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Synergy/Cost with using Combat Pets and Summoner Pets
Xenra
Member
Sorry if this is the wrong area to inquire this but I was curious how others would expect this situation to play out. So my goal is to make a necromancer summoner who specializes in the trade skill of animal husbandry to make.. monsters of sorts. Now if the summoner's strength/damage/utility comes from their pets what if I wanted to use combat pets as well, does the combat pet obtained from husbandry or even an auction also borrow power from your pets making them weaker? If not would it only borrow power from the summoner who is already utilizing summoned minions for combat. Either way I still like the general idea I have in mind but am curious if I want lets say a zombie bear combat pet out will it make my summoner pet zombies weak as paper?
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They said they want combat pets to be a horizontal power instead of a power increase, so most likely if you go for a combat pet you will trade off an ability tree for it but gain access to that combat pets ability tree, the bigger question is how will your stats affect a combat pets development as the breeder. If i had to guess you will need alchemy and lineage for pets stats and if they allow you to further change the pet, perhaps make it undead those stats will likely depend on your stats instead of lineage as i imagine they would incorporate that kind of mechanic as a learned ability of a certain class.
I like your line of thinking, @tautau ... keeping spoilers unrevealed until the game releases.
However, I would hope by at least Beta players can test the crossover between Necromancer summons, combat pets, and animal husbandry to some extent.
The OP has a great point. Choosing the Summoner class and specializing in Necromancer and animal husbandry should provide some unique benefit. As long as it's not over the top and everyone chooses it.
I'd imagine it would impact your summons to some degree since they are using your stats but I don't think it would be to the point where they are useless. I'm imagining something like a ~20-30% decrease in efficacy. Might also be dependent on what stats your combat pet and summon pet scale off of. If your combat pet is scaling off (and only stealing) your physical stats and you are using a summoned pet that is more of caster that scales off your mental stats, then you might not see much of an effect.
Really, i have no clue but i'm pretty confident that a combat pet wont make your skills or your summoned pets useless, just weaker.
My main interest is in if a battle pet will make three summons useless vs two + battle pet. It depends on what abilities they give battle pets vs summons I'd imagine. For example, you could just make an entity cap of 3 and hard limit people from having 4 entities and make everything scale accordingly. This way you could just functionally have no difference between a summoner who has 3 summons or 2 summons and a battle pet. Or you could preserve the entire strength of a three entity summon even though you have a battle pet and just make the battle pet 'penalty' that the caster itself is super weak. I dislike the latter only because it could lead to a noob trap (or stupid balance,) but it's definitely a valid approach I think.
But ultimately my concern is with the fact that they will possibly under power or over power summoner in a way that reduces class identity. You have to have a really clear understanding of what a summoner's role is relative to your combat system to prevent this and adding battle pets only serves to complicate the process. I really do wish whatever systems designer they get and whoever replaces Jeff luck on that one.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
mark: 42:18
The idea of combat pets vs summon pets...
We have a Summoner Archetype. And the Summoner Archetype does not have that portion of power taken away when they Summon their pet. That's part of their class kit. Their power is their Summons.
Setting that aside for the moment...
Combat pets (which can be acquired by any Archetype and this is essentially something that exists within your backpack), you cast the item to summon your pet. When it is summoned, it's not intended to be a vertical gain in power because when you make combat pets a vertical power gain? then it becomes a no choice solution: You must have a combat pet. If you want to play efficiently, you must have a combat pet.
And I wanted to steer clear of that because the way I wanted to approach combat pets was more of a horizontal power choice.
Meaning, depending on the kind of encounter you're facing... depending on the threat assessment you have... a combat pet might be relevant or it might not. One combat pet might be more relevant than another combat pet. And that's part of your gear acquisition, your item chase, to attain this more comprehensive selection of combat pets that you can have available to you and can be summoned in the event that you want to engage an encounter with a different aspect of your power curve.
Not vertical; but horizontal.
Combat pets borrow power directly from the Summoner.
The Summoner will be focused on using the Active Skills of the Zombie Bear.
We can expect the Zombie Bear might indirectly be weaker in some fashion, but no more weaker than a Mage's Active Skills when also using a combat pet.
So you would be implying that the pets as an extension of the summoner would then be weakened. As I haven't seen much detail on how a summoner plays I can only go from what I have experienced in other games. MMO wise only World of Warcraft, and Rift where I pictured possibly Rift being more closer being a micromanaged pet with a few mediocre spells you can toss to add damage as well. So I was curious if the pet and maybe spells the summoner used were all say reduced by 30% or just the summoner's self attacking ability. It will likely be a wait and see thing but then even if combat pets reduce summoner pets power, since I plan on playing the debuff/evil archtype of necromancer if I recall the summons might provide debuffs so overall as long as those aren't weakened(I don't know if it will be stat debuffs or say just dot like damage) it could be an interesting trade off. I hope as mentioned by another of possibilities it doesnt reduce your army's size. I really want a macabre horde.
If a Summoner's Summons is "weaker" due to the Summoner also using a combat pet - and that is an IF - the Summons won't be any weaker than a Mage or a Tank using a combat pet. And I doubt that a combat pet will cause a Mage or a Tank to be 30% weaker.
It's really the Summoner being weaker, rather than the Summons being weaker.
We'll have to see if a Necromancer is capable of creating a horde, even when a combat pet is not deployed.
Might be that Necromancers are able to Summon more than 3. We'll have to see.
Standard summoner's power : 3 summoner's pets + other spells + weapon = his power,
Summoner's power with combat pet : 3 summoner's pets + other spells + weapon + combat pet = his power.