Finding the right follower in Skyrim can make the difference between struggling through dungeons and steamrolling through endgame content. Whether you’re hunting dragons, raiding bandit camps, or tackling the Ebony Warrior, your companion’s combat prowess matters. With hundreds of potential followers scattered across Tamriel, many of them easily missed, knowing which ones actually pack a punch is crucial. This guide breaks down Skyrim’s strongest followers, examining their combat stats, special abilities, and unique strengths to help you build the perfect adventuring duo.
Key Takeaways
- Mjoll the Lioness is Skyrim’s strongest follower for consistent durability and damage, excelling as a tank without level caps that limit other vanilla companions.
- Serana from Dawnguard DLC outperforms most followers through spell variety, self-healing, and superior level scaling that keeps her viable through endgame content.
- Barbas the Daedric hound delivers exceptional raw damage per second, making him ideal for burst damage scenarios despite lacking healing and crowd control abilities.
- The strongest follower in Skyrim depends on your build: pair mages with Mjoll for tanking, warriors with Serana for crowd control, and stealth archers with Barbas for aggro-pulling.
- Test followers in real combat encounters and swap them based on dungeon requirements, as their strengths should complement your character’s weaknesses for optimal performance.
Mjoll The Lioness: The Unstoppable Warrior
Mjoll the Lioness stands as one of Skyrim’s most straightforward powerhouses. Found in Riften, this Nord warrior is incredibly easy to recruit, just help her retrieve her sword, Grimsever, and she becomes available as a follower. What makes Mjoll exceptional is her sheer durability combined with consistent DPS output.
Combat Stats and Fighting Style
Mjoll enters the game with high health pools and excellent melee damage. Her combat style is aggressive and direct: she charges into fights without hesitation, drawing enemy aggro while you rain down spells or arrows from range. She uses One-Handed weapons and Heavy Armor, making her the ideal tank when paired with a ranged or magic-focused character.
Her damage output scales nicely with your level, and her AI prioritizes engaging enemies in close quarters, no useless standing around. At level 50+, she becomes genuinely formidable, competing with some of Skyrim’s unique followers. One major advantage: she’s completely unaffected by the follower level cap that haunts many vanilla companions, meaning she grows stronger as you do. If you’ve invested heavily in leveling your character through skyrim shout locations, Mjoll will keep pace without requiring mods or console commands. Her straightforward kit makes her perfect for players who value reliability over flashiness.
Serana: Vampire Mage With Unmatched Power
Serana from the Dawnguard DLC is genuinely broken in the best way possible. She combines restoration magic, destruction spells, and melee combat into a single package that makes most other followers look weak by comparison. Her questline integration means she’s not just mechanically powerful, she’s narratively significant, which adds weight to having her at your side.
What separates Serana from standard followers is her vampire abilities. She can summon creatures, cast powerful spells across multiple schools of magic, and heal herself mid-combat. Her AI actually uses her toolkit effectively instead of wasting mana on weak spells. Players across gaming communities and forums consistently rank her as one of Skyrim’s best companions for this reason alone.
Why Serana Outperforms Most Followers
Serana’s strength comes from three factors: spell variety, self-healing, and level scaling. She doesn’t cap out like other vanilla followers: she scales with your level much further, making her viable even in endgame scenarios. Her vampire powers provide utility that standard followers simply don’t have. She can cast Mayhem and Fury spells, turning enemy groups against each other while you focus fire on one target, ideal for overwhelming encounters.
Her main limitation? She’s exclusive to Dawnguard, and her questline ties her to specific plot points. Recruit her early in your playthrough if you want her for the long haul. If you’re running a pure mage build, she’s arguably the strongest follower choice available, though pairing her with a melee character works equally well since her spell selection complements defensive playstyles.
Barbas: The Daedric Hound Powerhouse
Barbas, the shapeshifting hound from Skyrim’s Daedric quests, is a wildcard pick that catches most players off-guard. This demonic companion has impressive combat stats and genuinely frightening power, he tears through enemy groups like they’re paper. Unlike traditional humanoid followers, Barbas functions as a pure damage dealer with zero magical support, making him perfect for pure melee builds or ranged characters who need heavy backup.
Barbas can only be recruited through the Clavicus Vile quest chain. His damage output is phenomenal: he uses both physical attacks and some unique demonic abilities. The catch? He has a limited window of availability in the main game before disappearing after his quest resolution. But, if you complete his quest and keep him, he becomes one of the strongest pets you can access. His AI is aggressive and focused, he prioritizes high-value targets and doesn’t get distracted like some followers. For players looking to use best one-handed weapons alongside a heavy-hitting companion, Barbas creates synergy. His presence allows you to trust enemy engagement and focus on burst damage or crowd control.
Comparing Top Followers and Their Unique Strengths
Each of Skyrim’s strongest followers excels in different scenarios. Mjoll dominates through consistent, reliable damage and tanking, she’s your pick for extended dungeon crawls where steady performance beats burst mechanics. Serana brings utility and scaling that lets her remain relevant from mid-game through endgame content, making her the safest long-term choice for pure power.
Barbas represents raw damage per second for situations where you need enemies dead fast. He doesn’t heal, doesn’t provide crowd control, and doesn’t tank, he just destroys everything in sight. For survival mode playthroughs, where damage avoidance matters more than raw output, Mjoll and Serana both outperform Barbas significantly.
When optimizing builds, consider pairing followers with complementary playstyles. A destruction mage benefits from Mjoll’s tanking. A warrior benefits from Serana’s crowd control. A stealth archer benefits from Barbas’s aggro-pulling aggression. The meta shifts when accounting for difficulty modifiers and survival mode, which punishes followers with poor positioning and AI.
If you’re running skyrim mods that rebalance followers or expand NPC rosters, your strongest companion might change. The Nexus Skyrim Special Edition modding community has created enhanced versions of these followers with expanded abilities and better scaling. Similarly, several popular mods redesign the follower system entirely, adding perks and progression that default followers lack. For vanilla playthroughs, but, these three represent the top tier.
Conclusion
Choosing Skyrim’s strongest follower depends on your build, playstyle, and available content. Mjoll the Lioness provides unmatched reliability, Serana delivers scaling power and versatility, and Barbas offers devastating burst damage. Test these companions in real scenarios, pay attention to how their AI responds to specific encounters, and don’t hesitate to swap followers if a particular dungeon demands a different toolkit. Your strongest follower is eventually the one whose strengths complement your weaknesses.
