The Worst Follower (I Hate Serana)

[Crusader (Banned13x)]

Going to post this as both a vent and a warning for anyone who hasn't yet used Serana as a follower. Since no one really reads this forum anymore it's a great way to get this off my chest and scream into the void anyways.

I cannot stand Serana. How she ended up as #1 on all the lists of "Best Skyrim Followers" that I've looked up, I have no clue. Started the Dawnguard DLC again just recently and got to a point where she offered to become a companion, and DAMN was it a mistake taking her up on that. I love women, but she's just another femme fatale stereotype that is so incredibly played out. When she's not being sassy/snarky, she's complaining about the weather or something I'm doing. When I'm talking to someone, she's wandering around in between or around us in a very distracting way.

And that's not to mention her combat ability, or perhaps I should say inability. The lightning spells she spams are ear-splittingly loud for me as I always use a headset, and it quickly gets annoying. Plus for some reason even though she has ranged attacks, she loves to close with the enemy and stand right in front of my bow and line of sight. Even more irritating is her habit of resurrecting dead enemies by default, even when we're not in combat. So instead of getting to loot them, or grab the key on their corpse, I have to wait around listening to some moaning zombie until they turn into a pile of ash, which I have to remember to find once it appears. That, or attack and kill them AGAIN.

Not only do the thralls she creates give away my position (as I prefer to play stealth thanks to my Wildcat Combat mod which makes fighting more than 2 enemies at a time a big risk in most cases), but she herself can't seem to leave enemies who haven't noticed us alone, even if they're in the distance on some ledge I can't yet access, alerting the entire dungeon. And what does she do once an army comes stomping towards me? Fall to her knees begging them for mercy because her skimpy little default outfit doesn't protect her hardly at all.

I made it through 2 dungeons with her before having to call it quits. Never want to see that woman again, even during this DLC. Argis on the other hand never gave me any of those issues, has much more interesting and diverse comments, hangs back with the bow I gave him most times so he stays out my way, and fights like a cornered lion when the enemies try to gang up on us. He's by far my favorite follower in the game, and I recommend him to anyone who hasn't yet used him.

Alright rant over. TL;DR = Serana blows, Argis rules.

If anyone does read this: Who's your least fav/most fav follower in Skyrim, and why?

[Mephitic]

I love Serana, she's a good follower (as good as any NPC that isn't mod-added that is).
She's even better with Serana Dialogue Addon.

[worm_master]

As a power mage, I need no followers, U have the secret servant for burdens....

[John]

Yes, Serana is a literal D-tier follower, one of the weakest ones cause of her terrible AI. They tried to make her work by making her special but it all just made her a worse follower.

I have no idea why people prefer her, she acts like a whiny teenager, nothing is ever good. The only people who like her are just massive simps or something.

[Alex]

With mods, she's one of the best followers. Without them, however, she simply feels unfinished.

[Fear2288]

Part of it is context.

Remember, it was 2011-12. Vampires were in vogue thanks to Twilight, the goth girlfriend memes were still fresh and funny, and Serana was really the only follower that actually had some characterization to her.

People like(d) the voice actress’ performance, and her backstory was both tragic and horrifying (go look up what the ritual is for becoming a Daughter of Coldharbour).

I like her, but not on the level that some people do.

I absolutely agree about the whole thing where she raises zombies constantly. That got annoying. Thankfully I have a mod where I can ask her not to do that.

[wicked lester]

Originally posted by John:

Yes, Serana is a literal D-tier follower, one of the weakest ones cause of her terrible AI. They tried to make her work by making her special but it all just made her a worse follower.

I have no idea why people prefer her, she acts like a whiny teenager, nothing is ever good. The only people who like her are just massive simps or something.

I'm guessing it has something to do with hot vampire chick and prepubescent boy fantasies. Just sayin.

[SpeedFreak1972]

How she became nr 1 .... because she has a personality and yea she's kinda cute. That said modded she's so much better.

[rompier02]

Hi. I find her okay. Finished Dawnguard with her. No problems. Cleared out tons of dungeons with her. No problem. I get it that she is not your preference. To each his/her own. Maybe up your melee skills /armor skills to the point you can go to to toe with draugrs/high level bandits. Archery upgrade like impact/critical hit chance at max will buy some time for anyone to do the hit & hide tactic.

My best companion would be Barbas. He's invincible except when he fights giants. 2 hits & he will run away leaving you to deal with it. Second would be Mjoll. Give her a 2 Hander & she is a beast. A behemoth if her gear/ weapons melee or ranged/potions are upgraded. Had loads of fun adventuring with her. Makes a good spouse too. How hard is it to kill that dude while he is making his way to Riften from Lake view Manor? Anyways that is my preference.

[DPMR]

I can’t believe Recorder hasn’t come up. She’s a little spacey but man can she fight.

[Hakajisai]

Agreed.

My favorite? Ingjard,my best girl.

[patalfou]

I prefer work alone, but my favorite companion (when I decide to take one) is Teldrin of Solsteim.

[patalfou]

Originally posted by rompier02:

Hi. I find her okay. Finished Dawnguard with her. No problems. Cleared out tons of dungeons with her. No problem. I get it that she is not your preference. To each his/her own. Maybe up your melee skills /armor skills to the point you can go to to toe with draugrs/high level bandits. Archery upgrade like impact/critical hit chance at max will buy some time for anyone to do the hit & hide tactic.

My best companion would be Barbas. He's invincible except when he fights giants. 2 hits & he will run away leaving you to deal with it. Second would be Mjoll. Give her a 2 Hander & she is a beast. A behemoth if her gear/ weapons melee or ranged/potions are upgraded. Had loads of fun adventuring with her. Makes a good spouse too. How hard is it to kill that dude while he is making his way to Riften from Lake view Manor? Anyways that is my preference.

How do you do to keep Barbas with you,please?

[Liquid Inc]

literally it's either Serana or Inigo. They're the 2 i've always gone with.

There's a couple of issues with Serana, sure. The constant summons can get annoying but otherwise she's a solid fighter and she can't die....
The voice is great and she's got an actual story, unlike, say... Lydia or one of the many other vanilla followers. They have a name and a job and that's it.

OP, give her some decent armor and she'll stand for ages.
I once gave her an upgraded set of Daedric. She just stood there and took whatever was thrown at her... Her original set is just standard royal armor, which doesn't have a great rating .

[PatchAdams]

The voice actor for Serana is good. The AI for her behaviours until you deliver her to the castle is interesting. The character model is well designed.

But the character itself is so obviously a way of trying to get you to think of vampires as other than what they are: predatory undead servants of Molag Bal. It's dumb when all
other vampires try to kill you and infect you with their disease. As a result, the writing is weak, and the actor is largely wasted.

When she's your follower, friendly fire from her Drain Life spell frequently causes you to become a vampire, even if you are a werewolf. Her indiscriminate use of AoE spells tends to get her into conflict with pet and human followers, often killing pets or forcing you to use Disable/Enable in console when she attacks. (Illia also has this issue.) And her pathing is worse than most followers'. She often gets stuck in sneak for no reason.

Also, she is pretty weak at damage output, especially against dragons, and is next to useless in Dwemer ruins because she mainly uses conjuration and Life Drain, which Dwemer constructs are immune too.

Unless you want to power-level your Restoration by spamming Necromantic Healing on her, you'd be better with other followers. In fact, you can level up Necromantic Healing and kill things a lot faster by conjuring Forsworn or Bandit Chief thralls and using it on them.

If you like Serana, fine. Have her as a follower. The best follower types depend on your taste and playstyle, but I tend to go with either:

–none, for stealth builds or only conjurations for mage builds;

–archers like Aela and Jenassa, especially Jenassa, who hangs back from combat to practise archery unless she has to attack close-quarters, when she dual-wields very effectively; or

–pure in-your-face warrior types who can put out/tank a lot of damage, like Ralis, Mjoll, Frea, most of the housecarls and Companions, and the human Dawnguard followers. Give any of them good tempered bows/crossbows and even without high archery skills they'll be very effective at range, too.

Serana doesn't do archery IIRC, and that's a big problem because of how archery scales in the game, and because of dragons. Most mage followers will use archery, even weaker ones like Onmund and Brelyna. So Serana's not even in the best tier of mage followers for me. Eola, Valdimar, and Marcurio are more versatile, and J'Zargo at least has amusing dialogue.

But if you want to have her as a follower "because hawt" as Lester said, fine. I suspect that's the most common reason.

[jonnin]

its not hard to get rid of her. She is going to tag along after first meeting, then again to the soul cairn & once more on the bow quest but you can ditch her for everything else. You can also just never rescue her, and drop that whole chunk of content.

If she is cramping your style, I think you can use the wait-here command when forced to travel together so you can sneak etc.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3028682285