I tested this many times. Me, rushing to kill a draugr, only to find myself ambushed by 10 of them and a Draugr murderous deathlord boss, so i summoned a demora and kill all of them. Then i realised, where is my follower??
I looked behind, and there was lydia running up to me saying 'I will protect you with my life'

yea, i nearly died jus now.

i love how you can look behind you when youre running, and see your follower WALKING in the distance behind you. Then they notice you looking and break into a run. Lydia (and the lydia clones) does this to me all the time.

I have a kind of an opposite problem with Mjoll. She's always the first one to bash the enemies in the face with her Wuuthrad, but when adventuring I always have to wait for her since I discover that she isn't even running behind me, but walking standing. It gets very annoying if you need her in an outdoor battle.

Your armor vs their armor plays a big role. Lydia, for example, wears heavy armor and is more slowed that your characer while: A. wearing mages robes or other regular clothes, B. wearing light armor, C. wearing heavy armor with weightless perk, or D. Steed Stone currently active.

Seems kinda dumb that a mage's tank hireling is the last into the frey.

I often find my followers are the first into battle. The only who don't seem to do this are the ones who favour ranged attacks (Annekke, Faendal, Aela, etc.)

The reason it occurs is sort of a design oversight.


1. The Player sprints, leaving their follower behind because Bethesda didn't code the follower sprinting if you do.

2. You encounter enemies, pulling out your weapon/spells, which automatically makes your follower copy you - they arm themselves/raise their arms too. However, they aren't in the battle, you left them behind.

3. So they armed (which slows them down), and behind you. Then, quite frequently, a code error occurs where they can go into the "alerted" state (not Attack state), because they are too far out of the range of the fight you are in. The alerted state unfortunately makes them just WALK (slowly) with their weapons armed.




Thus... Because of the somewhat sloppy coding... What frequently happens is if you engage a fight without your follower right next to you, the system makes your NPC pull out their weapon and walk slowly towards you.

One more very good reason to NEVER use followers....

If I want my followers to tank, I have to sneak in. The followers will fail their sneak and hence be the first one to get attacked.

Optionally, run back to your followers.

I will say this is the most realistic behavior I have heard about from any AI.
Smarter AI != helpful.

Lol, if I had a septim for every time I've crept just inside a room only to have Lydia bumble into me saying, "huh?", I could buy out Erikur and put him on a slow boat to Oblivion.

Except when you sneak: in these occasions they're quick to blow your cover and rush headlong into battle.

I personally love to use Followers, especially mage ones, being that they can be pretty powerful and help out alot with ranged attacks. You can simply just wait for your follower to catch up by moving at a slower pace so youre both in battle at same time.

I dont agree with the 'follower haters' who are ultimately sending a bad message to the devs by saying Followers are useless and never to use them. Most of the folks here dont care if youre the ultimate gamer and a cool lone wolf. Obviously by carrying 200 worth of weight and drawing attention from groups of enemies as well as sometimes decimating them, theyre not useless. Some are also cool to have just so youre not bored wandering around completely alone. A simple: 'I dont use followers' should be sufficient to the people who claim theyre entirely useless and hold them back from being the best gamer

LOL or you are trying to squeeze by her, while she's blocking your exit and then she says "Ow". I'm like what? Did I step on your toes? Well then you BETTER MOVE! sheesh LOL Illia does the same thing, she even got the same voice as Lydia, but she has a better attitude LOL

But yea, I also noticed that when they are in "alert state with a drawn weapon" they are even moving slower than walking. So, I make certain I only draw my weapon when they are close by and we are in enemy range. I mainly noticed that with my mage followers though, since they are ranged attackers.

I never had any issues with Vorstag. My Nord Brigid and her husband Vorstag, (both warriors, she is in light armor and dual wields and he's wearing Heavy armor and uses sword and board), make an excellent team! They always go on raids together! Unless, the mission requires her to go alone. LOL

My stealth character never uses a follower, but my other 3 do so on a regular basis. I like to bring a "friend" along. Makes it feel more like an MMO, where you team up with your buddies! hehe

It's better than your fragile horse running into combat, considering enemies will attack your pathetic horse before attacking you. Seriously, horses either need to get out of the way or we should be allowed to be fight on them, just for the sake of not having to get off of them every time we encounter a bandit or something

It's obvious a follower arrives last...that's why they're called like that
Otherwise, it would be a scout.

My follower actually saved me a few times. I was low of health and I jsut got knocked down by one of the Draugr's Fus Ro Dahs and when I thought one was gonna do the killing, it got killed by one of my follower's arrows. Derkeethus has good aim!

Another time is when I was fighting a Bandit Chief and both of us were low at health. I was in the middle of a Finish-Move on him then it glitched and he some-how begun a Finish-Move on them then Derkeethus came up and did a Finish-Move on him, killing him and saving me. I was LOLing at all of this.

But then again, you have Lydia. She is totally useless... Kinda.. Good Sacrifice.

My Lydia is leveled-up to my own level, and knows how to hold her ground...in fact, she's becoming almost to powerfull.
I mean, she practically took this dragon down on her own!:

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/595834936617301102/B08D4C2165A7933338F2FE4236C28B39084106F1/

Yeah, except these guys are ready to go when you are, and not staring at the TV, yacking on the phone, grooming the dog or taking a whiz break, lol.

Had this issue happen a lot on my first play through (as well as 2nd) as a bow assassin until I found Illia. Illia was like a rabid pitbull & would attack everything on site! If she could see it, it was toast... Sneaking was impossible since as soon as she seen them, she would unleash hell. She is by far the best companion to have from my play experience for fighting. She'll use pretty much any staff given to her (even dual wield them) until they are used up then she'll switch. She'll use a good amount of scrolls as well. The only down sides I found is sneaking with her is pretty hopeless & she blows through magika potions like she's smoking Crack. Oh, she also had a tendency to use conjuration staff's right before the enemy was dead, which tended to make the conjured helper useless for the majority of the time it was alive.

Illia follows pretty well also. Vilkas seemed to be the worst for me. I was constantly wondering, where in the hell is he!?!?!?!

Edit: Sanguine's Rose is pretty good if you're not able to conjure.