To promote the use of other companions certain companion-specific mods should become universal with weaker effects.

[PlanckZero]

So DE keeps releasing all of these new companions with the Moa, Vulpaphyla, Predasites and now the hounds from the sisters and... people just don't really seem to give a S#&$ about them because the already long existing alternatives have just always been too good to pass up no matter what new abilities and mods they keep adding to the new additions.

I personally swear by using Carrier because I enjoy the bottomless pit of ammo, some people use nothing but the Smeeta for the extra drops and others pick the Adraza for the crits and I personally don't usually see people using or talking about much else. most of the time

But what if you could take some of those companion-spefific mods and apply them elsewhere with the trade off that when not on their ideal companion the effect was reduced?

What if you could put Ammo Case on a Predasite and have it pick up ammo more slowly at a worse conversion rate? Or put Cat's Eye on a Moa for less crit damage for a shorter duration? Or put Charm on a hound for slightly less frequent good fortune?

Sure the hardcore min maxers out there would likely scoff at the idea of having the weaker effects but I can personally say I would be far more willing to use more than the single companion I have stuck with for 99% of the time I've played this game and actually use some of he new companions DE is otherwise really just wasting time and effort on.

[Slayer-.]

Yes it would be interesting to see how some would work with universal mods, but it wouldn't work though on some, take the MOA's stomp and other companions skills, they are unique for a reason for some of the custom locked skills to a certain type of companion cannot be replicated on the others, though I it would be funny to see a Companion shoot lazers out of it eyes, if it had Vaporize equipped.

I just want DE to give us Link mods for all things Robotic that fly.

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Sentinel Survivability
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Sentinel Survivability Buff, please DE you keep adding new and more powerful enemies that can zap our Sentinels in one shot just about, even with Primed Regen on it, dead outright in the first few minutes into some high missions, especially horrid on high Corpus missions.

We need our Sentinel mods like our Companion mods made into Link mods so we can at least make them hopefully survive longer than 3 minutes into a 10 minute mission.

Warframe abilities and other healing methods that heal Warframes should also heal the Sentinels, it feels like you just don't care, yet you keep releasing new Sentinels that are just as bad as the old ones.

Not all of us want to run around with a Demios pet that cannot die outright and respawns over your head.

To add the new Corpus Lich hound just fried my sentinel in one shot, come on DE give the Sentinels some lovin.

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[PlanckZero]

4 minutes ago, Slayer-. said:

Yes it would be interesting to see how some would work with universal mods, but it wouldn't work though on some, take the MOA's stomp and other companions skills, they are unique for a reason for some of the custom locked skills to a certain type of companion cannot be replicated on the others, though I it would be funny to see a Companion shoot lazers out of it eyes, if it had Vaporize equipped.

I mean given some of the abilities things have already it's not like laser eyes are that farfetched.  Depending on how poorly the animation team takes the idea it you could even just get away with taking even offensive abilities with specific animations like a moas stomp and just not have them accompanied by animations or use the closest existing animation for that companion type.  Given the hectic nature of the game it's not like you'd notice most of the time either way.

Then again the real problem mods here are the older passive ones so you could argue against even needing to touch much beyond those three and dealing with that problem at all.

[trst]

Wouldn't work since players would just pile them on a Vulpaphyla or Smeeta/Adarza for an un-nerfed Charm/Cat's Eye.

Really the only way to increase companion diversity is a survivability buff (to devalue Devolution) and nerfing abilities like Charm and Cat's Eye (too universally applicable while everything else is far more niche).

[PlanckZero]

2 hours ago, trst said:

Wouldn't work since players would just pile them on a Vulpaphyla or Smeeta/Adarza for an un-nerfed Charm/Cat's Eye.

Really the only way to increase companion diversity is a survivability buff (to devalue Devolution) and nerfing abilities like Charm and Cat's Eye (too universally applicable while everything else is far more niche).

Depends on the level of control DE has over restricting mod placement.  Since the point is to get people to branch out into other companion types it could be set so that you can't equip a kavat species mod on a different type of kavat which would prevent double diping on Charm/Cats Eye.  Also possible they could restrict the placement so you can only have one that doesn't match your companions type at a time so once you give a Vulpaphyla Charm you cna't also add Cat's Eye.

 

[(XBOX)C11H22O11]

Idk my hound is pretty neat

[(PSN)robotwars7]

what DE needs to do is decide whether or not companions are meant to be utility based, or genuine DPS aids, or at least classify each comapnion individually based on what benefits it brings.

companions should either be an extra form of utility that you don't need to worry about losing with their death, OR a genuine companion you should protect that genuinely makes a difference in battle. currently DE try to straddle both sides of the fence and this approach has NEVER worked. every other companion in the game became irrelevant for combat the moment Vulpaphylas arrived, and every utility companion pales in comparison to a Helios with Vacuum and Primed Regen. 

the sooner we get a proper companion rework the better. I don't expect the sister hounds to be anywhere near as strong as my panzer Vulp, or even my worst MOAs. 

 

[(PSN)GateNomez]

My favorite companion is the Helminth Charger, and it's absolutely vicious in combat.  However the Smeeta "Charm" buff is simply too OP to pass up (I play endgame content; Steel Essence + Kuva farming, etc.).  Getting those doublings/quadruplings of critical resource drops (and affinity boosts!) at random is just to good to ignore (resource buff applies to Kuva Floods even!).  It's no wonder literally everyone around me is doing the exact same thing - running Smeeta Kavats every mission.

I've always wanted that "Charm" mod to be a universal companion mod.  If I could just stick the "Charm" mod on my Helminth Charger, I'd be so happy.  I'm sure people out there all have their favorite companions they'd love to play more if feeling obligated to use the Smeeta Kavat wasn't constantly holding them back.

Remember the early years when Carrier was the only Sentinel that could equip "Vacuum?"  Remember how everyone's Sentinel usage stats back then were 95% Carrier, 5% every other Sentinel combined?  DE recognized that imbalance back then and here we are now with a universal Vacuum mod now for all robotics.

We're in the same boat right now with the Smeeta-exclusive resource/affinity buffs going on via "Charm."  DE needs to recognize that there is yet another major companion imbalance going on here which needs to be reworked/universalized.  And new companion-specific mods/abilities need to be developed to replace those mods which DE should (hopefully) be making universally equippable between companions (i.e. give the Smeeta a new unique ability in place of making "Charm" a universal mod).

[Marvelous_A]

Regen should just be universal and cooldown-based, say respawn every 1 minute, and also life steal for sentinels on warframe melee attack like the companions.

 

[(PSN)GateNomez]

4 minutes ago, Marvelous_A said:

Regen should just be universal and cooldown-based, say respawn every 1 minute, and also life steal for sentinels on warframe melee attack like the companions.

 

Agreed.  DE could very easily make a robotic equivalent of Pack Leader.  Call it "Field Repair," or something to that effect, and let us heal our robotics via melee attacks.

Regen could be 1min cooldown while Primed Regen is as soon as 30s cooldown at max rank maybe.  Something like that.  All very simple solutions that would greatly increase companion variety.

[(PSN)thowed]

I'd use alot more types of companions if they all had the Saryn cat revival.  It's really aggravating having to manually revive all the others every 10 seconds or have your sentinel just fart in the wind any time an enemy breathes past level 50.

[Grizzmoe]

I primary use Nautilus, that thing is definitely a Protea's best friend because of its ability where it groups enemies together for you, perfectly lining them up for blaze artillery to deal massive damage.

Not only this but I run equilibrium on my Protea and Synth fiber on Nautilus, giving me a bottomless pit of energy to work with. 

What happens when Nautilus dies? Well Protea has an augment where she can revive sentinels, that for some reason is also able to fit in her exilus slot.

 

 

[DemonHoundRider]

The +Armor/Health/Shield mods should just be innate to all companions. This would free up mod slots to allow for different built options for normal content, and for harder content stack with the link mods to improve their survivability. Additional give them full shield gating regardless of what % their shields are at.

 

 

[Soy77]

I personally believe companions should just never dies.

They came from ancient times in videogames when game developers think that babysitting things is fun. But today, ellie (from tlou, not the sequel) and atreus have proven that companions who we don't need to worry about is 5,000,000 times more fun. Both games they appeared in won goty by the way.

 

But i also understand that companions systems are already in place, so overhauling the whole thing might be too much.