10 weeks have passed,thoughts?

[Anomandaris]

My personal intention is/was for each summon tier to scale with caster levels, so (for example) Summon VII would remain viable into epics, and even Summon I-IV would have some utility (and as such not be wasted spells in ranger spellbook). I would also like a different creature in the mix (too many elementals!).

I'm informed one of our admins has taken on a project following a similar philosophy. Once this is completed, and we have an idea of the new summon utility we'll look at boosts to sequencers (my preference here would be rhat all apply mass effects (to all the users summons, not just one (time saving), and that all also apply haste. Though again, we'll see where the update leaves thrm first.

As it stands right now, not even Summon IX or Greater Planar Binding are viable in epics unless you can use them as a meatshield for a damage dealer. And those DO scale with caster level already. Elemental Swarm works somewhat better due to essentially providing twelve attacks per round and dealing significant damage that way. And the gap between the swarm summons and Summon IX summons is low enough to not particularly be an issue.

Furthermore, different build concepts currently benefit very differently from summons as I've outlined earlier. If you can deal significant damage on your own -consistently-, summons still provide a significant boon. it allows playstyles that aren't otherwise possible - like skimping on your AC and focusing everything on damage in early levels to plainly breeze through writs.

Classes that actively have to rely on summons for consistent damage have a problem! This is primarily a sorcerer and wizard issue - warlocks have their blast as means of dealing consistent damage. Cleric, Favored Soul, Shaman? All of them can work very well in melee while still having access to the entire summon suite including conduit - and a whole range of buff spells on top of it! In between Bless, Prayer, War Cry, Battletide, Aura of Vitality that's up to 6 AB more than your comparable arcane caster.

In essence it is a balancing issue between classes and not so much a summon issue.

If you treat summons the same across the board, I think it would also require looking at the classes that are currently falling far behind as a consequence. Alternatively you provide those classes with the means to actually go further with their summons and make them proper summoning classes. Sequencers and Epic Level Scaling aren't going to do that.

The suggestion to rely on the casting stat is in my opinion a good start.

I still believe that a "quick fix" (I have no idea how quick something like that would actually be) would be allowing mass zoo spells and mass haste to apply to your own summons gain. At least while you work out a better system.
I generally like sequencers and I think it's great not to be compelled to spend my entire spellbook on summon buffs. But mass spells with an overall utility? Come on. It was one way to achieve some level of parity in that regard between divine and arcane casters.

This is an important point. It's not about just "summons" it's about the classes/builds. And it's about their relative balance against other classes/builds (within reason).

The original change that prevented us from casting spells on our summons felt tedious and unnecessary. Sequencers are neat concepts but should have always been an option, not a requirement. If the issue was spell resistance (preventing removal through WoF), just stop the use of spell resistance on summons.

That said, I may have a rare opinion that it's totally acceptable for an epic caster to summon something (for a short duration) that rivals an epic martial's combat power. That seems to be the clear the point and designed power threshold of said level 9 or epic spell after all; people may disagree. Dropping a dragon, or extraplanar deva/balor/cornugon should be be something that provides enough pressure that it needs to be dealt with and present some challenge to do so (without SR, that's literally just using one scroll that also may blind the caster too, hardly a big lift). Anything less and it's useless in late gave PvE or PvP. If not just remove the spells entirely, as it's immersion breaking to summon a dragon that gets ripped apart like paper by mid tier mobs. I do see more of a problem with long duration summons that have this much power and effectively replace another PC, but short duration (turns or rounds/level) is fine. Also, why do we care if people want to afk grind PvE content with summons? That doesn't really affect anyone, maybe it makes it easier for them to grind runics, but so what? This playstyle is boring to me but if people enjoy it good for them.

Either way, martials are still so overpowered compared to casters its comical. And I'm not sure how this dynamic persists with as much focus on balance as there is on the server.

TLDR from many posts before:

• Martials get high, APR non interruptible attacks, that never run out vs. casters having 2 actions per round which are entirely interruptible and rely on fixed number of spell slots
• Martials have high damage output allowing one-round vs. damage spells that will struggle to finish an opponent, and effects that are mostly ignored with saves and immunities
• Martials get access to high magic on the chassis of a mundane killing machine through UMD, Lore or just insane items in the loot matrix (Rod/potion antimagic, greater gem of nullification etc). Access to almost all buffs that a caster would otherwise cast on you means casters are effectively entirely replaceable by some coin.
• Insane power creep of items to mean that everyone has a +5 weapon as a standard, piercing all DR spells
• Spellsword is an abomination and should not have access to mords. It can do just fine with breaches.

If you really dislike summons and for some reason don't want them to be as useful, that's fine. IMO the only issue was Spell resistant, persistent summons. Either way please fix the terrible balance state this and other changes have left casters in.

[cornelius_4]

It's pretty nice for the early levels, as most of the areas where designed with summons like these in mind.

I'm thus assuming it's generally the experience I have known up to the mid levels and maybe early end game.

With some new areas that'll be different and I've noticed some changes in older areas too, so far so good .

[Hazard]

It definitely gets added to the pile of glaring mistakes Arelith has chosen to double down on.

[-stick-]

Pale-master/wizard is still effective and can solo most content with undead summons for those who like the concept.

No haste and lower DR hurts but manageable.

[Kalthariam]

Yeah, it's almost like undead streams are inherently more powerful than non-undead streams, and they still have buff spells that stack with sequencers, that no one else gets.

[-XXX-]

Yeah, it's almost like undead streams are inherently more powerful than non-undead streams, and they still have buff spells that stack with sequencers, that no one else gets.

Conduit gets ECB+ESF+1APR=king of summons still. On top of that AoV still exists.
Thing is, 0 build support conju summons get often compared against full ESF:necro build undead summons.

People have gotten used to not building around summons - most spellcaster builds rarely went ESF:conju/necro before the last summon change and evo/abju/transmu were preferred.
At the same time, undead summoner classes like Dirge or PM get necro foci as bonus feats.

[Shadowy Reality]

I will mention, that I have leveled a cleric Defiler (with non-undead summons, so Summon Creature line) and an Hideous Blow Warlock after the summon changes and they both still breezed through content. The summons were not useless either, they actually sped up clearing quite a bit.

I think this proves that if the base chassis of the class is solid enough (and I am aware Defiler and Warlock are on the higher end of solid) then the summons being like this is not the end all, they are actually okayish. The issue comes when the only leveling tool for a chassis is the summon, and here I look mostly at Sorcerers, Wizards and maybe Druids to a certain degree.

If these classes are made so that they can reliably put out decent amounts of damage consistently and ways to keep their summons alive (defiler heals them directly, the Warlock has Life transference and also heals them a bit with Hideous Blow), then summons being as they are is mostly fine.

A couple of additional notes: Planar Conduit is still 100% fine (and it actually probably overtuned when it comes to PvP), it clears a lot of epic content. Conjuration Specialist Wizards, casters with Conjuration Focus should definitely see a bump to what we currently have where their summons can mostly hold on their own.

[Security_Blanket]

Either way, martials are still so overpowered compared to casters its comical. And I'm not sure how this dynamic persists with as much focus on balance as there is on the server.

This sums up my position so perfectly, I'm confused about why this is the direction you guys are taking. If you don't like people standing behind their summons in PvE and you want them to get more involved then simply nerf the damage on the summons, don't nerf the AC/AB/Damage/HP/everylittlething, target the one thing that's causing the problem.

If you're talking summons and more specifically wizards and sorcerers, I feel I should remind everyone that on top of low AB and low AC, they are also the only two classes on the server that still have 4HD, Harper Mage, Zhentarim Naug Adar both get 6HD, even a Commoner gets 6HD. But summons, that's what needs to be dealt with? I'm so very confused.

[Dreams]

I dislike the change overall. It feels like we have balance decisions that go through a process of crazy wild kneejerk swings > normalise over time > new thing gets added that seems wildly out of place > “Give it time to see what happens” > crazy wild kneejerk swings > and it repeats.

It just feels like Arelith may not have an overall plan or goal it heads toward, so balance changes happen purely in reaction.

Like as a quick example, harbinger totally blows my mind when it comes to the endless list of crazy thing it has access to. How were summons anything like that? The summons that were the problematic ones weren’t the ones that were changed.

[-stick-]

Cleric,Sorcerer and wizard all have other powerful tools for pvp that dwarf's all other classes.

Time stop + harm
Crazy dispells
And disabling spells like bigby hands and more.

So with a conduit coupled with a sequencer and a darkness wand they should be fine.

[Algol]

Time stop is more potent from a scroll as it cannot be interrupted, even by timestop itself.

Bigby 8 is used from scrolls anyway l, as bigby 8 has a CL20, very respectable duration (25 with loremaster!) and it's the best one out of the bunch anyway.

Harm deals no damage if enemy has negative energy protection and you are not a defiler.

This leaves only dispells and long lasting hastes as the casters "unique" tools, especially in PvP. Which is very underwhelming.

[perseid]

I agree with the general principle behind the summoning changes, specifically in that I think offloading a lot of power onto sequencers means that they can start of with some baseline pvp stats while the sequencers can boost them farther for pve (with WoF and removal mechanics making that less viable in fast paced pvp scenarios). That said, the glacial pace of change effectively means anything that gets caught up in the adjustments right now I've written off as dead even if I'm sure the intent is for them to be iterated on over time. I thought it was rather merciful that they were overbuffed while things were evaluated since at least then the classes that depend on their summons aren't so dead in the water meanwhile and things like WoF kept the higher stat minions from being a huge problem in most cases anyway

[AskRyze]

Cleric,Sorcerer and wizard all have other powerful tools for pvp that dwarf's all other classes.

Time stop + harm
Crazy dispells
And disabling spells like bigby hands and more.

So with a conduit coupled with a sequencer and a darkness wand they should be fine.

But what are these characters supposed to do when you have 20+ packs of mobs 5-10 individuals deep, each individually with nearly 1k HP apiece, more than enough AB to rip your face off, and you can only use Conduit once per rest?

Let alone the new content where mobs are casting Banishment, Dispel Undead, and WOF like the scrolls grow on trees.

It was never about PVP efficacy of summons. It was about the pve content where you literally don't have enough spellslots to cast timestop+harm four times on every mob before you get to the boss.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I think the problem is that wizards rely on summons for pvp, personally, and just boosting them back up doesn't change that. The truth is with wands, arcane flux, ect, they are close, but they are also very squishy. Personally, I would start my thoughts here-

-Give each school a second enemy school. No one gets transmutation as an enemy school because of haste/slow are staples everyone wants, and teleportation is the best of all qol abilities.

-boost the hell out of what each school is trying to do.

-Redo transmutation. The idea was really sweet, but spell sword exists. Maybe make some environment manipulating spells to boost the class, like vines coming up from the ground/trees coming alive and grabbing someone/stalagmites dropping from a cave ceiling and sharpening into weapons.

-Increase ac across the board, with defensive schools getting even better defense.

I can't tell you the math, not in a "hey this is where my thoughts led after reading this" post at least, but that's a general idea of where I would start looking. Who knows, maybe that's already where you are looking. But if you can make it so each plays a little different, bonus, you just made seven new classes by tweaking one a little.

[Kalthariam]

Yeah, it's almost like undead streams are inherently more powerful than non-undead streams, and they still have buff spells that stack with sequencers, that no one else gets.

Conduit gets ECB+ESF+1APR=king of summons still. On top of that AoV still exists.
Thing is, 0 build support conju summons get often compared against full ESF:necro build undead summons.

People have gotten used to not building around summons - most spellcaster builds rarely went ESF:conju/necro before the last summon change and evo/abju/transmu were preferred.
At the same time, undead summoner classes like Dirge or PM get necro foci as bonus feats.

Yeah but Planar conduit wasn't effected by the change (Outside of AoE spells not effectin them anymore, including Aura of Vitality. Which is a problem imho but not the focus.)

I'm talking about the base summon spells vs the base necromancy spells. Because that's what was effected.

The undead streams are way stronger due to them being able to be sequenced, usually summon multiple mobs then being able to be buffed by outside spells that other conjurations don't get.

[Opustus]

As someone who invites a challenge, I think it's been fine and fun. The summons tend to melt fast unaided and you need to be better prepared. Especially AoE disablers and persistent AoEs have been used more than before. Many low level spells provide great support even late into the game, a spell like Grease can be insanely good. I like being forced to be creative and use more of my tools as a caster - it's fun and has changed up caster playstyle for the better imo, because the summon meta was uninteractive and boring (while I do understand that some players prefer the easymode).

To emphasise: I don't personally experience the change from the perspective of class balance (I just find it uninteresting and unrelated to my personal game enjoyment and satisfication) but solely from the persective of whether I enjoy the new kind of gameplay ushered in by the change, so I'm not really participating in the balance discussion.

Endgame the summons melt extra fast and you're trapped in a minigame of being encumbered by sand/coal/glass to craft spell components. It isn't my definition of fun, and making the lower tier summons more useful could be a good way to address this issue. Also, making the spell component micromanagement less arduous would be welcome.

Lastly, while I welcome the aesthetic and theme of spellbound wands, I find the system a bit clunky and would prefer just wizards/sorcies getting a refund chance for spells of innate level 3 and below, i.e., the utility meant to be provided by spellbound wands just woven into normal spellcasting without the extra hassle. I don't know if people find obtaining spellbound wands and keeping them recharged fun but I doubt it. I find this related to the summon change because worse summons => more reliance on spellbound wands.

[Subtext]

Yeah but Planar conduit wasn't effected by the change (Outside of AoE spells not effectin them anymore, including Aura of Vitality. Which is a problem imho but not the focus.)

Aura of Vitality does still affect your summons. It's solely Mass Haste and Mass Zoos that seem to have been hit.
So yeah, as a transmuter, I can still almost fully buff my summons' stats if i also have AoV. (Read: Shamans, Druids, some Clerics).

[Irongron]

In addition to more adaptable and robust structure for the Summon Creature line spells which a developer is currently wotking on, I have spoken about a separate idea purely for wizards and sorcerers, as I think the posters here have made a very strong argument as to why these 'squishy' casters are so reliant on summons to guard them.

My current idea, which is no way guaranteed to happen as will require some scripting trickery, is to remove the 3 summoned blade spells from all spellbooks other than the above two.

These agro drawing wizard/sorc specific guarding summons will be locked in parry mode, sometimes true strike on a riposte and not function with associate tool. They would be very durable and suit casters who want to forego the regular summon spells and concentrate on offence casting. It would not leave them invulnerable, or offer any protection against archers or other casters but should mean when the mobs descend after casting that AoE the wizard gets some protection.

As soon as I have any ETA on either project I will let community know. In the meantime I'll continue to read and engage here.

[Coolguy McMagic]

I would like to generally point out that other casters (namely Clerics, Shamans and Druids) will often struggle with the same things Wizards and Sorcerers do, it's just that these classes have other ways of building them. Arguably the caster versions of cleric, shaman and druid is the "intended" way of playing these classes, but that way of playing is highly suboptimal right now with the exception of Defiler Cleric. So while some more attention for Wizard and Sorcerer is needed and appreciated, I would prefer if other pure casters are not left in the dust simply because they technically can be built as martials.

I am also wondering how Elementalists are coping with this? I have yet to play one, but it's not like they have better defensive tools than Wizards/Sorcerers, they just have better offense.

[silverpheonix]

Summoned blade reworks? Oooh. Those spells have been terrible for so long that I've lately been thinking about doing R&D RP on a clockwork homunculus spell that would let transmuters have decent construct summons.

No longer being able to mass zoo my summons hurt, not going to lie. I still have them in my Transmuter's spellbook, but I haven't really used them since the change. I suppose I should replace them, just don't know with what.

[vaclavc]

I don't have any strong opinion regarding the current strength of summoned creatures.
However, the inability to cast majority of spells on the summons seems very arbitrary and not in line with NWN mechanics.
If the summons are considered too strong in PVE, I would prefer returning to their vanilla version + giving back the ability to buff them.
Sequencers are pretty neat idea, it would be great if we could fill them with variety of spells, too.

-V-

[chris a gogo]

I am also wondering how Elementalists are coping with this? I have yet to play one, but it's not like they have better defensive tools than Wizards/Sorcerers, they just have better offense.

Absolutely fine.
The fact that the summons auto guard a caster means you can stand in the middle of spawn groups and blast away.

The only difficulty they have is in the beginning when your reliant on persistent blade, once you get Mord sword your fine, then later you switch it out for summon monster 8 then 9.
It's a very different playstyle to wizard or sorc due to the fact almost all the damage comes from the caster the summons are purely to guard you.

Irongorn wrote.

My current idea, which is no way guaranteed to happen as will require some scripting trickery, is to remove the 3 summoned blade spells from all spellbooks other than the above two.

These agro drawing wizard/sorc specific guarding summons will be locked in parry mode, sometimes true strike on a riposte and not function with associate tool. They would be very durable and suit casters who want to forego the regular summon spells and concentrate on offence casting. It would not leave them invulnerable, or offer any protection against archers or other casters but should mean when the mobs descend after casting that AoE the wizard gets some protection.

Wizards/sorcs need summons/dominated/henchmen to do damage as they do not have enough castings to be viable without it, or it would slow down there clear rate to a crawl, waiting ten rounds (aprox) of cantrip spam on each mob to cast a single big damage/death spell.
Would work well on Elementalist as they do pretty much all the damage themselves.

[Subtext]

My current idea, which is no way guaranteed to happen as will require some scripting trickery, is to remove the 3 summoned blade spells from all spellbooks other than the above two.

These agro drawing wizard/sorc specific guarding summons will be locked in parry mode, sometimes true strike on a riposte and not function with associate tool. They would be very durable and suit casters who want to forego the regular summon spells and concentrate on offence casting. It would not leave them invulnerable, or offer any protection against archers or other casters but should mean when the mobs descend after casting that AoE the wizard gets some protection.

And...cast what exactly? Given the huge HP pool of mobs, wizards and sorcerers run out of steam very fast, even when relying on spellbound wands. Which is assuming you carry several for all sorts of spells which in turn is rather expensive
So it's reliant in cantrips. Consider areas like the Deep Wells where you can't rest and that sounds like incredibly sluggish gameplay. And even if you can rest, you'll either not contribute much to the party or annoy everyone by having a nap every odd turn.

It also wouldn't quite account for crowd control - making it actually detrimental since a parry-locked summon will not help you clear the group you just subdued with mass hold monster.
So. Even more cantrip time.

[Security_Blanket]

These agro drawing wizard/sorc specific guarding summons will be locked in parry mode, sometimes true strike on a riposte and not function with associate tool. They would be very durable and suit casters who want to forego the regular summon spells and concentrate on offence casting. It would not leave them invulnerable, or offer any protection against archers or other casters but should mean when the mobs descend after casting that AoE the wizard gets some protection.

Offensive casting meaning spamming cantrips? If this is the chosen route then why bother even playing wizard/sorcerer over an elementalist/hemomancer. They can spam high level spells till the cows come home, they get summons that are good enough to tank because those casters aren't limited to so many castings per day, and just to add insult to injury they also get 6 HD compared to the wizard/sorcerer's 4HD. Why do they need to parry? To slow things down for this specific class, again, why?

[Seren]

As someone who's played a wizard before this update, and has been trying to level a wizard after this update; I think it's been a positively ghoulish, unpleasant experience.

PVE should not be difficult to the point of being unpleasant for casters, especially when your role in a party is mostly relegated to 'buff things and then follow the group'. Having a summon that has reliable AB / damage / tankiness is your equivalent of contributing in combat beyond wards.

Sure you can spam cantrips, but when you're dealing 10-20 damage / cast and your weaponmaster is dealing 80-120 you really don't feel like you're contributing an awful lot to the fight until you pray to God that you can get a proc on your arcane flux. Then you get to cast one whole spell and feel cool for one fight out of dozens in the dungeon.

With Lore being meta for most builds anyway, you don't even get to feel very awesome as a caster because people are just self-buffing most of the time anyway. Then we go on to further consider that the saves on some mobs are positively goofy. (I.E me doing yuan ti temple, a level like 13 dungeon and meeting regular non-elite non-boss mobs with +34 fort save whilst being mind-affecting immune ((this feels really awesome when they kill my sequence-buffed summon and there's nothing I can do it about !!)))

This is my experience with GSF conj, where my summon should be higher level than the mobs I'm fighting. (It's still getting annihilated.)

God forbid you don't take it and your creatures are total trash.

It just doesn't feel good to play a caster in this day and age, and I really only do it for the roleplay.