing, CC all in one package. Early game slumber is super useful, late game you can go many different directions with her. You can spec full fire for roleplaying memes (and decent damage), or go full CC and healing, which is where she shines if you don't have a dedicated crowd controller.
Lann: Zen archer is very strong in of itself.
Daeran: Awesome healer. You have to spec him full healer and mid to late game you can add CCs with a second oracle revelation. Do not spec damage with him and you'll be fine, you don't have enough feats to go spell penetration (which is mandatory for non conjurers since a ton of enemies have a high Magic Resistance). You want more channel energy and related healing feats.

C - Nenio: decent overall character, can have fun with super high Phantasmal killer/Weird spells, decent CC, although not as good as a conjurer (the king of CCing). Unfortunately illusion doesn't have many of the cool things you have in the tabletop version of the game.
Greybor: Solid damage, but very, very squishy in melee. You can go ranged handaxes, you get a few good ones relatively early, but there's better and more reliable characters for his role.
Saheela: Your average paladin tank, nothing special at all.
Camellia: a worse ember for the shaman part, a below average fighter. Doesn't really have a role in the party. I guess she's useful when SPOILER Woljif runs away mid game END SPOILER, if you don't have rogues and need a trickery, utility/offhealer character, but again, she's meh.

D- Sosiel: Very boring cleric with a glaive. Can't decide if it wants to be a healer or a reach fighter, he's essentially outclassed in everything by everyone else.
Staunton Vhane: needs a lot of babysitting and buffing in order to be effective, and even in his undead variation it's not worth the hassle.

[Mauman]

A new reason for me to not like Seelah.

She evidently doesn't like Ember and will snap at her. She's done it more than once.

Like, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, even Daerun refuses to do that. Hell, even CAMILLA will just resort to basic annoyance.

I mean, Regill (Seelah's supposedly "evil" counterpart) will sometimes not agree with her words but will admit to admiring her spirit.

[The Silver Santana]

So after some experience, my rankings for the companions are as follows.

Mechanics A Rank: Ember, Nenio, Woljif, Cameilla, Greybor, Daerun (kinduve).

All of these characters are great at what they do. None of them are S rank, however-they all have some flaw. Nenio picked illusion. Woljif should has less INT and more CON, he's a bit too squishy (but HP is somewhat easy to patch over). Cameilla is kinduve going for a bad build to start, given her lack of starting feats to get fencing grace earlier, which makes her harder to use. Daerun isn't making use of his proficiency with weapons or armor, and his curse is the worst one, but he's got a great casting stat. Greybor did two-weapon fighting and picked a non-light weapon to specialize in.

In general, most companions are in a place where they are mildly worse than a merc, if you build them in the right direction. Easily good enough to be viable on the hardest difficulties.

Mechanics B Rank: Regill

Regill has a pretty godawful class combo-his true calling is as something like a bloodrager, and most of what keeps him relevant is that he has fantastic magic item support.

Mechanics C Rank: Sosiel

Oh god why did you waste so many feats you dumb bastard why didn't Owlcat give you high dex and bladed brush why why WHY WHY WHY DID YOU RUIN HIM OWLCAT WHY IT HURTS ME

Sosiel is the only character who is ♥♥♥♥♥♥. He's still playable, because cleric, but he's painfully suboptimal in a ton of different ways, and a better point-buy would fix almost all of them. He still picked a ton of channeling and generic feats, but they at least do something (although, really, he should lose extra channel and get something useful).

If you have half a brain, medium armor focus will never do anything, because he's getting heavy armor ASAP or he's never entering the frontline so AC doesen't matter. You certainly can't make medium armor work for him AC wise.

The incredibly frustrating part is that Sosiel is made for a specific build character wise. He should have a much higher DEX, weapon focus glaive, the bladed brush feat, and lose extra channel and toughness. At that point he's great. But because bladed brush isn't added, a completely in-character build that accomplishes everything he needs fixed is DOA.

It's super, incredibly, violently frustrating. To the point where it really, really should be patched in.

Mechanics S tier (I.E. "Merc -": Arushale , Lann, Wenduag.

They start early. They have excellent stats. Both can easily jump into a great class that makes use of their starting martial class to an excellent degree. Lann in particular is a cleric only held back by domain choices, and you can cheat those with mythic feats (which is a serious cost, but not a crippling one). You could make a better character, but they will both serve excellently.

Arushale needs to be here because her stats are insane. She needs to not be here because she's wasting them on being a ranger. In the end, she's still worth it, but if she came in a few levels earlier so we could MC bard, or maybe came in now if skald worked properly , she would be a monster. Give her 17 levels in sorcerer and she'd be the best companion bar none.

It's worth noting that this is all ignoring that some classes are massively better than others. Woljik does what he does well. But is he the most optimal possible class for what he does? Not really. Several other characters have similar issues. The only one drastically impacted is Rigell, whom has a bad prestige class and a bad base class compared to what the other options could be.

Oh, and a special caveat:

Personality F-- tier: Nenio.

Nenio, science does not work that way. Memory does not work that way. I've known forgetful scientists, I've known brilliant scientists, I've known brilliant forgetful scientists, and you ain't them. The only people who are legitimately as socially awkward as you
are on the autism spectrum, and you aren't. You just suck and are a bad stereotype.

If we had another wizard or good arcane caster, I'd march you into a horde of mariliths.

[Guitarist with Osteoarthritis]

I play the game for the roleplaying aspect and I haven't laughed this much from my companions than I did with Nenio and Daeran. However, grabbing Wenduag hasn't been very beneficial rp-wise because none of her quest stuff pops up, and I think it's because I chose Lann in the beginning. It's a bit disheartening, but I love most of the companions. The succubus companions voice directions seems...... hit and miss, but the speech impediment they have is charming. lol

[RocketMan]

Top tier: undead champion.

Doesn't talk. Doesn't ask for a kiss. Doesn't call me master and stab me in the back.

And he looks darn good in plate.

[Soul]

Wenduag's Romance line gives you legit one of the best feats in the game imo. She basically gives you the ol grom hellscream fel orc blood infusion treatment without the drawbacks.

[D3L]

Originalmente postado por Alm:

Originalmente postado por revan1229:

Seelah makes a solid Bard, excels in most melee DPS classes, and is a very good tank if you dip into Monk and/or Bloodrager (Steelblood).

Seelah is Valerie at home, but we don't really have any other choice. Camellia's too busy sucking balls till 5 and Woljif is on suicide watch until vivi dip at 4. As for tanking, it's usually monk and DD dip. Not really sure about Steelbound, doesn't seem to give much. Compared to primalist with UD at 3. Not sure about bloodrager dip as well, seems like a class that requires a lot of commitment. Also, skald Seelah (BS or CP) is definitely an option.
Lann is the only proper cleric in early game. Except for MC ofc. Without him life is hard on higher difficulties.
Ember's slumber is a game changer at lower levels. Evil eye is just too good to pass by.

skald is not working, so that would be a bad choice