Summon Overhaul Rough Concept

Hi all, this is just a rough concept of what a minor overhaul to all summoned pets from the magic trees could look like (Naturally, the bug that keeps combat pets from leveling properly would be fixed). To save forum space, all of them will be posted here underneath their own spoiler tabs.

Spoiler: Phoenix

• Fireball attack replaced with Sunbeam. Deals Sun damage instead of Fire damage.
• Passive bonus damage against Undead.
• Passive chance to revive itself. Chance is based off of Summon level
• Specialization further increases health, damage, and overall resistance. It also adds a chance for the Fire Elemental's attacks to lower its targets Sun Resistance with its attacks by an amount dependent on your Specialization level.
• Increased health gain from 2-3 per level, to 4-5.

Spoiler: Earth Elemental

• Instead of dealing Physical damage, now inflicts Earth/Physical piercing damage instead.
• Passive chance to attempt to root target, with a cooldown. Chance is based on level.
• Passive chance to cast Earthquake, with a cooldown. Chance is based on level.
• Specialization further increases health, damage, aggro, and resistance. Additionally, the Earth Elemental has a chance to cast a buff on its summoner to increase their Earth attunement by an amount based on their Specialization level.
• Increased Damage Resistance compared to other summons.
• Health gained from level from 2-3 to 7-8

Spoiler: Water Elemental

• Healing now scales with summon level.
• Passive chance to automatically cast Douse on itself or its Summoner
• Attacks now inflict slow on their target, slow intensity is based on summon level.
• Specialization further increases health, damage, healing, and damage resistance. Also adds a chance for the Water Elemental to apply a buff to its summoner that increases their Water attunement. are based on Specialization level.
• Increased Health gained from 2-3 to 4-5.

Spoiler: Ice Elemental

• Attacks now inflict Half Physical/Half Water Damage
• Chance for attacks inflict slow on target. Intensity based on summon level.
• Chance to cast Ice Field. Effectiveness based on summon level.
• Specialization further increases health, damage, resistance, and aggro. Additionally it adds a chance for the Ice Elemental's attack to debuff its target's Water attunement based on Specialization level.
• Increased Damage Resistance compared to other summons.
• Increased health gained from 2-3 to 7-8.

Spoiler: Will o Wisp

• Passively enters stealth when not in combat. Stealth effectiveness based on summon level.
• Damage Resistance debuff scales with level.
• Confusion debuff duration scales with level.
• Specialization further increases health, resistance, and effect duration. Additionally it adds a chance for the Wisp to buff it's Summoner's Moon attunement based on Specialization level.
• Increased health gained from 1 to 3.

Spoiler: Air Elemental

• Passive chance to cast Gust on targets within a certain distance. Chance is based on summon level.
• Chance for attacks to arc between targets. Chance and distance based on summon level.
• Chance to cast Blink when CC'd. Chance and distance based on summon level.
• Specialization further increases damage, health, and resistance. Additionally it adds a chance for the Air elemental to debuff its target's Air Resistance based on Specialization level.
• Increased damage to 1.5x compared to other other unboosted summons.
• Increased health gained from 2-3 to 3-4.

Spoiler: Skeletal Footman

• Passive chance to rend current target. Chance, duration, and damage based on summon level.
• Weapon strikes now hits 2 enemies in front of it.
• Passive Chance to increase its aggro if in Defensive stance. Chance and effectiveness based on summon level.
• Specialization further increases health, damage, resistance, aggro, and lessens decay rate. Additionally, gives the Skeletal Footman a chance to increase its Necromancer's Death Attunement based on Specialization level.
• Can now equip Skeleton with any type of melee weapon, with varying effects: Bludgeons have increased stun chance, blades have increased rend chance, and Polearms have increased reach and aggro effectiveness. Cannot equip artifacts.
• Increased health gained per level to 8-9. Health gained from Undead Mastery increased to 2 under level 100, and 3 for every level above it.

Spoiler: Skeletal Mage

• Passive chance to cast Lightning, Fireball, Blink, or Death Ray. Chance and damage based on summon level.
• Passive Chance to lower target's Intellgience. Chance and amount lowered based on summon level.
• Specialization further increases health, damage, and resistance. Additionally adds a chance for the Skeletal Mage's attacks to lower their magic resistance based on Specialization level.
• Can equip other staves to increase its spell damage and effectivness in battle. Cannot equip artifacts.
• Increased health gain per level to 7-8. Health gained from Undead Mastery increased to 2 under level 100, 3 for every level above it.

Spoiler: Lich Fighter

• Passive chance to Whirlwind Strike, dealing AoE damage to all enemies around it. Damage and chance based on summon level.
• Passive chance to drain health per hit. Drain effectivness based on summon level.
• Low passive chance to perform overhead stun attack, with a cooldown. Duration and chance based on summon level.
• Specialization further increases health, damage, resistance, and cleave targets. Additionally adds a chance for the Lich to summon 2 Tier 1 Zombies (these zombies do decay and gain only half of the benefits from Undead Mastery and Mummified Undead) that inflict a Death resistance debuff every time they attack. The debuff effectiveness and chance to summon zombies is based on Specialization level.
• Increased Magic Resistance compared to other summons.
• Increased health gained per level to 11-12. Health gained from Undead Mastery increased to 2 under 100, and increased to 3 for every level over it.

Spoiler: Fire Elemental

• Standard ranged attacks now inflict stacking Fire DoT. This scales with summon level.
• Passive chance to cast Ring of Fire at target location. Scales with summon level.
• Passive chance to cast Flaming Fist on targets within a certain range. Scales with summon level.
• Specialization further increases health, damage, and damage resistance. Additionally adds a chance for the Fire Elemental to increase its Summoner's Fire Attunement, which scales off of Specialization level.
• Increased damage to 1.5x compared to other summons.
• Increased health gained every level from 2-3 to 4-5.

Spoiler: Chaos Daemon

• Will now attack the creature upon being summoned (including the summoner). Can be summoned from a short distance away.
• Daemon Chaos ability damage and effects now scale with summon level.
• Passive chance to perform leap attack. Chance and damage based on summon level.
• Passive chance to perform charge attack. Chance and damage based off of summon level.
• Daemon's melee attacks strike up to 2 enemies in front of it.
• Specialization further increases health, damage, damage avoidance, and resistance. Additionally it adds a chance for the Daemon to lower it or its Summoner's Magic/Damage Resistance. Finally, it adds a chance that the daemon spawns entirely under its Summoner's command. Both of these effects scale with Specialization level.
• Increased Damage to 1.2x compared to other summons.
• Increased Magic resistance compared to other summons.
• Increased health gained per level from 2-3 to 9-14.

And there we go! What do you guys think? Would something like this be a welcome addition, or would a much more intensive rework be needed before the pet leveling and gaining skills is added to the game (The reason the Clone isn't here is because I'm not sure what to do with it really.)? Would love to hear feedback!

 

The summon pets used to do half of the things you mentioned above. When they could, they also did damage similar to what a tamer with a darkstarr corpion does now.

It made them powerful enough to be a requirement in pvp and gave them the ability to solo high rnd zones without the casters help.

I agree they should be interesting, perhaps more utility than damage stuff, like the wisp and wTer ele are.

The higher level npcs have AI that make them cast buffs on thier allies, for instance. Would be great to have each one have some buff or debuff unique to them.

 

Hmm, Maybe the Skeletal Mage and the Fire Elemental could cast a more powerful AoE ignite weapons then, and the Air Elemental could cast Air Shield on their summoner or whoever has their health drop beneath a certain threshold.

For the Lich and the Daemon, they should probably be bulky, but unwieldy damage dealers. The Daemon is supposed to be strong enough to warrant risking the summoning, and every Lich Fighter just deals a ton of damage, so I wanted to add a little ability for their specialization that would give them a bit of uniqueness.

 

With the staff of death I know the lids someone actually does a pretty good amount of damage. I’ve heard rumors that the demon actually has a chaos bolt attack but I personally have never seen it happen. They do need to change the description on the demon them since they decided not to make it a run wild summon.

But they could keep the same idea with it given the nature of chaos Buffs being stronger than normal buffs with a chance to get negative effects instead.

Maybe whatever beneficial effects all the other elementals can give have the chaos demon randomly give one of those or debuff one of those. And maybe have him randomly choose a target or a party member.

And I agree he should be rather bulky in comparison to all the others

 

I can personally confirm that with Undead Mastery trained and the Ancient Staff of Death equipped that the Death Summons actually deal decent damage (110 Undead Mastery for me, my favorite skill), and that the Daemon uses a unique Chaos bolt that swaps its targets' elemental attunement by 20, inflicts a weak Fire DoT, stuns, roots, and slows as well.

I used to primarily use the Daemon as my main pet, but nowadays I typically use only the Undead, due to their higher health and damage output (and no focus upkeep).

 

Updated changes to all of the pets. Would love some feedback!

 

While we're on this topic, can we do something about the water elemental sound effects ? Because everyone and their mother has a WE, and it makes the weirdest most annoying sounds in the game, I have bad dreams about it. Please fix it.

But on topic, great ideas.