As in have no health bar and never die.
Companions staying alive is largely beyond the realm of player agency; Kavats and Kubrows practically TRY to kill themselves, and Sentinels just float nearby and sometimes take enough strays to explode.
One of the biggest factors separating Vulpaphylas from other companions is the fact that they never permanently die in mission. Panzer is just the one that also happens to have a very strong and useful ability. Other companions have useful abilities too; some of the Hounds are legitimately just as good at generating health orbs with Synth Deconstruct and can disarm enemies, and Carrier and some of the other Sentinels have some meaningful utility as well. But trying to use a Hound or even some Sentinels just feels frustrating due to how frequently they die.
I realize that this would require retooling/refunding a lot of the companion mods, but as it stands companion survivability doesn't really seem to add anything meaningful to the game. Very few frames can take actions to ensure the safety of their companions unless their abilities just naturally apply to companions as well (see Protea,) so losing their unique abilities mid-mission just feels awful. Not to mention things like Vacuum or Animal Instinct which make the game flow a lot smoother, or actual build determinative mods like Synth Fiber. Incidentally, if this change were to go through, I would hope there would still be a mod to replace a retooled Synth Fiber allowing Warframes to pick up health orbs at full HP so that Equilibrium could still be a viable energy efficiency tool.
Basically, it feels terrible to switch to something that isn't Panzer only to be without a companion 4 minutes into a mission, or be forced to constantly revive a Kavat that's getting downed every 30 seconds. It's not fun.
Giving them all a massive amount of health that can stand up to Steel Path would help if this is completely off the table (Inaros level health without needing Link Health and Inaros, please.) But I really think the game would just become more interesting and fun if we never had to worry about companions dying, because there would be more room for us to use different options without feeling like we're hindering ourselves. Most companions provide noticeable, but not unfair benefits. Having them never die wouldn't break the game in any capacity, it would just make the game more fun (in my opinion.)
Thanks for reading :)
Our decision of companion should be based on the unique abilities it brings to the table. Those are interesting and fun. Not based on whether it survives easily in the Steel Path. That is uninteresting and detracts from the actual abilities of the different companions. If my choice is "companion dies constantly or not" there is a correct answer, regardless of if the companion has fun or interesting abilities that I'd love to incorporate into my gameplay.
