Abyss of Dagath - Dev Workshop: Companion Improvements and Tweaks

[[DE]Momaw]

Hello Tenno!

This is one of our many Developer Workshops for Update 34: Abyss of Dagath. To see what other changes are coming in this Update, check out our other Developer Workshops here:

• Hydroid Rework
• Companion Rework
• New Player Path Improvements
• Accessibility + HUD Improvements
• Systems Changes and General QOL
   

In our next update, Abyss of Dagath, we will be making extensive changes to the way you use, Mod, and interact with your Companions!  Please use this post to become informed about what we are changing and why. As always, with pre-release information, this represents our current plans and goals but it might differ slightly from the final version.

Our high-level objectives for this Companion rework are:

1. Make pets more viable in high-level gameplay by making them immortal. Pets can no longer die! This avoids frustrating scenarios where you are relying on your Pet to provide some feature or bonus only to have them get removed from play. The base stats of Pets has also been increased significantly to help them in difficult missions.
2. Introduce more interactive Mods that offer ways to play alongside your Pet instead of it being mostly autonomous like a specter.
3. Changes to many Pet Mods, mostly to support the first two goals of removing death states and improving basic survivability. Some Mods were inconsistent in their naming or stats, and we have improved this. We have rebalanced some Mods that players felt were not good enough, or ones that we've observed are SO good that they are considered "essential."

Pet Immortality

We've all seen the memes with people giving their Pets funny names, only to see the message over and over every few minutes: "Your pet is down!"  Dying cats and dogs have been demanding attention on your HUD, and spontaneously combusting sentinels have been robbing you of your Vacuum and Animal Instinct for years.

All that changes with this update. Going forward, Pets will still have Health and Shield values, and they can be knocked out, but they will not die if you fail to revive them. When they reach zero Health, Pets will instead become Incapacitated for a base duration of 60 seconds. All Pets will automatically revive at the end of their Incapacitate period, and there is no limit to the number of times this can happen.

• Kavats, Kubrows, Moas, and Predasites will collapse on the ground and can be, optionally, manually revived to get them back into action quicker.
• Sentinels cannot be manually revived, but they will fly along with you in a damaged state while performing their automatic self-revive.
• Vulpaphylas have their usual tricks instead, where they morph into a Sentinel-like state for a short period and then recover.
• Khora's Venari still uses its usual behavior of temporarily disappearing if defeated, but you can override its time-out by spending energy to cast her Venari Ability.

Several Mods have been modified or introduced that also change when or how your Pet deals with Incapacitation - see the section about Mods for specifics.

 

Pet Stat Changes

Two broad changes have been made with regard to your Pet's base stats to increase their staying power.

Firstly Health, Shields and Armor have been refactored across the board. This simple numeric buff was made with the goal of Pet survivability increasing by approximately 50%. This also means that the choice of whether to use, for example, Enhanced Vitality or Linked Vitality, will depend on your Warframe choice instead of the Linked Mod always being strictly superior.

Additionally, non-Sentinel Pets now gain their full Health and Shield values immediately when you acquire them. Historically Health and Shield values would increase as your Pet ranked up, which you could see as "Rank Bonuses" in the Upgrades screen. We've removed this behavior and simply given Pets what would end up being their Rank 30 values at Rank 0. This should let you immediately take your Pets on more difficult missions after earning them!

Including both the removal of Pet rank bonuses, and the base increase to stats, here’s what the new stats will look like for all Pets at rank 0:

Revised Kubrow Stats:

• Huras Kubrow: 560 Health (from 150),  490 Shield (from 125), 200 Armor (from 50)
• Raksa Kubrow: 750 Health (from 200), 390 Shield (from 100), 200 Armor (from 50)
• Sahasa Kubrow: 940 Health (from 250), 290 Shield (from 75), 200 Armor (from 50)
• Sunika Kubrow: 830 Health (from 220), 350 Shield (from 90), 200 Armor (from 50)
• Chesa Kubrow: 940 Health (from 250), 290 Shield (from 75), 200 Armor (from 50)
• Helminth Charger: 710 Health (from 190), 330 Shield (from 85), 200 Armor (from 50)

Revised Predasite Stats:

• Predasite (all types): 710 Health (from 190), 350 Shield (from 90), 200 Armor (from 50)

Revised Vulpaphyla Stats:

• Vulpaphyla (all types) 680 Health (from 180), 370 Shield (from 95), 200 Armor (from 50)

Revised Moa Stats:

• Moa: 350 Health (from 100), 350 Shield (from 100), 350 Armor (from 100)
• Moa base stats can be modified further by their components and via gilding

Revised Kavat Stats:

• Adarza Kavat: 310 Health (from 80), 270 Shield (from 70), 200 Armor (from 50)
• Smeeta Kavat: 390 Health (from 100), 230 Shield (from 60), 200 Armor (from 50)
• Vasca Kavat: 310 Health (from 80), 270 Shield (from 70), 200 Armor (from 50)
• Venari: 900 Health (from 300), 350 Armor (from 350)
• Venari Prime: 1050 Health (from 350),  450 Armor (from 450)

Revised Hound Stats:

• Adlet Hound: 350 Health (from 100), 450 Shield (from 150), 350 Armor (from 100)
• Garmr Hound: 350 Health (from 100), 350 Shield (from 100), 450 Armor (from 150)
• Raiju Hound: 450 Health (from 150), 350 Shield (from 100),  350 Armor (from 100)
• Hound base stats can be modified further by their components and via gilding

Revised Sentinel Stats:

• Carrier: 560 Health (from 200), 250 Shield (from 100), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Carrier Prime: 650 Health (400), 200 Shield (from 100), 150 Armor (from 150)
• Dethcube: 560 Health (from 200), 250 Shield (from 100), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Dethcube Prime: 600 Health (from 300), 200 Shield (from 100), 150 Armor (from 150)
• Diriga: 700 Health (from 350), 150 Shield (from 50), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Djinn: 560 Health (from 200), 250 Shield (from 100), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Helios: 560 Health (from 200), 250 Shield (from 100), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Helios Prime: 700 Health (from 250), 200 Shield (from 100), 100 Armor (from 100)
• Nautilus: 560 Health (from 200), 250 Shield (from 100), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Oxylus: 560 Health (from 200), 250 Shield (from 100), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Shade: 600 Health (from 350), 130 Shield (from 50), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Shade Prime: 700 Health (from 350), 200 Shield (from 100), 100 Armor (from 100)
• Prisma Shade: 600 Health (from 300), 130 Shield (from 50), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Taxon: 560 Health (from 200), 250 Shield (from 100), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Wyrm: 560 Health (from 200), 250 Shield (from 100), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Wyrm Prime: 450 health (from 225), 600 Shield (from 300), 150 Armor (from 150)

 

Consistency In Pet Healing

Previously, the Mod Link Health could cause your Companions to gain some of the healing that your Warframe did. This invisible feature was not indicated by the card, and it was never explained what forms of healing worked or why. Additionally, Pets were using some of the same mechanics that things like mission objectives did, which limited the effects of some healing or defensive powers. We've decided to remove both of these obscure mechanics and restrictions.

Companions will no longer gain Health when your Warframe does if using certain Health-absorbing powers together with the Mod Linked Vitality (formerly Link Health). The restrictions of the following abilities and features, as they apply to granting Health, Shields, or Damage Resistance to Pets. have been removed:

• Warding Halo
• Blessing
• Immolation
• Blood Altar
• Splinter Storm
• Intrepid Stand
• Eclipse
• Discharge
• Desolate Hands
• Penance
• Thurible
• Mend & Maim
• Sancti Magistar
• Protective Sling

Changes To Existing Mods

Sentinel Survivability Mod Changes:

• Calculated Redirection changed from max 275% Shields to max 250% Shields
• Enhanced Vitality changed from max 220% Health to max 250% Health
• Metal Fiber changed from max 110% Armor to max 250% Armor
• Regen has been changed significantly. Because your Sentinels no longer die after reaching zero Health, Regen instead reduces the Incapacitation time of your Sentinel by 20 seconds, and provides 6 seconds of Invulnerability after reviving.
• Primed Regen provides a greater benefit: Incapacitation time is reduced by 35 seconds, and provides 6 seconds of Invulnerability after reviving.
• Sacrifice still allows your Sentinel to automatically revive you; however, the Sentinel now goes into Incapacitation instead of being destroyed. Adds 15 seconds to your Sentinel's Incapacitation time.
• Repair Kit has been changed from providing your Sentinel with 6 Health per second to 18 Health per second.

Companion Survivability Mod Changes:

• Link Health has been renamed to Linked Vitality, and changed from max 165% of your Warframe's Health shared with Companion, to max 125% shared Health.
• Link Shields has been renamed to Linked Redirection, and changed from max 110% of your Warframe's Shield shared with Companion, to max 125% shared Shield.
• Link Armor has been renamed to Linked Fiber, and changed from max 110% of your Warframe's Armor shared with Companion, to max 125% shared Armor.
• Medi-Pet Kit has been changed from providing your Companion with 6 Health per second and 72% Bleedout Reduction, to providing 12 Health per second and reducing Incapacitation time by 15 seconds.
• Accelerated Deflection (+90% Shield Recharge) has been changed from being only equipped on Sentinels, to the Robotic category, which means it is now also compatible with Hounds and Moas. Additionally, it also provides -45% Shield Recharge Delay.

Other Companion Mod Changes:

• Djinn's "Reawaken'' has been changed. Now it will reduce Djinn's Incapacitation time by 6 seconds for each Energy Orb you pick up.  Djinn will also revive with 300 points of Overshield for each collected Orb.

Dev note: Since every Sentinel now has a free immortality feature, Djinn needed something to be special again.  

• Pack Leader has been changed. Instead of healing your Companion by 36% of melee damage inflicted, it now restores 50 Health per melee hit. Excess healing becomes Overguard instead, with a maximum of 600 Overguard.
• Primed Pack Leader increases Pack Leader effect to 92 Health restored per hit, and increases Overguard cap to 1100.

Dev note: Pack Leader's healing was so strong that, functionally, any upgraded melee weapon would fully heal your Companion in a single hit. You would hit an enemy for several thousand damage, and your pet would proportionately receive thousands of Health. This change tries to make the healing values more sensible so that you can heal your Companion efficiently but not *instantly*. By letting you overflow into Overguard, it also provides some extra ability to tank large hits.

• Sentinel Sanctuary and Companion Shelter Mods have been improved. The shield globe, while the player is performing a Revive, has been increased from 600 Health to 1800 Health.
• Self Destruct has been altered and renamed. Formerly this would cause Sentinels to cause 600 Blast damage in an 18-meter radius on death. This is now renamed to Knock Out Blast and causes 600 Blast damage in an 18-meter radius on Incapacitation.
• Loyal Companion has been replaced entirely. Formerly it provided a 90% Bleedout-Link so that your Companion had a longer period of time where it could be revived. Since pet death is no longer a factor: Loyal Companion causes your pet to taunt enemies and draw fire to itself for 30 seconds if your Warframe falls below 35% Health. There is a 60-second cooldown between activations.
• (Parazon) Hard Reset: Changed from instantly reviving your pet if you achieved 3 Mercy Kills within 40 seconds, to reducing your pet's Incapacitation time by 10 seconds on each Mercy Kill.

Dev note: We found that this was fairly difficult to achieve. Changing it to allow incremental progress makes it more reliably beneficial to use this.

• Fired Up has been both improved and simplified. Previously this would require that your Sentinel has been shooting continuously for some period of time, and then added a Heat damage multiplier. This has been changed so that the Sentinel gains a 5% bonus Heat damage on every weapon hit up to 100%. The bonus resets after 5 seconds without the Sentinel getting a hit

Dev note: This Mod was difficult to understand and only worked if the Sentinel weapon already did some amount of Heat damage. The mechanics are now more intuitive and the bonus applies the same way adding a Mod would, so your Sentinel's weapon doesn't need to already do Heat damage to benefit.

• Spare Parts: Replaced completely. Previously Spare Parts would cause Sentinels to drop rare materials on death. This has been replaced by Salvage Scanner, which causes your Sentinel to mark enemies for 5 seconds, choosing a new target every 15 seconds. Killing the marked enemy causes them to drop extra loot.

Dev note: Since Pets no longer die, we wanted to change their resource drop to something that was more interactive and rewards combat instead of your Sentinel randomly exploding.

New Companion Mods

Referring back to the introduction, one of our goals with the Companion rework is to add opportunities for the player to work together with the Pet. Instead of a Mod that only affects your Pet, we looked for ways that you and your Pet could amplify each other. Our current plan is for these new Mods to be available at the Conservation vendors in Cetus, Fortuna, and Deimos. These new Mods are still in development, so we aren't quite ready to share them in this Workshop post, but full details will be available in the Abyss of Dagath patch notes.

Further Companion Quality-Of-Life Changes

A few further changes that are worth mentioning:

• Sentinels now avoid damage from Fire Eximus explosions if you also avoid damage with a successful Roll.
• The improvement to Shield Gating where it now scales with maximum Shield strength and fully resets as long as you have any Shield charge at all, also applies to Companions.
• Companions can now gain Overguard and Overshield.

 

Closing

Thank you for taking the time to review the Dev Workshop! We hope you'll have fun playing our changes, coming to the game with the Abyss of Dagath update. As ever, we will be watching for your feedback and welcome constructive discussion.

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by [DE]Momaw

[Cerikus]

Pablo said that when companions go down you lose Vacuum and Animal instict temporarily. I will say this:

If this is how it's going to work, then all that hard work team has put into the rework was a WASTE OF TIME.

EDIT: Since we recently learned this:

23 hours ago, [DE]Momaw said:

Just to clarify, Fetch/Vacuum and Animal Instinct continue to work while your pet is Incapacitated. So anybody who was sad about that can stop being sad :)

I am adding this edit. It's absolutely amazing and it means that all companions can now freely be explored and tried out without having to pay attention to your basic gameplay needs. I am super hyped to try every single companion and find the one that will make me the most happy and not the one that's most likely to survive and provide basic functionality. It's going to be great. Thanks DE for this and for listening.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Cerikus

[Dr.Tursko]

Gotta agree. Everything about the rework is terrible other than them not dying forever. 

But, incapacitated is a different way of them saying 'dead' and respawning after 60 seconds. Sure, there are ways with mods now to reduce this cooldown, but it doesn't change the fact that my Kavat running at a Corrupted Crewman and eating 1 million damage to the face from a point blank shotgun is gonna remove my ability to have vacuum and extended radar.

The effects of these changes are going to be mostly positive in normal star chart, but once you hit *spoiler level* areas, such as post Lore Quests, you wont be able to notice a difference besides them appearing through the whole mission, just in 60 second intervals.

[Pakaku]

Wow, this is such an unnecessary and hard nerf that I wonder how this even got approved.

Considering this is tied to an AI NPC that you have no control over, there is no reason that the player should be punished for something that is out of their control

Edited September 28, 2023 by Pakaku

[Cerikus]

On 2023-09-28 at 9:13 PM, Dr.Tursko said:

Gotta agree. Everything about the rework is terrible other than them not dying forever. 

But, incapacitated is a different way of them saying 'dead' and respawning after 60 seconds. Sure, there are ways with mods now to reduce this cooldown, but it doesn't change the fact that my Kavat running at a Corrupted Crewman and eating 1 million damage to the face from a point blank shotgun is gonna remove my ability to have vacuum and extended radar.

The effects of these changes are going to be mostly positive in normal star chart, but once you hit *spoiler level* areas, such as post Lore Quests, you wont be able to notice a difference besides them appearing through the whole mission, just in 60 second intervals.

Exactly. All I currently care about is vacuum and loot detection. Unless I can keep is for 100% of the time, I won't even give this rework a chance. 

It's baffling to me that after 10 YEARS they still refuse to accept that losing vacuum is the worst thing in this game. It's a LOOTER-SHOOTER. Why do the still refuse us to allow us to collect loot comfortably ???

If I'd know I won't lose my vacuum to idiotic companion AI and random insta-kills I would actaully love to give the rework a chance and try EVERY. SINGLE. companion to find my new favorite. Otherwise it's a waste of time.

EDIT: Since we recently learned this:

23 hours ago, [DE]Momaw said:

Just to clarify, Fetch/Vacuum and Animal Instinct continue to work while your pet is Incapacitated. So anybody who was sad about that can stop being sad :)

I am adding this edit. It's absolutely amazing and it means that all companions can now freely be explored and tried out without having to pay attention to your basic gameplay needs. I am super hyped to try every single companion and find the one that will make me the most happy and not the one that's most likely to survive and provide basic functionality. It's going to be great. Thanks DE for this and for listening.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Cerikus

[Pakaku]

4 minutes ago, Cerikus said:

It's baffling to me that after 10 YEARS they still refuse to accept that losing vacuum is the worst thing in this game. It's a LOOTER-SHOOTER. Why do the still refuse us to allow us to collect loot comfortably ???

Wouldn't be surprised if it's all desperation for retaining player hours. Their business model relies on player hours, and all those little bits of loot you miss by not having Vacuum active, and now by having it disabled when your companion is down, will pile up over time in the long-term

Pablo usually has a decent track record with updates and reworks, not sure what happened this time

Edited September 28, 2023 by Pakaku

[Her_Lovely_Tentacles]

I love the changes you made to companions, my Wyrmchen will be very happy!
I used to try to die intentionally to bring my Wyrm back, so glad this is being addressed!

^{On that note: Is Wyrm Prime now supposed to have less health than Wyrm?}

[ChaoticEdge]

well information the pets will be knocked out instead of killed so linking the site

for it left me with some questions for example can we use Nekros's soul punch that has the mod does soul survivor to punch our sentinel to instance resurrect it or do we have to wait seriously of wait that 60 sec or is there a way to increase the speed of time resurrecting our pets or companions?

So what are your thoughts, ask questions about it, and let's answer in-group questions about these companion improvements and tweaks in discussion.

[Cerikus]

On 2023-09-28 at 4:36 PM, [DE]Momaw said:

spontaneously combusting sentinels have been robbing you of your Vacuum and Animal Instinct for years

And will continue to do so. Doesn't matter if you rename it, put it on a cooldown or give us more ways to revive companions, it will STILL be an issue.

Unless there is permanent vacuum/fetch I am NOT giving this rework a chance. Will continue to use my Helios.

Please fix it, otherwise this rework was a huge waste of time.

EDIT: Since we recently learned this:

23 hours ago, [DE]Momaw said:

Just to clarify, Fetch/Vacuum and Animal Instinct continue to work while your pet is Incapacitated. So anybody who was sad about that can stop being sad :)

I am adding this edit. It's absolutely amazing and it means that all companions can now freely be explored and tried out without having to pay attention to your basic gameplay needs. I am super hyped to try every single companion and find the one that will make me the most happy and not the one that's most likely to survive and provide basic functionality. It's going to be great. Thanks DE for this and for listening.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Cerikus

[HunterDigi]

5 hours ago, [DE]Momaw said:

Kavats, Kubrows, Moas, and Predasites will collapse on the ground and can be, optionally, manually revived to get them back into action quicker.

Oh nice! So nothing actually changes for me. I was worried my cat would be forced to stay out for 60s compared to now where I can instantly revive her with Vazarin.

 

Would be nice if vacuum was universal too like enemy radar is going to be universal... and needs a bit of loot radar too (especially in duviri when not on a horse, why do I need to get in a horse to find plants in a cave xD)

 

I am also concerned how Charm will be nerfed in the next iteration :(

Edited September 28, 2023 by HunterDigi

[Bricks]

5 hours ago, [DE]Momaw said:

Other Companion Mod Changes:

• Djinn's "Reawaken'' has been changed. Now it will reduce Djinn's Incapacitation time by 6 seconds for each Energy Orb you pick up.  Djinn will also revive with 300 points of Overshield for each collected Orb.

New Companion Mods

Referring back to the introduction, one of our goals with the Companion rework is to add opportunities for the player to work together with the Pet. Instead of a Mod that only affects your Pet, we looked for ways that you and your Pet could amplify each other. Our current plan is for these new Mods to be available at the Conservation vendors in Cetus, Fortuna, and Deimos. These new Mods are still in development, so we aren't quite ready to share them in this Workshop post, but full details will be available in the Abyss of Dagath patch notes.

On these two points:
1. Will the new Reawaken mod work when picking up energy orbs as operator? Care taken for this to be the case would be very nice, though I suppose it it might have strange interactions with void slinging through enemies restoring energy...
2. I hope some of these new mods will work between Companion and Operator/Drifter and not just Companion and Warframe. At someone who plays Operator + Umbra tag-team as his main build, having a companion mod that fits more specifically into this niche could be nice. :)

[MobyTheDuck]

Great changes, my only problem is that Kavats/Kubrows still need to share their mod capacity for Damage/Crits with Survivability/Utility. Would be nice if we could mod their melee separately.

[Shemarria]

This wasn't touched on... BUT are we going to be getting our pets (Kubrows & Kavats) fur fixed?!  They STILL look horrible like their fur is made from wire.😝
PLEASE; it's been nearly 2...3? years where I can't stand the sight of my kubrows.  
FIX
THE
FUR!
thank you.💯💫

[LittleLeoniePrime]

1 hour ago, Cerikus said:

Pablo said that when companions go down you lose Vacuum and Animal instict temporarily. I will say this:

If this is how it's going to work, then all that hard work team has put into the rework was a WASTE OF TIME.

it's really not. Vulpaphylas also work this way lmao

[SteveCutler]

Will the Link mods finally be usable on sentinels?

[JimmuTanno88]

5 hours ago, [DE]Momaw said:

• Pack Leader has been changed. Instead of healing your Companion by 36% of melee damage inflicted, it now restores 50 Health per melee hit. Excess healing becomes Overguard instead, with a maximum of 600 Overguard.
• Primed Pack Leader increases Pack Leader effect to 92 Health restored per hit, and increases Overguard cap to 1100.

Dev note: Pack Leader's healing was so strong that, functionally, any upgraded melee weapon would fully heal your Companion in a single hit. You would hit an enemy for several thousand damage, and your pet would proportionately receive thousands of Health. This change tries to make the healing values more sensible so that you can heal your Companion efficiently but not *instantly*. By letting you overflow into Overguard, it also provides some extra ability to tank large hits.

Now most of these changes look good, but this? This doesn't make sense with the whole theme of enhancing their survivability. Healing only 50 health per HIT either directs you to only use fast hitting melee to top up a health pool of a thousand or more (as companions can easily achieve), or just accept that you will only have vacuum incrementally. Couldn't the percent amount just be decreased instead? Seriously, a flat health gain for that little is more useless on levels above 50 than Warm Coat. 😐

[Cerikus]

4 minutes ago, LittleLeoniePrime said:

it's really not. Vulpaphylas also work this way lmao

Yeah. I don't use vulpaphylas. So if everything is vulpaphyla, nothing changes for me. The rework should incentivise me to explore other companions.
As long as they can die (be downed) which results in a loss of vacuum (even if it's only temporary) I will NEVER equip animal/mechanical companion, because they attack enemies and aggro their attacks, which results in their death. Sentinels don't do that if you unequip the weapon, which increases their chances of survival.

So this rework means I won't be touching companions and I don't have a reason to swap from Helios, because I like scanning things.

[(XBOX)RaeOvSunshyn]

How is this rework going to affect companions in Arbitrations?

[(XBOX)KawaiiAsa]

The immortality bit doesn't explicitly mention them, but I'm assuming (and hoping) that it also applies to Hounds?

Also while we're on this... I've been asking for this for a long time, but can we PLEASE be able to see the duration of Hound mods that rely on a timer (Null Audit, Reflex Denial, Diversified Denial, Evasive Denial) as a player buff? Saying this as someone that always runs Null Audit, so I know when I need to start focusing down Arctic Eximus' so my hound doesn't copy them and make all our lives miserable. Every other mod that provides a timed buff (including some companion mods iirc) display a timer, EXCEPT the Hound ones, which I think should as well. Its a simple QoL change that would be greatly appreciated.

[LittleLeoniePrime]

3 minutes ago, Cerikus said:

Yeah. I don't use vulpaphylas. So if everything is vulpaphyla, nothing changes for me. The rework should incentivise me to explore other companions.
As long as they can die (be downed) which results in a loss of vacuum (even if it's only temporary) I will NEVER equip animal/mechanical companion, because they attack enemies and aggro their attacks, which results in their death. Sentinels don't do that if you unequip the weapon, which increases their chances of survival.

So this rework means I won't be touching companions and I don't have a reason to swap from Helios, because I like scanning things.

I don't have a reason to swap from Helios anymore now either, and I think that's great that he can no longer die now :)

Edited September 28, 2023 by LittleLeoniePrime

[Minifig3D]

5 hours ago, [DE]Momaw said:

• Pack Leader has been changed. Instead of healing your Companion by 36% of melee damage inflicted, it now restores 50 Health per melee hit. Excess healing becomes Overguard instead, with a maximum of 600 Overguard.

 

So, are we also reducing the damage enemies deal per hit to only 50? or does the 50 healing scale with mission level? I imagine it being somewhat difficult to keep my companion alive on steel path after this change...

[Tzolkat]

1 hour ago, Cerikus said:

Pablo said that when companions go down you lose Vacuum and Animal instict temporarily. I will say this:

If this is how it's going to work, then all that hard work team has put into the rework was a WASTE OF TIME.

With companions also getting significant stat buffs and the removal of restrictions such that they benefit from more sources of healing, they should not be going down quite as often.

I'd rather wait until I can get hands-on with the changes and see how they feel from a qualitative standpoint before I offer feedback. On paper, this is looking like a pretty good first pass.

[ranafasihzubair]

A lot of people are complaining about vacuum and loot radar not being active while incapacitated.

Pablo was asked "What happens with the vacuum when they're incapacitated?"

He responds "uh, while they're incapacitated I'm not sure so I imagine it disables cos be disable a few other things but I'd have to verify".

Its clearly not set in stone right now, we only have a preview of PART 1 of the changes. Part 2 will focus on "abilities" so I assume they will make companions' unique mods/abilities more useful across the board which may end up being more important than if you have vacuum or not. Also, bear in mind panzer pets will also lose vacuum if their larva form dies so this is still putting every companion close to panzers. Sentinels will have a faster revive time than panzers if equipped with primed regen (giving sentinels 25s revive time), assuming medi pet kit does not affect panzer devolution since it might not be considered "incapacitated". They also will have 6s invulnerability after reviving. This means if you just want a pet for being alive as much as possible (which I assume won't be the case if the part 2 buffs a lot of abilities/precepts), djinn is the best closely followed by every other sentinel.

I would be interesting if primed regen and medi pet kit were able to be put on every companion (as well as other exclusive mods like link health armor shields) because then every companion could have access to a tiny 10 second revive time. I doubt they would do it, but it would be cool to have imo.

[Cerikus]

Just now, Tzolkat said:

With companions also getting significant stat buffs and the removal of restrictions such that they benefit from more sources of healing, they should not be going down quite as often.

I'd rather wait until I can get hands-on with the changes and see how they feel from a qualitative standpoint before I offer feedback. On paper, this is looking like a pretty good first pass.

The stat buffs are nice, but irrelevant in Steel path when the enemies hit for millions of damage, doesn't matter if my companion has 8k or 13k effective health.

It doesn't matter that they will be down not quite as often. I can run through the Warframe missions at a speed of light. Every second my companion is downed is a second of me not picking up loot.

[Tiltskillet]

5 hours ago, [DE]Momaw said:

• Carrier: 560 Health (from 200), 250 Shield (from 100), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Carrier Prime: 650 Health (400), 200 Shield (from 100), 150 Armor (from 150)
• Dethcube: 560 Health (from 200), 250 Shield (from 100), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Dethcube Prime: 600 Health (from 300), 200 Shield (from 100), 150 Armor (from 150)
• Helios: 560 Health (from 200), 250 Shield (from 100), 80 Armor (from 50)
• Helios Prime: 700 Health (from 250), 200 Shield (from 100), 100 Armor (from 100)

 

These three primes look like their new shield values are incorrect.  Or at least, they shouldn't be lower than the basic versions.