More Companion Gear Ponderings

While I'm still some time away from completing the bounty hunter story, which is the last class story that I haven't experienced in full yet, I've come far enough to have unlocked all the companions in the game. This is interesting to me because it means that I can allow myself to take a closer look at them... before this I was wary of looking up too much companion information because I wanted to avoid spoilers.

One thing that I've found really enlightening is the armour/stat distribution among them. Of the forty class-restricted companions currently in the game, nearly half of them use aim as their primary stat. There are eleven tanking companions that use aim! Only a quarter of all companions are based on strength or willpower.

How does this matter? Well, at least for me, whenever I pick up a decent piece of gear that my current character can't use herself, my first thought is to pass it off to an alt or a companion. Only if I can't think of anyone who could use that particular piece off the top of my head, I'll turn to the GTN instead and try to sell it there.

Funny thing I noticed while doing this: even considering that classes aren't equally popular, the demand for certain pieces of gear was strangely out of whack. Anything with cunning on sold pretty much as soon as I listed it. Aim-based tanking gear also seemed quite popular. "Where are all those Vanguard tanks?" I thought to myself. "I don't see nearly enough of them around to justify all those gear sales." Yet at the same time a pair of perfectly itemised Jedi dps boots would be returned to me three times before they finally sold. Surely Jedi knights and Sith warriors can't be that unpopular?

Looking at this little companion gear chart I made for myself, the answer suddenly seems very obvious: it's because people buy gear for their companions too, and their "class" distribution is waaay out of whack. Consider how many people run mostly with their healer companion for example. With the exception of one, all companion healers are cunning-based. There isn't a single one who uses willpower. There isn't any companion at all who uses strength-based heavy armour with dps stats! No wonder I can never seem to sell that stuff!

Definitely something to keep in mind before trying to sell any more gear on the GTN.

Companions that use heavy armour with aim as main stat (17):

Tanks:
4X (trooper)
Blizz (bounty hunter)
Corso (smuggler)
Iresso (Jedi consular)
Kaliyo (Imperial agent)
Pierce (Sith warrior)
Qyzen (Jedi consular)
Scorpio (Imperial agent)
Skadge (bounty hunter)
T7 (Jedi knight)
Vik (trooper)

Dps:
Akaavi (smuggler)
Aric (trooper)
Rusk (Jedi knight)
Torian (bounty hunter)
Yuun (trooper)

Healers:
Elara (trooper)

Companions that use medium armour with cunning as main stat (13):

Dps:
Andronikos (Sith inquisitor)
Gault (bounty hunter)
Risha (smuggler)
Temple (Imperial agent)
Vette (Sith warrior)
Zenith (Jedi consular)

Healers:
Doc (Jedi knight)
Guss (smuggler)
Lokin (Imperial agent)
Mako (bounty hunter)
Quinn (Sith warrior)
Talos (Sith inquisitor)
Tharan (Jedi consular)

Companions that use heavy armour with strength as main stat (4):

Tanks:
Bowdaar (smuggler)
Broonmark (Sith warrior)
Khem Val (Sith inquisitor)
Scourge (Jedi knight)

Companions that use medium armour with strength as main stat (1):

Dps:
Ashara (Sith inquisitor)

Companions that use light armour with willpower as main stat (5):

Tanks:
Xalek (Sith inquisitor)

Dps:
Jaesa (Sith warrior)
Kira (Jedi knight)
Nadia (Jedi consular)
Vector (Imperial agent)