re: *** Star Wars: The Old Republic - Official Ole War Skule Guild Thread

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You might have to fight off my brainwashed minions to take the throne, though. Just a preview: Shananigans, post your social security number.

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Let's begin with what's horribly, horribly out of whack first, shall we? Tank companions. Everyone gets them, and everyone quickly learns just how terrible they are at actually tanking. In most situations a heavy-armor clad DPS character will actually have better survivability than a tanking companion. Things werent always this way though; for the vast majority of game testing, tanking companions had as part of their tanking stance a 40% armor buff. This allowed them to have mitigation around 40%, sometimes even up to 50%, a far cry from the measly 20-30% mitigation they have now. Some players argued that tanking companions in those builds tanked far too well, and that healers had an inordinate advantage over other players because they had the ability to keep their companions up through anything short of an Heroic 4 quest. BioWare seemed to agree with that line of thinking, and the armor buff was removed a few weeks before launch.

The fallout was massive, and immediately apparent to anyone who had seen prior builds. Tank companions instantly became little more than red-shirted cannon fodder and crafting helpers. This stands in stark contrast to healing and damage dealing companions, who fulfill their roles extremely well. Tanking characters backed up by a healing companion are effectively unkillable in solo and duo PvE situations. At the same time, DPS companions can output an insane amount of damage with the right equipment. I jokingly refer to my Sniper's ranged DPS companion as 'mini-me' whenever she drops a three thousand point critical shot on a target. Tanking companions by comparison are lucky to survive a fight with an Elite, and have to rest nearly every other fight at higher levels.

That's not to say that tanking companions can't get the attention of the enemy; they do a marvelous job of holding aggro in most situations. The problem is that once every enemy in sight starts shooting at them, they crumple faster than a wet paper bag in a demolition derby. BioWare needs to either return the flat armor buff to the Tanking stance of defense minded companions, or find some other way to significantly improve their durability, perhaps by adding a scaling armor buff with their primary stat while in tanking stance. Until that happens, most players will relegate tanking companions to the role of personal crafting assistants.

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