BrianFreud
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I'm posting this separately, so it can't get buried under all the tamer-related posts. 
As I mentioned in the other thread, while tamers and their pets have all the attention at the moment in Pub 97, it seems summons have been forgotten.
For mages, other than EV, the 8th level summons have been pretty worthless for, well, nearly forever. Air Elemental, Daemon, Earth Elemental, Fire Elemental, and Water Elemental are 5/8ths of the top level spells, but those summons last a pretty short time (max of 8 minutes), and are so weak as to be worthless. EV used to be far more useful - but then control slots came in, and we were limited to only 2 of them at a time. EVs are ok powerful, but max out at 90 seconds in duration, doing only 0 to 26 damage per hit - and with only ~140 HP, they tend to get 'killed' long before their 90 seconds is up when they're up against anything stronger than a Stone Harpy.
As for the lower level mage spells, Summon Creature is a worthless level **5** spell - it doesn't matter what the random animal is, they're all weak and useless, other than for helping grow a plague beast. Blade Spirits are occasionally useful, but the take forever to summon and are pretty weak; their only benefit is they're harder to dispell. Yet too many mobs have auto-dispell now, and they make BS poof just as easily as EVs.
For Necros, there's Animate Dead (pretty much worthless except for 'spoiling' corpses) and Vengeful Spirit. Revenants have 50-100% more HP than EVs, twice the attack power, teleporting abilities, and are persistent at following their prey, though at a cost of 3 slots. I don't see that spell/them used much, but they look at least somewhat decent.... at least until you compare a Revenant to even the lowest scoring freshly tamed Cu Sidhe.
I don't play a SW, but Summon Fey and Summon Fiend seem to be pretty useless as well; the only SW summon that's occasionally useful seems to be Nature's Fury. (And I've heard basically nothing about the Summon Reaper mastery skill...)
Then there's Mysticism, which I also don't personally use. It has Nether Cyclone and Rising Colosus. I don't see Mystics using the former much, but RCs seem to dominate in terms of powerful summons, at least at events... though they're limited to only 60 seconds. Even then, though, they still can't compare to a freshly tamed Cu.
[xtable=skin1|702x@]
{tbody}
{tr}
{td=54x@} {/td}
{td=86x@}Energy Vortex{/td}
{td=164x@}Revenant{/td}
{td=124x@}Rising Colossus{/td}
{td=242x@}Cu Sidhe{/td}
{/tr}
{tr}
{td=54x@}Strength{/td}
{td=86x@}200{/td}
{td=164x@}401-500{/td}
{td=124x@}780{/td}
{td=242x@}1200 - 1225{/td}
{/tr}
{tr}
{td=54x@}HP{/td}
{td=86x@}140{/td}
{td=164x@}241-300{/td}
{td=124x@}470{/td}
{td=242x@}1010 - 1275{/td}
{/tr}
{tr}
{td=54x@}Skills{/td}
{td=86x@}None{/td}
{td=164x@}Teleport to prey, persistent follower{/td}
{td=124x@}None I think{/td}
{td=242x@}Bleed attack, can heal itself, can heal owner{/td}
{/tr}
{/tbody}
[/xtable]
(And this is still ignoring anything summoned via a talisman of summoning, though they're all kind of weak.)
@Kyronix, @Bleak, and @Mesanna, so far, all the focus for the "pet revamp" seems to be on tamers. But summons are pretty much the same - and the spells to summon them dominate the highest level spells for casters. Even before the revamp, they just don't compare, especially for mages, where our highest level summons may have been powerful 20 years ago, but today simply don't compare to even the summons from other branches of magic, let alone tamers' pets.
I'd suggest five things that could improve the situation.
First, buff up the summons, especially BS, EV, summoned Revenants, summoned Imps, and summoned fey, so they're at least closer in power to basic fresh tames. This is a top level spell; the creature summoned should reflect it.
Second, take away the summon duration, or tie it into something like mana. For example, let's say I have 120 Focus & Med, and 150 Int, with 20 MR on my suit. My passive MR is roughly 3.3 per second. If EVs cost .5 mana per second to maintain, and I have 2, theoretically I can keep them up indefinitely, but I also exhaust my mana pool faster. That's a reasonable tradeoff. (At that kind of ongoing mana cost, it might even make sense to drop the # of control slots on summons down to 1, so I can have more of them, at a higher ongoing mana cost.) This also would give summoners a reason to use the dispel spell on their own summons, which I rarely currently have reason to do.
Third, let us actually have at least some influence on summons' targets. The summoned elements seem to have some control given, but BS, EV, etc are pretty much cast and forget; they don't pay any attention to "all kill".
Fourth,since summons are all theoretically tied into the caster's mind, consider giving summons a "Summons" type pack instinct.
Last, with specific regard to pub 97, let me develop my summons, the same way tamers develop their pets. If I decide to run around with a summoned demon, EV, water ele, etc, let me build him up (and built-up points persist for a given summon type/spell across different times they're summoned). Have points build up by summon type any time they're summoned and attacking. Give me a reason to try out the newly buffed up 8th level summons outside of EVs. The only difference from tamers' pets would be that while they can have multiple dragons with different skills, I only have the one summon demon spell, so can only really have one developed demon "skillset" at a time, so also give me a way to change the points allocation on a given summon type - maybe at a cost of some gold, or a *temporary* (1 hour?) cooldown-type of drop in stats, or something like that. Just make it not totally painful, so if today I want to use a summoned demon who's strong in "fire powers", and next week I want to use one that strong in "cold powers", I'm not totally screwed or locked in to an unchangeable choice, forever, for a particular summon type.
Consider this my suggestion; I'm open to other ways to make it so summons (and esp pure mages) don't continue to be made comparatively weaker.
As I mentioned in the other thread, while tamers and their pets have all the attention at the moment in Pub 97, it seems summons have been forgotten.
For mages, other than EV, the 8th level summons have been pretty worthless for, well, nearly forever. Air Elemental, Daemon, Earth Elemental, Fire Elemental, and Water Elemental are 5/8ths of the top level spells, but those summons last a pretty short time (max of 8 minutes), and are so weak as to be worthless. EV used to be far more useful - but then control slots came in, and we were limited to only 2 of them at a time. EVs are ok powerful, but max out at 90 seconds in duration, doing only 0 to 26 damage per hit - and with only ~140 HP, they tend to get 'killed' long before their 90 seconds is up when they're up against anything stronger than a Stone Harpy.
As for the lower level mage spells, Summon Creature is a worthless level **5** spell - it doesn't matter what the random animal is, they're all weak and useless, other than for helping grow a plague beast.
Blade Spirits are occasionally useful, but the take forever to summon and are pretty weak; their only benefit is they're harder to dispell. Yet too many mobs have auto-dispell now, and they make BS poof just as easily as EVs.For Necros, there's Animate Dead (pretty much worthless except for 'spoiling' corpses) and Vengeful Spirit. Revenants have 50-100% more HP than EVs, twice the attack power, teleporting abilities, and are persistent at following their prey, though at a cost of 3 slots. I don't see that spell/them used much, but they look at least somewhat decent.... at least until you compare a Revenant to even the lowest scoring freshly tamed Cu Sidhe.
I don't play a SW, but Summon Fey and Summon Fiend seem to be pretty useless as well; the only SW summon that's occasionally useful seems to be Nature's Fury. (And I've heard basically nothing about the Summon Reaper mastery skill...)
Then there's Mysticism, which I also don't personally use. It has Nether Cyclone and Rising Colosus. I don't see Mystics using the former much, but RCs seem to dominate in terms of powerful summons, at least at events... though they're limited to only 60 seconds. Even then, though, they still can't compare to a freshly tamed Cu.
[xtable=skin1|702x@]
{tbody}
{tr}
{td=54x@} {/td}
{td=86x@}Energy Vortex{/td}
{td=164x@}Revenant{/td}
{td=124x@}Rising Colossus{/td}
{td=242x@}Cu Sidhe{/td}
{/tr}
{tr}
{td=54x@}Strength{/td}
{td=86x@}200{/td}
{td=164x@}401-500{/td}
{td=124x@}780{/td}
{td=242x@}1200 - 1225{/td}
{/tr}
{tr}
{td=54x@}HP{/td}
{td=86x@}140{/td}
{td=164x@}241-300{/td}
{td=124x@}470{/td}
{td=242x@}1010 - 1275{/td}
{/tr}
{tr}
{td=54x@}Skills{/td}
{td=86x@}None{/td}
{td=164x@}Teleport to prey, persistent follower{/td}
{td=124x@}None I think{/td}
{td=242x@}Bleed attack, can heal itself, can heal owner{/td}
{/tr}
{/tbody}
[/xtable]
(And this is still ignoring anything summoned via a talisman of summoning, though they're all kind of weak.
)@Kyronix, @Bleak, and @Mesanna, so far, all the focus for the "pet revamp" seems to be on tamers. But summons are pretty much the same - and the spells to summon them dominate the highest level spells for casters. Even before the revamp, they just don't compare, especially for mages, where our highest level summons may have been powerful 20 years ago, but today simply don't compare to even the summons from other branches of magic, let alone tamers' pets.
I'd suggest five things that could improve the situation.
First, buff up the summons, especially BS, EV, summoned Revenants, summoned Imps, and summoned fey, so they're at least closer in power to basic fresh tames. This is a top level spell; the creature summoned should reflect it.
Second, take away the summon duration, or tie it into something like mana. For example, let's say I have 120 Focus & Med, and 150 Int, with 20 MR on my suit. My passive MR is roughly 3.3 per second. If EVs cost .5 mana per second to maintain, and I have 2, theoretically I can keep them up indefinitely, but I also exhaust my mana pool faster. That's a reasonable tradeoff. (At that kind of ongoing mana cost, it might even make sense to drop the # of control slots on summons down to 1, so I can have more of them, at a higher ongoing mana cost.) This also would give summoners a reason to use the dispel spell on their own summons, which I rarely currently have reason to do.
Third, let us actually have at least some influence on summons' targets. The summoned elements seem to have some control given, but BS, EV, etc are pretty much cast and forget; they don't pay any attention to "all kill".
Fourth,since summons are all theoretically tied into the caster's mind, consider giving summons a "Summons" type pack instinct.
Last, with specific regard to pub 97, let me develop my summons, the same way tamers develop their pets. If I decide to run around with a summoned demon, EV, water ele, etc, let me build him up (and built-up points persist for a given summon type/spell across different times they're summoned). Have points build up by summon type any time they're summoned and attacking. Give me a reason to try out the newly buffed up 8th level summons outside of EVs. The only difference from tamers' pets would be that while they can have multiple dragons with different skills, I only have the one summon demon spell, so can only really have one developed demon "skillset" at a time, so also give me a way to change the points allocation on a given summon type - maybe at a cost of some gold, or a *temporary* (1 hour?) cooldown-type of drop in stats, or something like that. Just make it not totally painful, so if today I want to use a summoned demon who's strong in "fire powers", and next week I want to use one that strong in "cold powers", I'm not totally screwed or locked in to an unchangeable choice, forever, for a particular summon type.
Consider this my suggestion; I'm open to other ways to make it so summons (and esp pure mages
) don't continue to be made comparatively weaker.
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