ESO Companion Gear Guide
Beginning with the Blackwood Chapter in 2021, The Elder Scrolls Online is introducing Companions to the game! Two Companions will be available to start: Mirri Elendis, a female Dark Elf and Bastian Hallix, a male Imperial. Each Companion can be fully equipped with their own Weapons, Armor and Jewelry helping you further customize their build and playstyle, but where do you get the gear? And how do you get it faster? This guide will cover it all!
How To Get Companion Gear In ESO
Companion gear can drop from all enemies in the game, however, boss level enemies have the highest drop rate. This includes:
Delve Bosses
Public Dungeon Bosses
Dolmen, Harrowstorm, Oblivion Portal and other “World Event” bosses
World Bosses
Normal and Veteran Group Dungeon Bosses
Normal and Veteran Trial Bosses
To obtain Companion Gear from any of these bosses all you need to do is get credit for particpating in the kill which normally results in a loot drop. Typically you need to do some damage to the boss in order to get loot to drop. In addition, you must also have a Companion Summoned and with you at the time the loot drops. This is a MUST! No Summoned Companion means NO LOOT!
ESO Companion Gear Drop Rate
Companion Gear in The Elder Scrolls Online has a small chance of dropping from any boss enemy in the game. The drop rate is generally around 10 percent.
Normal enemies have a much smaller chance of dropping companion Gear, roughly around 1 percent.
ESO Companion Gear Traits and Quality
Companions in ESO currently cannot use the same sets as Players. Instead, they use Companion Gear. Companion Gear is basic equipment that offers a static Armor Bonus or Damage Stat plus Companion specific traits. These 9 unique Companion Gear Traits further customize your Companion’s combat role for tanking, healing or DPS.
The 9 Companion Gear Traits are:
Aggressive - Increases Companion Damage Done per piece equipped.
Augmented - Increases duration of all Companion Buffs and Debuffs per piece equipped.
Bolstered - Reduces Companion Damage Taken per piece equipped.
Focused - Increases Companion Critical Strike Rating per piece equipped.
Prolific - Increases Companion Ultimate Generation per piece equipped.
Quickened - Reduces Companion Ability Cooldowns per piece equipped.
Shattering - Increases Companion Penetration per piece equipped.
Soothing - Increases Companion Healing Done per piece equipped.
Vigorous - Increases Companion Maximum Health per piece equipped.
Best Gear Traits For Companions In ESO
Unfortunately, not every trait for companions is a great option at this point and there are definitely some best in slot traits based on how you want to build your companion. The best all around Trait for any type of Companion Build is the Quickened Trait. This decreases your companions ability cooldowns, allowing them to use their abilities more frequently. This is a fantastic trait for any companion build, whether tank, DPS, healer or even a hybrid. Some companion abilities have very long cooldowns upwards of 30 seconds so anything you can do to reduce those is going to be helpful.
Quickened is the best all around trait for any Companion build.
Best Gear Traits For Companion Tanks
Next, for companion tanks two specific traits stand out. The first is the Vigorous Trait which increases your companions Maximum Health. By focusing on the Vigorous Trait your Companion can get over 40,000 Health which is going to be great for helping them take big hits from bosses.
Next, the Bolstered Trait reduces the amount of damage your Companion is going to take, helping them survive even longer. This will be a great option for Companion Tanks as well, or you can also mix and match both Vigorous and Bolstered.
Best Gear Traits For Companion Healers
For Companion Healer Builds the main trait you'll want is called Soothing. The Soothing Trait increases your Companions healing done, including the heals they cast on themselves as well as the heals they provide to you and other players. Including some Quickened Traits for Healers is also generally a good idea so that their healing abilities cool down faster and have better uptimes.
Best Gear Traits For Companion DPS
And finally, for a DPS focused Companion Build, the ideal trait will be Aggressive which increases their overall damage done. While Companion Damage is not massive, maybe 5,000 to 10,000 DPS, using full Aggressive Gear can definitely push them to their maximum potential.
The BEST Ways To Farm Companion Gear
As we mentioned earlier, boss enemies have the highest chance of dropping Companion Gear for us while we have our Companions actively summoned. This means that the more bosses we can defeat quickly, the more chances we will get at obtaining a Companion gear piece. The best methods below revolve around this idea of farming bosses quickly.
Farming Delves For Companion Gear
Delves are by far the easiest way to get a potential drop of a Companion Gear piece. This is simply because Delves are some of the easiest content in the game other than questing. Delve bosses can be defeated by almost any character at any level, so if you are lower level or less experienced this might be the best method for you.
The only downside to using Delve Bosses to farm Companion Gear is that there is only one Boss available per Delve in most cases, and this boss does have about a 5-10 minute Respawn Timer before you can earn loot again. This will be the slowest method for farming Companion Gear due to the limited amount of bosses available.
Farming Public Dungeons For Companion Gear
Public Dungeons are a very popular option for farming Companion Gear because they usually have several boss enemies that can be defeated fairly quickly. Some of my favorite options for Public Dungeons include the Forgotten Crypts in Deshaan and Crimson Cover in Malabal Tor. You may also encounter less crowds in some of the older DLC public dungeons such as Labyrinthian from Western Skyrim.
So many easy bosses make public dungeons a great opportunity for Companion Gear drops but you can also get plenty of gold and experience from these zones as well. Some of my favorite public dungeons are in the video below.
Farming Dolmens For Companion Gear
Dolmens and other “World Events” like Harrowstorms and Oblivion Portals also have a chance of dropping Companion Gear from bosses encountered during these events. Nearly every zone in the game has Dolmens or other similar events so they are quite easy to find and you often join farming groups here that quickly travel from one Dolmen or event to the next in order to farm drops as quickly as possible. You can even farm these solo with the right build! There are many other great reasons for farming Dolmens including massive experience gains for both you and your Companion, extra Fighter’s Guild experience (for you only) and useful Jewelry pieces or Jewelry crafting materials from deconstruction. All in all, this is just a great method for farming Companions with plenty of other benefits. Some of my favorite Dolmen farming routes can be found in the video below so make sure to check it out!
Farming World Bosses For Companion Gear
Farming World Bosses for Companion Gear Drops is another great option though you do have to be set up for it. For example, you will want a fairly strong Solo build or at least have you Companion set up as either a tank or healer to help you survive, as these bosses are going to be the hardest of all on our list. What’s nice about this is you of course can also get some good items to sell or use yourself such as Mother’s Sorrow, Spinner’ Garments, Spriggan’s Thorns and much more. My favorite zone for this is the zone of Deshaan as there are some fairly easy bosses here that can be farmed on repeat (just watch out for Bittergreen)! Those bosses are:
Short Tusk’s Hillock
Grove Of the Abomination
Dire Bramble Patch
Druitularg’s Ritual Alter
Farming Normal Group Dungeons For Companion Gear
You can do this method in a group of two or even Solo if you want. Simply approach or teleport to any Dungeon while having your group set to Normal. Using Normal mode instead of Veteran will be important because on Normal enemies have much, much less health, meaning you be able to move through the dungeon faster and thus farm those bosses more efficiently. If a Dungeon is long I would not bother with it, but many of the base game dungeons are fairly short, and you don’t even need to complete the entire dungeon. Some of my favorite Dungeons for this method include Wayrest Sewers I, Fungal Grotto I and Crypt Of Hearts. Below is my usual farming route for Wayrest Sewers which can get you 5 bosses in about 10 minutes.
That’s it! Good luck obtaining your Companion Gear! For more information on ESO Companions make sure to check out our Full Written Guides as well as some fantastic options for Companion builds that we’ve listed below. Enjoy!
Companion Guides
Companion Builds
Hack The Minotaur (HTM) is a professional Gaming Blogger and Youtube Creator with decades of experience in Gaming. Hack is the owner of HackTheMinotaur.com - an Elder Scrolls focused site for character builds and guides, and now RPGDOJO.com - your source for News, Builds And Guides for the latest and greatest Role Playing Games in the Universe.
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