Summoner tweaks… rebalanced.

[Delmuir]

I realize that summoners are easy to play and maybe a little overpowered but they also have a bunch of useless summons (jelly, spider, and Rimebark… which is actually destructive) and a lack of strategic lines which is partly why they're dull.

I've made suggestions before but I've decided to play a summoner again and now I think I have a better grasp on what would make them useful. The problem is this:

1. All physical damage summons are melee.

2. Rimebark freezes enemies and summons alike. Freeze reduces damage from all sources. That effectively negates the utility and value of melee summons OR (most commonly) Rimebark.

3. Drakes are so overpowered that there's no reason to summon anything else, except a hydra and flamespitter (as they have fire synergy).

It doesn't make sense.

My solution is to make the wolves freeze-immune. Change the dread wolves into "Winter Wolves." They'd effectively be the same but have decent cold resist that scales with skill level (maybe up to 50%) and make them freeze-immune.

Then, make the golem freeze immune as well but no cold resist but give it physical damage resist. Now you have another offensive combo other than spamming drakes. I will also suggest making the golem last longer, have a greater cool down, have more life and armor, but be MUCH slower. I actually think the global speed of the golem should be quite low in my scenario here.

Then, I'd make the constitution of the summons scale with the summoners constitution. That would prevent the almost immediate over-powering of the summoner by making the summons a tiny bit weaker in the early game. It also implies that summons are physical taxing which kind of makes sense...

Thoughts?

UPDATE: Also, why not throughout a bunch of summoner bonuses on whips? This would encourage summoners to use exotic weapons mastery and maybe, just maybe do some melee damage. More so, it makes a bit of sense, aesthetically.

[ZyZ]

AD 1
You can reduce physical resistance with wolves

AD 2
Rimebark is supposed to BLOCK attackers.

AD 3
I agree. The only thing that prevents drake from total domination is hatchlings from grand arrival . They makes drake LESS useful. Im not sure if this was intentional

[Mewtarthio]

Drakes need to have their Bellowing Roar nerfed. Give it a lower talent level, or give them a penalty to physical damage, or create an alternate version that's just an AoE confuse like it was before. Right now, they make Summoners boring. They're just too powerful, too much of an obvious choice over every other summon.

[SageAcrin]

Drakes got much better after Bellowing Roar buffs, mostly. It's an incidental thing.

Maybe their skill growth rates could be (TL/2) instead of TL like most summons? That way, the range and damage on their talents is reduced somewhat to compensate.

[Mewtarthio]

Drakes got much better after Bellowing Roar buffs, mostly. It's an incidental thing.

Right, I remember those buffs. They were great for Wyrmics, but I think their impact on Summoners was way stronger than intended.

[Delmuir]

AD 1
You can reduce physical resistance with wolves

AD 2
Rimebark is supposed to BLOCK attackers.

Reducing physical resistance with wolves is nice but it doesn't do anything for Rimebarks. It's a fine synergy currently with the other melee summons but they're still effectively useless when compared to all of the ranged summons.

As to your second point… sure, it's supposed to block attackers… fine but that's part of the problem: it's boring and two other summons perform the same function. Can't they do more? Something else? Also, that's partly why I suggested the change to Golems. They could perform a similar function. My suggestion is to improve the gameplay of a summoner without making them more powerful or just nerfing Drakes alone as that would just force summoners into a hit and run style of play or worse (namely a brutal war of attrition).

[ohioastro]

Having just run through with a summoner, the class is powerful and I actually think this is absolutely fine. Not all classes have to be expert-only.

I'd leave the Drakes alone but make the cooldown longer and the equilibrium cost higher. The class has tools to deal with both.

If there is a way to make the Hydra and Rimebark abilities avoid friendly fire that'd be great - e.g. Freeze on cast and Poison on cast within range, not a persistent terrain effect. Give the Rimebark a freeze attack with a short range.

I'd boost the equilibrium gain for the Jelly and perhaps give it an ability to inflict slow or the healing inhibition effect as an attack / arrival ability. These boosts could balance making the dragon a bigger impact / longer down time option.

The Minotaur, War Hound, etc. become absolutely lethal if you stack physical damage % gear. So seeing them weak is as much character design as anything else. really. The biggest weakness of the class to me is that the gear that really helps your build is not obvious. If summoners have a weakness, it's that they rely a lot on fire damage through the dragon and ritch; so it helps a ton to boost fire damage and penetration, as well as physical damage and penetration. Other elements barely matter.

[Delmuir]

Having just run through with a summoner, the class is powerful and I actually think this is absolutely fine. Not all classes have to be expert-only.

I'd leave the Drakes alone but make the cooldown longer and the equilibrium cost higher. The class has tools to deal with both.

The Minotaur, War Hound, etc. become absolutely lethal if you stack physical damage % gear. So seeing them weak is as much character design as anything else. really. The biggest weakness of the class to me is that the gear that really helps your build is not obvious. If summoners have a weakness, it's that they rely a lot on fire damage through the dragon and ritch; so it helps a ton to boost fire damage and penetration, as well as physical damage and penetration. Other elements barely matter.

I'm in agreement that it's fine to have an "easier" class and I think the summoner is well suited to it. I just think it wastes some skills and gets a bit boring. I'm happy to keep it as powerful but I'd like the gameplay with it to improve, hence my interest in the Rimebark synergy possibilities.

As to your point about melee… yeah, if one wants to gear for that then they can be very deadly but why gear for that when you can gear for fire? That's kind of my point…

I agree 100% on the cool down and equilibrium cost… a little bit higher (maybe one or two turns on the drake and fifty-percent more equilibrium) would be fine.

[Faeryan]

I've always thought the hatchlings are what makes Summoner too easy.
For me they worked as extra meat shields between me and the enemy while the warhound, drake and ritch did the actual killing.

Pretty sure I would have had a bit harder and thus more enjoyable show with my summoner with only 2 hatchlings.

[Delmuir]

I'm inclined to disagree that harder is "more fun" with the Summoner. There are already enough "hard" classes. I think the big problem with the summoner is that it's kind of boring game play, even if it is a bit easy.

Many solutions I've seen involve tedium such as being able to control summons, etc. I think this is the wrong approach as it makes the class like every other class in the sense that it would be micromanaged.

My hope is to make the gameplay itself more fun, without making the game harder for the class or overpowering it.

[beardhat]

I agree with the sentiment that there needs to be some classes which aren't "expert only". I am relatively new to the game and still learning a lot. Some of us need a class to get the smell of the dirt in our noses so to speak. We need a class to get the unlocks with and learn the map with. For those of you who are long time players, don't forget that there was a time when you didn't know where X town even was on the map or how to navigate the Sandworm Lair. Everyone likes a challenge, but with the expectation that there's a chance to WIN.
I can't speak with any authority about the proposed cool down changes, nerfs, or buffs. If you need more challenge, maybe make a run through where you don't even unlock either the Stone Golem or Drake. Handicap yourself by removing one of the summons from your choices on a particular build. Not every challenge has to be encoded or enforced on everyone from the top down.
That's my two cents.

[ghostbuster]

I completely agree with the need of a "beginner" class, but one must be very careful when proposing a boost to an already powerful class, as any improvement will also impact the AI summoners. I lost many character to summoner adventurers and in my experience, they are presently some of the most dangerous foes. Any significant boost to this class will make the AI summoners more deadly and finally render the game less beginner-friendly...

Besides that, something to make the gameplay of summoners more interesting would be a good thing.