The druid has a boon “Pack Leader” that reads:
Lucky Hit: Critical Strikes have a 20% chance to reset the cooldowns of you companion skills.
I sat on the training dummy trying to get this to proc using the companions themselves first: Ravens, Poison Creeper, wolves, and the Werewolf variant of the wolves. Neither the passive damage nor the active damage from either of these companions would reset the cooldown on the companion’s skills, despite wolves having a 50%+ lucky hit chance.
I also tried using the unqiue Fleshrender, which causes D.roar and Blood Howl to cause a flat amount of damage to poisoned targets. These abilities also do not reset the cooldowns. I am convinced they do not lucky hit at all when using this legendary. They seem to have no problem with critical strikes though. This is not surprising so much as it is disappointing. I think this legendary should give these two abilities the chance to lucky hit.
Next up is the Wild Rage Aspect
Your companions also gain the bonuses from Bestial Rampage key passive when you do.
The attack speed buff from werewolf form does not benefit the ravens in any way. I also mixed in the Nighthowler aspect using Preserving Blood Howl to give attack speed that way as well. The ravens simply did not benefit in any way to this, passive nor actively.
Likewise in my testing the poison creeper gained no benefit from attack speed buffs.
The wolves on the other hand will attack more quickly.
One last thing is I’m not seeing any difference in damage that companions do to enemies with +dmg to far or +damage to close enemies. If I take the Nature’s Reach passive the damage of my wolf companions does not change whether I am right next to training dummies or far away from them. It makes no difference.
Please normalize how companions work and keep it consistent in the tooltips.
7 Likes
If things don’t work for companions, like bestial rampage or damage to close/far, then it would be great if its adressed, or at least they improve tooltips, tips on loading screen or wording of the aspect.
Generally speaking druid players are too much in the blind with companions. Its a bit silly that everything needs testing because nothing functions as advertised.
3 Likes
I play a build on eternal that uses no core skills and can do full clears of NM 93-94 dungeons in about 8 min (human only)…so while most people use companions to buff core skills with no intent to have companions do damage, they can be used without it and clear hard content. If had my equipment on seasonal I could easily do NM100 in 5 min, but it takes too long to get that good of equipment.
As for not knowing how companions work, there is a wowhead site that is a great starting point to tell you what stats to prioritize and close/distant damge is not there. You can also read through the necro forums and see minions work the same way (so consistency from the Dev team in terms of design). For lucky hit to work, this only applies to when you actively use them. I just tested this in a 3 min period and got it proc twice. If you did not get it to proc at all maybe your crit is not high enough to facilitate, bad RNG, or you tested more passive than active skill usage?
For Ravens, if you read the description you will see it states that ravens attack for X damage over 5 sec (6 sec for active), which indicates stacking speed will not do anything because the developers preset the attack frequency (same with poison creeper). Finally, Blood Howl and Debilitating roar do not have a lucky hit coefficient if you read the tool tip, so they cannot proc lucky hit effects.
I am not saying your ideas would not be great, but as of right now I fail to see a “mechanical issue”, the game is working according to the tool tips minus which of the stats minions inherit 30% of (this could be more clear!). In fact, minions are supposed to gain 100% of %vulnerable, but I have not tested it. From my necro build that more easily sets up vulnerable I see minion damage go way up though.
I am using all companions in my build and I full clear level 100 with the 6 glyphs on level 15 yet. It depends of your build. Anyway, companions are getting a good buff on next patch.
I think this is a bit of a stretch. For example the tooltip reads “Your companions also gain the bonuses from bestial rampage when you do.” But thats not accurate. Only wolves get both bonuses.
This is not accurate. Ferocious Wolf Pack: Lucky Hit: Your wolves attacks have up to a 40% chance to fortify you for…"
This procs off of the wolves passive damage consistently because every melee hit they have has a 50%+ lucky hit chance. The problem here is that the Spirit boon is only proccing off of YOUR lucky hit crits. It does not proc off of your pets at all. I tested this for over 40 minutes with almost 40% crit. It’s not that they aren’t lucky-hit critting, it’s that the boon is not working with companions.
I’m not saying companions are bad, I’m saying that their mechanics are not working properly or the tooltips are not clear for what they can/can’t do and what effects them and what doesn’t effect them. If the spirit boon is working as intended then it should state “your attacks”. If it’s only supposed to work on pet actives, it should state that too but it does not.