How to make the most of your companions?

How can I make the most out of my companions in Diablo 3 ROS? I realize they won't be doing as much damage as I do, but I've chosen their perks, I keep their weapons and gear updated as best I can, but they still feel useless to me, and even at level 55, they're not helping me much in terms of DPS.

Solution 1:

There are many ways to benefit from your followers. Even though they don't deal much damage, they can offer you some good support utility.

1 - The Enchanteress

Skills

• Charm, Disorient and Mass Control allow you to benefit from effect versus ennemies under control imparing effect (like Bane of the Trapped).
• Missile Ward and Powered Armor both offer some welcome and free toughness.
• You can get more damage for free with Erosion and Focused Minds.

Items

• Maximus will allow you to get a Sumonned Demon.
• The Tormentor has a chance to charm ennemies on hit.
• The Grand Vizier : in its legacy version could roll with high (up to +50%) magic find and gold find. So a nice bonus for you.

2 - The Scoundrel

Skills

• Crippling Shot, Dirty Fighting and Powered Shot offer some Crowd Control, once again helping to trigger items like Bane of the Trapped.
• Hysteria or Anatomy will boost your damage for free.

Items

There is only one item I'd recommand to get on Lyndon and it is : Buriza-Do Kyanon. This items synergizes very well with his skill Multishot. Each arrow he shoots has up to 10% chance (15% if you have a legacy version of Buriza) to freeze the target on hit aswell as piercing thus hitting and freezing foes behind too. Thanks to multishot Lyndon shoots 3 arrow at a time so you can imagine the potential for this combo. You can even add (if you find it) a legacy version of The Star of Azkaranth which would boost his chance to freeze on hit to 20%. Thats a huge Crowd Control boost.

3 - The Templar

My favourite because it offers my class (Demon Hunter) some welcome sustainability and is aswell a permanent Crowd Control source if used correctly.

Skills

• Heal, Loyalty and Inspire bring some welcome sustain for life and ressource (especially in Greater Rifts)
• Charge offers some welcome Crowd Control and will make the Templar go in melee range and take the aggro of the mobs which can be very helpful.

But for me the Templar shines with a special combo :

Intimidate : This skill allows you to have almost permanently slowed ennemies arround the Templar. If used with Bul-Kathoss' Wedding Band (a ring that drains life from, and so inflict damage to, all enemies arround you) in duo with Thunderfury (the lightning bolt has a huge range and allows the Templar to aggro mob from very far and still slow them by 80% for 3 second). Using this method you can benefit from items like Bane of the Trapped or skills like Cull the weak permanently without having to think about how to slow your foes.

4 - In general

You can get the following items on any follower :

• The Ess of Johan will occasionally (often enough for you to notice) pull all enemies toward the target of your follower. This can be helpful to group up mobs in the same place and use your AOE more effectively.
• Overwhelming Desire has a chance to Charm ennemies on hit and they also suffer from 35% more damage. It doesn't work on Boss though usefull enough on elites for you to use it.

Last but not least : the most used trick with followers is to have both you and the follower use Unity and put a Follower items that makes him invulnerable (The Focus, The Relic or The Token). The actual effect of those items are Your follower doesn't take damage anymore. This implies that when the follower gets hit he takes 0 damage so the Unity's effect doesnt affect you. However when you take damage, 50% of those damage are redirected to the follower who doesn't take any. That's a net free 50% damage reduction.

Solution 2:

To "get the most" out of your Follower (a bit different than a companion which is the term for a Demon Hunter's friendly animals that are enabled by a skill or Marauder's set) you have to reconsider what their usefulness is.

Many players will tell you, trying to maximize a Follower's DPS is all in vain, as their DPS is only a pittance of your main character's ultimate capabilities. In fact, by the time you are level 70 and start working on 'min-max'ing a build, your Follower will only do a fraction of a percent of damage that you can, even with the absolute best items.

Instead, you have to focus on support abilities and legendary item combinations that can turn the tides.

For most players, the most useful Follower, is one who sports a Unity ring with a Token that has the legendary ability of "Your Follower cannot die". Couple this with a Unity ring on your own character and that is the most usefulness you can get out of a Follower as they will effectively mitigate 50% of your taken damage.

There's other tricks you can do with Followers also, but most fall short of being efficient.