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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.
Comments
I don’t want a Summoner/Tank to main tank in the end game. I want to see them be viable off tanks in the end game. Tanking trash mobs in a boss fight or even strong elites. Or possibly being able to taunt the main boss and use a big cool down to absorb damage so the main tank can save their cool downs etc.
I mean a summoner wont be but the summons could ^^
Based on their “no dps meter” philosophy I don’t think there will be a culture of “why aren’t you playing this spec”
On the first page, I already replied to your OP with regard to off-tanking.
Shoot my bad 💀
I can definitely see an augment path for what you’re talking about. However, like I don’t want to see summoners outshine the main archetypes in their roles just a viable alternative or the ability to share the duties in certain situations. Healing focuses or dps focused summoners will always have a place. Helping healers is smart and efficient and dps is always needed. It’s the tank focused summoners that have traditionally been capped on what they can do in other mmos. Just hoping for something other than the level boosting character
Gonna be hard to receive bard buffs if you can only hear the words "Summoners are the best class"...
Or maybe you don't need any buffs because summoners are so good?
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
summoners summon summons to buff sommoners who then buff summons
Its quite simple
You would only need a quote if the information was hard to find. If you watch the videos on the official youtube channel you can find this information eventually though. Said right out of the developers mouths. xD
I like watching them specifically because of things like this that clear up misinformation. There is a difference between a hybrid class and a class that can switch to do 1 role at a time though. It probably won't have the hybrid tax like most other games apply to them because summoners are not a hybrid Archetype.
By logic you can assume they will be able to do their roles as well as the original counter parts. They just won't play anything close to the same due to control differences and the fact that they will be playing to Augments instead of base skills. Since the base skills will be drastically different.
U.S. East
Now I’m going to have to go find some of the episodes you are talking about! Do you remember any time frame reference off hand? To help narrow it down?
And this is why summoners are great ^^
What you interpreted may not be what was actually said.
If you know the quote, it should be easy enough for you to share it.
Actually, that is not the correct logic at all. Jack-of-all-trades, master of none.
Decent at tanking is not the same thing as being main tank.
Hybrid classes that have the hybrid tax tend to not be selected in the highest difficulty content as it's better to just take a class that does their 1 job really well. Hybrids that can do more than one role at a time without a tax are overpowered (until they get nerfed).
Classes that can do more than one role, but only one at a time is the way to go as they provide competitive alternative gameplay styles to fill the role. This is really the best way to build a hybrid.
They aren't a jack of all trades class. That eludes to them being a hybrid archetype which they aren't. The specific series where it was said was in the developer updates. It's not currently known what their abilities are on the base class, but augments will change their abilities more than any other class in the game.
The concept is unique and hasn't really been done before in an MMO. So I can't compare it to existing summoner classes in other MMOs.
They aren't going to play like a class who can do multiple things at once. They might be able to summon different role summons at the same time, but the secondary class will most likely dictate what class those summons are. How each class accomplishes this may differ greatly depending on the summoners secondary Archetypes. I'd imagine there will be classes who either swarm you with weak summons and classes who have summons equivalent to another adventurer in power.
This seems like the most misunderstood class right now. It might be due to the fact it's not in a presentable state yet though.
It's not important enough for me to care whether no one believes me or not. However, I'm going to laugh at everyone who doesn't when it turns out I'm right when they reveal all of the information on the class. xD
U.S. East
Heck yeah. Well said. I feel the same way 😎👊
"The way that Summoning works is, players have active abilities as a Summoner to Summon a particular type of Summon. And those types of Summons that you can Summon will be adherent to the trinity class system, so you will have a more tank oriented type Summon available to you, as well as a more support oriented type Summon and a dps type Summon. So, you kind of want to choose which one you're going to use at any given encounter based on the necessity of the encounter."
---Steven
Being able to call forth Summons adherent to the trinity class system is jack-of-all trades. It is also indicative of a hybrid class. Hybrid: something that is of mixed origin or composition.
What you mean by hybrid, I don't know.
I'm pretty sure you are correct that they aren't going to play like a class that can do multiple things at once, as far as, Summoners will have to choose which trinity type is going to be Summoned. Steven says "which one" rather than indicating multiple types could be Summoned at the same type, therefore, it is unlikely that Summoners will be able to Summon different role Summons at the same time.
There will be some classes that Summon a swarm and some classes that will be limited to one powerful Summon.
I am not aware of Steven suggesting that a Summon can be as powerful as player character (Adventurer), indeed, "as powerful as a Tank, Cleric or Mage player character" requires a dev quote to be believed.
So far, that seems to be just an exaggeration you are adding on your own.
I think the Bard is the most misunderstood archetype so far. We have the least information about that archetype, I think. Summoner is a good runner up for least info. Sure.
I also would need a recent dev quote for "It's not currently known what their abilities are on the base class, but augments will change their abilities more than any other class in the game."
Again, I think you are exaggerating what has actually been said about Summoner augments.
What we know as of July 2020:
"If you were to choose Mage as your secondary archetype, to create your class, you would have access to Mage augments. There's going to be 4 schools of augmentations for each archetype."
---Steven
To bring that back around to the OP...
A Summoner with a tank Summons should be able to off-tank. A Brood Warden should be able to off-tank even better.
But, a Brood Warden should not be able to tank as well as even a Keeper. And definitely not as well as a Guardian.
Definitely. A summoner should not outperform a primary role in end game content but should be able to do a lot of content as a viable alternative to the primary roles in different situations.
Why would anyone want to raid in a guild that is using a summoner as an off tank in top end content?
If my guild is not able to use the proper class for the task, then we aren't attempting that task. I am not going to waste 40 peoples time trying to do something with sub-optimal classes, and I wouldn't waste my time with a guild that would think this is an ok thing to do.
This reasoning is why the Summoner is definitely not going to be a hybrid class. It is more probable that they will actually have multiple build possibilities for every role. It's more likely that they can be the primary tank at the cost of damage in their build. Than that they won't be able to Primary tank at all.
We'll see when we see the class played in beta.
U.S. East
I can absolutely see summoners being able to be tanks, healers or DPS in group content, and DPS with regards to raid content.
I would actually be somewhat surprised if this didn't end up being the case.
Raids are different though. You waste 90 seconds on a raid in Ashes and that is actually a waste of a full hour when you take in to consideration the 40 people present. A 3 hour raid night is actually 120 hours - or the equivlent of one person working a full time job for three weeks. Running a raid is a responsibility - of peoples time more than anything - and needs to be managed well in order to not waste what really is a fairly large amount of time.
This is why if a given class is 5% better at a task, you take that class over any other. The time lost is always multiplied by 40 in Ashes, so you don't want to lose any time.
Anything less is irresponsible.
Ignoring the fact that 5% in terms of a raids tank is actually very significant, if that 5% causes even a 90 second delay, when taking all 40 people in to account that is a 1 hour delay.
5% (which is a random number I threw in to illustrate how small of a difference should be taken in to account by a responsibly managed guild) would cause more than 90 seconds worth of delays on most raid evenings - if we are talking about a tank. On some content, that sub-par tank (even if only by 5%) could well waste 90 minutes of the raids time. This means it is now wasting 60 hours worth of combined player time, and that is outright unacceptable in my mind - considering it is such a simple thing to bring the optimal class.
Any raid that compromises on a tank is going to waste time for everyone present, and this is irresponsible as far as I am concerned.
You don't need a combat tracker to see this.
You would build the raid to function around the tank. It's been said before summoner can fit support role or dps role. Not sure how accurate the info is because summoner remains an enigma.
The summoner might have summon armour ability like sorc in ESO or have a tank summon like Dark Templar in Age of Conan. I've used a range of classes to tank and have never been asked if I can do anything except tank.
I don't get where you claim the 5% drop is? The tank class has threat on all abilities last I saw so dps is not a high priority for tanks. You could build an evasion tank build and add summoner on top and I believe the class would be a beast of a tank.
I didn't claim this.
I said that if a class is 5% better at tanking than other classes, top end guilds will use that better class.
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