Nicknamed Bella or Izzy, Isobel is a Breton noble and knight. Her compassion and selfless nature helped her best friend avoid an arranged marriage. Eventually, Isobel joined you! Being a knight was her childhood dream, now she is always at your side and has a very cheerful personality, perfect for long travels.
In the ESO Isobel Velois guide, you’ll learn how to unlock her, level up her, build relationships with her and much more.
Isobel Velois is one of the companions added in the High Isle chapter. She can be your shield as a tank, your personal healer or deal damage and defeat any enemies at your side. She can fulfil any role and be your friend or enemy. All of it depends on the choices you make while levelling her and while you two will be travelling around the world of Tamriel.
If you looking for an Isobel Velois build click HERE. More companion guides HERE, and a comprehensive companion guide and video HERE.
How to unlock Isobel and where do I find her? Isobel Velois quest, “Tournament of the Heart”.
Firstly, To unlock Isobel you need to complete her quest “Tournament of the Heart’. You can find it in the High Isle zone in two locations. The First location, and most likely you’ll find easily is pair of nobles gossiping just next to the castle Navire Wayshrine.
The Second location is just next to the castle Navire, where Isobel is talking with her friend.
After that you can find Isobel and all unlocked companions in your collections menu. Press the default key “U” on your keyboard or go to the collections tab, pick Allies from the list and then Companions.
Where to find your companion in the UI
You can also add your companion to quick slots, marked on the above picture with the green arrow. Simply click and drag your companion to the quick slot wheel. To access them in-game, click and hold the default key “Q”, pick the allies wheel with your mouse button and choose your next companion!
To talk with your new companion, simply interact with them just like with all NPCs in the game.
Progression and Leveling
Companions are similar to players and here are some areas of focus for you while working through optimizing your companion.
Obtain multiple gear sets
Certainly, you’ll need flexible options once you hit the end game, even if you already have a plan and role for her. You can find gear by looting defeated enemies or in various chests and boxes, almost everywhere in the game.
Further, you can go to any town Armor and Fine Garments store and pick up companion gear, light, medium and heavy. Secondly, go to the woodworker and weapon smith and pick up sword and shield, and various staffs. Swap a gear or weapons and level skill lines, because you never know if you want to switch! More on companion gear, below.
Combat Level
Start levelling up your companion. Companions level up similar to a player, by killing enemies and eventually reaching level 20 (currently max). So you can grind with your companion (grinding guide click). However, the exception are guilds’ skill lines (Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Undaunted), to level them up you need to complete guilds’ daily quests (click guide). You can find them in Grahtwood (map click), Stormhaven (map click), and Deshaan (map click).
Focus on Guild Skill Lines
You’ll want to prioritise completing the guide-specific daily quests in order to unlock the most powerful skills in the game.
Gear
Now start collecting pieces of gear to optimize your companion. More about gear below in The Gear for Isobel Velois. If you look for Isobel builds click HERE.
Companions are level is account-wide. This means each of your characters will have the same level of companions. However, you need to unlock each companion on every character.
YouTube Guide on Companion Progression
The Gear for Isobel Velois
After unlocking, every companion starts with white gear and one weapon set. Companion gear doesn’t have levels but similar to players, companion gear can be white, green, blue or purple quality. As a result, white is the weakest and gold is the strongest. Gear for companions has weight and the choice is dependent on the companion’s role.
Armor by Role
- Healer companion will wear light armor pieces and restoration staff.
- Tank companion will wear heavy armor pieces and a sword and shield.
- Damage dealer companion will need medium armor pieces and a couple of weapon choices: destruction staffs, two-handed weapons, dual wield or bow.
You can obtain fine gear from a Weaponsmith, Woodworker, Armorer, Leatherworker and Tailor vendors to quickly start leveling your companion into the role you’ll choose. Better quality gear can be looted from bosses, event boxes or treasure chests. However it takes time to collect all the best gear for your companion, so it’s worth mentioning, that companion gear can also be bought from guild trades.
Armor Traits
Every piece of companion gear will have one of the traits:
- Aggressive (Increases Damage Done)
- Augmented (Increases Ability Buff and Debuff Duration)
- Bolstered (Reduces Damage Taken)
- Focused (Increases Critical Strike Chance)
- Prolific (Increases Ultimate Generation)
- Shattering (Increases Penetration)
- Soothing (Increases Healing Done)
- Vigorous (Adds Max Health)
- Quickened (Reduces Skills Cooldown)
Example companion gear equipped
Your companions’ equipped gear and skills will be the same regardless of which of your characters will unlock or summon them.
Isobel Velois Skills and her unique perk
Every companion has one unique non-combat bonus, which benefits you when the Companion is present. Isobel’s unique perk gives a chance to retrieve from defeated world bosses, the slain knight pack, which contains varied supplies. A very valuable ability while fighting the world bosses or questing!
Companion abilities have a cooldown, unlike players and often they have 16 seconds before the skill can be used again. Thus, skills order has a great impact on its use frequency.
For example, Isobel has a unique skill: Sun Brand, the ability last 8 seconds, with a 16-second cooldown. If you put it in the first spot on her skill bar, the companion will activate it first, and immediately when it comes off cool down, giving you a consistent boost to team DPS.
Isobel is a templar and has a set of class skills to choose from: one Ultimate skill and three skill trees and in each are 3 skills. Moreover, she has access to weapon skills, armor skills, and guild skills.
- Class Skill lines increase with the combat level of the Companion.
- Weapon skill lines increase through combat experience based on the equipped weapon(s).
- Armor skill lines increase through combat experience based on the equipped weight of the armor on the Companion.
- Guild skill lines increase through completing specific solo daily quests associated with the guild, for the active Companion.
- Racial skill lines do not include active abilities and are immediately applied based on the race of the Companion.
You can change companion skills as desired. Companions cast the skills automatically from the set of skills you’ll choose for her. Also, you unlock more skills and more skill slots as you lever her up. Thus, Companion abilities do not require skill points to unlock and do not rank up or morph over time. And ultimate skill is unlocked when your companion will reach the maximum level (max lvl. 20). And that’s how it looks like in the game:
Companion report
Firstly, Rapport with Companions begins at cordial, starting with the introductory quest, and may go up and down over time. As a result, it depends on your actions with the active Companion. In fact, all Companions have strong personal preferences which you can learn about through dialogue and experimentation in the world.
Secondly, as rapport increases or falls, various thresholds will be met, with corresponding changes in the Companion’s dialogue with you. At higher tiers of rapport, the Companion will be inclined to share personal information with you and ask for assistance with associated quests. At lower tiers of rapport, the Companion may choose to part ways with you for a time or not appear when summoned.
Lastly, rapport adjustments are displayed in real-time in the loot stream and have limitations on how often they can be triggered for both positive and negative rapport events. However, you can always check the current rapport status on the overview window of the Companion UI.
Most importantly, companion rapport is not account-wide, so every one of your characters needs to earn companion approval or disapproval individually.
Disapproval Isobel Rapport:
| Action | Rapport Points |
| Entering the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary | -5 |
| Killing innocent NPC with or without Blade of Woe | -10, then -1 for each additional kill during cooldown |
| Entering an outlaws refuge | -1 |
| Stealing from a container, thieves trove, or corpse of an innocent NPC | -1 |
Approval Isobel Rapport:
| Action | Rapport Points |
| Completing a Bolgrul delve daily | +125 |
| Completing a High Isle world boss daily | +125 |
| Visiting an Undaunted Enclave | +25, +5 for subsequent visits |
| Completing a volcanic vent | +10 |
| Talking to Lyris | +10 |
| Crafting something with blacksmithing | +5 |
| Crafting “sweet” food | +5 |
| Killing a world boss | +5 |
| Killing a delve boss | +5 |
| Killing a boss-type Daedra | +5 |
| Killing Daedra | +1 |
| Accepting a duel request | +1 |
| Using a repair kit to repair gear | +1 |
| Talking to an alliance leader | +10 for Emeric, +5 for Ayrenn, +1 for Jorunn |
Companion Tips and Tricks
How to control a companion in combat: Just like commanding a pet, you’ll need to hit the default key “Y” and the left mouse to attack or the right mouse to return (no PC). Companions don’t know when to move out of bad AoE’s or mechanics. So you as the player must make this a priority.
Combat: Your companion will attack automatically. Just like players, companions have multiple buffs and AoE healing. So stay close enough to your companion to receive those buffs.
Companions Synergy: Companions can provide synergies but not use them. Therefore, the undaunted skill lines are so vital to prioritise and use.
Provide shield and protection: Every class or combat style has some type of shield or damage reduction. Pick at least one extra shield or protection skill for your companion. This small bit of protection will help your companion survive.
Make companion your own! Above all, these tips can help you out but the end result is up to you. Experiment, try things outside of the box and meta ideas. You’ll be surprised at just how effective these things can be.
Thanks for reading!
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