Skyrim's been out a while.

[Violet]

Yeah, by now on my elf I don't rely on it really except to bring the Dragon down, and then I find more satisfaction in beating the shit out of the dragon than doing anything else. Not that the Shout relay time allows for much else.

Meanwhile, I never use it to call weather or animals, as I'm rarely out in the wilds fighting and don't need the help with the dragons (perhaps I'll need more if I enter into a situation like you found yourself in).

Haha... that's a horrible mistake sort of situation. Exploiting your way up to level 30 from having 100 pickpocketing and 100 sneak and 90 speech, and moderately high archery atop wasted skillpoints from randomly smithing/chanting/alchemy/skill books and terrible quests (I have some 45 useless 1-handed skill)... and yet I have a dwarven bow. Level 35... dwarven bow.

And then, I do the kill kemantu quest... only to enter into a 'murder your character' bandit encounter outside the cave, as well as a double dragon attack. Ran through sleeping tree camp, and with both the dragons and bandits partially occupied I saved and turned to attack them (no potions, no steroids, weak shouts). Moral of the story: if you have haxed your level retardedly high for your gear, and spent a ton of time within instanced towns (whiterun, markarth and blackreach, riften, solitude), and fast travel to a dungeon... bad things happen when you come out of that dungeon.

I've used Whirlwind Sprint a handful of times, and Fire Breathe always seemed to set my companion on fire to disastrous effect. Disarm or Unrelenting Force was useful against a bunch of undead minions but otherwise...

It is a cool concept, but the "time" you have to wait is far too long and I think would be more appreciated if it were halved. I also like the little notation that because of this power, battles between dragons are actually verbal sparring. That adds something to the story. Combat-wise though...

I rarely use companions. Tried it for the first time on my impact-haxing mage... and found that they just increasingly annoyed me as time went on. Got rid of lydia at level 25.