Summons... are still useless. Will it ever change?

I am currently levelling my summon spells... for the attunement.
The summons itself are totally worthless.

E.g.: The Lich

Skill takes awful lot of XP to get to GM.
The Lich doesn't improve at all. In high level zones it only misses.

Wouldn't it be reasonable that the summons benefit somehow from the attunement or get better with higher skill? They don't have to be Energy Vortexes.. but a little love would help in future releases.

Only pet I found usefull at lower levels was the water element. But its heals are too low for me now to be relevant.

 

Yes i agree, i love the Wisp from Moontree, and sometimes it debuffs an enemy -1 damage reduction or, what i like more mesmerize my target.
I used Air and Water Elementals to.
The Water Elemental is the most powerfull atm because he can damage fies and heal you if health becomes low.
But they need to be stronger.
Otherwise, Mages seem to be very strong atm and more powerfull Summons would make them stronger again.

But i need to say that leveling a mage ist exepnsive, maybe much more expensive than a melee and because it's a little but harder and more expensive they maybe schould be stronger than a melee.

About Balance. A mage should never be able to tank and will allways have higher costs fighting.

 

There may be an argument to be made for summons not improving.. being that they don't want huge power gains at higher levels so that they aren't overpowering in PvP vs lower levels.

Generally speaking though I would say that skills have an overall problem of having little advantage to investing in. If the summon for example is the same at level 1 skill as it is in GM skill then what's the point? It doesn't leave a good impression.

 

Magery costs a lot more, and you are restricted on mob types that are not resistant to your magic. Something melee or archers have not to worry about yet.
As I said I don't want to have the pet dealing 50% of my damage... but right now they are just doing nothing or very minor. They are even weaker than mobs... they should be at least as strong as the mob version of it when you GMed them.

 

I use the skeleton as an extra archery target when I get too many on me, but as for actual melee it is basically worthless.

 

i'm using the Air elemental.. sometimes seems that it can STUN enemies.... (maybe just an impression)

 

It wasn't really a big deal to me until attunement was introduced. At least they were useful at low levels and in some specific situations. Attunement made them more of a burden than an asset though. Almost anyone that uses water magic would much rather that these spells didn't exist as opposed to having to spend a fortune on reagents and mind numbing downtime to level up two pets to maintain the same level of effectiveness for their other spells in the tree.

If these are going to continue to suck, they could at least have a lower reagent consumption rate or a higher cap on how much xp per cast is allocated to them.

 

In terms of reagent consumption summons are overpowered compared to other spells in that they have unlimited duration.

It sounds to me like rather than the summons being the problem.. upper level balance in general may be the issue. I would lean towards the latter given the number of discussions about 'end game' and high level content. It really sounds like the high levels are too overpowering.

But in any case.. this thread is specifically about summons so I'll throw out this thought. More power means higher costs. Probably either in focus and/or limited duration to be mitigated by skill level (I should hope).

 

I often find myself just dismissing my pets, even in the middle of battle. Lots of time and xp wasted. Sink points into something else.

 

Hey now.
No way summons get a boost or adjusted if they arnt adjusting tamed pets aswell.


That being said. Its 40 focuse to keep pet out. Which is irrelevant to a mage. My 290 focus spider sux just as much lol.

The whole pet system neeeds some love.
Higher skill in summon. Stronger pet. More focuse to keep out.
Id think 100 or even 120 puts it on par with actual spawn at least.
But taming has samw problem.

 

The dev's said in a recent video (maybe telethon) that changes to them will happen. But as usual, thats probably Jira #8900 of 34,903.

 

The summons all need a lot of love with the lich possibly beeing the most extrem example for a final tier summon.
But the skeleton is a bad joke as well.

 

At least the Wisp is a light source

 

Summon pets are purely aesthetic. ANd it shouldnt be, you have to invest quite a bit of points to get to them. They should be useful.