WOF is too accessible

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I mean...

Summons are not as powerful in pvp, while maintaining their pve soloing effectiveness. Isn't that what people wanted?

I 100% agree with the change, as long as the understanding is that wizards need help going forward in pvp. A random Idea I had, giving an int based alternative ab to some powerful spells and boosting their power level, so this way wizards can be as scary as a weaponsmaster. It would take some kinking out by folks smarter than I, but I think the juice is worth the squeeze. NwN and Arelith may be a few steps removed from dungeons and dragons at this point, but it's still rooted there, and that means having scary wizards is right on point. Having scary antfrogs be all that a wizard is? Not so much.

[Helsing]

You could argue that sequencer users could just reapply the buffs, but so could the antagonist simply breach them again. This was counterplay, since both sequencers and breaches come at a cost.

Yes when you reapply sequencer, antagonist can breach again. BUT your summon is attacking at the same time, it's not a valid point.

[MissEvelyn]

Mundane builds even need Word of Faith? With the shotgun meta, as I have heard it called, summoners may* now die in one round instead of two.

Summoners were still dying in one round prior to this change. It just took a little more effort. Really it just depends on how experienced the player behind the PvP shotgun character they're fighting is.

[The Rambling Midget]

Mundane builds even need Word of Faith?

Not really. It's more of a survivability crutch for low damage builds that would otherwise be overwhelmed by the summons long before they could cut through all of the layered damage shields that mages have access to.

Even after WoF goes off, in those cases, there's still the option for said mage to safely withdraw. That's an ego bruise, though, which I feel is an unspoken central point in this discussion.

[perseid]

Mundane builds even need Word of Faith?

Not really. It's more of a survivability crutch for low damage builds that would otherwise be overwhelmed by the summons long before they could cut through all of the layered damage shields that mages have access to.

Even after WoF goes off, in those cases, there's still the option for said mage to safely withdraw. That's an ego bruise, though, which I feel is an unspoken central point in this discussion.

They might not strictly speaking need it but I don't think that's necessarily the entire picture either. Sure, there's plenty of hyper shotgun builds that don't strictly need it to operate. But something like a Barb 26/Spec 4 is still going to be a generally effective shotgun while enjoying easy access to their choice of Lore, UMD, or both depending on race. All while having the ab and ehp to go toe to toe with regular mundane builds in addition to summoners who are now even more vulnerable than they were before to the same build.

[Kalthariam]

Just make the frogs/Ants equal to the power of the Celestial Planar Conduit, and everything will be fine.

Everytime I see someone complain about Planar Conduit, it's always the stupid Frogs or the Stupid Ants.

The fey and Celestial versions of these conduits are nowhere near the power the Frogs or Ant are at, and it's always frustrating to hear people claim conduit as a whole is unbalanced and a problem when it's literally just the Frogs/Ants.

The Good-aligned conduits have been weak for ages, especially on classes that do not get access to mass wards, thus cannot buff their already superbly weak conduits.

The Good Aligned Conduits were clearly made with the idea that they'd have a cleric buffing them, to make them more powerful, which clerics can no longer do. Love that my conduits are wearing effectively Bronze plate mail that hard cap their Dexterity modifier to 1 while providing effectively no protection to them, and their damage is significantly weaker than the ants or frogs??

Honestly, the fact you cannot protect your Conjurations from WOF, and the fact people can just outright deny you the ability to bring them out in the first place is what baffles me on how people can remotely think summons are a threat in PvP before this change. Even more so now that the change has been made.

Everyone has bloody WOF, unless you literally are brand new and have no one telling you what consumables you should buy. People are really underestimating how prevelant and easily accessible it is to completely invalidate and entire playstyle. Especially on classes that do not have other options besides conjurations.

[-XXX-]

The Good-aligned conduits have been weak for ages, especially on classes that do not get access to mass wards, thus cannot buff their already superbly weak conduits.

This is simply not true - both celestials and eldarin have higher DPS than the slaadi and are more or less on par with formians.

The only thing that's not great about the celestial stream in particular is that both summons are wearing full plate, so any DEX buffs won't improve their AC. But that's something only a handful of builds actually care about (not all summoner builds have access to aura of vitality or mass cat's) - that's still fine since the baseline defensive stats on conduit summons are pretty good.

People often refer to planar conduit as antfrogs simply because they are more common since 6 out of the 9 alignments get those.

[Skibbles]

I think WOF access being bandied about as flippantly easy for every build isn't exactly correct.

Skill hungry classes/builds like Ranger (dex in particular) for example have to itemize heavily for a ton of stuff on their gear. Assuming they even have room for their big five and are trying to do tracking then they're already capped on all bonuses for disc/hide/ms/spell/spot and that's if they don't also care about umd too.

Non int classes looking to get into 'easy' WOF may even have to take esf lore which is also a hefty price for this one single power.

With how many classes have a growing list of crafted items to be their 'end-game' that's also just less slots for lore bonuses too.

As someone who plays a melee pc without WOF (the dex Ranger above) I highly recommend to others to try out what it's like to be utterly defenseless against summons (who are immune to things like corner sneaking due to weird targeting mechanics) while also fighting a fully capable character at the same time to get some perspective here (hint: it sucks hard).

If it takes more than a single round to deal with summons you've, at the least, lost the initiative with the opponent unless there's very specific mitigating factors.

Just because most characters have it doesn't simultaneously mean it is easily accessible. It's simply too important to have, like discipline, and people are forced to make item/feat sacrifices on their characters to get it because summons are crazy strong and not having an available counter is a gigantic weakness.

[-XXX-]

Gearing for lore is as awkward for mundies as gearing for discipline is for spellcasters.
Both hate the other one for summons/knockdown even existing respectively.

Lore at least offers vastly greater functionality outside the primary reason for which it is taken than discipline.

[Paint]

I think WOF access being bandied about as flippantly easy for every build isn't exactly correct.

Skill hungry classes/builds like Ranger (dex in particular) for example have to itemize heavily for a ton of stuff on their gear. Assuming they even have room for their big five and are trying to do tracking then they're already capped on all bonuses for disc/hide/ms/spell/spot and that's if they don't also care about umd too.

I'm going to tell you what I tell people when I'm giving them build advice. Because in general, the advice we hand out on discord is mostly oriented for PVP. When people ask whether or not a build will be successful in PVP, one of the things we look at is whether or not they can manage to get enough lore to cast WoF, and now that there's a very good reason to consider that more essential again, I'm going to tell someone not to run their ranger build if they can't fit 50 lore on it because of how hard they'll get shut down if they don't have access to it.

You see, you all are looking at this the wrong way. It's not that fitting lore onto a build is difficult, it's that right now, it's the correct thing to do. You fit lore on your build, or you simply don't have an answer for an entire class of opponents now. Much like every build gears discipline, every build that cares about AC takes tumble, even if they have to CC it, every build that wants to succeed routinely in PVP against casters is going to fit that 50 lore if they can't cast WoF innately, or from a scroll w/o lore, or, they'll simply have no answer.

The more important thing here is that if you then lose to them and insist that PC is too strong, you'll just get, 'Should've geared lore, forehead,' in response.

The point is, you make it work, or you make yourself considerably weaker. That's the binary here. That's why this annoying anyone at all to begin with.

This isn't me saying that people are 'playing the game wrong,' because they don't. This is an RP server, man. But when we talk about things in a PVP lens, and start digging into the mechanics, everything about RP goes out the window, because we all know we're discussing how to win here.

Every class on Arelith can access WoF with a fairly easy setup of gear to obtain, and a 33 point investment into Lore. This is undisputable. You can insist that it cuts into your other class features, but when you've got two massively powerful creatures on you that you have no way to deal with, your other class features aren't going to help you. And if you're convinced they are, why do you care whether or not WoF is easy to access or not?

It's easy. You have to make concessions for it. You might be worse at x or y for it, but if you're winning, why do you care? It's easy.

Anyways, all of this is dumb because WoF shuts down classes that, in recent history, are pretty garbage at PVP anyways. How about those warlocks, eh?

[Skibbles]

I totally agree, paint. Both these mechanics are oppressive and crappy and overall awful in my opinion.

If I'm to choose between the availability of gearing for WOF or the ridiculously easy access most classes have to summons (literally almost no investment lol) I'm still going to vote for WOF even though I think it's a broken ez-mode spell and both are better off being completely removed in an ideal world.

[Svrtr]

I think WOF access being bandied about as flippantly easy for every build isn't exactly correct.

Skill hungry classes/builds like Ranger (dex in particular) for example have to itemize heavily for a ton of stuff on their gear. Assuming they even have room for their big five and are trying to do tracking then they're already capped on all bonuses for disc/hide/ms/spell/spot and that's if they don't also care about umd too.

I'm going to tell you what I tell people when I'm giving them build advice. Because in general, the advice we hand out on discord is mostly oriented for PVP. When people ask whether or not a build will be successful in PVP, one of the things we look at is whether or not they can manage to get enough lore to cast WoF, and now that there's a very good reason to consider that more essential again, I'm going to tell someone not to run their ranger build if they can't fit 50 lore on it because of how hard they'll get shut down if they don't have access to it.

You see, you all are looking at this the wrong way. It's not that fitting lore onto a build is difficult, it's that right now, it's the correct thing to do. You fit lore on your build, or you simply don't have an answer for an entire class of opponents now. Much like every build gears discipline, every build that cares about AC takes tumble, even if they have to CC it, every build that wants to succeed routinely in PVP against casters is going to fit that 50 lore if they can't cast WoF innately, or from a scroll w/o lore, or, they'll simply have no answer.

The more important thing here is that if you then lose to them and insist that PC is too strong, you'll just get, 'Should've geared lore, forehead,' in response.

The point is, you make it work, or you make yourself considerably weaker. That's the binary here. That's why this annoying anyone at all to begin with.

This isn't me saying that people are 'playing the game wrong,' because they don't. This is an RP server, man. But when we talk about things in a PVP lens, and start digging into the mechanics, everything about RP goes out the window, because we all know we're discussing how to win here.

Every class on Arelith can access WoF with a fairly easy setup of gear to obtain, and a 33 point investment into Lore. This is undisputable. You can insist that it cuts into your other class features, but when you've got two massively powerful creatures on you that you have no way to deal with, your other class features aren't going to help you. And if you're convinced they are, why do you care whether or not WoF is easy to access or not?

It's easy. You have to make concessions for it. You might be worse at x or y for it, but if you're winning, why do you care? It's easy.

Anyways, all of this is dumb because WoF shuts down classes that, in recent history, are pretty garbage at PVP anyways. How about those warlocks, eh?

Arguably though the other end of that is that summons utterly don't care about the blind component. They keep attacking and going and have such AB and damage that the existence of planar conduit is partly considered by some to be one of the greatest reasons to NOT play a 2h build, because their sheer damage and the often lagging nature of DR and DI and sustain compared to the damage they do means AC is so highly preferential.

Even more on top, like was said before, it took 6 seconds to read a WoF scroll even hasted, 3 seconds to use a mords gem to do a ground breach to remove the sequencers of summons. 9 seconds total. It took 6 seconds to apply a sequencer to a summon, so as the announcement referenced it was possible to keep up the sequencers over and over and still maintain action economy advantage as the summon(s) kept hitting and being able to hit for 73.5 damage on average pre crit in the case of slaads and critting for an average of 163.5 in the case of formians. Discussions of damage reduction however have been consistently met with disdain by planar conduit users at the reduction of damage of said summons, often with vehemence.

The sheer action economy and damage of 2 summons is oppressive if they cannot be removed, doing that level of damage with the tankiness each has (15/- vs acid, cold, fire, completely electric and sonic immune, 15/+7 DR, 10 regneration, 10 % DI) means if they cannot be consistently removed then PvP against them is oppressive while a caster exists on top as well, to cast their own spells, to cast their own mords, their own IGMs, timestops, etc etc while also being able to maintain the sequencers if they're so inclined and to keep the summons hasted.

It begins to seem increasingly preferable that planar conduit be turned into just a single summon and the damage reduced, if we don't also start looking towards 2h builds that can't get good AC and watch as 2 planar conduit summons get better AB than they get AC before even flanking

Also yes look at warlock that change seems increasingly insane that it exists.

[Biolab00]

Keep in mind that WOF isn't just accessible by lore.
For those that aren't certain about whether to re-spec to lore, you'll need to do more research in game about that.
Majority of the old timers should know.

[-XXX-]

If I'm to choose between the availability of gearing for WOF or the ridiculously easy access most classes have to summons (literally almost no investment lol) I'm still going to vote for WOF even though I think it's a broken ez-mode spell and both are better off being completely removed in an ideal world.

OK, we're comparing:

27 straight lvls taken in a caster class and 4 feats (technically 15 spellcraft ranks too, but a caster build would be taking those anyway)
vs.
33 lore ranks, +1 INT and a Lore +2 enchantment applied to of gear

...in other words [class slot + 4 feats] vs. [33 skill ranks + gold] = the former represents a considerably higher build investment than the latter*

---

• Btw. this was one of the main points of the entire Loremageddon - so that any lvl 30 character build regardless of their stat spread and class combination could reach 50 lore required to use WoF scrolls without being shoehorned into dipping rogue or bard lvls for UMD.

[AstralUniverse]

I for one, am happy that Headband of Protection might be considered more valuable as an outcome of this thread.

[kinginyellow]

I'm a WoF enjoyer, and even I think its too powerful.

If you can catch the summoner and summons in it, its a 9 second blind and all of their summons removed with no save (With the exception of warlock, we'll talk about that in a bit.) The action economy cost of reading the scroll, compared to the result you get from throwing it out is pretty ludicrous.

Now obviously, for PCs, there's ways to counter scroll-based WoF, like headbands of protection. PMs generally can just say 'unlucky' when their undead go poof because of a scroll WoF from a scroll user that isn't even a loremaster. That said, the 'lore investment' argument isn't really an argument. Most builds are going to take lore, as stated earlier, because access to scrolls is a pretty big deal. The introduction of grimoires has made UMD more valuable outside of 15 points, but unless I'm mistaken there isn't a WoF grimoire, and that alone makes Lore worth it. Lore is also a skill, and most if not all classes have access to it. So in most cases you're just putting skill points you had nowhere better to put into Lore, instead of into something like Leadership (which I know can be impactful for some classes).

Meanwhile, a caster who's using Mummy Dust or Planar Conduit had to take 20+ levels on a spellcasting class and an epic feat to be able to summon their creature. And this gets countered with no save by a martial character that gets Lore as a class skill regardless of build.

I'm actually glad that the team realized this was a problem for Warlock who has to sacrifice 3 feats to get access to the Epic Eldritch Summon (or pick infernal pact and still need to pay a feat tax of 2 feats) and made it so the summon needs to fail a save against the caster's DC. This means that WoF can still dismiss a summon if cast by a spellcaster with actual level investment into being able to do this, and not just someone reading a scroll because they put points in lore and used rings of insight + cloak of the inquisition. But if you're a Wizard or a Cleric, and you took the summoning feats, they are a PVE tool at best, and a 1 round action tax at worst in PVP.

I don't think a consumable locked behind a skill point investment should counter an epic feat and 20 levels of class investment. Even Mords, with its 80 Lore requirement, is better cast by a mage with Epic Spell Focus Abjuration. In most cases, someone with no feat investment whatsoever, and no class investment whatsoever, will get the same outcome as the deep cleric caster builds with like 38 Wisdom by using a WoF scroll.

[CrashGoblin]

The introduction of grimoires has made UMD more valuable outside of 15 points, but unless I'm mistaken there isn't a WoF grimoire, and that alone makes Lore worth it.

There is a grimoire with 35 UMD requirement that has 6 uses of WoF.

[Biolab00]

Meanwhile, a caster who's using Mummy Dust or Planar Conduit had to take 20+ levels on a spellcasting class and an epic feat to be able to summon their creature. And this gets countered with no save by a martial character that gets Lore as a class skill regardless of build.

I agree with what you wrote except this particular sentence.
The only reason is because most, if not all casters are deep in.
There's no merit to having less than 25 caster levels due to the mechanic of dispels.
So, there's truly no investment except one single feat for Planar Conduit or Mummy Dust

[Kalthariam]

For some classes, getting hit by a WOF and having your summon removed, it equivalent to a martial being permenantly blinded that cannot be cured by a potion or a healing spells.

Your basically completely SoL, you have basically no counters, and your entirely shoved into being a conjurer, because unless your one of the new fancy infinite casters, the entire servers made way too tanky to reasonably do anything wtihout Conjurations.

It's not even just a PVP thing, plenty of dungeons have mobs that drop WoF to dismiss summons, or dismissal traps, or mobs that cast dismissal, having no way to protect them and it being a 1/day thing, means if you lose your conjuration your SOL. You will not be able to complete what you set out to do, and back up summons do not stopgap anything PvE or PvP.

[Biolab00]

For some classes, getting hit by a WOF and having your summon removed, it equivalent to a martial being permenantly blinded that cannot be cured by a potion or a healing spells.

Your basically completely SoL, you have basically no counters, and your entirely shoved into being a conjurer, because unless your one of the new fancy infinite casters, the entire servers made way too tanky to reasonably do anything wtihout Conjurations.

It's not even just a PVP thing, plenty of dungeons have mobs that drop WoF to dismiss summons, or dismissal traps, or mobs that cast dismissal, having no way to protect them and it being a 1/day thing, means if you lose your conjuration your SOL. You will not be able to complete what you set out to do, and back up summons do not stopgap anything PvE or PvP.

I'll disagree with this reasoning.
Although i agree that Planar Conduit can enjoy more SR ( already compensated if you took conjurer specialist ) or nerf the summon but introduce more sustainability.

The reason why i disagree is because PVE is not an issue for Conduit. I'm aware of how many dungeons cast WOF and the pathetic DC of the said banishment or dismissal. There're sufficient methods to improve the Will saving throws that unless your summon rolled a 1, it's almost impossible to be banished away. And the AI of these said monster almost do not cast WOF ( yes i know at least a handful that know this spell but somehow doesn't queue it among their action unless you're just that plain unlucky or the battle drag way too long )
For more than once, there're only debates how good Conduit are at PVE more than PVP.
Counter exists, although the scales of which may not necessary be similar but it seriously isn't far off. You need to consider the cost vs power sometimes.

That said, although i disagree with your reasoning. Yes, Planar Conduit should enjoy more sustainability if it's appropriately nerfed. I always agree that it's way too overpowered tbh.

Edit: with the introduction of Elemental Meteor and assuming that you took on the conjurer feat, even an ancient elemental is sufficient for most PVE content. Planar Conduit isn't the only option when you lucked out during PVE.

[-XXX-]

Well, thing here is that while necromancers can recast their T6 summons in a pinch and alternate them with gate and other stuff as they go, the 1x/day use antfrogs can just get casually deleted for good.

I'm not saying that I agree with warlock having a WoF resistant fiend, but any reasoning leading to that balance decision can now also applied to conduit.
Same could be said about palemaster's and necro specialist's arbitrary SR on their undoods - that can turn the WoF dynamic into a guessing game revolving around hidden information.
^ those class specific perks should probably go for the sake of consistency and these classes should be given something else to make up for it (epic spells having a cooldown instead of x/day use comes to mind)

And yeah, banishment and dismissal are DC based spells, which suck - preaching to the choir here, lol.
The actual utility of banishment and dismissal is summon warding while WoF is there for pet removal.

[Biolab00]

I've have to argue that T6 Undead summon while can be recasted often are arguably -much- weaker than Planar Conduit.
While T6 Undead summon can be recast with Create Greater Undead, these require spell slots at Tier 8, excluding Palemasters which is already a deep investment for a caster build.
At the sametime, PC that invests in Planar Conduit, are capable of Summon Creature IX ( Ancient elementals ) with what i've wrote earlier, Elemental Meteor for (Monolith Elemental).
I have to argue that Summon Creature IX / Elemental Meteor is vastly superior to a Gate summoning that last pathetically short that has no place in PVE except for a final attempt to save yourself ( if you did not panic ).

As much as i stand to benefit from a DC Save for a Warlock Summon, a Warlock with Epic Eldritch Summon VI has to commit two of these which effectively cripples diversity -
1) 3 Feats
2) At least 28 Warlock Level. ( Only Pure lock )

You don't need to be pure wizard / sorc / hemo / elementalist / cleric etc etc to take mummy dust or planar conduit, but you have to be purelock to take the Epic Eldritch Summon.
And frankly, Epic Eldritch Summon is still weaker than Planar Conduit despite such heavy investment.

[-XXX-]

I've have to argue that T6 Undead summon while can be recasted often are arguably -much- weaker than Planar Conduit.
While T6 Undead summon can be recast with Create Greater Undead, these require spell slots at Tier 8, excluding Palemasters which is already a deep investment for a caster build.

Most undead streams offer T6 pets that get the job done in PvE and can still be pretty deadly in PvP unless fighting builds with 60+AC
Furthermore, they can be scrolled. Animate dead and create undead scrolls are even pretty common loot drops.

As much as i stand to benefit from a DC Save for a Warlock Summon, a Warlock with Epic Eldritch Summon VI has to commit two of these which effectively cripples diversity -
1) 3 Feats
2) At least 28 Warlock Level. ( Only Pure lock )

You don't need to be pure wizard / sorc / hemo / elementalist / cleric etc etc to take mummy dust or planar conduit, but you have to be purelock to take the Epic Eldritch Summon.
And frankly, Epic Eldritch Summon is still weaker than Planar Conduit despite such heavy investment.

To get an effective conduit a spellcaster needs to commit:
1) 4 feats (n case of a superoptimal wizard conduit we'd be talking about 7 feats : SF/GSF/ESF in both conju and transmu alongside the conduit)
2) at least 27 caster levels (This is an iffy argument for both the warlock at most caster builds - the way CL is being used for balance design on Arelith, these classes wouldn't normally want to multiclass at all. Most caster builds are still forced to do it solely for the sake of discipline - which the warlock already has)

[Biolab00]

I've have to argue that T6 Undead summon while can be recasted often are arguably -much- weaker than Planar Conduit.
While T6 Undead summon can be recast with Create Greater Undead, these require spell slots at Tier 8, excluding Palemasters which is already a deep investment for a caster build.

Most undead streams offer T6 pets that get the job done in PvE and can still be pretty deadly in PvP unless fighting builds with 60+AC
Furthermore, they can be scrolled. Animate dead and create undead scrolls are even pretty common loot drops.

As much as i stand to benefit from a DC Save for a Warlock Summon, a Warlock with Epic Eldritch Summon VI has to commit two of these which effectively cripples diversity -
1) 3 Feats
2) At least 28 Warlock Level. ( Only Pure lock )

You don't need to be pure wizard / sorc / hemo / elementalist / cleric etc etc to take mummy dust or planar conduit, but you have to be purelock to take the Epic Eldritch Summon.
And frankly, Epic Eldritch Summon is still weaker than Planar Conduit despite such heavy investment.

To get an effective conduit a spellcaster needs to commit:
1) 4 feats (n case of a superoptimal wizard conduit we'd be talking about 7 feats : SF/GSF/ESF in both conju and transmu alongside the conduit)
2) at least 27 caster levels (This is an iffy argument for both the warlock at most caster builds - the way CL is being used for balance design on Arelith, these classes wouldn't normally want to multiclass at all. Most caster builds are still forced to do it solely for the sake of discipline - which the warlock already has)

I have to disagree once again and argues that you can't include SF/GSF/ESF into what is considered a single feat investment for Planar Conduit.
Because that will similarly applies to Necromancers and Warlock as well. to take on SF/GSF/ESF and SF/GSF.

At least 27 caster levels include loremaster prestige class.
It makes a hell lot of difference whether you can dip or you can't.
There's only one road to choose if you pick Epic Eldritch Summon.
But there can be many different road if you choose to take Planar Conduit.
Furthermore, as i've wrote earlier, Planar Conduit is way stronger than Epic Eldritch Summon.

Edit: 60AC against Mummy dust is a little far fetched actually. Even T7 Undead summon only have 35AB at max.
You'll hardly find much players willing to invest enchantments on Undead summons because they're simply re-castable. Even then, it does not exceed 39AB. T6 Undead summon has much lower AB.
You simply need to have around 50AC to be reliably resilant against Undead and they do not even hurt that much compared to what Conduit or Epic Eldritch Summon does

[-XXX-]

At least 27 caster levels include loremaster prestige class.

None of Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Fav Soul, Elementalist, Hemomancer or Druid have discipline as class skill. Neither does the Loremaster. You cannot dip Loremaster in any of these builds without either forgoing discipline altogether or ending up with 25 CL (5 Loremaster levels count only as 3 CL). Conduit at 25 CL is meh. Right now the only caster class that can dip Loremaster while retaining both discipline and high CL is the Shaman.

Edit: 60AC against Mummy dust is a little far fetched actually. Even T7 Undead summon only have 35AB at max.
You'll hardly find much players willing to invest enchantments on Undead summons because they're simply re-castable. Even then, it does not exceed 39AB. T6 Undead summon has much lower AB.
You simply need to have around 50AC to be reliably resilant against Undead and they do not even hurt that much compared to what Conduit or Epic Eldritch Summon does

Both NE burst and Mass Bull are recastable/scrollable - undood pets don't even require transmu focus or empower to reach the +12 STR cap:

Add another +2 for flanking.