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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Summoner class
Natev
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
I have been watching this game for the past two years and after seeing some of these archetype videos come out on Youtube I get increasingly curious over the summoner archetype.
I'm most excited to know the details for this archetype, so I'm curious to understand what the summoner class will be "summoning" I guess. Will this mean that as a summoner there will be monsters that can be found/captured/bred through questing, or professions? Or will the class just summon a pre determined summon specified by the summoning spell. Does this also mean that when you get to choose your secondary archetype with Summoner as the primary will either of those rules change/apply to the new "role" the summoner will spec into?
My main thing is I always enjoy classes that tend to have pets, and I'd like to know if the summoner class will kind of be able to find and or get unique summons that not everyone that is lets say a Summoner/rogue combo will get or let's say what a Summoner/Ranger will have. I know that those two classes will be different I just mean that If, lets say I am playing a Summoner/Ranger which would be the Beastmaster role and if I run into another Beastmaster are we both going to have the same summons or could I possibly have a summon that he doesn't and/or vise versa to where an interaction goes; "Hey how'd you get that summon?" "Oh I got if from X quest from Y guy in node Z" or whatever.
To anyone who could explain this a bit more to me thank you, that would be awesome. This game always keeps me locked in my seat on the Hype train with every monthly update, Intrepid is crushing it and I'm super excited to play when you guys are ready with the game. Can't wait for Alpha 2!! XD
I'm most excited to know the details for this archetype, so I'm curious to understand what the summoner class will be "summoning" I guess. Will this mean that as a summoner there will be monsters that can be found/captured/bred through questing, or professions? Or will the class just summon a pre determined summon specified by the summoning spell. Does this also mean that when you get to choose your secondary archetype with Summoner as the primary will either of those rules change/apply to the new "role" the summoner will spec into?
My main thing is I always enjoy classes that tend to have pets, and I'd like to know if the summoner class will kind of be able to find and or get unique summons that not everyone that is lets say a Summoner/rogue combo will get or let's say what a Summoner/Ranger will have. I know that those two classes will be different I just mean that If, lets say I am playing a Summoner/Ranger which would be the Beastmaster role and if I run into another Beastmaster are we both going to have the same summons or could I possibly have a summon that he doesn't and/or vise versa to where an interaction goes; "Hey how'd you get that summon?" "Oh I got if from X quest from Y guy in node Z" or whatever.
To anyone who could explain this a bit more to me thank you, that would be awesome. This game always keeps me locked in my seat on the Hype train with every monthly update, Intrepid is crushing it and I'm super excited to play when you guys are ready with the game. Can't wait for Alpha 2!! XD
1
Comments
However, as far as we've been told, every class will be able to have combat pets that can be acquired via the Animal Husbandry system and the Taming system. However these pets will be a horizontal power progression, rather than a vertical one. Even more information on that can be found here: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Combat_pets
Aye - the "fleshed-out" information will naturally be given to us later-on, in development. In the meantime, the wiki is quite succinct in letting us know that Summoners will be able to "shift" - or fill - roles. I imagine a good number of folks who want to focus on group support will be Summoners; It's quite handy to simply be able to call forth a companion that you can pre-determine to be a tank/healer/dps.
Summoner main slot: They bring a creature to the field that has effects, Hp, and role. Example being an iron golem that might draw aggro, and tank hard.
Summoner secondary slot: They get to summon the effects of a creature or weapon. Example being able to summon a Kraken tentacle to grab someone and pull them to you, or (what I'm hoping for Bladecaller) being able to summon floating swords that echo your main weapon swing for additional hits.
I want to have a pet for each basic role: Tank, DPS, Support
Customizeable "squads": Let me customize the type of "squad" I control by designing a pool of "concentration points" or whatever that you spend on maintaining permanent summons AND maintaining permanent buffs you can put on those summons. Let me pick between going "zerg mode" or focusing my power into a single strong pet. Let me choose between a swarm of meaty tank pets that just try to take agro from another swarm of beasties, create a single strong DPS pet to try to maneuver into position and maximize damage with, a handful of helpful support pets that make the rest of the party's life easier, or maybe do a little of all 3. Its a frontloaded decision space that allows Summoners to feel bigbrained for knowing what situation calls for the best "squad loadout."
In addition to permanent, maintained, controllable pets, let me summon brief, uncontrolled, AI driven pets: instead of giving the class conventional nuke spells or DoTs or whatever, I want to see temporary short lived pets that try to achieve that end. If I am playing a Beastmaster, I dont want to cast some "conjure bees" spell and watch a small bee swarm visual effect engulf my target while a damage over tome spell is applied; I want to literally create a swarm of bees as a tangible creature in the world and watch it rush at my target and start stinging the shit out of him, and he has the option to stop attacking me and start attacking the bees to try to swat them away!
Gameplay based around group management: I want to see very very short duration buffs the Summoner can place on his pets to reward him for managing his pets properly by keeping track of where they are and what they are doing and using a skill to enhance then at the right time. For example, I might get a brief duration, very powerful "damage mitigation" spell on a relatively high cooldown if I notice that my pet is about to get blown up by an attack. I can use the spell to improve his mitigation to where he can survive the attack while I reposition him. This rewards my attentiveness as to how "in danger" the pet is while an inattentive Summoner would have a dead pet on his hands and have to take the time to resummon. I also want to see good pet controls that allow me to control all of my pets, individual pets, and specific custom "groups" of pets, not that unlike managing units in a real time strategy game.
In fact, there's an old game called Sacrifice that was a third person RPG/RTS game that would honestly serve as really good inspiration for how to handle the Summoner class. I think the devs should check it out. Hell, EVERYONE should check it out, if only to see Tim Curry voicing a goofy god of air.
Here's a more detailed video about what kind of game it is.