Summoners; what is the goal of this archetype?

Have the devs given an idea on what the core design principle is behind the summoner is? Based on information available from the wiki and interviews, it seems like they want it to be the jack of all trades class that can fill in for more specialized classes, comparable to how a world of warcraft druid can essentially fulfill every role (ranged dps, melee dps, tanking, and healing), but how far do the developers intend to allow summoners to go in fulfilling these roles?

For example, suppose I had a summoner primary and became a Brood Warden (tank secondary) and focused all my skill points and gear and whatever other moving parts I have on augmenting my tanky summon to make it the best I possibly could. Can I replace a tank primary in high end raids? If a percentage were to be put to it, where 100% means I can fully replace a class in all circumstances, 50% means I can fulfill the role in "casual" content but not in any "hardcore," "difficult," or "serious" content, and 0% means I lack the basic tools to possibly fulfill a role in the trinity system at all (trying to be a healer, but lacking any heal spells whatsoever for example), roughly what percentage of the trinity roles can a default summoner fulfill? What about a summoner that tries to specialize?

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daveywavey

Goal: To have fun!

krakazilla

well out of a balancing perspective a summoner wont be able to fullfill a roll 100%. My guess ist 50% and with the right class combination maybe 75%

maouw

This might be part of the reason why Summoner is the last class they want to tackle, after all the others are done?

I've seem some people requesting a one man army so they can solo raids. I rather dislike the suggestion.

Nagash

I don't know about other summoners but I know what im going to do

ariatras

I would hope a jack of all trades type deal. Giving up this utility for hyper specialisation in either dps, tank, or healer.

Honshu

ariatras wrote: »

I would hope a jack of all trades type deal. Giving up this utility for hyper specialisation in either dps, tank, or healer.

The devil's going to be in the details. Going back to my World of Warcraft Druid comparison, there were absolutely situations where Tank Druids were desireable over tank Warriors, healing Druids were desireable over healing Priests, etc. I just find it theoretically difficult because pet classes are also notoriously "clunky," because interfacing through a pet system always makes things a touch more awkward. So, unless you're really careful, you're just going to have a class that tries to be other classes, except very badly.

AntVictus

Depends, they're supposed to be able to do everything. But we shall see.

Bandrailian

I would argue that summoners fit into the trinity as a support type class. Where a summoner would shine wouldn't be in replacing a class but in providing some extra utility throughout various scenarios by being able to change their 'role' to support what the party needs at the time. Ultimately it would be the decisions of the summoner that reflect the effectiveness they would have at each role. It's the whole tall vs wide thing they keep mentioning, which by default summoners are designed to be a "wider" version of the other classes. They can indeed specialize, but they'll never be as effective as the original.

Number of summons is a primary consideration. If you choose the option to only have a single more powerful summon it may be an effective alternative to a tank, however it comes at the cost of your role variability in order for it to keep up with a character that's only focused on tanking.
Since summoners can have up to three summons I don't think it's realistic to expect that a single summon can replace a tank character in these cases. That being said, if you used all three summons as tank types, in certain scenarios that may be more effective than a single tank character. Maybe they won't hold up against a powerful boss as well, but with a large group of mobs they may succeed at controlling the aggro so damage doesn't stack all on one single tank or even worse: party members that it shouldn't. Just don't mention those poor healers who suddenly have extra bodies to heal and everything sounds great!

Since summoner abilities are cast through their summons, the abilities chosen by each summoner also affects which roles they are more effective at supporting. It provides balance so that it's not up to three extra characters suddenly appearing, but one character with more presence around the entire battle. Augments would further affect these skills and not necessarily the summons themselves (that's what your passives would probably be for). As such, you may expect your tank augmented summon's skills to do things like increase their defense temporarily or generate more aggro. Augmentation in this case makes your summons more effective at certain roles, but it may also require a heavier skill point investment just in order to do what a common tank player can do. They'd probably be a better tank than the other tank secondary classes, but the designers have said that the tank secondary classes are not designed to play as primary tanks.

tl;dr: The strength of summoners is in their adaptability as a support class. They will never be as good at a specific role as the other classes, but they can be effective in a wider variety of situations.

Hartwell

My guess is that they'll be able to rank up abilities that match each role in the game. An archetype such as the tank might need to specialize in active tanking via CC, passive tanking via damage mitigation, and evasion. A summoner on the other hand might be able to specialize into everything, but they might not be able to specialize into one thing entirely. They might actually need to choose something that is outside a single role to progress down a path of abilities.

Atama

Summoner is the archetype for people who can’t make friends, so they make friends,

Sholer

Atama wrote: »

Summoner is the archetype for people who can’t make friends, so they make friends,

Tyranthraxus

Atama wrote: »

Summoner is the archetype for people who can’t make friends, so they make friends,

I know, right?

How many people do you think would have come for Doctor Frankenstein, if only he had a Facebook page, with which to put his experiments into context?

Um.... Hello? Recycling psychotic killers' brains by putting them into ever-useful useful flesh golems' heads? "Uh.... Yes, please!".

Sathrago

Prot tip for you 5e dnd players. Unseen servant has a hitbox and you can have up to 6 of them at a time if you spend time ritual casting for an hour. Have them stand around you as literal body shields that no one can see when they attempt to attack you.

You're welcome.

Sum12hate

The ultimate support class for tactical players

Dreoh

I'm imagining it's the equivalent of a WoW druid, except your "shapeshift" is your summon choice

IE: Summon your tank summons for tanking (Bear form), summon your healing summon for healing (Tree form)

Honshu

Dreoh wrote: »

I only played Hibernia so I couldn't give direct experience, but for those who've played Dark Age of Camelot, there's kind of a comparison that can be made to the Midgard Bonedancer class. It had a similar level of customization among its pets. Basically, that class had a "commander" pet that you directly controlled, and then three additional pets you could summon that all followed their cues off of the commander pet. The sub-pets came in a variety of flavors (dps, heal/support, melee). Plus, the Bonedancer had its own spells that let it be annoying in its own right. So hey, there's definitely precedence to the idea they're shooting for here.

It's gunna be a long year waiting for more progress to be made on it

Damokles

I always imagine Summoners to be some kind of crowd controll, magic dps.
Summon walls, Summon elementals, Summon weapons, Summon Tornados/earthquakes/firequakes etc.

Ganknasty

I just want a 'Red Swarming Death' for my Necro, please and thanks.

insomnia

For the people who like to have summons, companions.

LieutenantToast

How a summoner best fits into a balanced party and what skills make the most sense for those purposes will definitely be something we look for your feedback on as we dive into upcoming testing that involves that archetype

In the meantime, would love to hear more on what summoner aspects you all have enjoyed or disliked previously!

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