There are plenty of great companions already in the game.
Bonnie Anne is the ideal sharpshooter, El Toro can buff and dodge hits
effectively, and Zeena is a great choice for a Musketeer for any pirate. But
what about the other main companions that you recruit? Whether it be the blocks
of five or ones that everyone recruit, the possibility of improvement is
limitless. And, what other companions could come in the future that may add
variety to your crew? Read on in this three-post segment!
The Starter 5
The five starter companions have always been great – Kobe
Yojimbo and Kan Po, for example, are ideal Swashbucklers and purchasing their
Crown Shop counterparts (Wagyu Sanjuro and Keisuke Yagi) would be a great buy.
These two in particular don’t need much improvement, as they can train multiple
tiers of Relentless and Riposte along having guaranteed Super and Mega critical
powers. Bring either of them with you into a fight, and watch how quickly you
can take down another melee enemy! A talent like Alert as well as a Hurl Knife
or Hurl Blades power would improve them while letting the other starter
companions catch up.
As for Subodai and Egg Shen, the two Buccaneers of the
group, they are great sources of damage with the ability to train Relentless 3,
but could definitely be improved by giving them more Buccaneer qualities.
Although Subodai already has great armor, it’s difficult to rely just on that
to keep him from being defeated – after all, it’s quite possible for only a
fraction of your armor value to be taken into account during damage
calculation. Kraken’s Lament would be a good solution, as Triton’s Song is
great on Ratbeard. With more protection, they can deal out damage while taking
less themselves – just like a Buccaneer player would.
Wing Chun can be called the outlier of this group. He’s a
Privateer and can only learn up to Relentless 2, and Riposte isn’t as effective
on him as it would be on a Swashbuckler. This means you’ll have to give him
something like Repel Boarders or Flanking, which are good epics, but, combined
with his low damage, do cause him to fall behind a bit. That being said, he’s
an exceptional Privateer – he can buff the accuracy of your units, heal wounded
ones, and can land a critical on an enemy whenever you need him to with his
Guaranteed Critical Strike power.
Privateer companions in general do need some improvement, as
they’re frequently overshadowed by Buccaneers and Swashbucklers. Looking
generally at their stats, nothing really makes them stand out. Of course, this
is understandable, as the same is true for Privateer pirates – except they
receive plenty of powers that make their low stats irrelevant to their
strategy. This could be reflected with Privateer companions, making them more
useful: give them more powers! By enabling them to buff, protect, and heal more
efficiently, Privateers would become much more useful. And, when you think
about it, that is the purpose of the class, isn’t it? Giving Wing Chun
something like Focus Fire would put him more in line with the other starter 5
companions.
The Kraken Skulls 5
The Kraken Skulls 5 are a great set of companions, and they
should be promoting again within the next two books! Considering that Louis le
Bisque is from Valencia, as soon as we have access to there for the second time
around, we may see another promotion in order for the entire group.
As with the Starter 5, some of these companions are better
than others. On top of them all is definitely Louis le Bisque – that bomb power
alone adds yet another to a Musketeer’s arsenal, and, with Buck’s Brim and the
new Level 60+ Crown Shop weapon, he can supply your SIXTH bomb power! To improve
him a bit more, upgrading his Bear Trap power to Scatter Spike would be fair
and not too overpowered – even giving him Hall of Cannonballs instead of Rain
of Mortarshells would be great.
Mormo, too, is already great, mostly due to his plethora of
powers. Simply upgrading these, like with Louis, would greatly improve him –
Davy Jones’ Reach would cause enemies to critical much less, and Raven’s Cry
would give your weaker companions more epic ability bonuses than they would get
with Crow’s Song.
Sarah Steele’s hidden power can be upgraded to Black Fog,
essentially giving your pirate another chance to be hidden. That may not seem
like much, but a second Assassin’s Strike with increased damage combined with
Sarah following up with Guaranteed Critical Strike would improve not only
Sarah, but Swashbucklers too!
Barnabus has become much better with his ability to reduce
the enemy’s accuracy. With this and Triton’s Song, there isn’t much more he
needs – perhaps upgrading Triton’s Song to Kraken’s Lament and giving him an
AoE power (like Goronado’s Gorrila Warfare) would make up for the absence of
Relentless from his epic pool.
Finally, Emmett probably needs the most improvement. His
class was changed recently from a Musketeer to a Privateer, which doesn’t have
any major advantages – in fact, his range was lowered, which can mean a lot for
a ranged unit. Perhaps he could get a protection power at his next promotion –
not necessarily Valor’s Armor yet, but starting out with Valor’s Shield would
be great. At his next promotion, Valor’s Armor would be much more plausible; he
could even learn Tower of Iron Will or The Big Guns now to make him even
better.
The Presidio 5
Finally, we have the Presidio 5. Most of these companions
aren’t top tier, but they all certainly play major roles in the story. They
could all use a bit of improvement at their next promotion, so let’s take a
closer look at their potential.
The three Buccaneers, Mike, Gaspard, and Birgus, don’t
really have anything special about them. They can be fairly tough in a fight,
but they don’t stand out like other Buccaneers may. The simple answer would be
giving them a protection or a charge power, but customized ones could work too –
Mike is good at taking hits, for example, so perhaps he could learn a self-only
power that absorbs 50% of melee damage for 3 rounds and has a chance of
stunning an attacking enemy. For Gaspard, who works well with a melee pirate
due to his ability to train Flanking, could receive something to reflect that.
A power that reads “Flanked enemies must select self for attacks for 5 rounds” –
that would shift the focus onto him, a Buccaneer in the fight, accomplishing
their roles in battles. Additionally, it would encourage pirates to train
Flanking on him. Birgus could have a way of amplifying his damage output, such
as having a power that increases his damage by 25% for 5 rounds but increases
how much he takes by 35%, similar to Berserk in Wizard101.
To make up for his lack of Riposte, Milo could use Assassin’s
Gloom – he can’t hit back after dodging, but he would be able to wound enemies
for five turns, regardless of if they hit him or not. Even better, if he is
defeated after using it, the power’s effect would still play out normally,
giving him an extra advantage over other Swashbucklers. Eventually, this could
even be upgraded to Assassin’s Shroud, prohibiting enemies from healing and
making him a more viable choice in player verses player combat.
Finally, we have Jack Russell. He’s not bad at all, but, as
a melee Privateer, he could have some problems landing a hit and dealing major
damage. Jack seems to be a rather offensive Privateer – he doesn’t have a
healing power like Wing Chun and Emmett do, but only a Guaranteed Critical
Strike power instead. Fighting Fervor, then, could work quite well on him, as
it would make your entire team stronger, as well as Dress the Line to add Repel
Boarders, or another tier of it, to all of your units.
Conclusion
This post segment is made while having in mind that you can
now choose which companions you want to bring with you into a fight. That
allows for giving them defined roles like you see above – Gaspard to stay by
other melee units and flank with them, Sarah to give your team another chance
at being hidden and hit enemies harder, Wing Chun sacrificing his natural
attack to make a certain enemy easier to defeat, etc.
What do you think? How can we expect companions to be
improved in the future, existing ones and new ones? In the next post of this
segment, we’ll discuss universal companions and their potential in the future.
