Summon Buff Changes

[Exordius]

I certainly hope it is, but i keep hearing this being said by many as en-route?

[Zariu]

Since we're talking about math, here's what lesser sequencers give your summons:

Code: Select all

Arcane
+6 ac, 50% concealment

Druidic
+5 ac, +2 ab

Divine
+1 ab, +2 ac, +4 vs. banishment, immune to neg

Overall, I think lesser sequencers are great for leveling since you've now got a reliable way to apply these buffs without consuming needed spellslots. They're also pretty comprable to what a mundane might spend on consumables — except, 10x more efficient since they trigger off of player level and not caster level. You can make these with 1 tradeskill point since the DC is 15. The most optimal for leveling, the arcane sequencer, only needs 1 Scroll of Mage Armor (50g), Shield(50g) and Improved Invisibility(700g or cheaper if scribed yourself), 1 Casting Mold (DC1), 1 Lesser Catalyst (DC 19, 1000g). Total base cost assuming worst scenario = 1800g.

Welp, you're right let's math sort of. I'm tired and it's late so I'm not going to math out everything tonight, but rather break down the usefulness of these buffs.

Arcane:
Improved Invis = turn/level - not going to last long, normally you would either extend this if in the teens or better yet, get a wand of it. So that 50%... uh really doesn't count unless you made a stockpile of these and can burn through them.
Shield - Oh wow... another turn/level spell. So same as Improved Invis.
Mage Armor - Hour per level yay! Actually something you do use.
Ultravision - Nice to have.

So net is just Mage Armor for that one unless you have the ability to burn them.

Druidic:
Barkskin: Just wonderful hours per level and good AC
Stoneskin: Pretty good though it does get overshadowed as you level up
Bull's Strength and Cat's Grace: Like the basics of buffing.

Overall this is actually the one you would use the most for leveling... but it has issues later on as it lacks a lot of important buffs.

Divine:
NEP: A required spell in some places, unless you enjoy pain.
Death Ward: Also basically required in some places and against some enemies.
Protection from Alignment: Some AC with stipulations
Aid: Turns per level - so unless you can burn these...

So basically, I get barkskin, cat's grace, bull's strength and stoneskin for leveling using druid's. That honestly is a massive nerf considering by level 9 I could usually kit myself out with a variety of wands. Mundanes need gear, spell casters need wands to fill in what spells they lack. My list of buffs by teen levels includes: Freedom of Movement, Barkskin, Mage Armor, Regen, Cat's Grace, Bull's Strength, Endurance, NEP, Death Ward, Shield of Faith, Spell Resistance, and True sight. Then I have things like haste, prayer, clarity, improved invis to help my summon out when they need help, this is my active gameplay as well as removing curse and other things on the fly.

I'll state two things, first of all, I think playing a character focused on buffing and summons should be a valid playstyle. Taking that away is taking away a choice from players, there just needs to be other choices that work as well. If rebalancing needs to happen, sure. And I fully support if they want to give people the option to be a more active caster style and role. And if they have to rebalance summons because I can cast more aggressive spells, so be it.

However, right now you can look at the list of spells I use on my summon and it doesn't take any math to know how badly summons just got nerfed, without any adjustments to the classes to make up for it. As well as the fact that honestly, even with all those buffs... if I can find a person to party with I do so every time that it makes IC sense. Why? A Mundane character properly built will always be hands down better than my summons (save perhaps planar conduit, though even that can be outshone).

Could I still play my healer clerics I love and other casters? Sure, however soloing content would be impossible. I'm a lucky one, I have someone that would be down to level with me anytime. I'd also honestly just be buffing them and letting my summons be worthless and die as I cast cantrips here and there when I won't draw aggro. Really not more engaging gameplay than current. For those without a friend group though?

If the intent is to make people party up, the writ level expansion helps but there might need to be a way to temporarily lower your level to aid with writs or something. Making everyone potentially able to assist thus making it more plausible. If the intent was to change how casters are played, this is the wrong direction to start from as it changes nothing in playstyle actually and just means I have to find a person to buff rather than using my summon.

[Frailman]

I love this! Summons need a big nerf. Morghun the Black and Malar Temple solo at lvl 12 wasn't even that hard with a conj focus caster and some kitspam. And casters have a stacked bank account insanely early compared to other classes. Maybe this will at the very least lower the power house of the conj/necro solothon! At the very least getting more spell slots open for more fun and interesting spells sounds great.

The change doesn't sound very heavy-handed at all and (as always these days tbh) a lot of doomsayers and extreme negative reactions sound overblown and unreasonable in this thread.

I personally hope for a lot more heavy handed strikes against the entrenched summoner playstyle of casters, and if that means casters need to look for other adventurers to do harder content then hey welcome to melee land, good stuff!

And in my mind finding a person to buff is not the same as buffing a summon, I do hope you all roleplay on the roleplay server!

[It Came From Beneath The Earth]

Maybe this will at the very least lower the power house of the conj/necro solothon! At the very least getting more spell slots open for more fun and interesting spells sounds great.

What spells are you talking about? Melf's Acid Arrow? Web? Fireball? Searing Light? For any AoE's if you have melee in the party... you're not using those. So fireball, lightning bolt, Mestil's acid breath, frost nova, sound lance. Those can all go away.

You can cast... dispels? Maybe a sorching ray? They won't have nearly the same sort of impact that a cast of these other buffs will have.

Most of these spells are, hilariously, worse than cantrips now. Not to mention many of them have saves and most mobs tend to make those saves rather easily.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be more engaging to have these options be more useful or more available.

But uh. Sorry to break it to you? This change doesn't make these options more viable. They won't be more impactful. They won't even be more helpful. A lot of these spells will frankly just not be nearly as good to use even if you have the option, because they aren't good spells. Most of the spells you can use that aren't guaranteed damage, if you aren't a sorc or an infinicaster are actually kind of trash to waste a spell slot on.

Like I said before. If they rolled this out with a summon overhaul, and something to make a lot of these other options less objective garbage to play, I wouldn't even be upset. But that's not what happened. They made something that actually made playing a wizard viable but still worse than any other full caster in the game, and then made it... worse? Like. Good job guys. You did it?

The problem isn't that this change happened. It's that it happened with absolutely nothing to support other playstyles.

And as it's been said. Just because a melee (And I do play a good number of these) have a worse time, doesn't mean that the solution is to make people having a good time have a shittier time. That's like. Game design 101. It's basic. It's so basic that I can't believe that I'm sitting here having to explain it.

Instead of saying "This is good, I'm going to make it shit because the experience for totally different builds isn't as good" why not make those other playstyles or classes better? This isn't even a question of 'Lol these people don't find people to RP with on an RP server.'

I'm saying that on many, many occasions I've spent like 10+ hours a day looking for a group to do content with as a melee character. Because nobody was around my level who could help me. Yeah, that's a shit situation. You know what I wasn't doing? Looking at clerics, and wizards thinking "Man you know what would make it better? If they had the same shitty experiences that I did."

Because that mentality is toxic. Know what I was thinking? "It'd be nice if there were systems in place to allow me as a melee character to do this content more reliably on my own when I can't find the groups necessary to engage with this content.

Fixing -that- problem would be better than this.

[Exordius]

Fixing -that- problem would be better than this.

Exactly.

[Draco]

It's just more chores, once you actually manage to get to a level where you can make them. You're taking away options and slapping them with a need to rely on the crafting system, which just makes playing those classes tedious. It was bad enough with Spell Components, people like options but they never like things being forced on them. Nerf the summons and revert this change, alter your sequencer buffs and maybe throw them in too.

You just made mundane characters a lot more attractive. Two marble as an arcane material component for one of these things? Wizards can barely carry their own weight as is. The hoops that you have to jump through to make these stupid things while having them advertised as somehow more convenient than buffing for five minutes is a joke. Drink a Haste potion if it's so inconvenient, it'll cost you a whole lot less than one of these sequencers.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

"Hah, now they will have to rely on melee!" is a really spiteful argument and really highlights the problem everyone else is saying. Casters need something to fight for them. If you replace a summon with another player, then the class hasn't really changed, has it? It can't stand on its own. Gleefully wanting other classes to not be able to clear content is really weird. And it will hurt melees in the end if people decide casters are unfun and don't want to play them. If nobody plays casters, who's going to make all your wands and scrolls?

[Frailman]

What spells are you talking about? Melf's Acid Arrow? Web? Fireball? Searing Light? For any AoE's if you have melee in the party... you're not using those. So fireball, lightning bolt, Mestil's acid breath, frost nova, sound lance. Those can all go away.

You can cast... dispels? Maybe a sorching ray? They won't have nearly the same sort of impact that a cast of these other buffs will have.

Most of these spells are, hilariously, worse than cantrips now. Not to mention many of them have saves and most mobs tend to make those saves rather easily.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be more engaging to have these options be more useful or more available.

Any of those, sure, you can slot them now that you can't use the slots for the previously superior buffs. Mobs don't easily make saves during leveling. In the epics these spells are trash, agreed.

And as it's been said. Just because a melee (And I do play a good number of these) have a worse time, doesn't mean that the solution is to make people having a good time have a shittier time. That's like. Game design 101. It's basic. It's so basic that I can't believe that I'm sitting here having to explain it.

The melee being worse is not the core reason. Having to group up for content you're underleveled for is a desirable outcome. Most classes already have to group up for, e.g. , Malar Temple at level 12. Summoners don't really. It's not game development 101.

Instead of saying "This is good, I'm going to make it shit because the experience for totally different builds isn't as good" why not make those other playstyles or classes better? This isn't even a question of 'Lol these people don't find people to RP with on an RP server.'

My comment on RP was about the equivocation of summons and players to buff. Again, the reason I personally want summons nerfed is not because "Well melee is bad so let's make everything else bad". It's because to me the desirable state of the game is one of such danger that grouping should be required to beat harder content.

I'm saying that on many, many occasions I've spent like 10+ hours a day looking for a group to do content with as a melee character. Because nobody was around my level who could help me. Yeah, that's a shit situation. You know what I wasn't doing? Looking at clerics, and wizards thinking "Man you know what would make it better? If they had the same shitty experiences that I did."

This is rude but I don't believe you're telling the truth here. You're implying you spend 10+ hours a day across multiple days unable to find groups. What level bracket is so empty? Maybe it wouldn't be if casters couldn't solo everything? I dunno, maybe it still would be...

[It Came From Beneath The Earth]

1) Any of those, sure, you can slot them now that you can't use the slots for the previously superior buffs. Mobs don't easily make saves during leveling. In the epics these spells are trash, agreed.

2) The melee being worse is not the core reason. Having to group up for content you're underleveled for is a desirable outcome. Most classes already have to group up for, e.g. , Malar Temple at level 12. Summoners don't really. It's not game development 101.

3) My comment on RP was about the equivocation of summons and players to buff. Again, the reason I personally want summons nerfed is not because "Well melee is bad so let's make everything else bad". It's because to me the desirable state of the game is one of such danger that grouping should be required to beat harder content.

4) This is rude but I don't believe you're telling the truth here. You're implying you spend 10+ hours a day across multiple days unable to find groups. What level bracket is so empty? Maybe it wouldn't be if casters couldn't solo everything? I dunno, maybe it still would be...

1) Even low levels, these spells are trash. You can't use half of them, and their damage scales poorly. And you cast them... one time. Maybe two. That's not enough to be impactful. What's more, for AoE options which might be impactful? Hopefully you don't have friends around or you might kill them.

2) The solution isn't to just say "Well summoning shouldn't be able to do anything without help." It should be "How do we make other things viable?

3) This is still the case though. But Malar temple isn't -really- something that should be incredibly hard. A level 12 writ, honestly, shouldn't be considered hard content. If you want especially difficult content, plenty of it exists. More over, much of it should likely be in those epic level areas, which requires more coordination or help. Planar conduit made a lot of this trivial. Fixing that made sense, not gutting everyone else.

4) This is incredibly true. I have had 4-5 days where I couldn't get writs done because people were busy doing other things. I'd stand in the middle of an area basically asking for buffs from clerics or wizards, only, there really weren't many of t hose around. I had to basically beg epic level characters to ward me so that I could stand a chance to -maybe- complete some of these, because there was nobody of my level from about levels 10-20 for me to do anything with.

When it came to epic level stuff? I was lucky to have some friends I met ICly help run me through the writs for the epic levels. They were a bunch of level 30's still because I also couldn't find anyone within the low 20's to actually help me through the area so we could make it a challenge. So the end result was basically a joke experience anyway where the entire process of leveling from 20-30 was absolutely trivial. So I didn't actually need to group for any challenging content. It was a cakewalk. My being a melee character or a caster had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Was it a rewarding experience? No. It was just 4 of us quickly running through a dungeon because they were like "Yeah okay we'll help you out since you can't find anyone else and it's been days". It was basically just pity. I would much prefer, having epic level casters in the low epics, able to summon things to help us tank through that content. Because get this. It's -fun-. Having planar conduit out? Hell yeah. I can switch to my two handed weapon. I can go in and start dealing some damage. I have support, and I don't have to sit there in freaking Improved Expertise, not hitting anything just to not instantly be crushed.

[Frailman]

2) The solution isn't to just say "Well summoning shouldn't be able to do anything without help." It should be "How do we make other things viable?

I strongly disagree that power is the solution to power creep.

[Exordius]

Its amusing that people keep spreading this tale about imaginary groups that are super easy to find and always available for whoever needs them, whenever they need them lol. Indeed that would be nice... but unfortunately that's not the case. 90% of the time there are no such groups, and that is a fact.

[chris a gogo]

Does this mean there going to fix the god awful henchman AI?

I mean whenever you put imp invis on a henchman it just stands around doing nothing until the invis part wears off.
You can't even direct control it to attack anything.

[It Came From Beneath The Earth]

Its amusing that people keep spreading this tale about imaginary groups that are super easy to find and always available for whoever needs them, whenever they need them lol. Indeed that would be nice... but unfortunately that's not the case. 90% of the time there are no such groups, and that is a fact.

They exist if you use the secret spell: Greater Summon Discord Friends. Like I said. If you coordinate times with groups of people ahead of time it can alleviate this issue. But even then that's not always a surefire way.

[xf1313]

I love this! Summons need a big nerf. Morghun the Black and Malar Temple solo at lvl 12 wasn't even that hard with a conj focus caster and some kitspam. And casters have a stacked bank account insanely early compared to other classes. Maybe this will at the very least lower the power house of the conj/necro solothon! At the very least getting more spell slots open for more fun and interesting spells sounds great.

The change doesn't sound very heavy-handed at all and (as always these days tbh) a lot of doomsayers and extreme negative reactions sound overblown and unreasonable in this thread.

I personally hope for a lot more heavy handed strikes against the entrenched summoner playstyle of casters, and if that means casters need to look for other adventurers to do harder content then hey welcome to melee land, good stuff!

And in my mind finding a person to buff is not the same as buffing a summon, I do hope you all roleplay on the roleplay server!

Are u kidding me or are u baiting? Lv12? No, I cannot do it, I die there lv20

[Frailman]

I love this! Summons need a big nerf. Morghun the Black and Malar Temple solo at lvl 12 wasn't even that hard with a conj focus caster and some kitspam. And casters have a stacked bank account insanely early compared to other classes. Maybe this will at the very least lower the power house of the conj/necro solothon! At the very least getting more spell slots open for more fun and interesting spells sounds great.

The change doesn't sound very heavy-handed at all and (as always these days tbh) a lot of doomsayers and extreme negative reactions sound overblown and unreasonable in this thread.

I personally hope for a lot more heavy handed strikes against the entrenched summoner playstyle of casters, and if that means casters need to look for other adventurers to do harder content then hey welcome to melee land, good stuff!

And in my mind finding a person to buff is not the same as buffing a summon, I do hope you all roleplay on the roleplay server!

Are u kidding me or are u baiting? Lv12? No, I cannot do it, I die there lv20

I have in the last week, lvl 12 cleric

[xf1313]

I love this! Summons need a big nerf. Morghun the Black and Malar Temple solo at lvl 12 wasn't even that hard with a conj focus caster and some kitspam. And casters have a stacked bank account insanely early compared to other classes. Maybe this will at the very least lower the power house of the conj/necro solothon! At the very least getting more spell slots open for more fun and interesting spells sounds great.

The change doesn't sound very heavy-handed at all and (as always these days tbh) a lot of doomsayers and extreme negative reactions sound overblown and unreasonable in this thread.

I personally hope for a lot more heavy handed strikes against the entrenched summoner playstyle of casters, and if that means casters need to look for other adventurers to do harder content then hey welcome to melee land, good stuff!

And in my mind finding a person to buff is not the same as buffing a summon, I do hope you all roleplay on the roleplay server!

Are u kidding me or are u baiting? Lv12? No, I cannot do it, I die there lv20

I have in the last week, lvl 12 cleric

Make sure you take a footage and post online, very interesting. And to prove your point that summon is too strong, you better go there with a 10 con 10 str wizard, stand back, making minimal contributions, and let your summon wipe out the enemies.

There is no point to argue here with out prove and I do not believe you, based on my personal experiences with the writs. Maybe you had optimum build, best gear possible, even so that sounds like a story.

[Skibbles]

People excited that a wizard is going to be a suddenly interesting class because they've been cornered into unironically preparing a vitriolic sphere so they can take a single encounter down to Barely Injured are not paying attention to the reality of the pitiful value of almost all spells, monster saves, immunities, HP values, and dungeon lengths.

It's pretty obvious who has played an actual caster and who has played the newer, fancier, objectively superior classes.

Arelith magic is about buffs which is why cleric, the premier and recently updated buff class with obviously powerful buffs like Regeneration, is skewing the 'need' for this change so radically.

(Druid too, obviously, but that probably goes without saying for most of us.)

[Frailman]

Are u kidding me or are u baiting? Lv12? No, I cannot do it, I die there lv20

I have in the last week, lvl 12 cleric

Make sure you take a footage and post online, very interesting. And to prove your point that summon is too strong, you better go there with a 10 con 10 str wizard, stand back, making minimal contributions, and let your summon wipe out the enemies.

There is no point to argue here with out prove and I do not believe you, based on my personal experiences with the writs. Maybe you had optimum build, best gear possible, even so that sounds like a story.

Take conj focuses max wisdom and heal. Buy a fire stream book or take fire domain. Buff the ele with zoo spells, barkskin pot, shield of faith, the lot. Spam kits if he gets to injured. Stand out of range of the high priest armageddon casts. Shoot a couple of hammer of the gods if you accidently pull two packs.

[chris a gogo]

I think the best question to ask is WHERE IS THE FUN.

If a change adds no fun to a game is it a good change?
I think it is adding grind and pointless tedium to a game I play to relax and have fun in, so I ask where is the added fun from it.

[-XXX-]

As I see it, these sequencers are similar to what wands are for mundane characters. Here we encounter a QoL issue as crafting these seems to be a much bigger chore than creating wands. Furthermore, NPC vendors offer potions and scrolls as an alternative to wands that are 100% available 24/7, 0 crafting needed. So, there's that. (Also 10 charges seems a bit on the low side. You're going to be spending them 2 at a time unless those sequencers that offer zoo buffs are going to guarantee +5 stat buffs)

Secondly, as has been already noted this virtually invalidates 1/3 of a spellcaster's kit. Even after Kenji's effort to make low level direct damage spells more appealing, these still aren't very good (sorry Kenji) unless used with metamagic feats (in which case you aren't really using low lvl spell slots). This leaves spell lvl 1-3 spell slots in a weird spot, since up until now using them for buff spells to improve your summons has been practically the only reasonable way of using them efficiently. Now all you're left with are 50 ways of spending a round to cast a spell that deals ~50 damage to something.

Finally, there's the issue of zoo spells. Using single target zoo spells on summons will no longer be possible, but mass zoo spells are still going to work?
This seems rather inconsistent - either all forms of zoo spells are too good to be used on summons or none of them are.

[ClockworkRed]

I just fear this change will force people to spend quite some time with resource gathering to craft these items, making it harder to find people to party up or roleplay with.

Endless summon buffing is quite boring, I fully agree, but resource gathering is even more boring (speaking for myself here) as this is per-se a solo activity to make any sense. Additionally, looking at the required amount of components there could be a lot of frustration coming up as it might be hard to find places that are not intensively farmed.

[Ithalan]

I think my feelings on this can be summed up as "You looked at buffing summons and concluded that it was a boring chore, and your solution was to make it even more of a chore by requiring me to gather either crafting materials or gold for it."

I can get behind removing the ability to buff summons at all, in any way, if the stats and effects on summons that lack punch and staying-power without buffs are adjusted to compensate instead (this is nearly all pre-epic summons in my experience, as well as Eldritch Summon to a lesser degree. Don't have experience with undead summons). I don't give much for promises that summons will be looked at 'later'. This change should have been delayed until then, if so.

[Kalthariam]

As a level 30 Healer Path Cleric?

Yeah, I'm really not fond of this change. I just simply see myself ceasing to do PvE Content anymore.

I'm not going to waste time spending money and resources and crafting points to make -consumable items- to buff my temporary summons that can be dismissed, instantly killed, or removed by a disconnection at any time, especially when I was able to just cast the spells myself.

Henchmen are not widely available, they are constantly being used by other people, so you do not always have them as an option, also you don't always have a party wanting to do the same content you want to do at any specific time of day.

This really just feels wildly out of place and out of nowhere. This doesn't lead me to engage with systems, it drives me to disengage with it.

[-XXX-]

I wouldn't say that henchmen are relevant to this conversation. They are a great tool for lvling, but fill a different niche than summons do.
Balance oriented discourse tends to revolve around optimized max lvl characters. Most henchmen won't even work for a lvl 30 character and animal empathy has its own limitations.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

My friend pointed me to this thread because he knows I like to push the alternatives to summons when I play casters. I even made an evocation specialist with a guld start over the weekend of the 4th (I need to stay home with my doggie at night during early july because fireworks freak her out) and had no issue pushing myself to 24 in five days, all solo. My initial plan was to strictly use domination spells, but much to my chagrin I realized that that too was nerfed, as you can no longer dominate the yellow guys. So, I sprinkled a bit of necromancy on top, which put me back on easy street. The funny thing is this "nerf" would actually make that character stronger, since I rarely used non aoe spells on them anyways. II on the few remaining dungeons that don't have invisi purge spam is about it, and now I can apparently get 50% concealment without worrying about that at all. Sweet!

Anyways, some not so deeply thought-out initial thoughts strictly regarding pve content since thats what everyone seems to be up in arms about.

1) Bards are now the best summoners. Even with Just regular old planar binding, since you have enough ac to tank for it on your own and you can use the tool to make it come in after the fact and just target the same guy as you so it doesn't draw massive aggro (how's that for a reversal in rolls!). Bard song puts the planar binding line a lot closer than one might think to a top tier full caster summon, and some of them have funny immunities (Nice acid sheath bro!). The undead just make this even funnier, though no mummy dust will hurt.

2) Three spells, all in different schools, make it so any summon no matter how bad a murder bot. Slow, Confusion, and Fear. Fear is a bit annoying because they have to be chased about, but don't forget you have acid and electric damage spam now no matter what focus you have. If you have evocation focus, you have magic missle spam too. You aren't going to tear through them as fast as a weapon master would, but you are also in 0 danger of being overwhelmed.

3) The combination of extended invisibility and blindness spam is boring as all get up, but if you really want easy it doesn't get much easier than this. Trust me, it's easier then hiding behind planar binding and hoping they do all the work, and that has proven to be way to easy. So, yeah, wizards/sorcerers are going to be fine. Which brings us to point 4 ...

4) clerics might not be as good as they were, but they are still going to be pretty strong. I get the point on healer clerics, and while they certainly can be caster clerics too now that it's no longer about maxing charisma, not having spam spells is going to hurt them a lot. So will no mass haste. But bless, prayer, aura of vitality (for the domain that has it) are all going to make you fine. I think the very under explored evangelist will still be a beast waiting to be broken, even though the no yellow dominations will hurt it some, Battlepriest will still be fine if not exciting, and a traditional armored priest -caster or battle focused- will still be a beast since you can use the same tactics I mentioned for a bard but with stronger summons.

5) The warlock changes were when I started to lose interest in keeping up with every class and their strengths and weaknesses, so I can't speak much on them. Eldritch blast is the king of all spamable damage spells though, and you have access to the same tricks arcane casters do too, so they should be fine.

6) I absolutely love that a use was found for the garbage tier runic stuff. Long overdue.

7) Ultimately I think the combination of the sequencers and people learning how to play casters beyond collecting the loots behind their murder bot summons is going to make leveling easier for folks not harder, they are just resistant to change. Even if its a net 0 it's going to be fun once people figure out that they can do more than spam mass haste and collect through the dungeons. I think the better choice would be to either nerf summons instead or boost them some and make their duration a lot shorter so a solo summoner has to rely on timing them out more if the goal is indeed to make things harder for them to solo. But hey, this is interesting at least!