Companions in Warframe, also known as Kavats, Kubrows and Sentinels have not aged well. They are mostly fine in low level activities, but always needed high maintenance. From having to mod them, and then always revive pets. Then when it comes to Sentinels they mostly became the solo players revive buddy. There just was not a lot you could do with companions, relegating them to irrelevance outside of the vacuum mods. That all changed however, with the companion rework in Abyss of Dagath. Where pets feel stronger and there are more synergy with the player. They are still not completely reliable, but you won’t dread having them equipped.
Companion and Player Synergy in Warframe
With my limited mods on the companion front because I never felt the need to use them. I found that this rework really helped the survivability of companions. Considering they just no longer die. They will go down, but will revive within a minute. Making them lower maintenance in missions so you can focus on what you have to do. There are mods that will reduce the amount of time it takes for them to respawn as well so if you desperately need them in your mission, you can alter it to your liking.
The synergy I mentioned before comes from some of the mods you can install. For instance, pets like Kubrows and Kavats now have a mod that gives them health regen when you hit enemies with a melee weapon, and if their health is full, it becomes overguard to give them more survivability. I noticed while using my Kavat that I really needed it for the armor stripping and stronger damage output than sentinels. So when I was damaging enemies with my melee and seeing them die faster, I knew it was because my Kavat was able to strip their armor and help during the combat scenario while I kept it alive. It is a great combination.
Honestly I have to worry about my survivability more when I play alone and might have to switch back to sentinels to get the sacrifice benefits. But if I was in a group, I would be much more comfortable using pets over a sentinel. But this rework also added new mods into the mix in Warframe. One of the mods I never used for sentinels was Fired Up as it never really did much in the activities I play normally. But now it adds a base increase to heat damage from it and the player. Not to mention, there is now a mod you can find that allows pets to clone themselves, making them much more devastating.
I do need to go out and find more mods for my pets and sentinels to test further. But the companion rework is genuinely impressive. It takes a lot of stress off players shoulders and is only part one of this rework. As there will be a second companion rework coming later on down the line in Warframe. I can only imagine what more will change, but I am very excited for it.