Augment vs Bonding

Ok guys, here are my thoughts/math and my reasoning/assumptions and I am not suggesting I am right, but this is what I believe will work for my toon (TR) and potentially others in similar situations. Please, anyone, do your own math/research to work out what is best for you

The article itself tend to deal with more defensive stats so potentially augment suits defensive characters but I can't comment on that, my focus is DPS.

ASSUMPTIONS/FOCUS
• Availability of all relevant augments, companions, stones
• ‎Rank 13 analysis
• ‎solo play, no power share benefit
• ‎no inclusion of legendary companion bonuses (ie 16/8/4/2/1%)
• ‎Stat Priority
Armpen (60%/85%) -> Crit (90-95%) -> power -> recovery

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
• Current start point/options
• ‎Cost
• ‎lower rank Eldtrich outperform same rank bonding until R11

Ok onto the fun stuff.
STAT COMPARISON
So I'll compare a Summoned Air Archon (AA) running  R13 bonding vs a Black Dragon Ioun Stone (BDIS) running R13 Eldritch.
I've chosen the BDIS as it has the correct stats for my priority (ArmPen/crit/power) and is easy/cheap as hell to gear with 3xRing slots.
I have a legendary AA, I'm not sure on the BDIS legendary stats but the epic stats are of the BDIS are the same as that of the epic AA so I've assumed the same is true at legendary BDIS stats

BDIS gear
1x ring of dod
1x ring of beast+3
1x ring of hellig (best to get comparison for my AA)
Offence R13 brutal, defence R13 Dark

AA gear (my actual gear)
1x ring of dod
1x ring of beast +3
1x personalised adamant necklace of recovery
Offence/Defence same as above

I've done a spreadsheet of the stat difference which I tried to paste below but didn't work so I've had to type it out, hopefully it's clear.

For reference, augment with 3x R13 Eldritch earns you 169% of your augment stats.
Companion with 3x R13 bonding earns you 180%. Yes, the bondings takes a few seconds to activate, but generally I've found the AA procs them very fast and I rarely have any downtime. Especially in fights where they matter, eg bosses, because by the time I've popped my wheel the AA has attacked and they are up. In trash mob fights the trash is dead too quick which means the stats aren't required bonding or augment anyway so doesn't matter if the bondings don't proc.

                    AA        
ArmPen         1,219    
Crit               5,810    
Power           10,395    
Life Steal       5,400    
Recovery       1,483    

                       BDIS      
ArmPen             1,144    
Crit                   5,455    
Power               5,200    
Life Steal           5,070    
Recovery           1,396    

                   Difference in favour of AA
ArmPen         74
Crit               355
Power            5,195
Life Steal       330
Recovery       87


As you can see for me, the difference is there in ArmPen/crit/lifesteal but significant in terms of power. Assuming that I can operate at/near the RI and crit hard caps the power becomes very important for my dps and switching to an augment has a noticeable impact. Approx 13%

In order to pick up the lost ArmPen/crit I'm also likely losing that equivalent again in power/recovery as I balance insignias so this impact is even greater, just over 14% DPS impact from the power loss.

Add to the fact that if I am at close to 100% critical, running severity of 150%, then the loss of around 14% power translates to an actual DPS loss of 21%  (the power loss multiplied by my critical severity)

GAMEPLAY
So with a decrease in stats confirmed what is the gameplay difference?

As stated for solo play I still believe a companion is preferable to an augment. The main reason being aggro and combat advantage (outside of the obvious DPS impact). I can use my AA to take some of the aggro and positioning correctly means I almost always have CA, which with my boons/stats gives me a bonus 7.7%. This is not achievable with an augment. You could argue, well an augment means I don't risk aggroing enemies but the aim of the game it so fight something so you'll always lose that CA bonus.

So with both the 21% DPS loss and the 7.7% from CA there is a strong argument that Bonding still rules the day in the DPS land at endgame.

COSTS
Ok, again, for me, I currently run a legendary Air Archon with Rank 12 bonding and Rank 12 Brutal/Dark using the gear I outlined above. In order to "switch" to an augment, assuming it was even worthwhile and achieve the Rank 13 goal described above the cost would be the following

Upgrade AA:
18*Superior enchants (upgrade all 9 enchants/bondings), approx 300 Pres wards: 1,747,000 AD

Buy/Upgrade BDIS:
R13 Eldritch x 3 (1.5m ea on PC, only 1 available!), Epic BDIS (450k), Upgrade 6 R12->R13 (12*Superior Enchant), approx 200 pres wards, Legendary companion upgrade (1m):  7,1040,750 AD

So for marginal stat change with a loss of nearly 29% DPS, for an additional 5.3m....not worth running an Augment.

If you don't have a R13 viable companion/Augment then the costs argument is different.
Bonding R13 (PC 1.3m)
Eldritch R 13 (PC 1.5m)
AA Epic (500k XB)
BDIS Epic (450k XB)  *this costs 710k on PC right now!

So cost here would be if you were starting out (not including offence/defence stones as this is the same for either):
AA: 4.4m
BDIS 4.95m

Marginal. But again, companion is cheaper and you get an extra 28.5% DPS!


NOW - What if I don't have all this fancy stuff Snipes?

OK, so Eldritch actually provide better stats up to Rank 10 than Bonding, R11 are on par and from R12 up Bonding provide better bonus. Note: this is ignoring the Power bonus of running Bondings which we've learned is large!!

Also, you get 100% of the augment stats, regardless of it's rank, so you could buy the cheapest possible augment with ring/belt or whatever slots you prefer, and gear it with easy to get Rings of Dod and get a much better stat boost from lower ranked gear.

In addition Augments share HP, companions don't.

So my view would be, if you are starting out and early to mid game, get a cheap augment, some cheap eldritch, R8-10 and chuck on whatever gear you get your hands on and whatever enchants you can and you'll be better off with an augment in those early/mid game. You'll get some bonus HP which will help also.

However, once you want to start chasing your stats and pushing your DPS, then you will need to upgrade to a Bonding Companion for the mid to late game to take advantage of the significant power benefit and CA bonus. So you want cheap augment option so when you go to the expense of getting a Companion with bondings you haven't wasted a tonne of AD already.

The only potential difference I see here is perhaps a defence class. IF you want HP as a primary stat, eg OP, then potentially an augment running 2 x R13 Eldritch and 1 x R13 Empowered (17,500 HP) will give you 150% of the augment + 17,500 HP. So could be upwards of 40/50k HPs. I say "could" because I don't really know much about defence classes.

Anyway, that was waaaaaayyyy longer than I intended but hopefully helps. Any questions or other analysis you want to do let me know!!

Cheers