Who is the best Companion in Pathfinder WotR

[kaoe2002]

This is my Ranking of the Patfinder WotR companions. I ranked them based on their base class and base build. I did not rank Trever and Galfrey, because you get them so late and I did not rank the Undead, because you only get them as a Lich.

S-Rank

Ember: She is pretty much perfect. She saves you with her hexes in the early game and makes a lot of damage in the late game. Some enemies are on higher difficulties almost unbeatable without her. She can also heal your party and use buffing spells. You can not ask more of a character.

Seelah: She is your best melee option. She has got a mount, which no one else gets in their base build. Other chars like Regill and Greybor do more damage in full combat, but most of the time you will fight multiple enemies. Other chars will kill their enemie in their turn, but they have to move in the next turn. This makes them less effective. Also Seelah gets Smite Evil, which is really strong, because you are fighting evil enemies all the time. She also gets channel energy to heal the party and lay on hands to heal herself, while still having a full atack

A-Rank

Sosiel: Sosiel is your best healing option. He learns every important healing move in the game. He also learns some of the most important buff spells. Moreover, he is okay in melee and you could even him for summoning. He has everything you can ask for in a healer.

Wenduag: Archers are very good in WotR. You get her pretty early in the game and she will do always do a good job. As a fighter, she learns every important archer skill pretty early, which puts her very early in her prime. She has everything you can ask for in an archer.

Arueshalae: She is pretty similar to Wenduag. Both do pretty much the same thing, but you get Wenduag earlier and the first chapters are the hardest. Therefore Wenduag is over Arueshalae. But she will be slightly stronger than Wenduag as soon as she learns all of the important archer skills.

B-Rank

Greybor: He is a pretty solid melee fighter. He is doing the most damage of any melee fighter, if he is in prolonged combat. He is a glass canon and he is pretty slow. However tanky is not really important in this game. Damage is much more important and you can let him live longer by giving him last stand. Haste fixes is low speed.

Regill: Regill is pretty similar to Greybor. He is fast and tanky, but both are not really important. You get him earlier, but not that much earlier. Greybor does more damage and is therefore higher.

Lann: Lann is the worst archer, but he is still an archer. His monk class makes him tankier, but thats about it. His Ki does not help him much and he is not doing as much damage as the other ones.

C-Rank

Nenio: She is absolutly useless in the early game, which is the most difficult part. She has some good buffing spells, but not that many. Haste spaming is probably her main job. Her only saving grace is phantasmal killer, which is a pretty overrated spell. You really have to invest much in it to make it work and even then it has many problems. You can only kill one enemy at the same time, which is pretty bad, if you fight weak enemies. Many enemies are immune against it and many bosses have way to good stats for it to work. It is also a very unreliable spell. Weird is really good, but you only get it in the endgame, which is the easiest part of the game. Tbf in chapter 5 it makes the game really much easier, which is the only reason I am giving her even this spot. She would be the worst companion without her power in the endgame.

Daraen: A worse version of Sosiel. You should go for the mount, but a mount is not really good for a healer. He has two other advantages over Sosiel. You get him a little bit earlier and he has some buffing spell, that Sosiel has not. But all of this three advantages are not that important. Sosiel is more tanky and he does much more damage. He also has his cleric abilities. You can use him as a normal fighter and a tank and heal with him at the same time. Daraen does even less damage than Nenio, which is really awful. If you do not have to heal with him, you could as well skip his turn. He will not do any damage. The only thing you could do is summoning and summons are not really great. Most of the time he would just waste spells and force the party to rest earlier.

D-Rank

Camelia: Camelia tries to do many things at once. She is a full blown magic user. She has some abilities, that make her better in melee combat. She can heal and she has hexes. However she does nothing really well. This is okay in the early game. You can only use her hexes and she will be pretty similiar to Amber. You can use her in combat and she will do an okay job there to. But the enemies get stronger and if you do not fully commit into being a melee fighter, you will not be able to be useful in combat. And even if you do this, you will still be the worst of the melee fighters. She is tanky, but she does not do much damage, which is really important. If you focus on her magic, you will get disappointed as well. She has a pretty bad spell list. She can do healing, summons and some buffs. But Daraen and Sosiel have better spell lists and they have good abilities on top of that. If you focus on her magic, you will also run into the Daraen problem of not beeing able to do something, if no one needs healing. She has hexes, but they are not that good in the late game. You can either make her into a bad fighter or a bad magic user, but she will never be really good.

Woljif: He is really good in the early game. He has crowd control, which is important in the early game. He also does pretty much damage with his sneak atacks and he can use some buff spells. This is the most difficult part of the game. However he is really bad later. At some point he just does not hit stuff, which makes him loose his offensive potential. He also is really slow at learning spells. You can use him for Haste, but you will have to wait quite a while. He gets really tanky, but damage is much more important and he just does not do any. There is nothing he does at all at a certain point. He is still better in combat than Camelia, but she can at least heal, buff and summon stuff.



Let me know your opinion

[canuck250]

Cam SSS tier: She is useful, is she not?

But for real, she is top tier or A at least. Her thief skills are great. Shaman is just a fantastic class as is. Witch and Shaman hexes stack so having both Cam and Ember is handy, almost needed on higher difficulties. She can be one of the best tanks, she can get a pet. Again shaman so can be your buff bot for the game.

Seelah should get extra points as paladin is so good for a campaign. Layon hands does more then just heal her, it heals fatigue and other things that can slow down progress. Once you get into 24 hour buffs, you use her lay on hands so your party doesn't have to rest, you can push a lot in a day.

Wendy, better axe thrower then archer.

Also Neino useless early game? Grease alone makes anyone top tier early game. Glitterdust and other spells are very handy.

There are more things you can do with Daeran, dual rapiers are amazing for pet riders. Especially if you have 1 or more fellow riders(do this with cam also, they look amazing dual wielding riding wolfs into combat together). All the AoO and trips you get are insane. Also caster Daeran is very good, give him that fire ring and he can blast cast just fine.

S : Every party should use them, Paladin/Domains

Seelah, Sosiel

A+ : First 2 have good utility, can fight or cast, good for whole game. Lann/Wendy strong for whole game.

Cam, Daeran, Lann, Wendy

A : Great, can fit on any team but often have to replace.

Neino, Arueshalae,

B+ : She is good and a character I personally really enjoy

Ember

B : Useful, lots of nice things you can do, like early dps and giving self buffs to others but meh.

Woljif

C : Outclassed

Regill, Greybor

[Yannir]

I disagree with most of these. For clarity's sake, I think all the companions are viable because, in a party of 6, roles can be shuffled around and a single weaker companion can be supported. My PoV is from RtwP which largely trivializes some common class strengths like Domains and Hexes. Can't comment much on Wenduag or Ember as I never use them.

I kill Wendu as fast as I can in every pt because she's disgusting. Which is testament to an excellent character, for sure, but I can't think of a single reason why anyone in their right mind would ever trust this mercurial turncoat to have their back. "Following strength" has always felt like a flimsy reasoning IMO.
I do plan to pick her up in either a Demon or a Trickster pt because then I can find a probable RP reasoning to pick her over Lann.

Ember on the other hand.. I just can't find a good place for her. Witches don't make for good main spellcasters so she can't replace Nenio or a merc caster. I'd honestly need an Alchemist/Bard/Skald/Magus in the party to justify using her in that role and to cover all the bases that Witches lack in. As none of the companions are those classes, having her as a main party member will have to wait until I MC one of them. Hexes are overrated anyway.
I've done her companion quests with her in the party but these quests are so easy I barely have to use her abilities at all.

Can't really give a neat ranking on the others but I'll go over some which I disagree the most with. Two very polar opposite aspects which I weigh heavily are how well they specialize and how many options they have.

Sosiel - Daeran. I would rank these the other way around. A Life-Mystery Oracle as a class is a better healer than any variant of cleric is. To properly gauge him, you have to know that Oracle is a more stat-efficient class compared to Cleric and Daeran is more suited to a spellcaster role rather than melee.
But this is really mostly due to me playing RtwP which devalues most Domains and you only want Community Domain. Which you can pick up on Lann. Speaking of..

Lann is, by far, the most versatile companion because of his ridiculous stats and how early you get him. I usually multiclass him into a Sacred Huntsmaster Inquisitor on lvl 4-5, which is where I get Domain access, Bane Weapon, Inquisitor spells and an Animal Companion. Another, maybe a more popular, option is to make him a Hunter, usually a Divine Hound at around the same level.
Even if you just keep him as a Zen Archer he's a strong ranged DPS. Flurry of Blows stacks with Haste so you can get 3 attacks with your full BAB, and he practically ignores every kind of physical damage resistance on foes once you get him to a high enough level.
There's loads of other good ways to play a high Str, Dex, Wis character.
Arue has her own strengths but IMO Lanns versatility takes him just a notch above her.

Greybor is probably the weakest of all the companions simply because the build Owlcat gave him is kinda terrible, and, because you get him so late, you can't even fix it. Strength-based dual-wielding just doesn't work well outside of Fighter. Truly the worst way to build a Slayer.
That's all a real shame since he's a really cool dude.

Woljif can do everything Greybor can, and then he does it way better. And then casts spells on top of that, making him very tanky. If you can't get him to hit things, I'd say you need a better build.

[Kulmara]

I think you guys are forgetting about skills along with possible builds. Going with base builds doesn’t work. You can improve it so much more

S
Seelah: Best Tank, Lay on Hands, Channel Energy mount, can use Radiance once fully upgraded

Arueshalae: Best Archer (after Ranger buffs) and has the highest Stealth and Trickery skills among companions. Bonus points for being a Succubus

Derean: best Healer (in my opinion), early game, Channel Energy, buffs, highest Persuasion, Spontaneous caster means you won’t run out of spells as quickly
Just give him Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot feats and he can shoot his crossbow or ray spells whenever he’s not healing. His Strength is too low for armor, but the right build can make any Cha caster tanky as hell.

A
Ember: Slumber hex is OP in early game, highest dmg caster in late game, can heal, can buff, Glitterdust

Regill: best Melee fighter, tanky, lots of attacks in a single round, set up for a Dreadful Carnage build to terrify nearby enemies after each full round attack (I’m not exaggerating)

Lann: early game archer, not as much dmg per shot as Wenduag, but more shots fired per round. Tanky and can swap to melee when needed. The rarest skill in the game is Athletics, and Lann has it right at the beginning. Personality better for Non-Evil Mythic Paths and Devil.

Wenduag: decent Archer, but Fighter is meant for Multiclassing. Pick Hunter. It utilizes Brew Potions and gives you an animal companion, such as dog or wolf that have Trip attempts as a part of their Bite attacks. Personality better for the Evil Mythic Paths.

B:
Woljif: early game Rouge for stealth and Tickery skills, high dmg using rays, after you invest a few skill points into Knowledge (Arcane) he can be an Arcane Trickster w/o multiclassing for even better damage.

Greybor: great dmg, just way too slow and squishy. Bonus points for being one of the few companions with the Athletics skill, but lose points for being so late game that you should’ve fixed that issue already with an animal companion/mount.

Sosiel: healer with Channel Energy, tanky, melee fighter. Just my opinion l, but I don’t think healers should get that close to danger. Especially when there’s a Mythic Ability that lets you heal from a safe distance. Other healers are just more useful than him. Only saving grace is having the highest Perception.

C:
Nenio: highly overrated caster. The only good illusion spells in WotR are Mirror Image, Blink, and Displacement, and they’re defensive spells. All the enemies have really high Spell Resistance, Fortitude and Will saves so Phantasmal Killer isn’t worth squat unless you do a looot of investment. Her only saving grace is that she has the highest Knowledge and Lore skills among all the companions, but it’s useless for the books you gotta read for the secret ending. I found that out first hand.

Camillia: mainly useful as a buffer. Could serve as a spare tank if needed. Only useful when you don’t have a full team yet, to be frank. Also here skills seem ridiculous to me. Only Trickery is useful, but why is it higher than an actual thief’s. Despite being one of the few Wis focused characters in the game she doesn’t have any Wisdom skills at the start. Int is far too low for Duelist, which is unfortunate. Honestly, I only add her to my party if I can’t use Seelah or for her companion quests