Struggling with companions

[Joe Jinis]

Hello there,

I think I might do something wrong.
The game is supposed to either give us companions fitting in different roles or allowing us to recruit mercenaries.
Mercenaries cost more than a fifth crusade thus aren't an option.

I play a 2 handed dps paladin.
What I expect to find is :
-A good tank
-A good heal
-Ranged DPS

But everyone seems just bad Oo
Seelah : a paladin ( sad :'( ) tank with bad stats.
Camelia : Useless on every aspect, I don't know what to do with her, no damage, no health, no spells, melee, her only utility is disarm traps and open chests.
Amber : A frail caster (using CHA like my 2 paladins, great...) spcialized in fire spells, which 90% of ennemies are resistant to, you know daemons, resist fire + spell resistance...
Nenio : INT caster ( yeah ! ), can launch 3 spells, get resistance fail everytime and then return to uselessness.
Woljif : I hate melee rogues, then I don't take him because it's too much like my own char, but he seems underpowered by his "spell orientation".
Lann : At last a good character even if I don't understand the monk part being totaly useless ( never go to melee ).

Basically every fight is like a "3 vs daemon swarms" sprint run : Send Seelah to melee hoping she won't get two shoted like paper, and do damages with my main + Lann. The 3 other are doing nothing, missing crossbow shots all the time and doing no damage because of /dr 5 or magic resistance.
And my main concern, where are healers? -_- That should be our first companion... right now I'm using all spells on cure light wound and all my money on potions.... great job !

Every single fight is like Ragnarokk and requires often to reload because of tank being annihilated, the whole team on a 1 dice spree, etc :(

How could I make Camelia, Nenio and Amber not useless? Will I encounter an healer someday?

Thanks !

[ApathicAlpaca]

You encounter Daeran and Sosiel who can both be good healers + supporters.
You're clearly very new to Pathfinder, to make casters work you (often) need Spell Focus, Greater Focus, Spell pen, Greater pen, Mythic focus+pen, for Ember you also want ASAP mythic 'Ascendant Element' which makes her fire spells ignore any damage reduction and immunity. (still has to beat spell resistance)

Keep playing a bit more, you'll figure most of it out yourself.

[Wraith]

Camellia actually can be one of your best companion tank with decent build.

Ember is a simultaneous caster and good support give her some support ability to support the group with heals and buffs then give her the ring that unlocks the fire spells when you get it and she will start nuking as well.

All spell caster need spell penetration 1, 2 and the mythic one
Then depending on what element they use more the mythic element as well to bypass immunity and dmg reduction

Your healers are Daeran and Sosiel as the two dedicated one

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

Originally posted by Joe Jinis:

Hello there,

I think I might do something wrong.
The game is supposed to either give us companions fitting in different roles or allowing us to recruit mercenaries.
Mercenaries cost more than a fifth crusade thus aren't an option.

I play a 2 handed dps paladin.
What I expect to find is :
-A good tank
-A good heal
-Ranged DPS

But everyone seems just bad Oo
Seelah : a paladin ( sad :'( ) tank with bad stats.
Camelia : Useless on every aspect, I don't know what to do with her, no damage, no health, no spells, melee, her only utility is disarm traps and open chests.
Amber : A frail caster (using CHA like my 2 paladins, great...) spcialized in fire spells, which 90% of ennemies are resistant to, you know daemons, resist fire + spell resistance...
Nenio : INT caster ( yeah ! ), can launch 3 spells, get resistance fail everytime and then return to uselessness.
Woljif : I hate melee rogues, then I don't take him because it's too much like my own char, but he seems underpowered by his "spell orientation".
Lann : At last a good character even if I don't understand the monk part being totaly useless ( never go to melee ).

Basically every fight is like a "3 vs daemon swarms" sprint run : Send Seelah to melee hoping she won't get two shoted like paper, and do damages with my main + Lann. The 3 other are doing nothing, missing crossbow shots all the time and doing no damage because of /dr 5 or magic resistance.
And my main concern, where are healers? -_- That should be our first companion... right now I'm using all spells on cure light wound and all my money on potions.... great job !

Every single fight is like Ragnarokk and requires often to reload because of tank being annihilated, the whole team on a 1 dice spree, etc :(

How could I make Camelia, Nenio and Amber not useless? Will I encounter an healer someday?

Thanks !

yeah keep camilla shaman and just get ice pick, the icy protector and cast bark skin on them plus magical vestments shield/armour, shield of faith. focus on getting fencing grace and get her a mithril chainshirt, pump dex into them and they are prob your best AC tank level 12 and up.... woljif can be a decent contender for that though with archmage armour.

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

you need acendent element fire at around mythic level3-5 for nenio and ember for them to be good blasters, so you can ignore resistences.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Joe Jinis:

How could I make Camelia, Nenio and Amber not useless? Will I encounter an healer someday?

I have seen some very scary builds of Nenio and Amber recently... hard to imagine they are that bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_imCzwF1gyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WP2VnP4AEY

Also, mercenaries starting somewhat around 4k gold - some even claim they can get them for 500 only, does not seem that much either.

[Khorm]

Speaking of companions (currently in Act 2), whats with the Dex fetish, the only characters with strength I have seen so far are a Paladin and a Cleric.... even the freaking warrior option is a dex one, now I got a dex Hellknight.....

I know at least one more melee option is coming later but going by what I seen so far I expect to see 7 dex/con and 20 wisdom on that one with feats like Finesee and Combat casting....

[Sador]

You're going to have to build your companions correctly. If your wizard is failing their spells, you've done something wrong. Pick spell penetration, greater spell penetration and mythic spell penetration and you're golden.

Fire being resisted? Pick ascended element fire and look at how they all burn. Also, Ember is great and her hexes are very useful.

Lann isn't a melee monk, he's specifically a Zen Archer, thus a ranged monk. Use a composite longbow and watch him shoot stuff down.

Daeran is an amazing healer / support character.

Seelah gets an animal companion that is pretty useful overall.

Basically, most of them are pretty decent in their own right, but you're going to have to build them correctly or they will be useless, of course. Pretty much the entire campaign is mostly against demons (who are resistant or immune to elements and have spell resistance) so pick your feats and powers accordingly.

You definitely don't need mercenaries and I've never used one.

[Archaon The Never-Chosen]

Originally posted by Khorm:

Speaking of companions (currently in Act 2), whats with the Dex fetish, the only characters with strength I have seen so far are a Paladin and a Cleric.... even the freaking warrior option is a dex one, now I got a dex Hellknight.....

I know at least one more melee option is coming later but going by what I seen so far I expect to see 7 dex/con and 20 wisdom on that one with feats like Finesee and Combat casting....

greybor is strength based, seelah is, sosiel is (unfortunately would be better for him to be dex based tbh) 2 of the lich companions i won't say names are strength based. then you got camilla woljif and regil which are dex based melee.(regil is a gnome so do you really want him to be strength based?) then the rest are pretty much casters or ranged characters.

[Sador]

I don't feel like checking but I think Trevor is also strength based?

[echoes222]

just get Aru, have a good bow for her and see her murdering enemies with her shots :P

[Hidden Gunman]

Camelia can be an absolute chainsaw with rapier and buckler, just keep up her dex. Ember's strength are the hex's.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by Joe Jinis:

Seelah : a paladin ( sad :'( ) tank with bad stats.

Seelah's stats are actually stellar. You cannot duplicate Seelah on a 25 pt. buy, i.e. she has more stat points than any character you could create (or hire). There are many ways to build Seelah to improve her tankiness but her big thing as Paladin is Smite->Mark of Justice which is awesome and just the ticket against demons. She starts with good CHA for this reason. Pumping Seelah's CHA and selecting build options to leverage that is a sort of cannon way to handle her. Mark of Justice is a big deal because it gives all party member the ability to bypass damage reduction and these demons tend to be big on damage reduction.

Originally posted by Joe Jinis:

Camelia : Useless on every aspect, I don't know what to do with her, no damage, no health, no spells, melee, her only utility is disarm traps and open chests.

Camelia is an even better tank than Seelah. At least as survivable. This is because a) she has sky high DEX and get's to +6 DEX AC bonus quite quickly and b) she gets the Iceplant hex augmented by a ring you can buy from the Defender's Heart scroll merchant that doubles Iceplant's AC bonus to +4. She get's Fencing Grace at a bout L5 IIRC which seriously ups her damage outpout with her rapiier and she has a a whole bunch of useful support spells and hexes. Camelia is very strong and very uuseful.

Originally posted by Joe Jinis:

Amber : A frail caster (using CHA like my 2 paladins, great...) spcialized in fire spells, which 90% of ennemies are resistant to, you know daemons, resist fire + spell resistance...

Ember is the most powerful tool in your box in the early game because of her Slumber hex which combined with a Coup de Grace finisher will account for any awkward early game customer you meet (i.e. you can save scum it if necessary to get out of trouble). Being a spontaneous caster she benefits greatly from a set of rings you can buy to grant additional spells - the first one is available from Defender's Heart barkeep and grants four good necro spells. Later game she can become an awesome fire based Blaster Caster if built right. Plenty of online guides available on how to do that.

Originally posted by Joe Jinis:

Nenio : INT caster ( yeah ! ), can launch 3 spells, get resistance fail everytime and then return to uselessness.

Nenio is meh at the start of the game (except for the Defender's Heart defence battle where she is pretty much essential) but as soon as she gets her first L3 spells and her first mythic feat at the end of Act 1 she becomes a virtually indispensable powerhouse. The Mythic feat in question is Abundant Casting (which doubles her L1-3 spell slots) and the L3 spells in question are the all powerful Haste and incredible Phantasmic Killer. Her school, Illusion, is incredibly powerful. That she is a Scroll Savant as well is also incredibly powerful and useful since it means she can cast all thiose scrolls you acquire through the game at a far higher level than anyone else can therefore having a much higher chance of landing them. Nenio can become the core powerhouse of your party. This is an excellent guide in how to build her and what her key features are at various stages of the game. Explains it better than I could hope to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDts4ofbGdQ

Lann is as you have realised a very useful damage dealer and it's always useful to have a deadly archer. You can also turn Lann into a Druid to good effect. As a straight Zen Archer he just gets better and better at killing stuff with his bow. The monk stuff is about that.

Woljif I found great for most of Act 1 as he hits hard and has a lot of useful spells (esp. Grease) but once Nenio came online and I got a proper priest I have found it impossible to find a place for him in my party.

Originally posted by Joe Jinis:

And my main concern, where are healers?

You get a choice of two: Daeran and Solsein. Daeran you get in Act 1 shortly after you get Ember (you get a quest to go to his house) and Solseil by Act 2. In the mean time Ember and Camelia can handle healing duties.

If you want to improve your party you might consider restarting with a more effective 2H DPS melee option than your paladin. A 2H melee as MC is a very good choice for this game (as it synergyses well with the available companions) but although I'm not an expert I don't believe a paladin is the best choice for the hardest hitting badass killing machine, which is what you really want from this type of character.

A couple of popular and excellent choices are Bloodrager Primalist built for Cornugan Smash and Pounce and Sword Saint perhaps built for Vital Strike. There are guides available online for both these popular killing machines and they will outperform your pally in this respect by some margin I would think. The going gets tough in this game and having someone who can really hit like truck, even better two trucks, when it matters will only get more and more important as you progress. It may pay you to to consider replaying what you've done so far to reap the rewards of this long term, it's a long game.

[echoes222]

armored battlemage with 2hander also work. Doesn't hit as hard as sword saint, but can be off tank. And arcane spells are always a bonus :)

[Joe Jinis]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

You encounter Daeran and Sosiel who can both be good healers + supporters.
You're clearly very new to Pathfinder, to make casters work you (often) need Spell Focus, Greater Focus, Spell pen, Greater pen, Mythic focus+pen, for Ember you also want ASAP mythic 'Ascendant Element' which makes her fire spells ignore any damage reduction and immunity. (still has to beat spell resistance)

Keep playing a bit more, you'll figure most of it out yourself.

No I'm not, but I don't often play mage/wizard/caster.
I didn't encounter them yet ^^
All that feats look high level, aren't they?
I'm mainly looking for low level advices :/ ( level 4 now )

[Joe Jinis]

Thank you Gregorovitch and everyone, for your answers !
But everybody's advices are really end game based.
I know that char will become more powerfull, my problems are at low levels !
There are a lot of good points but nearly none of them are helping at low level :(
It looks like I will struggle until later then ^^

And nope I am not respecing, I nearly always play Paladin 2H whatever as main :D Sometimes Warrior 2H or a mix pal/war.

Can't wait to meet Daeran or Sosiel ! =]

Edit : I heard about that strat sleep + finish, but I NEVER passed a slumber DC.