Summoners and summons

Taiphee

This is a quick question:

If a summoner hits a mob from a distance and has his summons close to the mob, do the summons take aggro for the summoner or do mobs ignore the summons and move straight to the summoner?

Is it possible to have a ranged weapon that would hit a mob at a distance too far to aggro the mob?

Halae

I think that second question is less a summoner question and more of a ranged vs melee question in general. Based on the aggro mechanics that are present in most MMOs, aggro generation will be based on the following factors:
1. Damage to the enemy
2. Healing done to characters that the enemy is offensive towards
3. Skills that directly affect the aggro pool.

Since summoners do most of their damage through their summoned pet, they should have no issues keeping aggro on their summon, rather than on the summoner themself, even if they're attacking with a ranged weapon at the same time. Assuming you're not just leaving your pet to auto-attack the monster, you should be fine.
EDIT: grammar and clarity

tautau

@Halae is probably correct. That is how it worked in L2, which is a significant inspiration for AoC. The character doing the damage - the summon - draws the aggro. In L2 there was one type of advanced summon which parties sometimes used as the tank it pulled aggro so well.

Taiphee

Okay... Thanks guys

Dygz

Seems likely a Tank Summons will take aggro, rather than the Summoner.
And... I expect the Summoner will have Summons controls that help with that.

Mr_MaDrupalow

The Summoner will have three types of Summons (Trinity System), each type may affect the aggro differently.
And what also comes to effect is in what path you are specializing into ( Going for big, single summons or for small but many summons)

Because the purpose of a Summoner to mainly fight with his summons, I think aggro won't be a big issue after all.

Awe

Blablablatalk.... Still no real info, back to shadows, coming back in another 3 years xD

Spif

I'm more interested in how X/Summoner is going to work. Is Tank/Summoner going to be locked into a tank pet, or is it going to add a variety of possible summons like:

* DPS pet to help with solo leveling
* Heal pet for a duo with DPS
* Buff pet

Since Summoner is the "versatile class", I hope that each class has multiple summon options available, but limited through skill points

Mr_MaDrupalow

Spif wrote: »

I'm more interested in how X/Summoner is going to work. Is Tank/Summoner going to be locked into a tank pet, or is it going to add a variety of possible summons like:

* DPS pet to help with solo leveling
* Heal pet for a duo with DPS
* Buff pet

Since Summoner is the "versatile class", I hope that each class has multiple summon options available, but limited through skill points

The Summoner is a flexible class, there won't be a "Tank/Summoner nor a locked summon.
I don't think you will be able to compete with a Healer/DPS/Tank. But I may be wrong because


You always will have the flexebility to switch between many but small, one but big summon(s) and between the Trinity system. But you can specialize into one direction or stay hybrid. You can level the summons with the skillpoints. At the end you are going for Healing, Tanking, DPS, PvP (Summons can (obviously)CC aswell) or stay Hybridized.
Once you get to the secondary archetype, you further will be able to specialize. . Here it should be said, that there will be a "most efficient way" of specializing because of the second archetype. So as a Summoner+Cleric=Necromancer...go for Healing or Buffs/Debuffs

Edit : If you want

Spif

Maybe examples (where I'm just guessing) like this will explain better. If you pick Cleric/Fighter, you are going to get some better melee DPS options from the /Fighter part of your spec, while still being able to heal effectively. If you pick Cleric/Mage you are going to get some better ranged DPS options from the /Mage part of your spec, while still being able to heal effectively.

If you pick Cleric/Summoner, you get ??? from the /Summoner part. I'm saying that I'd rather the summon options you get from /Summoner not only be a heal/buff pet because you are a cleric. Let pretty much every base archetype have several choices from buff/debuff/CC/heal/DPS/tank pet through skill point specialization. This will setup X/Summoner to be a versatile choice for class 'X'

I'm making a rather large assumption that /Summoner is going to add pet options to each of the base archetypes. IE, Ranger/Summoner will play like WoW hunter with bow and pet. Short term pets and summon-like-procs might be what they're thinking for X/Summoner

Mr_MaDrupalow

I just realized you where going for X/Summoner while I was going for Summoner/X
I mean if we compare our texts in the end of the day, where trying to say the same thing.
When people state, like I did, that a Summoner is a Jack of all Trades, I'd love to be proven wrong in the future.
The Idea of a Summoner being able to actually hop into a main Role is very pleasing to me.
As a side node : I found out that you can specialize a Summoner in a way where you focus more on buffs and synergies than summons.
"Certain summoners may only be able to summon effects and/or temporary energies" - AoC Wiki

Tank/Summoner(1) Summoner/Tank(2)

As (1) your Role would be to do the traditional tanking, whilst your summons support you in different ways, like applying some small buffs on you or debuffs on the boss or just do additional damage and therefore generate threat. And if we extend that to a certain degree, where we open up the possibilites of specing into an evation tank, shield tank or control tank it once again shows the extreme diversity of the game mechanics.
#killmetabuilds

As (2) your Role would be to more concentrate on your summons, since it is stated that you can control them to a certain degree (luv it ). Ofc you would not just stand there afk and play one of your summons, if not just a "big daddy" one, but you would have to manage between yourself and them.
I would imagine, this will be the more difficult playstyle compared to (1), but more rewarding !

Aces_Are_Wild

I think I would come down to what summons type you got out ,if it’s a tank type it should hold agro on the summons and last longer in the fight because of its higher hp ,but if you are running a dps summons type I think the mop would come after you or your summons would die faster