Summoner wishlist

What are some ideas for summoner you wish to see?

I remember from other mmo summoner was unique with not just playing as your character but also micromanaging your "pet". It was hard to play but those who trained were then able to solo some bosses that other classes couldn't solo. That's what I'd like to see.

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Halae

willsummon wrote: »

or no pets while a powerful caster.

Now that one I'm expecting is just not in the cards.

I remember back in the City of Heroes days, there was the Mastermind class, which had six pets that it was less of a controlling factor and more like a manager to. One of the zaniest optimization challenges for CoH was making a mastermind that used fewer pets than the standard six. Or, even weirder, none at all.

This was, obviously, not intended. It's possible to not involve pets in your petmaster class, but empirical evidence shows that, unless the pet already doesn't matter to your output (like the ranger in guild wars 2) then it's going to totally and completely cripple your output, denying yourself options, effectiveness, and generally getting people to distrust that you're capable of performing, which makes grouping far harder.

I just don't think Intrepid's going to allow for a no-pet summoner.

willsummon

Halae wrote: »

willsummon wrote: »

or no pets while a powerful caster.

Now that one I'm expecting is just not in the cards.

I remember back in the City of Heroes days, there was the Mastermind class, which had six pets that it was less of a controlling factor and more like a manager to. One of the zaniest optimization challenges for CoH was making a mastermind that used fewer pets than the standard six. Or, even weirder, none at all.

This was, obviously, not intended. It's possible to not involve pets in your petmaster class, but empirical evidence shows that, unless the pet already doesn't matter to your output (like the ranger in guild wars 2) then it's going to totally and completely cripple your output, denying yourself options, effectiveness, and generally getting people to distrust that you're capable of performing, which makes grouping far harder.

I just don't think Intrepid's going to allow for a no-pet summoner.

There are many ways to approach a pet class.

I found the Necromancer in Age of Conan, with its pet point system to be the most flexible.

We do know that Intrepid would like to offer each Archetype two or more way in how to play said Archetype.

Also, from personal experience, there are raid situations and PVP situations where pets are more of a hinderance than a benefit.

My suggestion offers an option that keeps the Summoner viable in those situations.

Veeshan

Immortui wrote: »

Veeshan wrote: »

Summoner+Fighter should summon weapons and fling/hurl them at opponents and do physical dmg instead of magical :P

omg do you know fairytail manga by chance?
Erza being able to swap any armor and summon any weapon. Your comment really reminded me of her, wow.

Yeah I never really played rogue but after seeing bard preview how spellbook looked, my mind wondered about rogue having floating daggers and sending them for some special ranged attacks as well, now your comment about it being summoners work I'd love to see it

I have seen, it but i had more irelia from league when making the comment :P close/mid range fighter using summon (well floating blades)

Immortui

Sathrago wrote: »

Summoner should be the dedicated damage sustain class, through dots, pets, and debuffs at least in my mind.

Probably too extreme and wouldnt be what these augments from the secondary will be able to do, but ill just keep day dreaming until it gets shattered.

same, day dreaming about secondary augments

but good points

Immortui

Halae wrote: »

willsummon wrote: »

or no pets while a powerful caster.

I just don't think Intrepid's going to allow for a no-pet summoner.

I hope that's the case. I wish summoner himself will have spells, but to be viable he need to use summons, that's the whole point of the class.

Immortui

willsummon wrote: »

Halae wrote: »

willsummon wrote: »

or no pets while a powerful caster.

Also, from personal experience, there are raid situations and PVP situations where pets are more of a hinderance than a benefit.

My suggestion offers an option that keeps the Summoner viable in those situations.

I think in some cases summoner has to be more careful than other classes because his pet could make it more difficult to navigate some dungeons for example because it will accidentaly aggro some mobs. That said, I think that's why summoner is usually a harder class to play, because you have to manage your character and your pet as well, but if you train and master that class it should be rewarding making you potentionally stronger in PvE scenarios, where your pet can tank the dungeon.

Nesekme

i'm tored between the summoner that summons hords of summons or the one that has a one big summon but that would be a build thing hopefully. don't wanna see just a generic necromancer. maybe more or a cultist drawing circles and runes maybe to summon his creatures but it could be ambigues so it depends from the gear they have

some suggested summoner abilitys:

version 1) aoe spell where summoner summons a swarm over the area and those sirit wisp's or some other creature attaches on to people/creaures and hurt them and you need to attack them specifically other wise they will debuff don't disappear. the spirits could also siphon away heals that the person receives or some buff's onto him self and ofcorse hurting the person a bit. if you over kill with the damage on the spirit wisp the person receives the damage.

and on friendly's its in revers it takes some damages maybe or just takes debufs from people and killing it self while giving alight regen for the person.

version 2) there could be a version of this like an aura or a field droped on the ground that who ever enters it gets the spirit attacked too, whatever only while they in the field or get targeted by one and attacked out side of it but that could ear lots of cpu power.

i guess summoner could have something like that all his buffs work in simulacra way but it would eat lors of cpu. also maybe having number of more powerful summons that they could attach to people and direct there buffs heals more directly you can imagine them standing near a tank as an off tank or a healer and supplying extra help with what ever they are doing or just use summons as an squad of monster to send out as just a dps.

it would be cool if summons stey after summoner dies and continuing there task's as if discurage just rushing summoner down (oh lets kill him and everything just dispersal) maybe summoner would control his pets more directly after his deaths with possibility of resurrect if his pets finish the battle in victory with like a minit long spell, tbh don't wanna see obviously unlikable summoner where he hides one pet and revives constantly.

I also saw someone mentioning Gw spiritualist or gw2 necromancer scourge speck doping his spirits/sand shede it would be cool if summoner could summon several of those spirits like turrets or buffer debuffer. What ever they are on timer or on health.

Siege summons: after one or group preps it summoner or other person gets controll of the beast what ever version it is it could probably work as siege engines from castle battle in alpha one just a beast. it could use some materials or have a big cool down or decay.

i would hope that when you make summoner you could customise your summon but that may be too much for just one class to have entire new customisation system in char creator.

maybe pets exploding on death or on purpose where hp = dmg maybe

iccer

Personally, I never played these classes for the summons (weird huh).

I always just wanted to play a mage-like class, but not a mage, so I'd pick Warlock, Summoner, Necromancer, or something along those lines.

A Warlock, Necromancer, or whatever other name games use, focusing on dark magic, curses, death, blood magic, DoTs, suppression, etc. while able to sustain itself easily. If they don't want this class to be like that, then please make a new archetype, ty.

Sure, I'd like if we could maybe use some creatures as pets, maybe after we defeat them, we're able to resurrect them as our pet, or something similar.

Lodrig

I've been saying for a while now that Summoners need an archetypal resource system (like Momentum and Courage) to manage summoned minion counts AND any buffs or orders they give to them.

With no summons you have 100 'Willpower' or what ever it is called.
Each summoning consumes some of this willpower while the summon is allive and frees it up when it dies or is dispelled.
Current willpower level gives a bonus to summoning speed so getting that first summon up when a battle starts is fast and it then slows down.
Their are several types of summons available, a Tanky one, a DPS one, a ranged one, and a cheap generic one at minimum. The actual theme may change based on secondary archetype and abilities, damage types etc may change but the pattern remain.
Each summon type consumes a different base amount of Willpower, but this can be modified by skills in the Summoner skill tree.
For each summon type their is a skill to cheapen its cost, boost its power while raising cost and to add special procs or abilities the summon will use automatically.
As with all skill trees you cant get everything so specializing what your summon can do is required
In battle you have flexibility as to what summons to summon and how many commands to give. 2 Tanky minnions might be better in one situation, while 5 cheap generics might be better at other times
Commands are the 'support spells' of the Summoner and are Willpower consuming perment until dispelled AoE's or flags placed on the ground that cause all nearby summons to follow the command, think of these as basic attack and defence RTS orders, they work without needing to select individual summons and don't care about the number of summons.
Commands may also buff the summons that are obeying them, these buffs are gained with passive nodes on the skill tree and allow a summoner to specialize as a 'general' who puts more time into directing summons vs just letting the AI attack as it wishes.
Commands are optional playstyle and can pair equally well with a small number of strong summons or a large number of weak ones.
Forgoing Commands means more willpower available for Summons to balance the lack of coordination and buffing. Again this is a battle to battle and even moment to moment choice the summoner must make.

Lodrig

Note that Summoner primary characters would get all of that flexibility of multiple summons. But asecondary archetype summoner is probably gonna give 1 'pet' type minion with limited control options, generally just atuto attack your current target or the last thing you hit with a specific ability.

Dripyula

Whatever the summoner class will be... I hope it features at least 4 or 5 art & theme directions with respective, different summons.
Like
° Necromancy
° Elementalism
° Demonology
° Celestials
° Faeish

And if you go deep into either one of these skilltree directions, you can summon stronger beings of those different planes.
Summoner is such a broad term.
And I'm really done with asking myself what I wanna see in a game in which I cannot even predict anything and which feels like its release might even be still 2 years away at least.

Ergophobic

My thoughts are mostly this:

Dripyula wrote: »

Whatever the summoner class will be... I hope it features at least 4 or 5 art & theme directions with respective, different summons.
Like
° Necromancy
° Elementalism
° Demonology
° Celestials
° Faeish

And if you go deep into either one of these skilltree directions, you can summon stronger beings of those different planes.

With some of this:

iccer wrote: »

I always just wanted to play a mage-like class, but not a mage, so I'd pick Warlock, Summoner, Necromancer, or something along those lines.

I could envision something like the spellmancer using more dots, brood warden using life drain as a tanking mechanic, etc. with some classes leaning into the pets more than others.

Yoh

I'm in it for the story. I want summons with personality and character, as well as quests.

Mechanics I am more partial to Final Fantasy 11 (and 10), with the single big honking summons. But I do also enjoy the hordes of chaff that degrade over time, that you have to constantly replace. It should depend on the type of summoner you are. Ie, what archetype combination.

Different strokes for different blokes.

Nesekme

Lodrig wrote: »

I've been saying for a while now that Summoners need an archetypal resource system (like Momentum and Courage) to manage summoned minion counts AND any buffs or orders they give to them.

[*] Commands are the 'support spells' of the Summoner and are Willpower consuming perment until dispelled AoE's or flags placed on the ground that cause all nearby summons to follow the command, think of these as basic attack and defence RTS orders, they work without needing to select individual summons and don't care about the number of summons.
[*] Commands may also buff the summons that are obeying them, these buffs are gained with passive nodes on the skill tree and allow a summoner to specialize as a 'general' who puts more time into directing summons vs just letting the AI attack as it wishes.
[*] Commands are optional playstyle and can pair equally well with a small number of strong summons or a large number of weak ones.
[*] Forgoing Commands means more willpower available for Summons to balance the lack of coordination and buffing. Again this is a battle to battle and even moment to moment choice the summoner must make.
[/list]

those commands could be between in an area or on specific person for the control of the summons

Nesekme

Yoh wrote: »

I'm in it for the story. I want summons with personality and character, as well as quests.

Mechanics I am more partial to Final Fantasy 11 (and 10), with the single big honking summons. But I do also enjoy the hordes of chaff that degrade over time, that you have to constantly replace. It should depend on the type of summoner you are. Ie, what archetype combination.

Different strokes for different blokes.

yeah would like some class specific quest that can tell us what the summoner is all about in this world. Would love to have race specific quests to see how eath race summener is are there ones that sacrifice for power or others more druidic as well but im ok with one generic quest like so the game could come out

nanfoodle

Was rewatching the stream on the questing
/ commissions. Looked like Shaman Minitors. Steven called NPC mobs Summoner. Was cool seeing all the animal pets. There was a number of different kinds. Would be awesome of you could somehow make a summons of NPC beasts in the wild you come across.

Pendragxn

I envision a hybrid of a rogue and summoner, similar to the Shadow Monarch class from Solo Levelling , called the Shadow Lord. This class combines the physical prowess of a rogue with the ability to summon shadow entities to fight alongside them. These shadows are the souls or vessels of enemies the Shadow Lord has defeated, allowing them to build an army of shadow minions. The Shadow Lord can summon multiple entities, each customizable with gear, elemental attributes, or status effects. This blend of agile combat and powerful summoning creates a versatile character, able to both fight directly and command a personalised shadow army.

---

Shadow Lord Class - Hybrid Rogue/Summoner:

The Shadow Lord is a master of stealth, agility, and summoning dark entities from the void of shadows. Combining the nimble and precise combat abilities of a rogue with the overwhelming power of commanding an army, the Shadow Lord harnesses the souls of defeated enemies, bending them to their will as shadow vessels.

Core Concept:

A Shadow Lord is a rogue capable of both melee combat and summoning a legion of shadows. These shadows are formed from the souls of fallen foes, allowing the Shadow Lord to build and customize a personal army. Each summoned shadow can be outfitted with gear, weapons, or enhanced with elemental attributes and status effects, making the army as dynamic as the Shadow Lord's own fighting style.

Combat Abilities:

Stealth & Speed: As a rogue, the Shadow Lord excels in evasion and critical strikes. Quick and elusive, they can ambush enemies, dealing massive burst damage, and then disappear into the shadows to avoid retaliation.

Shadow Manipulation: The Shadow Lord can manipulate the essence of shadows, granting them the ability to control the battlefield. Shadows act as both weapons and shields, creating a highly versatile playstyle.

Summoning Shadows: After defeating enemies, the Shadow Lord has the power to claim their souls, transforming them into shadow entities. These entities can be summoned into battle, acting as minions that follow the Shadow Lord’s commands. Each shadow retains the basic fighting style of the original creature but can be further customized or enhanced.

Summoning and Customisation
Shadow Vessels: Each shadow the Lord summons is bound to them after the death of its original form. The strength, type, and attributes of the shadow depend on the original creature, but they can be upgraded by equipping them with weapons, armor, or items found throughout the game.

Customisable Minions:
- The Shadow Lord can modify their shadow army by:
- Changing elemental attributes (e.g., infusing fire, ice, lightning, or poison into their attacks).
- Applying status effects such as paralysis, slow, or fear to enhance crowd control.
- Assigning roles such as tanks, DPS, or support, giving them specific commands to complement the Lord's combat.

Soul Absorption & Power Scaling: The more powerful the foe defeated, the stronger the shadow. Defeating elite enemies or bosses grants the Shadow Lord access to powerful shadow vessels, allowing them to summon these entities in future battles.

Signature Abilities:

Shadow Infusion: The Shadow Lord can merge with their shadows, amplifying their physical abilities, speed, and strength for a limited time. This infusion also grants additional evasive and defensive capabilities.

Shadow Army: At higher levels, the Shadow Lord can summon entire squads of shadows to overwhelm their enemies, each fulfilling a specific tactical role. They can call on a range of 5 to 10 shadows simultaneously, or even more with advanced skills.

Dark Resurrection: The Shadow Lord can momentarily resurrect shadows in the heat of battle, pulling defeated minions back from the void for a final attack or defense.

Shadow Warp: Harnessing their connection to the shadows, the Lord can teleport short distances by stepping into one shadow and emerging from another. This makes them difficult to track or pin down in combat.

Playstyle:

The Shadow Lord is designed to be a flexible fighter, excelling in both one-on-one combat and larger skirmishes. They balance their own stealth and offensive capabilities with the use of summoned shadows to flank, distract, or overwhelm opponents. The ability to customize their shadows allows for varied strategies, adapting to different enemy types or challenges on the fly.

Role in Teams:

In a group, the Shadow Lord can fill multiple roles:

Damage Dealer: Utilizing high burst damage, sneak attacks, and a swarm of shadows to dismantle enemy formations.

Support & Control: Using their shadows to provide crowd control, status effects, and debuffs, while applying pressure from multiple fronts.

Summoner/Tactician: With a small army of shadows at their disposal, the Shadow Lord can command their minions to guard allies, control zones, or focus on specific high-priority targets.

---

The Shadow Lord is a versatile and formidable class, perfect for those who want the agility and cunning of a rogue, combined with the overwhelming might of a summoner.

Again this is just my opinion but think it’s pretty cool, and I can only hope for the best for this class. If anyone hasn’t read the solo levelling books I highly recommend you buy them they’re pretty good 👍🏼

Lodrig

Interesting concept but it feels like its giving too many summons for a secondary.
My thought is that ShadowLord is more like a Ninja with shadow clone Jitsu, they make copies of themself which don't deal damage and which can be used in a shell game to distract from their own actual movements and intended attacks.

I have some concepts for the Summoner derived classes I'll post here.

Summoner/Bard Enchanter
Enchanter focuses on providing basic summons which can then be given powerful single target buffs to specialize them for the tactical situation at hand, team mates can also be the target of these buffs and summons skipped all together.
Summoner/Cleric Necromancer
Necromancers summon undead themed minions which are unique for their immunity to most mind effecting debuffs, stuns, taunts and other mindeffecting crowdcontrol effects, the Necromaner also brings powerfull targeted and AoE lifedrain effects which sustain himself, his summons and team mates
Summoner/Fighter Wild Blade
Summoning phantasmal weapons and shields, each is a projection of an item the Wild Blade has equipped and carry their weapon skills and abilities into battle allowing them to be a practical one man army. The weapons lack player collision and are imune to elemental damage, making them highly effective against mages.
Summoner/Mage Spellmancer
Spellmancer summons elemental themed minions which deal elemental damage and can use their minions as the location for creating AoE spell effects by dispelling the minion in a burst of magical energy. Minions felled in battle likewise burst making them all effectivly walking bombs sent at the enemy ranks.
Summoner/Ranger Beastmaster
Beastmasters summon exotic animal themed summons which are faster and more agile then standard summons. The Beastmaster can mark an individual oponents as the prey of his hoard and direct his swarm to attack them relentlessly.
Summoner/Rogue Shadowmancer
Shadowmancer's summon etherial and ghostly aparitions which have no collision and evade most barriers and snares. As well he Shadowmancer can disquise themselves as a similar aparition nigh indistinquishable from one of their summons thus allowing them to join in combat, or escape at lower risk while presenting their enemy with a deadly shell game.
Summoner/Summoner Conjurer
Specializing in maixizing the quantity and power of summons the Conjurer is also the fastest summoner able to uniquely summon multiple entities with a single casting to both present a threat fast but also rapidly replace combat losses.
Summoner/Tank Brood Warden (Golemancer)
The Brood Warden summons an aray of durable Golems ranging fom stone to blood to metal, with a command these golems can morph into walls, cages, spikes and other obstacles to block or trap oponents though they remain vulnorable to attack in this state. Likewise they can be commanded to morph back at any time to re-engage oponents in direct combat.

Aszkalon

Lodrig wrote: »

I have some concepts for the Summoner derived classes I'll post here.

[*] Summoner/Bard Enchanter
Enchanter focuses on providing basic summons which can then be given powerful single target buffs to specialize them for the tactical situation at hand, team mates can also be the target of these buffs and summons skipped all together.

I like this Idea. A Summoner which can specifically buff his own Summons in certain ways that other Summoners can't who don't have a "Bard" Second-Archetype.

Lodrig wrote: »

[*] Summoner/Cleric Necromancer
Necromancers summon undead themed minions which are unique for their immunity to most mind effecting debuffs, stuns, taunts and other mindeffecting crowdcontrol effects, the Necromaner also brings powerfull targeted and AoE lifedrain effects which sustain himself, his summons and team mates

Oh Yes Please. This would feel AWESOME !!

Kinda a bit like a Warlock in WoW. Doing some Life-Drain while swarming my Enemies with a few Summons i can hopefully choose what for Attributes and Traits they have.

Lodrig wrote: »

[*] Summoner/Fighter Wild Blade
Summoning phantasmal weapons and shields, each is a projection of an item the Wild Blade has equipped and carry their weapon skills and abilities into battle allowing them to be a practical one man army. The weapons lack player collision and are imune to elemental damage, making them highly effective against mages.

Whenever i read about this specific Archetype-Combo,

so that Someone can summon flying Weapons -> i am always reminded of a certain Character from Fate Stay Night, Fate Zero - and in general the Type Moon Fate Series.

Lodrig wrote: »

[*] Summoner/Mage Spellmancer
Spellmancer summons elemental themed minions which deal elemental damage and can use their minions as the location for creating AoE spell effects by dispelling the minion in a burst of magical energy. Minions felled in battle likewise burst making them all effectivly walking bombs sent at the enemy ranks.

I imagine this Combination a bit like a Shaman from WoW. You summon Elementals - or at least Elemental-like Beings which - well - deal Elemental kind of Attacks.

Lodrig wrote: »

[*] Summoner/Ranger Beastmaster
Beastmasters summon exotic animal themed summons which are faster and more agile then standard summons. The Beastmaster can mark an individual oponents as the prey of his hoard and direct his swarm to attack them relentlessly.

Beastmaster like the Ranger-Type in WoW again, from my Imagination. I think if done/designed right,

this would look IMMENSELY cool. Imagine a tiny Stampede of maybe a Bear, a Deer, two Wolves, maybe some Birds and Rabbits (lol) swarming a single Player as if Nature itself has a Hateboner on the poor Player who is about to get pecked, bitten, stomped and clawed at.

Lodrig wrote: »

[*] Summoner/Rogue Shadowmancer
Shadowmancer's summon etherial and ghostly aparitions which have no collision and evade most barriers and snares. As well he Shadowmancer can disquise themselves as a similar aparition nigh indistinquishable from one of their summons thus allowing them to join in combat, or escape at lower risk while presenting their enemy with a deadly shell game.

Once more and again,

if done and designed RIGHT - > this could look immeeenseeely cool.
The sheer Potential for cool, mysterious - or outright Love-Craftian or otherwise kind of Horror-Creature kind of Summons would be incredible.

Like a Death (Alb?Albae?) Wraith(?) in DnD. A Monster looking mostly like a somewhat Humanoid Silhouette but is also mostly just a spooky, creepy Shadow with two bright-glowing Dots where a Person's Eyes would be -> out for nothing but to destroy the Life of whatever poor Soul might be it's Target.

( These things are so scary and creepy somehow. )

Lodrig wrote: »

[*] Summoner/Summoner Conjurer
Specializing in maixizing the quantity and power of summons the Conjurer is also the fastest summoner able to uniquely summon multiple entities with a single casting to both present a threat fast but also rapidly replace combat losses.

Hmmmmm. I think when i remember correctly -> Sir Steven and his mighty Crew said that Three Summons will stay the Maximum for a Summoner, right ?

While i would like that a "Summoner-Summoner" could have more -> maybe we should just stick with the quicker, faster Summoning Time.

It would be easier to balance and also somewhat easier on the Frames if the Number of Three Summons is not exceeded. After all, there will be Battles in the finished Game with like 500 People against 500 People and God who knows how many People from these Armies will be Summoners.

Lodrig wrote: »

[*] Summoner/Tank Brood Warden (Golemancer)
The Brood Warden summons an aray of durable Golems ranging fom stone to blood to metal, with a command these golems can morph into walls, cages, spikes and other obstacles to block or trap oponents though they remain vulnorable to attack in this state. Likewise they can be commanded to morph back at any time to re-engage oponents in direct combat.

Even if i want to play my Summoner as a Necromancer only - > i clearly like THIS take of yours the most.

Different Types of Golems with different Qualities and Abilities where they could be incredibly useful depending on the Situation and their Type ? Hell Yes.

MORPHING into Cages, Walls, Spikes - > this Idea may seem simple, but is actually very brilliant. Genius even.

koltovince

Typically a summoner classes I have seen go down the route were either they have a massive amount of pets and their pets do their damage, or the summoning is more flavor to the summoners abilities and they do the damage with the visual aesthetic being the summer being a conduit to the summons to deal damage.

Either way for Ashes I hope the special nature of Summoner is reflected in their unique way to deal with the "trinity" roles. Summoner is the one class that can DPS, Tank, and Heal via their summons and I hope their summons can so these roles well enough were they can be a similar comparison to Cleric vs Bard for support. What I really hope wont happen is say a tank pet will just operate like the voidwalker in WoW were it technically tanks but not really and not well.

I also hope Summoner is the prime example of how the augmentation system works. With all three roles available to them, their augmentation choice defines the path they walk. I would hope the Shadowblade summoner operates in a different playstyle than the wildblade summoner. Whether it be how they summon or the utility they bring with their summons.

Last hope on the wishlist is to keep even a semblance of the past ideas Steven said for Summoners. To list off a few; defeated bosses could possibly become summon skins, multiple summoners can summon a siege summon that packs a punch, augments change the appearance of a summon, and more. Imagine playing a summoner and seeing a cool animal or skeleton wandering about and learn you COULD summon that NPC if you follow X method? Would add so much to the true endgame that is fashion.

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