^^^ this ^^^^

I'm really surprised at how pooly designed the companion AI is. I would NEVER travel with one if it wasn;t for the fact that I need someone to carry stuff for me when in caves and dungeons. It seems to be the lesser of two evils right now. Its either deal with the idiotic actions of a companion (usually i just have them wait...move up 2 or 3 rooms...then go get them again just to have them wait again) or run back and forth to town 5 or 6 times to sell and dump off stuff just to get through a dungeon. both options are annoying however. :brokencomputer:

I have found that Jenassa doesn't blow your cover. And then, she is the more attractive of the dark elves (IMO) so I have wifey and fellow partner in crime.

J'zargo

Nuff said

but really he will wear heavy armor and shields, but always stays back and casts lightning bolts unless they get close to him

I used to strip all the weapons off of Lydia except the best upgraded bow I could find.

It worked great for a long time, then one day it happened. I was in some dungeon fighting Draugr, Lydia was hanging back like a good girl offering archery support. Then all the sudden Lydia ran up beside and started attacking the Draugr with an axe, an ancient Nordic axe. That's when I realized that she had, on her own accord, looted a Draugr corpse and took it's axe, and started using it! I couldn't believe it. I didn't know whether to congradulate her for great AI, or slap her silly for overriding my method of keeping her with a bow. Either was I finally just had to dump her.

With my sneaky, sniper, assassin archer I used Lydia as bait. I would choose a concealed path up to an overwatch position using a path she could not follow. She would run the long way around trying futiliy to get to me drawing the surrounding mobs attention which I would pick off from hiding without ever being spotted.

Lydia is a bodyguard--taking the heat first is what they're supposed to do, even in RL. If you don't want her jumping into the fray, you have to leave her back where she can't see you--if she sees you in a fight, she'll be there. She can't get through a doorway if you're blocking it either, so take the lead. She seems to level up with me in fighting skills, and is a great asset in a fight--she does exhibit some weaknesses to certain foes, and takes some nasty hits as time goes on.

I use magic only, and carry no weapons. If an opponent uses Ward, I step out of the way for her to send off an arrow--Ward drops, Firebolt hits--end of baddie.

She's actually saved me too. I had given her an enchanted Ebony sword, which she weilds quite well. While I was fumbling around for potions, she took out 3 Falmers that had my health to a sliver of red--if not for her, I'd be dead. I find that if I use Sneak, and go around traps, she'll follow behind me, and not set them off. She's acted with good intelligence around me--no stupid stuff.

If you don't arm her with decent "up close and personal" weaponry, she'll take junk from a corpse. Who uses a bow from 4ft away anyway? Get her something good. She almost always uses her bow until it's up close time, then the flaming sword from you know where comes out.

And she's been a wonderful wife--I've never regretted marrying her. We've been by each others side for over 100 hours now--a long time in this realm.

I left Lydia sacrificed at the Gates of Morrowind along time ago....LOL

I use Faendal as ranged support. Occasionally he switches to melee but only when stuff gets close to him. The Stamina drain enchant on his bow helps me land dragons (I don't have that shout yet).

Followers are supposed to level with you, but currently don't. You have to use console commands to make that happen. I'll post a summary here just because every thread about follower leveling should have it.

So, if I get Lydia at lvl 15, she stays at that level? She doesn't level with me? Boy, that would be a very stupid concept to overlook.

Yes, she is.

I haven't had nearly as much trouble from the other followers, weirdly enough. (I know there's no reason this should be the case, but I swear I'm not making it up.)

I think it's a bug. I think. If you're on PC, expect a mod to fix it not too far off.

When I do need to use followers, I use the "enable/disable" console trick to get them up to my level for now.

So that's why my Lydia svcks.... :shakehead:

I agree. Here I am carefully circling a trap on the floor and just when I'm above the spikes/below the rocks I hear Lydia behind me stepping on the pressure plate. :stare:
I suspect she does it on purpose, because I have her carry my burdens. Are there any followers that don't blindly trigger traps?

If I am going on a stealth mode exploration I go alone, I don't wanna risk getting killed just so I can have back up.

Lydia has never set foot outside my house... She's just a maid and keeps the fire going

Nope. Aela's free game; you just have to finish the Companions storyline.

Eola. :mohawk:

I've seen this lots of places... how do you know they don't level with you? How do you see their level, or the levels of their skills (or even what skills they use, for that matter?)

Note, I'm not doubting any of it, I'm just curious how this is known, how it was discovered, etc.

I just went through this yesterday. For me, Lydia is just awesome, and I wanted to try Aela out. But she was just nowhere near as effective, even after I did the enable/disable trick.

You can see their skills by using getav . Using that on Lydia, I saw that her main combat skills (onehanded/block/heavy armor) were in the 80-90 range and Aela (sneak, marksman, lightarmor) was in the 30-40 range. I unfollowed Aela and did the disable/reenable and it "fixed" her, even though I had done that to her earlier in the same level.

Lydia is great. I play on Expert, am near level 35, and she has well-smithed gear. Great tank. I am a mace and shield warrior. For hard rooms, I'll pull into a hallway or something and Lydia might forge ahead. I will kill something in the hallway and then go clean up wherever Lydia is.

I would love it if they added commands that you could issue during combat to your followers, preferably through hotkeys, not selecting them and choosing dialogue options. Things like whether to go melee or ranged, whether to pass me or not, what target to specifically attack, exactly what to equip, etc. It kills me that I give Lydia a nicely smithed ebony bow and she still seems to use her hunting bow. Maybe that is just a graphical error, though.

this is one of the reasons the more i play skyrim and the more the "newness" wears off its dropping further and further down my list of all time favorite games. the followers were much better in fallout 3 which is also a bethesda game so it baffles me why they svck so bad in skyrim. ideally i want fallout NV companions along with the companion wheel. having to go back to using dialogue for commands really svcks. the only improvement they made was letting you command them to do certain things by pressing E. thats nice and all but its not terribly useful except in certain specific instances such as making sure they dont step on traps.

@ tellen you can check by using getav command and see if there skills increase or not as you level up. there is supposedly a trick to getting them to level with you by disabling them but i havent used that yet.

(singing) Don't wanna be your beast of burden...

You will find other followers later on with range skills aka mages that tend to stay back and utilize their spells. The early companions like Lydia and Aela are just a small sample size of the variety of companions you find as you venture further into the game

I always play sneaky archer types, so companions aren't a good fit. As a result, I always go solo.

I tried having Lydia come with me to take out a Hagraven and her flunkies, but her total lack of tactical acumen resulted in a spectacular failure. We had disposed of the lesser witches and were going after the Hagraven herself, so Lydia did her usual banzai charge; unfortunately for her, she didn't pay attention to the fact I was an archer, so when she closed to point-blank with the Hagraven she also stepped into my line of fire. As I was in the middle of a shot I couldn't stop the act, and as a result she took a stealth critical (I was hidden to her but not to the Hagraven, who I'd already shot once) in the back of the head and died. I followed shortly thereafter, as my low-level character was no match for a 'boss' caster in a straight-up fight.

The 'assistants' you get during the Companions quests would have been better advised to wait at the door and let me handle things, as they do not understand that when the guy they're with can one-shot a Draugr Overlord it just might be a good idea to let him take point, instead of charging in like an idiot and getting chopped up. I swear, if they weren't tagged 'essential' you'd need to replace the entire Circle by the time you're done.

Aela has been competent for me so far. When I get in close she hangs back with her bow and when I hang back with magic she will go in with her knife.

I didnt have too much of a problem with Farkas. During the first quest in the companions, he did a good job of saying back while I had my fun sneaking. He really only jumped in if I was detected. Then it was sit back and shoot arrows in their backs. I didnt have too much trouble with Sven either. He was a pretty good archer, lol. I didnt like that he took some shots before me though. Lydia does seem pretty lame!