ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I think the consensus is that the Summoner is boring, has some pointless talent categories in it, and lacks strategic synergy between summons. Thus, I propose a new framework for the Summoner class.

My proposal is to set up the summons so that they act as teams instead of individual cannon-fodder. Every unique combination of summons unleashed at a given time will improve damage, defense, or even abilities of the summons. They "combo" in a sense.

To do this, I propose that the Summoner have 4 distinct summoning categories instead of the 2.5 that it currently has. 16 summons would produce a massive amount of strategic and gameplay options. Here's a theoretical example with just the current crop of summons:

1. If a Warhound, Spider, Jelly, and Turtle are all in play at the same time then the Spider's poison damage heals each summon and the Summoner a corresponding amount of damage that it does (shared between them). Thus, if the Spider does 100 damage poison per turn then each summon and the Summoner would recover 20 per turn until either the enemy dies, the poison wears off, OR the combo is broken by one of the summons dying or expiring.

2. If that exact same combo was in play except that the Warhound was replaced by the Fire Drake then for the duration, the Summoner alone would absorb all fire damage... or whatever, I'm merely trying to make the point.

If you add another category (and I've proposed a few ideas before) and eliminate the Combat Techniques category then you'll have a much more interesting Summoner. Most of the defensive skills would be created via combinations of summons in play.

In order to make this work, summons would need to be able to survive a bit longer and probably do a little less damage... thus I'd suggest that their life continue to scale with the Summoner's constitution and Resilience skill. This would make Frantic Summoning more useful as well as allowing you to get rid of the Detonate and Rage skills which are terrible.

3. One area that I've long advocated for is a synergy with the Rimebark (other than the Jelly).

4. So, 16 summons with combinations of 4 and no repeating summons would produce well... too many options and so I'd propose that you can only make a combo IF you have the Summon at active talent level 3 or 4. This would force you to choose which combinations you want to develop.

I haven't proposed actual combos, clearly, but I wanted to see if this is a direction worth pursuing with the Summoner. Cheers.

I count that at 1820 combinations that would need to be coded.

So while its an interesting idea, I really think that the numbers won't be feasible.

For comparison, 3 out of the current 6 would be 20 combinations.

Counting the grand arrival, detonate and wild summon effects summoner already has plenty of combos. The amount you propose is absolutely ridiculous and would end up with summoner having more effects then every other class put together. Making the wild summon effects less generally bad would do plenty for comboing imo.

There's also the problem of balancing that many effects. If there are many potential effects then it becomes very difficult to balance them, so there'd always be a best combo which you'd use above all others. This would actually narrow build diversity instead of promoting it.

Summoner is boring because summon-only gameplay is boring. That's such a fundamental issue that you can't do much about it.

Eliminating the out of place combat techniques and combat veteran would be nice though. Don't really know that they need a new locked category to replace them, they already have two. Being a simple and easily unlocked class means that having only three unlocked categories is fine, around the same level of complexity as bulwark or berserker.

Between leaves tide and turtle splode summon durability is decent, honestly. Resilience actually giving them, uh, actual resilience would be nice though.

Agreed that rage needs to be replaced or really buffed, but detonate is already decent for a few summons. Turtle and spider especially come to mind. All it needs is for the damaging effects to be buffed into relevance.

Rimebark not freezing you and your summons would be great, agreed. Especially since getting frozen next to one of your summons is a death sentence. That's way more important then jelly synergy.

Yeah, it's far too many combinations (and I knew that) but I like the premise.

I still dislike detonate, thematically speaking. Perhaps an ability that acts like Detonate when summons expire (but not die)... I also once suggested a new summons category called Unstable Summons, or something like that, and I think it's worth revisiting.

As for the boring nature of the game play well, I don't actually dislike it and I think there's room for "boring" game play so that doesn't concern me.

Thanks for the feedback.

Have you tried my Summoner Changes in Verdant? I'd be interested to know if you think that improves the gameplay at all.

Housepet,

I have not tried it and I don't know what Verdant is. Once I figure out the latter, I'll do the former. Thanks.

I have a whole addon pack and you don't know what it is. ;(

Well I do now! I'll let you know what I find out... probably just send you a message versus posting here but we'll see.

Thanks!