Two most useless companions story wise? !SPOILERS!

[Artie]

It might sound a bit controversial but Emmerick and Taash are the most useless companions for the story.
So if we look at all companions without their personal questlines what impact do they bring to veilguards goals?

• We have Harding, a member of the Inquisition who throughout the story introduces us to different useful NPCs, or NPCs with valuable information. In the end game, she can lead the second squad due to her experience in the Inquisition.
  
• We have Neve who is connected to one of the key locations of the game - Minratous. She knows the main allied faction here and has connections that allow us to progress through the main story here, she is a mage, which allows her to be useful at the end of the game and provide valuable help with magic. On top of that, she knows a lot of stuff about venatori more than any other companion.
  
• We have Bellara, who is a mage who knows a lot of stuff and can work with elven artefacts (almost all major artefacts are of elven origin), and in the end, she plays an important role in fighting elven gods.
  
• We have Lucanis whom we, literally, hire to kill mage-gods of elves, because he kills mages very well, and through the game, he uses his skill accordingly several times in cut-scenes.
  
• We have Davrin, who is a grey warden, and it's common knowledge that the warden needed to kill the Archdemon, so he is a must, he is our connection to other wardens, whose mission is to fight one of our main enemies - blight. As a result, he triggered several events or played an important role there.
  
  
• And here we have Emmerick, whom we hire to find out more about Fade and the prison of Solas, after that, he doesn't provide any real impact (only in the eng game he can be chosen for some mage-related actions), basically he could have been a consultant NPC and it wouldn't have influenced anything in the main story.
  
• And we have Taash, who is a dragon hunter, who shows her dragon hunting skills only once in Wetlands when she lured a dragon from the tower with her fire, aaaand that's it, literally, any Ingquision companion would've been more useful to veilguard because they fought the BLIGHTED dragon, which is controlled by someone, and not just random feral dragon. Or even any companion from DAO, who fought literal archdemon. I could've understood her presence in veilguard if they'd implemented some special mechanics during dragon fights, that required a "real dragon hunter" presence, but no, you can kill all dragons without having her in the party, as you could do it in DAI, where there were several feral dragons and one BLIGHTED dragon.

So what do you think about it?

[LoVeSuns]

Yeah, I generally agree with you and this did stand out to me a bit with Taash (maybe she was shoehorned in more last minute?). You give examples though of people who have fought dragons, but I think Taash is kind of different in that handling dragon's is I guess her entire focus and career - like that's her only specialty and that's what she does and is supposed to be super knowledgeable about. But yeah, she seems to provide very little special expertise to the team. It seems like they could've handled the dragons just as well without her and that she didn't contribute much to taking them down.

[Quacksalber]

Originally posted by LoVeSuns:

Yeah, I generally agree with you and this did stand out to me a bit with Taash (maybe she was shoehorned in more last minute?). You give examples though of people who have fought dragons, but I think Taash is kind of different in that handling dragon's is I guess her entire focus and career - like that's her only specialty and that's what she does and is supposed to be super knowledgeable about. But yeah, she seems to provide very little special expertise to the team. It seems like they could've handled the dragons just as well without her and that she didn't contribute much to taking them down.

OP has a point, but according to an article I read Taash was planned originally, just as evil-aligned.

[Ashtrails]

I mean, this is kinda disingenuous.

You could make each of your arguments for pretty much any character´, if we're following your line of thought how they could be replaced by someone else once they outlive their initial usefulness.
Like, let me apply your MO here:

Harding outlives her usefulness pretty quickly, she contributes nothing any person with a bow couldn't and if it's just contacts we still got Varric (sort of, if you know, you know), as a consultant, as you've put it.

Neve and knowledge about Venatori? You just kill these idiots on sight and destroy their crystals, there's nothing worth knowing, really, because they're something between fodder and mustache twirling idiots.
The main allied faction are a bunch of useless resistance fighters who crumple like tissue paper under pressure. They actually cause more work than they're a help so far.

Bellara might as well be a consultant with some cutscenes at the end, no need to be a companion

Lucanis has a short range teleport and knows how to put a knife in things. If that's all the qualification you need to kill a god, several people come to mind who can fill that opening.
As with a lot of characters, we are mostly just TOLD he's very good at what he does - killing MAGES specifically. The actual gameplay and story doesn't reflect that as much.

Davrin. Well fair point. Though any Warden could take his place (e.g. my Warden Rook), or anyone really after Weisshaupt since the game keeps hammering in how 'the blight has changed and we know nothing anymore'. If you argue Taash could be replaced by people with experience fighting in their lane of expertise, so can he.


The game doesn't allow hard lines like firing companions etc, so I don't say you're without some good points here - some of these people, strictly speaking, don't need to be with you or have 'mechanical' relevancy to your grand strategy.
But if you've got people who formed a coherent, efficient fighting unit with you, their leader... why would you bench or fire them?

I think it's one of the points this game tries to make with fists of ham - that seeing each other as more than tools to get a job done is a good thing, something the Dread Wolf didn't want to understand for a long time.

[Artie]

Originally posted by Ashtrails:

I mean, this is kinda disingenuous.

You could make each of your arguments for pretty much any character´, if we're following your line of thought how they could be replaced by someone else once they outlive their initial usefulness.
Like, let me apply your MO here:

Harding outlives her usefulness pretty quickly, she contributes nothing any person with a bow couldn't and if it's just contacts we still got Varric (sort of, if you know, you know), as a consultant, as you've put it.

Neve and knowledge about Venatori? You just kill these idiots on sight and destroy their crystals, there's nothing worth knowing, really, because they're something between fodder and mustache twirling idiots.
The main allied faction are a bunch of useless resistance fighters who crumple like tissue paper under pressure. They actually cause more work than they're a help so far.

Bellara might as well be a consultant with some cutscenes at the end, no need to be a companion

Lucanis has a short range teleport and knows how to put a knife in things. If that's all the qualification you need to kill a god, several people come to mind who can fill that opening.
As with a lot of characters, we are mostly just TOLD he's very good at what he does - killing MAGES specifically. The actual gameplay and story doesn't reflect that as much.

Davrin. Well fair point. Though any Warden could take his place (e.g. my Warden Rook). If you argue Taash could be replaced by people with experience fighting in their lane of expertise, so can he.


The game doesn't allow hard lines like firing companions etc, so I don't say you're without some good points here - some of these people, strictly speaking, don't need to be with you or have 'mechanical' relevancy to your grand strategy.
But if you've got people who formed a coherent, efficient fighting unit with you, their leader... why would you bench or fire them?

I think it's one of the points this game tries to make with fists of ham - that seeing each other as more than tools to get a job done is a good thing, something the Dread Wolf didn't want to understand for a long time.

Yes, to some degree, but the difference is that other companions appear from time to time through the whole story, in different moments, they act as starting triggers of some events, as a result providing some meaningful impact, meanwhile, Emmerick and Taash each have one such moment (and even these moments quite questionable).

On top of that, we kind of don't have Varric, so Harding is the only connection to Inquisition and forth, plus she must travel with us in some cases to introduce us. And she properly included in main story even if you don't take here as companion.

For Neve it's not only faction but also contrabandist quests, basically, she is fully included in the main story.

For Bellara it's a bit more difficult because she knows Arlatan and we kinda need someone on-site to operate with different artefacts and magic (and also in the end she can be chosen for magic things). Plus for cut-scenes in the end she should be operating in field in order to be corrupted. In the end, she is properly included in the main story.

I can agree about Lucanis, then again his presence is impactful, but at least he is present several times during some events when he is not your companion, and he is doing something during these events. But in general it could have been any random mage killer, and Lucanis is such random mage killer.

For Davrin I can agree, it can be any random grey warden and in our case it's Davrin, we have two Archdemons, so theoretically we needed two wardens, and on top of that PC kinda should not die, so he can't sacrifice himself even if he is the warden.

[Ashtrails]

I guess we're just approaching the same issue from different perspectives : D
I do like Emmerich and Taash and rotate them into the squad regularly.
Would've appreciated if they (and the other companions) were better fleshed out and stitched into the story- which they're unforuntately not, right now