Summon Adjustments

[Jencent]

Played around of low-mid epic dungeons solo with UD summons.
Welp... I still able to do it even with nerfed summons (In semi-afk mode).
Probably i shoot my own feet with that, but.

My tier lisf of undead summons with explains and why some type of gameplay way better to stick to. OFC its all just my opinion and you are free to throw a rock at me for that.

For PVE my preference - low amount of summons on the screen. ITs easier to maintain (autocast inflict wounds on less targets, so you can cast it once and alt+tab for your stuff in browser), aslo it can be unsummon faster and they do not bother you when you are looting.

Godhood: Vamps

• Vamps: High AC/AB (With buffs they even able to reach 44_ab, if not higher.). T7 able to cast some really good spells. Like G spell bench, daze with granted damage. T6 even have a biteback damage. On to of that they have on of the best damage reduce and also best regen/vamp combination. And also evasino with high ref save, which is good for PVE. Really good. They are Top1 in PVE and PVP IMHO.

T1: Ghost, wight.

• Ghost: passive conceal, high AC, average AB/damage, evasion and can cast WoB (But i never saw this). And also aura with huge D-buff, but most mobs can fail savethrow only on nat1.
• Wight: high AC, damage, AoE aura of damage, LVL drain on hit. Also with regen they have vampiric. And even more, they have blind fight and freeze on hit, which stacks with t7 AoE damage aura.

T2: Mummy, Revenant Beast.

• Mums: have decent damage and survive ability. Also with - ac/ab and other things really cool, but most of the time only t7 can survive +/- fine, all toher will die pretty fast. In other cases you summons just one t6 and t7 units, and here you summons x2 t6 and you cant guard both at the same time. Also they take additional damage from most popular damage type... Which is not cool.
• Rev.Beast: just really good doggy for guard-on and walk around as a side damage dealler. 40% conceal with a lot of regen and vamp regen can sustain it under your guard. But low AC/AB makes this one really low-low T2 unit for me. What a point of 4apr with that low ab and average damage? When i can just use vamps and to better job at anything.

T3: Ghoul, skelly.

• Ghoul: They have really low overall stats, but have few procs on hit which makes ghouls like... OKAYFINE tier units.
• Skelly: just because x4 summons with really low sustain and some of units will be archers its is... Really not that good for PVE. But their THE BIGGEST problem - no regen, vamp or turn res. Also its hard-gain stream on units...

Tresh tier: Drowned, Zombie.

• Drowned: Really good for me just at one thing - cheap damage aura. Average damage, HP and overall surviveability. Also IDK its true or now, but somehow t7 have +3 weapon, not +5.
• Zombies: Just goode as a plug for a short time before ou get something better.

Joke tier: Abom.
Low AC, but +/- fine DR/DI and damage with HP pool. But with 27 AC he eat every hit. WHich makes him... Really pointless at mid-epic dungeons, most mob even can ignore his DR. So he start to eat 30+ damage hits on each swing. And melting like hell. He is really good only on lvling till 25+lvls. And this is probably before summon nerfs.

What about PVP? Only two streams are useful to me. VAmps and Skelly. Skelly have archers and vamps just OP as hell.
Also from wand you will summon bloodknight WITH biteback 20~ damage. Which is really insane. So you cant kill him without HP trade in melee.

[RedGiant]

Played around of low-mid epic dungeons solo with UD summons.
Welp... I still able to do it even with nerfed summons (In semi-afk mode).

My tier lisf of undead summons with explains and why some type of gameplay way better to stick to. OFC its all just my opinion and you are free to throw a rock at me for that.

The real complaints are with elemental streams. Some here claim they are fine without any focuses whatsoever. Go summon a Summon Monster IX Water Elemental and try the epic content with that.

For reference:

[Mamma ama Warlock]

Played around of low-mid epic dungeons solo with UD summons.
Welp... I still able to do it even with nerfed summons (In semi-afk mode).
Probably i shoot my own feet with that, but.

My tier lisf of undead summons with explains and why some type of gameplay way better to stick to. OFC its all just my opinion and you are free to throw a rock at me for that.

For PVE my preference - low amount of summons on the screen. ITs easier to maintain (autocast inflict wounds on less targets, so you can cast it once and alt+tab for your stuff in browser), aslo it can be unsummon faster and they do not bother you when you are looting.

Godhood: Vamps

• Vamps: High AC/AB (With buffs they even able to reach 44_ab, if not higher.). T7 able to cast some really good spells. Like G spell bench, daze with granted damage. T6 even have a biteback damage. On to of that they have on of the best damage reduce and also best regen/vamp combination. And also evasino with high ref save, which is good for PVE. Really good. They are Top1 in PVE and PVP IMHO.

T1: Ghost, wight.

• Ghost: passive conceal, high AC, average AB/damage, evasion and can cast WoB (But i never saw this). And also aura with huge D-buff, but most mobs can fail savethrow only on nat1.
• Wight: high AC, damage, AoE aura of damage, LVL drain on hit. Also with regen they have vampiric. And even more, they have blind fight and freeze on hit, which stacks with t7 AoE damage aura.
• Vamps: High AC/AB (With buffs they even able to reach 44_ab, if not higher.). T7 able to cast some really good spells. Like G spell bench, daze with granted damage. T6 even have a biteback damage. On to of that they have on of the best damage reduce and also best regen/vamp combination.

T2: Mummy, Revenant Beast.

• Mums: have decent damage and survive ability. Also quro with - ac/ab and other things really cool, but most of the time only t7 can survive +/- fine, all toher will die prett yfast. In other cases you summons just one t6 and t7 units, and here you summons x2 t6 and you cant guard both at the same time. Also they take additional damage from most popular damage type... Which is not cool.
• Rev.Beast: just really good doggy for guardion and walk around as a side damage dealler. 40% conceal with a lot of regen and vamp regen can sustain it under your guard. But low AC/AB makes this one really low-low T2 unit for me. What a point of 4apr with that low ab and average damage? When i can just use vamps and to better job at anything.

T3: Ghoul, skelly.

• Ghoul: They have really low overall stats, but have few procs on hit which makes ghouls like... OKAYFINE tier units.
• Skelly: just because x4 summons with really low sustain and some of units will be archers its is... Really not that good for PVE. But their THE BIGGEST problem - no regen, vamp or turn res. Also its hard-gain stream on units...

Tresh tier: Drowned, Zombie.

• Drowned: Really good for me just at one thing - cheap damage aura. Average damage, HP and overall surviveability. Also IDK its true or now, but somehow t7 have +3 weapon, not +5.
• Zombies: Just goode as a plug for a short time before ou get something better.

Joke tier: Abom.
Low AC, but +/- fine DR/DI and damage with HP pool. But with 27 AC he eat every hit. WHich makes him... Really pointless at mid-epic dungeons, most mob even can ignore his DR. So he start to eat 30+ damage hits on each swing. And melting like hell. He is really good only on lvling till 25+lvls. And this is probably before summon nerfs.

What about PVP? Only two streams are useful to me. VAmps and Skelly. Skelly have archers and vamps just OP as hell.
Also from wand you will summon bloodknight WITH biteback 20~ damage. Which is really insane. So you cant kill him without HP trade in melee.

Ghost also doesn't have the key weakness of vampires, right? Huge sunlight vulnerability. Which kinda balances out the robustness of the vampire stream.

[Jencent]

Played around of low-mid epic dungeons solo with UD summons.
Welp... I still able to do it even with nerfed summons (In semi-afk mode).

My tier lisf of undead summons with explains and why some type of gameplay way better to stick to. OFC its all just my opinion and you are free to throw a rock at me for that.

The real complaints are with elemental streams. Some here claim they are fine without any focuses whatsoever. Go summon a Summon Monster IX Water Elemental and try the epic content with that.

For reference:

I know about SUMM1-9, they now are useless even for lvling. TBH, most odd thing for me was like... Even fighter was able summon with scroll, and now, after loregedon... Every fighter class have high lore or loremaster init. Somehow mages become pointless scrollmakers/wandmakers. This is how i feel mage classes now. Beside warlock ofc.

[Xerah]

Regardless of everything else, it’s not like you should expect to run epic lvl 30 content with a summon you get at 17th level.

Yes, the streams do need some adjustment, but let’s be realistic here.

[RedGiant]

I know about SUMM1-9, they now are useless even for lvling. TBH, most odd thing for me was like... Even fighter was able summon with scroll, and now, after loregedon... Every fighter class have high lore or loremaster init. Somehow mages become pointless scrollmakers/wandmakers. This is how i feel mage classes now. Beside warlock ofc.

I forgot to add, that is with three levels of epic caster bonuses, so it is actually worse.

[Kalthariam]

Regardless of everything else, it’s not like you should expect to run epic lvl 30 content with a summon you get at 17th level.

Yes, the streams do need some adjustment, but let’s be realistic here.

No, but running high teen or low 20's content would be nice.

[Jencent]

Regardless of everything else, it’s not like you should expect to run epic lvl 30 content with a summon you get at 17th level.

Yes, the streams do need some adjustment, but let’s be realistic here.

PMs get t7/6 only at 25/26lvls+, so this is not accurate at all. I mean at 17th lvl they do not walk around with t6/7 units.

[Chloe123]

Ssssssssssh Conduit is still op, don't let them hear us.

[Naiinara]

I am pleased casters once again have to be more skilled than just watching a summon kill things . Oh and to put things in perspective I've had a number of wizards, and currently a sorcerer.

I haven't had time to look at any of the changes yet, but is there something we can compare summons to to get an idea of what we want from them? Maybe it's already been done. I was thinking you look at what a same level well built average geared pure fighter has for stats then reduce from there to get summons to a happy place. For instance elementals are sneak immune so you'd want to subtract some hit points to balance. You don't want the elementals to deal as much damage as a similar level fighter either. The caster should be responsible to either have some patience or throw some spells. There are, of course, many other facets to look at than just these two, but if we have a way to compare effectiveness it'll help answer the question of why things must be, and why its fair.

Personally I think the summon IX ought to be the staple and conduit turned to round based. This happened with the dragon knight years ago too. It was turn based for awhile. The problem was that it was too useful then. The dragon could have been nerfed, but then using an epic feat for it seems like a waste. If you want truly powerful summons the summons have to be shorter duration or at great cost or both.

[chris a gogo]

by Naiinara » 29 Mar 2024 07:11

I am pleased casters once again have to be more skilled than just watching a summon kill things . Oh and to put things in perspective I've had a number of wizards, and currently a sorcerer.

I haven't had time to look at any of the changes yet, but is there something we can compare summons to to get an idea of what we want from them? Maybe it's already been done. I was thinking you look at what a same level well built average geared pure fighter has for stats then reduce from there to get summons to a happy place. For instance elementals are sneak immune so you'd want to subtract some hit points to balance. You don't want the elementals to deal as much damage as a similar level fighter either. The caster should be responsible to either have some patience or throw some spells. There are, of course, many other facets to look at than just these two, but if we have a way to compare effectiveness it'll help answer the question of why things must be, and why its fair.

Personally I think the summon IX ought to be the staple and conduit turned to round based. This happened with the dragon knight years ago too. It was turn based for awhile. The problem was that it was too useful then. The dragon could have been nerfed, but then using an epic feat for it seems like a waste. If you want truly powerful summons the summons have to be shorter duration or at great cost or both.

Conduit is supposed to be comparable to mummy dust, the reason you see it everywhere is using slaadi doesn't get you killed and exiled where as vampires do.
Making it round per level means it's kind of useless the number of people that even bother taking dragon knight now is very few as it's more gimmick than a useful epic spell.
I don't have a solution but making none repeatable summons rnd per level I don't feel is a good one.

[Jencent]

I am pleased casters once again have to be more skilled than just watching a summon kill things . Oh and to put things in perspective I've had a number of wizards, and currently a sorcerer.

I haven't had time to look at any of the changes yet, but is there something we can compare summons to to get an idea of what we want from them? Maybe it's already been done. I was thinking you look at what a same level well built average geared pure fighter has for stats then reduce from there to get summons to a happy place. For instance elementals are sneak immune so you'd want to subtract some hit points to balance. You don't want the elementals to deal as much damage as a similar level fighter either. The caster should be responsible to either have some patience or throw some spells. There are, of course, many other facets to look at than just these two, but if we have a way to compare effectiveness it'll help answer the question of why things must be, and why its fair.

Personally I think the summon IX ought to be the staple and conduit turned to round based. This happened with the dragon knight years ago too. It was turn based for awhile. The problem was that it was too useful then. The dragon could have been nerfed, but then using an epic feat for it seems like a waste. If you want truly powerful summons the summons have to be shorter duration or at great cost or both.

Main problem is... Mundie can summon via scrolls. So here is problem. When im as a fighter summons a pet which makes me even more deadly and here we are. I lvled few of my fighters with summons TBH it was ez as hell.

[Chloe123]

I am pleased casters once again have to be more skilled than just watching a summon kill things . Oh and to put things in perspective I've had a number of wizards, and currently a sorcerer.

I haven't had time to look at any of the changes yet, but is there something we can compare summons to to get an idea of what we want from them? Maybe it's already been done. I was thinking you look at what a same level well built average geared pure fighter has for stats then reduce from there to get summons to a happy place. For instance elementals are sneak immune so you'd want to subtract some hit points to balance. You don't want the elementals to deal as much damage as a similar level fighter either. The caster should be responsible to either have some patience or throw some spells. There are, of course, many other facets to look at than just these two, but if we have a way to compare effectiveness it'll help answer the question of why things must be, and why its fair.

Personally I think the summon IX ought to be the staple and conduit turned to round based. This happened with the dragon knight years ago too. It was turn based for awhile. The problem was that it was too useful then. The dragon could have been nerfed, but then using an epic feat for it seems like a waste. If you want truly powerful summons the summons have to be shorter duration or at great cost or both.

Main problem is... Mundie can summon via scrolls. So here is problem. When im as a fighter summons a pet which makes me even more deadly and here we are. I lvled few of my fighters with summons TBH it was ez as hell.

I could argue the same thing. Cleric can fight as well as a fighter, yet have all the summons. They even have conduit. Ca your fighter summon conduit through scrolls. Can your fighter have more than 57 ab fully buffed?

[Jencent]

I am pleased casters once again have to be more skilled than just watching a summon kill things . Oh and to put things in perspective I've had a number of wizards, and currently a sorcerer.

I haven't had time to look at any of the changes yet, but is there something we can compare summons to to get an idea of what we want from them? Maybe it's already been done. I was thinking you look at what a same level well built average geared pure fighter has for stats then reduce from there to get summons to a happy place. For instance elementals are sneak immune so you'd want to subtract some hit points to balance. You don't want the elementals to deal as much damage as a similar level fighter either. The caster should be responsible to either have some patience or throw some spells. There are, of course, many other facets to look at than just these two, but if we have a way to compare effectiveness it'll help answer the question of why things must be, and why its fair.

Personally I think the summon IX ought to be the staple and conduit turned to round based. This happened with the dragon knight years ago too. It was turn based for awhile. The problem was that it was too useful then. The dragon could have been nerfed, but then using an epic feat for it seems like a waste. If you want truly powerful summons the summons have to be shorter duration or at great cost or both.

Main problem is... Mundie can summon via scrolls. So here is problem. When im as a fighter summons a pet which makes me even more deadly and here we are. I lvled few of my fighters with summons TBH it was ez as hell.

I could argue the same thing. Cleric can fight as well as a fighter, yet have all the summons. They even have conduit. Ca your fighter summon conduit through scrolls. Can your fighter have more than 57 ab fully buffed?

Some of my builds had 60+ AB. Its not that hard on pro-builds.

[Svrtr]

Main problem is... Mundie can summon via scrolls. So here is problem. When im as a fighter summons a pet which makes me even more deadly and here we are. I lvled few of my fighters with summons TBH it was ez as hell.

I could argue the same thing. Cleric can fight as well as a fighter, yet have all the summons. They even have conduit. Ca your fighter summon conduit through scrolls. Can your fighter have more than 57 ab fully buffed?

Some of my builds had 60+ AB. Its not that hard on pro-builds.

60 AB? Or 60 AB with curse song and taunt and other such enemy AC decreasing effects? It is insincere to provide a number without context as it leaves too much ambiguity

[Jencent]

I could argue the same thing. Cleric can fight as well as a fighter, yet have all the summons. They even have conduit. Ca your fighter summon conduit through scrolls. Can your fighter have more than 57 ab fully buffed?

Some of my builds had 60+ AB. Its not that hard on pro-builds.

60 AB? Or 60 AB with curse song and taunt and other such enemy AC decreasing effects? It is insincere to provide a number without context as it leaves too much ambiguity

CoT/CAV or AA have close numbers to 60, arent?

[RedGiant]

60 AB? Or 60 AB with curse song and taunt and other such enemy AC decreasing effects? It is insincere to provide a number without context as it leaves too much ambiguity

He's already posted some builds. This is not to the AB cap discussion, but just what is generally possible on a mundane.

-/17++ EDR with 72-74 AC, 32 SR, 9+ regen, 39-49₊₂ on short time.and 760+HP with 100~ temp HP each 30 sec.
With 31-36 damage per swing ON 12-20x2 weapon. Unlimited haste with 60% uptime. Beside SR i also have evasion and u-dodge, what makes it more like a joke over any mob, even in abyss.

Also its 64-74AC. Coz its more effective for that build to sit in IE. TBH i wanna to redone this build, because of last changes of swash and other. I took him only because of free feat and +4 damage from int.

+1 AC against single target, coz of dodge feat. Also you can have +1 more AB if you will take +4 weapon, not +3 as me. Also after few changes of weapon, you even can 2 hand build for a bit more damage, but you will lose around 6 ac for that.

Also you can have +1 more AC from shield, if you will abuse swash damage. Because game do not check stat of the shield everysecond. Just chuk you pot and take large shield with +6 ac, not your small one with just +5. So at the end it will be 64-74+1 ac against target your are hitting.

This gives some context to why we are saying summons, even pre-nerf, didn't hold a candle to a well-built mundane. And, from my perspective at least, nerfing mostly the elemental stream was an odd choice. This was a penalty to mostly law-abiding, non-reality breaking wizards, sorcerers, druids, etc.

[AstralUniverse]

Damage: 1-6 + 12

[Jencent]

Damage: 1-6 + 12

Just chopped pic.

+6 frm STR, +4 from INT, +6 from FTR, +6 from weapon, +4/1-6 from essences.

[Curve]

You can get 59/60 on an AA as an elf genasi. 59 with bow, and 60 with +4 xbow (can't even recall if you can use xbow with AA). The build suffers in all other ways.

I don't care to build out the CoT/Cav but I do know it takes 10 levels of Cav to get the +5 from charge and it takes 20 levels of CoT to get the +5 from divine wrath. These are temp bonuses.

The DD shown above is literally 10 ab off the 60+ mark.

If these or other melee builds are out of hand, they should be delt with and not used to justify keeping summons at a power level very similar to less extreme (and far more common) builds.

[Jencent]

You can get 59/60 on an AA as an elf genasi. 59 with bow, and 60 with +4 xbow (can't even recall if you can use xbow with AA).

I don't care to build out the CoT/Cav but I do know it takes 10 levels of Cav to get the +5 from charge and it takes 20 levels of CoT to get the +5 from divine wrath. These are temp bonuses.

The DD shown above is literally 10 ab off the 60+ mark.

If these or other melee builds are out of hand, they should be delt with and not used to justify keeping summons at a power level very similar to less extreme (and far more common) builds.

ALso you forgot about pally with +CHA mod on smite.

[Anomandaris]

You can get 59/60 on an AA as an elf genasi. 59 with bow, and 60 with +4 xbow (can't even recall if you can use xbow with AA).

I don't care to build out the CoT/Cav but I do know it takes 10 levels of Cav to get the +5 from charge and it takes 20 levels of CoT to get the +5 from divine wrath. These are temp bonuses.

The DD shown above is literally 10 ab off the 60+ mark.

If these or other melee builds are out of hand, they should be delt with and not used to justify keeping summons at a power level very similar to less extreme (and far more common) builds.

ALso you forgot about pally with +CHA mod on smite.

I really hope these posts get looked at closely by the team. The fact summons are nerfed when my Cav/BG/Fighter is allowed to exist is a bit odd, and it’s not even as bad an offender of OP martial absurdity as others. Oh btw, the saves, AC, hp, and damage are all top tier too. And with the right consumables it just keeps going like the energizer bunny.

[RedGiant]

If these or other melee builds are out of hand, they should be delt with and not used to justify keeping summons at a power level very similar to less extreme (and far more common) builds.

This is the nerf train, and we really don't want to ride it anymore.

We're not saying martials need to be nerfed. We're simply pointing out martial superiority to make the point that people STILL complain about summons when they buff into the 40+ AB/AC range, which is completely trash-tier for a martial. You're always better to have an actual well-built party member.

Moreover, summons should not generally be based off of bad builds. Right now we have IXth lvl summons popping out with high 20s AB and mid 20s AC., which isn't even on the map. Many of the planar and undead summons are probably fine, but the summon monster / elemental streams are suffering greatly. Push these back up a bit and probably everything is fine.

Also, please smile on us. O' Great Developers, and rest upon some sort of intuitive use of sequencer and/or spells.

Here endeth my supplication.

[Chloe123]

No, undead and conduit needs to be pushed down a bit.

[Edens_Fall]

No, undead and conduit needs to be pushed down a bit.

Undead are meant to be slightly above the summoning average. In exchange for this boost the PC in question is exiled from half the server (surface areas) and killed on sight when found, generally. It's a trade off.

As an aside, I do find it mildly aggravating how a WM with LM dip can toss out a Mords and WoF, followed by summoning a Deva, before Criting my caster into the ground as they stand there in shock saying "lol what?"