SWTOR Sith Inquisitor Companions
In this SWTOR Sith Inquisitor Companions guide, you will find not only a list of each companion and their roles, but also what gifts are best for them and their relative strengths and weaknesses for both the Sith Sorcerer and the Sith Assassin.
SWTOR Sith Inquisitor Companions Guide – Affection & Gifts
Before we jump into the Sith Inquisitor companions guide, we should first talk about the way companion gifts and affection work, as that is what most people want to know about.
There are four reactions your companion will have to a gift: they will love it (big affection gain – often deemed), they will like it a lot (about half the affection gain of a “love”), they will like it a little (1/4 the affection gain of a “love” gift), or they will hate it (no faction gain or loss).
Now let’s be clear about something: if your companion does not love it or at least like it a lot, it is not worth giving. The “like” gifts are just not worth it – are much better of selling these on the GTN and then using those credits to buy gifts your companion actually likes. There is no sense giving a rank 5 artifact-level technology gift to Talos Drellik when you could just sell it for 5000 credits and buy a culture artifact for a similar price and get four times the affection gain.
A blue (prototype) gift of the same class will give twice as much faction as its green version, and a purple (artifact) will give four times as much as its green version; sometimes people will sell blues and purples for less than twice as much or four times as much as the green versions, making the high quality stuff a more efficient buy from an affection per credit perspective.
Selecting the Right Conversation for Faction Gain
Another thing you should know is that during cutscenes when you are talking and want affection gain, you can hit escape if you make a bad decision and start over. Sometimes the text you select is vague or completely different from what your character says, which can get you in trouble with some of your companions. Quickly hit escape and re-start the conversation for best results.
SWTOR Sith Inquisitor Companions List: Khem Val
Race: Dashade
Class: Melee Tank
Weapon: Vibrosword Mainhand / Shield Generator Offhand
Armor: Heavy
Primary Stat: Strength
Strengths: +15 Artifice Efficiency & +5 Investigation Efficiency (Efficiency reduces the amount of time it takes to complete a task).
Courting: No
Khem Val is the first Sith Inquisitor Companion you get and is the source of frustration for many players for one reason: he does not seem like much of anything. Compared to other companions, Khem Val just seems to like less things than other companions. Additionally, when you finally do something he likes, you typically only gain +15 affection points where your other companions give more.
You can earn favor with Khem Val by selecting conversation choices that involve killing, destruction, and gloating, particularly when it comes to attacking Jedi or Sith. The killing and destroying options are obvious, but sometimes Khem also likes when you remark about your own power.In short, be as rude as possible, but never to Khem himself – he does not like being talked down to. Favor points are not easy to earn no matter what you select when interacting with Khem directly, at least until later levels.
Here are how gifts work for Khem Val:
Cultural Artifact: Love
Weapon: Good (half the gain the “Love”)
Trophy: Okay (1/4 the gain of “Love”)
Technology: Okay
Imperial Memorabilia:
Military Gear: Hate
Courting: Hate
Luxury: Hate
Underworld Goods: Hate
Republic Memorabilia: Hate
As you can see, Khem does not like much of anything except Cultural Artifacts (which are conveniently Talos’ best item as well) and Weapons (which are both Xalek’s and Andronikus’ best item).
SWTOR Sith Inquisitor Companions: Andronikus Revel
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Class: Ranged DPS
Weapon: Blaster Pistol in both slots
Armor: Medium
Primary Stat: Cunning
Strengths: +2 Slicing Critical, +2 Underworld Trading Critical
Courting: Andronikus is courtable by female players.
Andronikus Revel joins your group on Tatooine as your second companion. He is a ranged DPS class and seems to have the highest single-target damage ability that you can get. As a result, many players (especially tank-oriented Sith Assassins) seem to prefer this companion if they are looking for some additional DPS.
As far as conversation goes, Andronikus tends to like most of the same things as Khem Val. He likes destruction and killing and his faction gains are more reliable as than Khem’s. Like Khem, he does not particularly like showing mercy on others, but he does like to “keep promises”. He also usually gains +27 faction points for good choices, which make earning faction with Andronikus easier than with Khem.
As a side bonus, Andronikus Revel will ask to become your pilot after you earn some affection with him. You will then hear his voice in Space Combat missions.
Below, you will find his response to the different gifts in-game. Note: If you are a female player and court Andronikus, he will change his reactions to gifts once you start that to what is listed on the right. For male players, his gifts remain as mentioned on the left. Additionally, I have seen people suggest that Andronikus likes Trophies. I have tested this out in game and he does not like them. Perhaps he goes from hating them to liking them after opening the courting option. Either way do not waste your trophies on him – far easier to sell them on the GTN since none of your companions love them.
Weapon: Love
Trophy: Hate
Technology: Hate
Military Gear: Good (half the gain of “Love”), Love
Cultural Artifact: Hate
Courting: Hate, Okay
Luxury: Okay (1/4 the gain the “Love”)
Underworld Goods: Good, Love
Imperial Memorabilia: Hate
Republic Memorabilia: Hate
SWTOR Sith Inquisitor Companions List: Ashara Zavros
Race: Togruta
Class: Melee DPS
Weapon: Dual Wields Lightsabers
Armor: Medium
Primary Stat: Strength
Strengths: +10 Diplomacy Efficiency & +10 Synthweaving Efficiency
Courting: Ashara Zavros is courtable by male players.
Ashara is the third companion to join your party and is actual a former Jedi Padawan. She joins the group on Taris and becomes your mock-apprentice. She is a melee DPS class with moderate but steady damage. Andronikus seems to deal slightly more damage, though Ashara’s damage was buffed slightly post-release.
As far as affection gain goes, Ashara tends to gain +40 from conversation rolls. She tends to like not only Light Side choices, but being nice and respectful in general and allowing people to live. You can easily pick Dark Side options and still gain favor with Ashara as +40 affection gains on non-alignment conversation roles will erase any negatives she may have from your dark side choices.
This may make her seem easier to gain affection with than Andronikus and Khem, but she does not warm up to you via gifts right away and is a pain the whole time for female players to level up due to the way her gifts work.
Initially, she is capped at “okay” gifts – she has no gifts which give big or moderate affection gains. Once you reach 2000 affection, you can start the courting option (Flirt with her on the ship), at which point you can give her all sorts of gifts. Females cannot have her like courting gifts, which makes her harder to level up.
Note: On the gifts where there are two responses, the left side is before courting and the right side is after courting.
Cultural Artifact: Okay, Good
Weapon: Okay, Good (half the gain the “Love”)
Trophy: Okay (1/4 the gain of “Love”)
Technology: Hate, Okay
Military Gear: Okay, Good
Courting: Hate, Love
Luxury: Hate, Okay
Underworld Goods: Hate
Imperial Memorabilia: Hate, Okay
Republic Memorabilia: Okay, Love
SWTOR Sith Inquisitor Companions List: Talos Drellik
Race: Human
Class: Ranged Healer
Weapon: Blaster Pistol mainhand / Vibroknife offhand
Armor: Medium
Primary Stat: Cunning
Strengths: +5 Treasure Hunting efficiency, +5 Archaeology critical
Courting: No
Talos Drellik is your first and only healing-type Companion. He joins the party on Hoth. He is my favorite companion to use since he heals, which for a casual companion user like myself is ideal (my gear is a lot better than my companions). He is ideal in my opinion for leveling up as a Sorcerer as he lets heals you while you use AoE spells like Force Storm on packs of weak enemies. On elite enemies, Talos rarely pulls hate, so you can kite around enemies while Talos heals you, using line of sight to avoid your opponents but remaining in view of Talos. Talos does do a little bit of damage, but focuses on healing first.
Talos tends to be a stationary character, which leaves him susceptible to AoE damage, especially versus Darth Thanaton in some of the later battles. What I recommend doing is not going anywhere near Talos in those instances; dodge Force Storm, Death Field, and similar spells by not running near Talos Drellik and AoE will never be a problem.
Talos gains +55 faction by default for positive conversation choices and can gain a few hundred easily in some of the side quests on your ship, which makes him easy to level up. To earn these points, Talos typically enjoys light side choices, pro-empire sentiments (convo choices like “For the Empire” or “It is my duty to the Empire” are sure-fire ways to get points with Talos. Let people go when possible and never kill anyone and Talos will generate positive responses.
The most interesting thing about Talos is that on many quests when you can extend the quest conversation by asking various questions and gathering information, Talos will give extra faction. Whenever it is an option, always select the typical “more info” options such as: :What can you tell me about quest [NPC/objective]?” and “Tell me more about [NPC/objective]“. When it comes to priority, Talos seems to place knowledge above anything else as inquiry will typically yield more affection than praise or anything else really.
Cultural Artifact: Love
Weapon: Hate
Trophy: Hate
Technology: Okay
Military Gear: Hate
Courting: Okay (male/female – works for both, he is not courtable though)
Luxury: Okay (1/4 the gain of “Love”)
Underworld Goods: Hate
Imperial Memorabilia: Good (half the gain the “Love”)
Republic Memorabilia: Hate
Talos, along with Khem, has Cultural Artifacts as his favorite gift type.
SWTOR Sith Inquisitor Companions List: Xalek
Race: Kaleesh
Class: Ranged Tank
Weapon: Lightsaber Main Hand / Shield Generator Off-Hand
Armor: Light
Primary Stat: Willpower
Strengths: +10 Bioanalysis Efficiency & +2 Scavenging Efficiency
Courting: No
Xalek is your first real apprentice and joins the party on one of your various missions to Korriban. He is the last companion you get access to, not coming in until after Voss. He is a ranged tank. When it becomes necessary, you can turn off his threat generating abilities, but he does do noticeably less damage than Andronikus Revel. Xalek is a tank, not a DPS companion.
Xalek talks very little and does not respond to very much. When he does, you do gain a lot of affection. He tends to like a lot of the same things as Khem Val; he has a strong sense of pride, dislikes mercy, and likes killing and shows of strength. Since he gains so much affection, you might want to use him as soon as you get him just to get some quick faction gains. Of course, I would recommend buying 21 rank 1 companion weapons (only 200 credits a piece at the Imperial Fleet companions vendor) to get the first 2000 affection out of the way (since it is cheap to complete).
Here are the gifts you should get Xalek:
Cultural Artifact: Hate
Weapon: Love
Trophy: Okay (1/4 the gain of “Love”)
Technology: Hate
Military Gear: Love
Courting: Hate
Luxury: Hate
Underworld Goods: Okay
Imperial Memorabilia: Hate
Republic Memorabilia: Hate
SWTOR Sith Inquisitor Companions List – Gifts Overview
Here is a quick list of each gift type and what companions get max faction gain from each type:
Cultural Artifact: Khem Val, Talos Drellik
Weapon: Andronikus Revel, Xalek
Trophy: None
Technology: None
Military Gear: Xalek
Courting: Ashara Zavros (once courted at 2000 affection)
Luxury: None
Underworld Goods: None (perhaps Andronikus Revel after courting?)
Imperial Memorabilia: None (note: Talos gets moderate faction gain from these)
Republic Memorabilia: Ashara Zavros
I found it easiest to level up all my companions to max affection by giving cultural artifacts to Khem Val (hard to get faction with from quests), weapons to Andronikus Revel (his only favorite without courting), Military Gear to Xalek, Republic Memorabilia to Ashara Zavros, and Imperial Memorabilia to Talos Drellik. I then sold everything else I got.
This was from doing Diplomacy missions to earn alignment points and gifts at the same time of course. If you are not doing missions, you will want to just buy the gifts that your companions get max affection gain from (96 from an appropriate-level uncommon-quality gift).
Do not give your companions trophies, technology, luxuries, or underworld goods! These are easily sold on the GTN for the same price as practically any gift, which will give 2-4 times as much affection for the same price.
SWTOR Sith Inquisitor Companions Guide
Just remember that for affection, you can max out each companion’s affection just by spending around 50,000 credits on the gift vendor / GTN per companion. When it comes to effectiveness, Talos is the only healer, Andronikus does the most damage, and for tanking I personally prefer Xalek (though I would not consider him a massive advantage over Khem Val).
Want the best builds and leveling tactics for every advanced class in SWTOR?
If you answered that question with a yes, then you need to get the Aeon SWTOR Mastery Guide.Jam-packed with complete guides for all 16 advanced classes, including the best builds, leveling, PvE, Credit and PvP guides, Aeon has you covered no matter what advanced class you pick. Click Here To Get It Now!