Favorite Companions and Training Sites

[JellySlayer]

I only use pets in fairly specific instances, and never, ever bother training them.

I have been known to use scrolls of familiar summoning on TF:3 for some easy ACW killers. Great karmic wyrms, titans, ancient karmic dragons, molochs, etc. can all make short work of him. Pretty much anything with fire resistance (needed for TF:4) is probably honestly strong enough to kill the ACW.

Greater earth elementals are common in the very highest DL areas. They're tough, move through walls, and regenerate. Handy if you need some extra help to clear D:50 or Mana Temple (though the Archmage is more than strong enough to kill one of these). Greater fire/air elementals are lame, unfortunately, and spawn equally commonly.

Raccoons and ants are easily tamable with music and will dig rocks for you, which is very nice if you're in need of early game projectiles or gems.

That's pretty much it as far as useful pets go.

[Carter]

I only use pets in fairly specific instances, and never, ever bother training them.

Ditto. i'll use them as cannon fodder (ie: the ACW a summon in between him and you is always handy)

i once had a lvl 50 necro, trained up a quickening queen etc, but i eventually left her behind - teleport's convenience out weighs a monster that is going to steal xp from you anyway.

[gut]

> Monsters don't pick up artifacts, which is stupid and unnecessary.

The si is the only one mobs won't pick.

[JellySlayer]

I think this was changed in a recent version to prevent some obscure situations (eg. a monster grabbing a chaos orb in a wilderness encounter and fleeing with it).

[Stingray1]

Now why would a chaos orb be lying around in the wilderness.

This change has broken much more than it has fixed, I'm afraid.

Anyway, sorry for de-rail.

I tend to only use companions for specific tasks: getting rid of cats, first kills, Thrundarr, Eternal Guardian, Steel Golems. Other than that I have tried to train up companions when playing a Bard, but they tend to die, so I've learned to rather not waste turns and experience for such things.

[persy]

Now you can hack through gremlin cave without worrying that one of this thousand gremlins picked up the vial :-)
On the other no hand no more artifact-companion fun. Like do the foeslammer's unholy aura works when your pet berserker wields it?

[Stingray1]

Now you can hack through gremlin cave without worrying that one of this thousand gremlins picked up the vial :-)
On the other no hand no more artifact-companion fun. Like do the foeslammer's unholy aura works when your pet berserker wields it?

Actually, it is sometimes convenient that one of the gremlins 'brings' the phial to you, ask me.

Look, this has been reported, I appologize for being somewhat impatient, it is unlike me. Sceptre of Chaos, greater vaults, black Torc, just a few that are broken now.

[grobblewobble]

I tend to only use companions for specific tasks: getting rid of cats, first kills, Thrundarr, Eternal Guardian, Steel Golems.

They're also great to calm down an NPC if you accidentally angered him. For example, I once angered the demented ratling during an ultra attempt. So I tamed a weak companion and let the demented ratling attack it. Once the companion died, the ratling was non-hostile again.

[anon123]

Now why would a chaos orb be lying around in the wilderness.

This change has broken much more than it has fixed, I'm afraid.

That was changed as a means of addressing issue 735. I agree disallowing all artifacts from being picked up is overkill and unnecessary. Chaos orbs are vital to completing the game, and in that regard I stand by my previous post. But if a ratling duelist disarms your Executor, then picks it up and gets away, then that's ADOM for you

As for the topic at hand, I've tried to play with companions some times, but all of them eventually hurt me - in more ways than one.

PS: has the strategy of taming cats and sending them against vortices been mentioned already? That's another good use for pets.

[gut]

if you can get hawkslayer to a high enough level to kill eternal guardians, he can pretty much just keep one-shotting them and level to insane levels.

dunno if 'training' means scumming PoUH from Jharod, but that is another good 'training' spot for Hawkslayer.

Bigroom is decent for noob pets.

Killer bugs train well in darkforge, believe it or not, just make sure to let them heal (a lot, sometimes) in between fights.