Summons feel a bit strong…

[a shrouded figure]

Just generally curious if we’re happy with the state of summoned critters? Like I understand that if you want them to have any “threat” in pvp they’re forced to be relatively strong, but I’m a bit blown away by just how much they dominate PVE content.

I’m probably just a terrible player, but once my shaman took planar conduit at 21 it felt like I went from a PVE wrecking ball to PVE Godlike force. I’ve had to deal with WoF of course, but once you stick 32+ SR on them it’s a bit of a non-issue.

I’ll admit I have minimal experience in Epic Content, but these guys feel ridiculous. I’m actually a bit … I duno. I may roll this one simply because it’s almost /too/ easy lol.

Do we see mellowing summons a little bit? I get it for a conjur specialist, they should have some tough summons, but for everything else ? Just curious how the devs felt about summons in the current world.

[-XXX-]

IMO the Conduit summons are in a good spot when considering overal class balance.

They might feel OP because:
a) most PvE content is rather outdated and somewhat obsolete as a result of the steady build/gear power creep.
b) they are so much stronger than all the other summon alternatives atm.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Just to echo something triple x said and expand on it, 90% of the content is too easy on arelith as is. And the ten percent that isn't I would much rather have a character that can fight themselves then one that relies on a summon if I am attempting it alone. In a party of 3-4 most of it is a joke (when it comes to challenge level), and while some things can get you your first run through everything tends to be easy enough to adapt to.

But here's the thing; Boosting the challenge level across the board is not the answer. What's easy to me is not necessarily easy to the next guy, and odds are there are plenty of players not as familiar with the game as those of us who have played it for 20 years now. Gimping summons could slow down the solo grind some for a percentage of classes, but then they fall way behind the melee classes in that regard. And as I mentioned above, a classic caster with a summon is already behind the curve when it comes to content for 28-30ish.

Now I actually have a masterpiece solution (in my mind at least!) to not only the balance issues of pve content on arelith, but to the issue of gathering a group without using ooc means as well. But it's complicated and would require a galleon load of work to get done. So instead of laying that out for no one to read, I will just tell you what you can do under the current system to make things more challenging if that's what you want.

Push yourself. If you are getting less then 25 xp on average per kill, chances are the dungeon may be too easy for you. There are exceptions, like goblin town which actually gives awful xp for the challenge level, but if you dig a challenge like I do you are going to do it anyways . There are also dungeons that give too much xp for the challenge level, like the lost city in the desert. But in general 25 is a good number, assuming you didn't take a gift of ecl reduction. If you find the dugeons with that high of xp per kill are too difficult, then just lower the number down to 20 or something. Eventually you will find your sweet spot, and the game will become a lot more thrilling when going through the leveling process. Just a fair warning, you are going to level pretty fast and by-pass a lot of the lower and medium level writs as a result if you use this method.

[Archnon]

I have to agree with OP on this one actually. Ranger summons is a great example of this creep for the strength ranger. For example, with hours/level buffs you get:

Bear
49 - AC
54/49/44 - AB
2-16+22 base damage
+10 magical
+1d10 Fire/ice
30 SR and 5 regen

Dire wolf settles at 57 AC, and 45/40/35 AB, 2-20+13 damage and all the other stats

You can add a shield pot now as well for a bit more AC. These things are absolute beasts next to an already decent melee class. PVP wise, they have awful saves and will get roasted by a caster. But PVE, they are just juggernauts.

[Dreams]

b) they are so much stronger than all the other summon alternatives atm.

We took very different conclusions from one another from the same information, LOL

[Ork]

I have to agree with OP on this one actually. Ranger summons is a great example of this creep for the strength ranger. For example, with hours/level buffs you get:

Bear
49 - AC
54/49/44 - AB
2-16+22 base damage
+10 magical
+1d10 Fire/ice
30 SR and 5 regen

Dire wolf settles at 57 AC, and 45/40/35 AB, 2-20+13 damage and all the other stats

You can add a shield pot now as well for a bit more AC. These things are absolute beasts next to an already decent melee class. PVP wise, they have awful saves and will get roasted by a caster. But PVE, they are just juggernauts.

Did you know that animal companions can be dismissed? If you breach an animal companion and use a standard banishment scroll, you wouldn't have to worry about the beasty. You only have to breach if the ranger took call of the wild, otherwise dismiss away. Such a shame they've got such a low will save.

You might think "oh but thats only for pvp" but a lot of high end monsters love to use dismissal.

Planar conduit doesn't have this problem since the summons have a high will save and innate sr.

[Miskol]

I have to agree with OP on this one actually. Ranger summons is a great example of this creep for the strength ranger. For example, with hours/level buffs you get:

Bear
49 - AC
54/49/44 - AB
2-16+22 base damage
+10 magical
+1d10 Fire/ice
30 SR and 5 regen

Dire wolf settles at 57 AC, and 45/40/35 AB, 2-20+13 damage and all the other stats

You can add a shield pot now as well for a bit more AC. These things are absolute beasts next to an already decent melee class. PVP wise, they have awful saves and will get roasted by a caster. But PVE, they are just juggernauts.

Did you know that animal companions can be dismissed? If you breach an animal companion and use a standard banishment scroll, you wouldn't have to worry about the beasty. You only have to breach if the ranger took call of the wild, otherwise dismiss away. Such a shame they've got such a low will save.

You might think "oh but thats only for pvp" but a lot of high end monsters love to use dismissal.

Planar conduit doesn't have this problem since the summons have a high will save and innate sr.

A 27/3 caster's conduit has 22 will, there is no innate SR for any planar conduit summons unless the character is a conjuration specialist wizard. With the right feat (call of the wild) ranger companions actually get spell resistance equal to 15 + (ranger level / 2). Companion will saves are low across the board with the exception of the dire rat, which is supposed to get 17 will by level 24.

[Ork]

I have to agree with OP on this one actually. Ranger summons is a great example of this creep for the strength ranger. For example, with hours/level buffs you get:

Bear
49 - AC
54/49/44 - AB
2-16+22 base damage
+10 magical
+1d10 Fire/ice
30 SR and 5 regen

Dire wolf settles at 57 AC, and 45/40/35 AB, 2-20+13 damage and all the other stats

You can add a shield pot now as well for a bit more AC. These things are absolute beasts next to an already decent melee class. PVP wise, they have awful saves and will get roasted by a caster. But PVE, they are just juggernauts.

Did you know that animal companions can be dismissed? If you breach an animal companion and use a standard banishment scroll, you wouldn't have to worry about the beasty. You only have to breach if the ranger took call of the wild, otherwise dismiss away. Such a shame they've got such a low will save.

You might think "oh but thats only for pvp" but a lot of high end monsters love to use dismissal.

Planar conduit doesn't have this problem since the summons have a high will save and innate sr.

A 27/3 caster's conduit has 22 will, there is no innate SR for any planar conduit summons unless the character is a conjuration specialist wizard. With the right feat (call of the wild) ranger companions actually get spell resistance equal to 15 + (ranger level / 2). Companion will saves are low across the board with the exception of the dire rat, which is supposed to get 17 will by level 24.

Greater Spell Breach + dismissal (CL 18) means that the animal has a 30% chance to resist. Those are good odds for the dismissal..er.

[Exordius]

They feel strong in most pve but those spawns are so weak they would die anyway even if you had only an elemental... it would just take a bit longer and possibly make you expend a whole crapload of healing kits. In the moderate to high end of epic content planar conduit either requires constant healing and buffing just to keep it alive from one battle to the next or they just don't do shit at all and die within a few rounds to a turn or so even if your healing and buffing them every second.

[AstralUniverse]

I dont know what I think about summons.

I wrote a post several times and deleted it.

There are so many factors going into these.

The sudden shift from high DR/DI summons to relatively squishy stuff with more ac and a lot more ab/damage output.
The rework of Turn ability and it's raise in usefulness (but also also against you in pve, since mobs love Turn)
Cleric domains...
Wof/banishment being the equivalent of a dev crit vs summons, and we dont really like mechanics like that for a reason.
Someone posted a screenshot of one of the warlock summons with absurd ab/ac, and wm crits.

What can I say.. bring a cleric with you anywhere you go.

The one thing I do know, is that epic mummy dust is balanced. it's been a solid pillar of balance for long time and we should take it as a point of reference for further future tweaks if any are considered.

[-XXX-]

b) they are so much stronger than all the other summon alternatives atm.

We took very different conclusions from one another from the same information, LOL

There's a wider context to this. The problem's not so much with the conduit summons being so much stronger than the alternatives, but rather the alternatives being that much weaker than conduit atm.
IMO the Conduit is well-balanced and probably should be used as a benchmark for balancing the other summons as well.

Summons steamrolling through PvE content is not an issue with the power level of the summons. A cookie-cutter WM can steamroll through all PvE content without summons (and any issues) just as easily.
It's a secondary issue with the overal PvE challenge becoming too low as a result of years-long steady power creep.

[MRFTW]

Summons steamrolling through PvE content is not an issue with the power level of the summons. A cookie-cutter WM can steamroll through all PvE content without summons (and any issues) just as easily.

It takes time and gold to get a WM to that point. A summoner only needs to get to level 21.

Just for reference, I wanted a normal award for a meme character recently, so I levelled a shaman. At level 21, I took planar conduit and was then able to solo everything up to the point in the Deep Wells that I couldn't go further without climbing. I was somewhat aghast at powerful it was, tbh.

Someone previously referred to elemental summons as "pillow-fisted", which I disagreed with (both privately and strongly) at the time, having found moderate to great success with my elemental swarm. My reaction after demolishing the Wells was essentially "Huh, those elementals are kinda pillow-fisted."

I wouldn't like to say I think anything's OP, or anything like that, but I do think there is a huge disparity in the quality of the new planar summons in comparison to older streams. This wouldn't be too bad, in and of itself, if a vast majority of casters weren't essentially a vehicle for whatever rank of Summon Creature they can currently cast.

It is a shame that casters are so generally restricted via class mechanics that this is such an impactful thing; there's definitely been leaps forward in this area with Spellsword and Battlepriest, but the fact that "not usually summoning" is a notable class feature really speaks to how ubiquitous standing behind one's summons is.

[-XXX-]

It takes time and gold to get a WM to that point. A summoner only needs to get to level 21.

I don't think that's a valid point for two reasons:

a) the conduit summons are subject to both spell focus bonuses and epic caster bonuses. Suggesting that getting to lvl 21 is enough to get the max benefit from the feat is just false. There's a big difference to their stats and how they perform when conjured at lvl 21 and lvl 30.

b) everyone can lvl up to 30 within 3 RL weeks with plenty of writ gp to cover their equipment needs regardless of build. With the current lvling rate the focus should be on the end result. Anything else is merely a QoL lvlup perk that's by no means game-changing all things considered.

[AstralUniverse]

It takes time and gold to get a WM to that point. A summoner only needs to get to level 21.

I don't think that's a valid point for two reasons:

a) the conduit summons are subject to both spell focus bonuses and epic caster bonuses. Suggesting that getting to lvl 21 is enough to get the max benefit from the feat is just false. There's a big difference to their stats and how they perform when conjured at lvl 21 and lvl 30. No one said max benefit tho? You need 21 for conduit. Conduit is almost the same power with and without focuses. That's a fact. You only need lvl 21 and 1 feat for conduit. You dont really need to pick up any more feats. But you can.

b) everyone can lvl up to 30 within 3 RL weeks with plenty of writ gp to cover their equipment needs regardless of build. With the current lvling rate the focus should be on the end result. Anything else is merely a QoL lvlup perk that's by no means game-changing all things considered. yeah idk this is just false 100% idk how you get to this conclusion tbh mundanes need to spend like a million for T2 gear to just be functional for lvl 30 pvp and pve content.

[-XXX-]

We're talking about up to +6 stat difference in virtually everything here. CL 21 conduit summons with no conju foci are fairly underwhelming.

Melee builds do not need 5% runic gear to seamroll through PvE content. Most builds can manage while sporting surprisingly cheapskate gear just fine unless they want to partake in engame PvP.

[AstralUniverse]

I literally said 1 mil for T2 gear. Which IS a requirement for most melee builds if you want to have 2-3 stats, discipline and your saves not being atrocious.

Also, level 21 conduit will rekt any lvl 21 character with lvl 21 tier of gear. No contest. lvl 21 pve content will also be a joke. But again (as I said in my post) then there's a few spells which are basically dev crit vs summons. So I'm not even shouting for nerfs here or anything. Just pointing out that pve is a cake-walk naked without gear due to some or most summons but less than before at least.

[-XXX-]

I literally said 1 mil for T2 gear. Which IS a requirement for most melee builds if you want to have 2-3 stats, discipline and your saves not being atrocious.

1 mill for T2 gear is overpaying... by a LOT.

Furthermore, you really don't need to gear for discipline to tackle PvE content. Stop mixing PvP optimized gear into this.

I can literally make a cookie-cutter WM, use lesser runes to get +1 STR, +1 CON, +1 UNI gear, get an MD weapon of choice while settling for mithril full plate and I'll end up with a toon that can leave any conduit summonner in the dust during PvE runs for less than 200K investment. Can do the same with a brycer build, just swap UNI for CHA.

[Arienette]

Just to echo something triple x said and expand on it, 90% of the content is too easy on arelith as is. And the ten percent that isn't I would much rather have a character that can fight themselves then one that relies on a summon if I am attempting it alone. In a party of 3-4 most of it is a joke (when it comes to challenge level), and while some things can get you your first run through everything tends to be easy enough to adapt to.

But here's the thing; Boosting the challenge level across the board is not the answer. What's easy to me is not necessarily easy to the next guy, and odds are there are plenty of players not as familiar with the game as those of us who have played it for 20 years now. Gimping summons could slow down the solo grind some for a percentage of classes, but then they fall way behind the melee classes in that regard. And as I mentioned above, a classic caster with a summon is already behind the curve when it comes to content for 28-30ish.

Now I actually have a masterpiece solution (in my mind at least!) to not only the balance issues of pve content on arelith, but to the issue of gathering a group without using ooc means as well. But it's complicated and would require a galleon load of work to get done. So instead of laying that out for no one to read, I will just tell you what you can do under the current system to make things more challenging if that's what you want.

Push yourself. If you are getting less then 25 xp on average per kill, chances are the dungeon may be too easy for you. There are exceptions, like goblin town which actually gives awful xp for the challenge level, but if you dig a challenge like I do you are going to do it anyways . There are also dungeons that give too much xp for the challenge level, like the lost city in the desert. But in general 25 is a good number, assuming you didn't take a gift of ecl reduction. If you find the dugeons with that high of xp per kill are too difficult, then just lower the number down to 20 or something. Eventually you will find your sweet spot, and the game will become a lot more thrilling when going through the leveling process. Just a fair warning, you are going to level pretty fast and by-pass a lot of the lower and medium level writs as a result if you use this method.

The problem with the “push yourself” concept these days is that writs can only be taken once and your XP reward drops if you are over leveled.

Taking a 10-15 lvl writ at lvl 11 is shooting yourself in the foot. The system incentivizes you to take the lvl 8-12 writ, and “save” the lvl 10-15 writ until you are lvl 14 or 15.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Just to echo something triple x said and expand on it, 90% of the content is too easy on arelith as is. And the ten percent that isn't I would much rather have a character that can fight themselves then one that relies on a summon if I am attempting it alone. In a party of 3-4 most of it is a joke (when it comes to challenge level), and while some things can get you your first run through everything tends to be easy enough to adapt to.

But here's the thing; Boosting the challenge level across the board is not the answer. What's easy to me is not necessarily easy to the next guy, and odds are there are plenty of players not as familiar with the game as those of us who have played it for 20 years now. Gimping summons could slow down the solo grind some for a percentage of classes, but then they fall way behind the melee classes in that regard. And as I mentioned above, a classic caster with a summon is already behind the curve when it comes to content for 28-30ish.

Now I actually have a masterpiece solution (in my mind at least!) to not only the balance issues of pve content on arelith, but to the issue of gathering a group without using ooc means as well. But it's complicated and would require a galleon load of work to get done. So instead of laying that out for no one to read, I will just tell you what you can do under the current system to make things more challenging if that's what you want.

Push yourself. If you are getting less then 25 xp on average per kill, chances are the dungeon may be too easy for you. There are exceptions, like goblin town which actually gives awful xp for the challenge level, but if you dig a challenge like I do you are going to do it anyways . There are also dungeons that give too much xp for the challenge level, like the lost city in the desert. But in general 25 is a good number, assuming you didn't take a gift of ecl reduction. If you find the dugeons with that high of xp per kill are too difficult, then just lower the number down to 20 or something. Eventually you will find your sweet spot, and the game will become a lot more thrilling when going through the leveling process. Just a fair warning, you are going to level pretty fast and by-pass a lot of the lower and medium level writs as a result if you use this method.

The problem with the “push yourself” concept these days is that writs can only be taken once and your XP reward drops if you are over leveled.

Taking a 10-15 lvl writ at lvl 11 is shooting yourself in the foot. The system incentivizes you to take the lvl 8-12 writ, and “save” the lvl 10-15 writ until you are lvl 14 or 15.

I mean, whatever system works for you. If you want to do all the writs then you are likely right. The OP said he felt like a god, and I as someone who likes a challenge in pve gave him my method of doing things. I got to 30 no problem pushing it probably further then your example no problem even with a bunch of writs I never did on the surface. I know the options are different in the underdark, and writs are more limited, but you can definitely get to 30 without doing all the things on the surface.

[Ork]

Planar Conduit and all summons in general need to be revised and nerfed. It is too easy to amass gold and xp with summons, and our dungeons don't require summoners to be attentive to the game in order to do so.

[Calhoun]

If you have minimal experience in Epic Content, you should continue to experience it and not draw shallow conclusions.

[Exordius]

Yeah no, no nerfs for summoning, having strong summons is pretty much the only way casters can solo or aid their group in battle. Having godlike summons is also one of the best things about this server, a master summoner should have op summons compared to those who focus on other areas. And don't give me the find a group excuse, finding an actual group is almost impossible 90% of the time, especially for writs. Either there are no people around, the people around are not in the right level range, or the people are not interested in doing anything at the moment. I don't have time to wait 5 billion years for a group to form so i can do whatever it is i need to do lol.

[-XXX-]

Planar Conduit and all summons in general need to be revised and nerfed. It is too easy to amass gold and xp with summons, and our dungeons don't require summoners to be attentive to the game in order to do so.

TBH I read this as little more than an eloquently put "clear these n00bs with builds that I don't respect of out of my runic dungeons" sentiment.

Because:
a) there are optimized builds that can grind faster, more efficiently and far easier with no summons whatsoever than any build with summons can.
b) piloting summons with the player tool while positioning the summonner is actually more challenging than merely steering one's own character.
c) hiding behind summons does not equate playing it more safe than hiding behind 55+ AC.
d) even epic summons need to be buffed for them not to fold to endgame PvE content. That represents a greater consumable expenditure than buffing only 1 toon.
e) anything that can be achieved with the conduit summons can be done with Summon Creature IX - it just slows the grind into an insfferable slog.

Should everything not physically attached to the character be a mere cosmetic perk that evaporates the instant initiative is rolled? Because that's the vibes I'm getting here.

[Apothys]

Im in agreement here, summons dont need revising, they are in a good place. They are easily dismissed too. Very troublesome for the specialist conjurer i will tell you especially with Word of Faiths instant dismissal.

However Dragon Knight right now is absolutely useless. Compared to Planar Conduit its just... poor. This Feat/Summon i think after comparing the two in game needs some help of some kind.

[fading]

A wizard/sorcerer has to rely on summons to reliably go through any dungeon, since spells are situational and limited. Why should the summons of an epic level caster be weak? Many builds can comfortably solo epic dungeons like the Auril Temple, any particular reason why casters shouldn't be able to?

Though, I've stated in the past that I feel like planar conduit is much stronger than mummy dust, I still stand by that. Maybe someone could tweak it so it's more balanced.