Addai67 wrote...
I had Aranea as a follower, switched out for Ilia for a while, then went back to Aranea for the duration. She's awesome. The mages, when leveled and properly equipped, can really be fearsome. She had a battlemage set I crafted for her and she never ran out of mana. Plus, Dunmer. Erandur is the best but he was always complaining about Windhelm being freezing and my Stormcloak is based there, so it felt like I was torturing him. 
Ilia's setup did not strike me as quite so deadly, plus she had that annoying thing where she wanted to use whatever crap hunting bow I handed her rather than her spells. Who knows. Follower AI is really capricious. I'm using Vilkas right now but he seems to have good tactics. I gave him a Paralyze staff, drainbow and Wuuthrad. In a group he will start off by shooting a couple paralysis blasts, then firing off some arrows and switching to his axe when enemies close- all very proper.
I used Illia last night, and the first thing she did? Well, we went inside Meridia's temple, and the first thing she did was equip the circlet I gave her. And that was all she was wearing. All I know, is we went in, I turned around, and she was standing there in her smallclothes. Brilliant! I immediately took the circlet from her.
We did that quest, and the Labyrinthian one for the mage's college (well, and kicked the snot out of Ancano). She did ok, but she's missing that certain something-something that makes a knock-out follower for me. She seemed to prefer using miscellaneous Falmer staffs I'd picked up, in lieu of magic. Most of the time, she was running around with two of them in her hands.
Do I switch now, or let her level a few times with me? Right now, I'd say that I prefer Eola or Belrand to her. But I do miss having a Dunmer follower. Well, I guess Azura's shrine will be next stop for this party bus.
Oh! I almost forgot! Ancano's friend that stops and fights you before you leave Labyrinthian said something kinda funny to my Khajiit - "You remind me of my neighbor's cat. I killed that, too!" Well, it was more of a taunt.