At a glance

How to get one

1. 1Reach Tracker rank - three bounty tasks
2. 2Visit Beastwarden Nyra, the Companion Handler
3. 3Choose the role your class is missing
4. 4Use the collar to summon it

Your first companion is earned, not bought - reach Tracker rank with the Bounty Board, three tasks, and Beastwarden Nyra hands it over at no cost. Bounties send you to zones that suit your level, so there is no one place to go and no queue. You can own all three, but you choose the order, and the first one you pick should be the role your class struggles to cover alone.

The three roles

All three are available to every class. They differ in what they do, not in how strong they are.

• Guardian Buffalo

  Tank

  Provokes whatever is attacking you, so you can break away and keep fighting.

  Best for: Mages and archers who die to adds rather than to the boss

• Mender Kookaburra

  Healer

  Steadily heals you whenever you drop low, growing with its level, until its own mana runs dry. Healing draws no monster attention.

  Best for: Anyone without self-healing who wants longer fights

• Stalker Cougar

  Damage support

  Tears at the defences of whatever you send it at, so your own attacks land harder.

  Best for: Players who already kill well and want to kill faster

What they cost

The first costs nothing but three bounties, so it is within reach as soon as you find the Bounty Board. The second and third are paid for in Bounty Coins, making them a long-term goal rather than a shopping trip. The Companion Handler also sells beast shots, which are the only running cost a companion has.

How they grow

• A companion starts at your level and levels alongside you. It never gets ahead of you, and it never falls behind while it is out.
• While summoned it takes 10% of the experience you earn. That is the trade for having one - play without it and you level slightly faster.
• Collars cannot be traded, sold or dropped. A companion belongs to the character that earned it.
• They work anywhere you fight, in PvE and PvP alike. The Olympiad is the one exception, where all pets are dismissed on entry.
• You are always in control. Order it to attack and it holds that fight, ability included, until the target is dead or you redirect it; tell it to stop and it stops completely, healing included, until you press Stop again or give it a new order - it tells you in chat which state it is in. None of them attack anything on their own, and none of them adopt your target unless you send them in.
• One ally at a time: a companion and a class summon share the slot. Summoner servitors are tuned to beat a Stalker Cougar of their level in attack and defence (the support cats and unicorns trade a little of that for their buffs), and the servitor buffs come on top. On top of that, a summoner's servitor grows with its owner: it adds 40% of the summoner's own strength to its attack, defence and health - the pet's attack scales with your Magic Attack, since that is what a summoner carries, so a bow or another physical weapon does not make it hit harder. Gear, augments, passives and talents count; buffs do not, because the servitor already gets them itself. At level 80 in S grade that is around +15% attack, +25% defence and +19% health on top of the servitor's own numbers, and it can never more than double a stat. Keeping a servitor out costs nothing: the summon takes its crystals once, then stays as long as you want it, like a companion.
• A companion is never lost. If it dies and you cannot resurrect it within twenty minutes, or you log out over it, it returns to its collar and comes back alive at a sliver of health on the next summon. Death still costs it experience.