I am a two-handed heavy armor warrior who just took J'zargo as my companion. Is he a good companion? He was named the best follower on some website, but that might have been a little bit sarcastic. My former follower was Lydia, who was pretty good, but I think she just died in a dungeon that I was in. Also, would you reccomend another warrior to support me, or a mage for extra spell damage as my companion?

I think a mage would be a good complement for a warrior. Just don't jump in front of him when he's casting.

at high levels he has the best stats but he only uses the novice spell

All the house carls are the same to be honest, just become a thane of riften for example and use that house carl. J'zargo is a good companion though, having a mage as a warrior is useful. He uses high level destro spells, maybe give him some heavy armor.

The mage you can hire in the inn in riften, mercerio IIRC, he is a solid mage companion. I'd go with him.

As far as i heard he levels up to Level 83 with you.

I don't use companions, they tend to get in the way, unless I need a victim for a quest.

It all depends on what level you were when you met that companion.

Companions are supposed to scale with you, but a bug causes them to stay whatever level you were when you first met them. This means that as you level up, stronger enemies start to spawn so you still encounter opposition, but your companion will stay as weak as ever.

So if you met J'zargo when you were level 30 and you go out with him to fight enemies when you're level 50, you're going to have him facing enemies that are intended for a level 50 player to fight. He'll get slaughtered. This can be fixed on the PC version though by using "resurrect 0" on a companion, which respawns them, complete with correctly-scaled stats to match your level at the time.

I do find a properly levelled J'zargo to be an excellent companion, however. His only downside is his annoying refusal to use better robes than what he's wearing. I gave him Master Robes of Destruction and he still wears his Novice Robes.

Personally, I believe the best companion in the game is Cicero, who can be obtained as a companion if you spare him during the Dark Brotherhood questline. He's one of the few companions that isn't awful at sneaking and he also comes pre-outfitted in some really good equipment.

That's the part where you have to use the console to forcibly remove all his items

or give him enchanted armor instead.

Cool. I'm level 12, so he should be good for a while

I did do that with J'zargo but not for the reason of getting him to wear better equipment.

Also I think most scaling stops at level 50, so any companion met at 50 or beyond should be good for the rest of the game. There are a few exceptions, such as generic enemies that are spawned to your level while travelling along the path to Kynesgrove with Delphine (I met a level 89 Nord Woman during that quest), but no special enemies appear after level 50 (Ancient Dragons start spawning around then and they're the strongest type of generic Dragon).

I don't wanna sound gay or nuthin', but I think J'zargo is kick ass.

My mage character has him as a companion and we go around nuking things.

He's not that good to be honest. He never uses staves and tends to spam sparks once they get close enough (The weakest spell in the game) instead of using his stronger magic; he'd be better of attacking in melee (he is a pro one hander and can wear heavy armour) but even then he never uses THAt either.

i used the console to modify his spell list but by default... he's pretty ropey.

Yes, from all reports, J'zargo is a very good companion for a warrior. I plan to pick him up eventually (when I have time to do the Mage College quest line to the end).

Currently I have Erandur (the priest from Dawnstar) and find the mage follower / warrior dragonborn combo works well for me. I do have to avoid giving him certain items (fireball staffs, for example) due to friendly fire issues, but otherwise he's good support. He also has the widest range of dialog of any follower in the game, and some of it is actually informative. It starts getting old after a while (he repeats the same thing each time you visit a given location), so I'll be happy to "upgrade" to somebody a bit less chatty eventually. In the meantime, Erandur is ALSO a mage who will wear heavy armor and happily use a bow / sword / shield. He's great, and much easier to recruit than J'zhargo. Just don't load him up with gem hogging staffs, as he tends to use them against every skeever and wolf in sight...

He is an incredibly effective Destruction mage. He deals the most damage out of the companions and is better than Marcurio.

this is what I expierenced also I don't know how people think he's so good

...how come everyone else' j'zargo is made of liquid awesome and mine just spams sparks? :/

(I didn't even encounter him til level 40 due to me re-rolling a sort've newgame +)

Why hasn't Bethesda fixed this bug then? I already met a 3rd of possible companions and I'm only level 23.

You would use a follower as a victim! It's a good thing you don't pray to Boethiah....

J'zargo is pretty great. He's been with my Battlemage the last several levels (up to 51 now) and can hold his own. He's also sporting a full set of Glass armor (Legendary) to help protect him, and is also sporting the old Arch-Mage's amulet and a ring that increases his magicka a bit. He helped in the hunting down of 2 Dragon Priests today, including one dungeon that had lots of Draugr Deathlords, so he had no choice but to fend for himself at times.