I've seen many possible followers while playing the game, such as Lydia, Faendal, etc. But I was wondering, are any types or styles of companions stronger than others? And I don't mean a Sword&Shield follower vs a Mage follower. I mean is a housecarl or a Winterhold College follower going to be stronger than say Faendal (the Bosmer archer in Riverwood)? Or do they all "level up," just like you, and all of them being equally useful but just with different combat tactics?

I would want to know this aswell.

I think they dont scale or level up at ALL. So wait untill high level then get your favorite I think...

Proof? Got Lydia at lvl6, now at lvl24 mobs 2-shot her even though I gave her full daedric armor.

It's bad that they don't upgrade or something. If you let a companion to battle a npc it close that the companion will get beat up. I gave my companion daedric armor and weapons and does some dmg but most of the time it does not attack. It defends even if it isn't being attacked and also it does not calculated that it has a better armor and weapon and if attacks 2 times the target is dead.

I let her one time with a easy enemy and most of the time it just defend and almost got it killed i had to attack the enemy.

They need to do something about this.

That's odd, actually. Because on one of my characters (my Paladin style one), I picked up Lydia at a low level and I got up to 20 with her by my side. We were playing on master difficulty and we both had full dwarven. She doesnt eve have a shield (I gave her a two-hander; yes I know she has higher one-handed/block skills) and she kicks the crap out of everything she comes across, blood dragons included.

I have also begun to wonder, though, if there is a bug in which your companions strength is scaling with the difficulty (Adept, Expert, Master, etc.) and getting stronger like all other NPCs do.

It could be that on master - companions also benefit from the increased health/damage which enemies get? Curious if this may also be the case with summons.