Celestial avenger

[HeyLadyOfDecay]

8th lvl spell that creates a summon with word of faith that can unsummon up to the epic spell summon, feels a bit unbalanced.

[Yvesza]

It's got word of faith on cooldown as well as innate true sight, it's a little silly how good it is by comparison to the alternatives.

[-XXX-]

• A spellcaster who can cast Greater Planar Binding is likely to be able to use WoF themselves in some way.
• If the spellcaster has a Celestial Avenger out, they're not using stronger summons at that moment.
• While having a WoF capable summon can net some action economy, the AI managing the timing of can be rather awkward and unpredictable.
• If we're talking scroll usage in PvP, why not just use Gate?

[AstralUniverse]

I dont think pvp is the main concern here. There are more powerful summons than the Avenger for pvp. Astral Deva for one...

I think the problem is mostly that early-mid game summons are ALL absolutely busted as a result of a quick, not well thought out 'hot-fix' from our devs as a response to the huge nerf summons took from the sequencers update. Especially summon creature 1-9 and planar ally line of spells. All it takes is a quick comparison between dire wolf and the tier 1 warlock summons to see just how absurd the difference in stat is (warlock summons havent been touched in the hot fix afaik), then you realize you took gsf conjuration and the eldritch summon but you're using summon creature scrolls all the way to lvl 15 because your own summons are significantly weaker comparison. Was the hastily hot fix really necessary? I'm not sure, as I wasnt playing a summoner that got hit by the update at the time, my bard didnt quite feel it as much as real summoners. But the amount of vocal players in favor of buffing summons or reverting the update made it feel necessary asap, perhaps. Now this also creates a situation that summoner mobs in pve are absolutely overpowered, which is yet another issue caused by the whole sequence of events.

I heard a proper summon update is already in the making, but this time I'd like to believe it'll take more time because it's done less hastily.

[perseid]

I dont think pvp is the main concern here. There are more powerful summons than the Avenger for pvp. Astral Deva for one...

I think the problem is mostly that early-mid game summons are ALL absolutely busted as a result of a quick, not well thought out 'hot-fix' from our devs as a response to the huge nerf summons took from the sequencers update. Especially summon creature 1-9 and planar ally line of spells. All it takes is a quick comparison between dire wolf and the tier 1 warlock summons to see just how absurd the difference in stat is (warlock summons havent been touched in the hot fix afaik), then you realize you took gsf conjuration and the eldritch summon but you're using summon creature scrolls all the way to lvl 15 because your own summons are significantly weaker comparison. Was the hastily hot fix really necessary? I'm not sure, as I wasnt playing a summoner that got hit by the update at the time, my bard didnt quite feel it as much as real summoners. But the amount of vocal players in favor of buffing summons or reverting the update made it feel necessary asap, perhaps. Now this also creates a situation that summoner mobs in pve are absolutely overpowered, which is yet another issue caused by the whole sequence of events.

I heard a proper summon update is already in the making, but this time I'd like to believe it'll take more time because it's done less hastily.

I don't know if I can agree here. As you noted everything up into SM:IX is very strong in PvE right now. There's better PvE spells frankly. Even within Greater Planar Binding the Fey is going to be more performant 9/10 times in PvE. What the celestial has going for it is that I can have a WoF minion ready at all times in case of random PvP and it is a WoF minion because as far as I can tell it will /always/ open with WoF. The only time it doesn't seem to open with WoF is if the player themselves actively changes its target while its casting. The usefulness of the celestial from G. Planar Binding is very much its usefulness in PvP.

Edit: Mind you, I should add since I didn't state it that I like this. Casters have so many competing needs at the start of a fight that I think already having a WoF minion out is extremely useful. I'm also unsure the cl of the G.PB summon compared to the Gate one for the purposes of things like being blocked by the SR helmet.

[Kalthariam]

Celestial Avenger also likes to just just randomly cast it at literally everything and doesn't prioritize anything with it, and there's really not a way to force them to target specific things with it.

It also likes to waste time casting WoF when it has absolutely no benefit.

It really isn't that big of a deal I do not think, it's not a high power summon, compared to alot of summons it's actually very weak.

[perseid]

Celestial Avenger also likes to just just randomly cast it at literally everything and doesn't prioritize anything with it, and there's really not a way to force them to target specific things with it.

It also likes to waste time casting WoF when it has absolutely no benefit.

It really isn't that big of a deal I do not think, it's not a high power summon, compared to alot of summons it's actually very weak.

Out of curiosity do you use the Associate Tool to control it? I'm noticing some people seem to have had different experiences with their bear than I have so I'm curious if maybe that's the differentiator. Because when I have a freshly summoned celestial bear it always opens by WoFing whatever I told it to target via the associate tool.

[AstralUniverse]

The summon will attack whatever it's commanded to attack via the tool, otherwise it's AI is very selective, more prone to lags and will often not register enemies, so using the tool is important. If the summon has a CD ability and it's available, it will try to use it. If you target it at an enemy that is already in melee range, the summon (from my experience anyway) will almost always just attack and not cast anything. It will only cast when you target it at something outside of melee range. This way it's entirely possible to always select the target we want to WoF, and it also entirely possible to avoid casting but it requires you to micro the summon into the enemy's melee range before commanding it to attack.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

this is what make planar spells useful beyond just planar conduit. The way you can dive into different streams for various abilities.

Its actually more useful just to rock planar conduit and cast WoF yourself if you have that option. You arnt really saving slots by using greater binding to cast WoF. It gives wizards more options too, etc. Like if you are going to show up to a battle. Would you rather be casting gate or thing if you want to beat a fighter down? This a very tactical niche use and I am glad to see casters creatively using various tiers of spells/summons.