[2023] Additional Companion Changes Updates

Howdy all! Menzoberranzan is live and we wanted to make a few quick comments on the current, and upcoming, companion changes. Our first round of updates hit with Menzoberranzan, and we updated a lot of the companions in Neverwinter, but not all of them. We hope that old favorites, like the Pseudodragon, are still seen as viable, but we hope players are finding many of our other companions are far more competitive. We know a few, like the Incubus, took some hits as we addressed bugs or significant imbalances, but we tried to power-up many companions to viable and playable levels. We will have another patch within the next few weeks that will update more companions. A few of those were erroneously listed in our first draft of patch notes, such as the Cold Iron Warrior and Angel of Protection. We'll be improving those in the next patch, and improving a number of other companions, such as insuring our 'starter' companions perform more consistently. We don't expect every companion to perform the same, or for them all to be 'top tier', but we hope to get all companions (over time) to a solid, playable level. We're hitting a number of support/healer companions in that patch too, such as the Fawns, to try and open up some more options for players. We don't believe we've 'nailed' support/healing companion balance just yet, but we know there is room to make many of them MUCH better as we work on their balance. We are aware of a balance issue regarding our new companion, the Blaspheme Assassin. The stacking mechanic will be updated, such that the companion does not perform differently in groups than when used solo. That mistake is on us, and we apologize for it, but it will be corrected swiftly to prevent it from becoming polarizing. Lastly, we want players to know that companions have a degree of randomness in their damage outputs and skill usage. Please take measurements of their raw damage output as rough estimates as a result. There is as much as +\- 10% randomness on some companion's performance, so depending on luck, a companion that deals 525 damage in one test might actually be the same as one that scored 475. General rankings are good to insure we hit a consistent balance, but don't sweat the details too much if your favorite companion was only 3% lower than another. We are open to feedback on the current, and future changes, and we hope to continue to improve companions (of many types) as we make them a more interesting and diverse tool for players in Neverwinter. Thank you for playing, and we'll see you in Menzoberranzan!