Summoner Class Discussion

[Zorafim]

Okay, have to admit, I never played D&D. I feel like any mechanic used there should trump any mechanic used after it, unless transferring to a new medium which needs a new mechanics to work. Standing still for five minutes to summon an all-destroying demon won't work well in an action game where each level takes a minute, for instance.
So, how does summoning work in D&D?

I'm mainly just venting because this is the second time I see a summoner class recently that doesn't work as advertised. Summoners in FFXIV poison the monsters that they're fighting, may have some bursty spells here and there, and oh yeah there's a monster fighting with you or something. It's obvious they just copied Warlocks from Warcraft instead of trying to adapt what they had for two decades into a non-turnbased format.
Honestly, all that I want from a summoner is for their focus to be summoning big impressive things. If I hear that name, I'm just going to be disappointed when that doesn't happen. And honestly, why would you play a class that commands a low tier pokemon to scratch at your enemies in the same game you can shoot laser swords at people? Why should I be satisfied with this class if it isn't at least as impressive as the classes it's competing against, especially when it shares the name of one of the most iconic fantasy classes?

And what I was suggesting was an adaptation of, what's her name... Lana? That OC creation in Hyrule Warriors. One of her weapon styles allows her to summon bosses as her main form of attack, and it was greatly satisfying. Find some way to distract enemies, dance for three seconds, and then a king dodongo appears and rolls over your enemies. I felt like it was a perfect real time adaptation of the turn based summon mechanic.

[EspeonageTieler]

maybe some people like the idea of commanding a summon to fight for them?

[Kondibon]

So, how does summoning work in D&D?

You mentioned Warlocks in WoW. That's probably close. They last a specific number of rounds based on your level and can take (almost) any action they normally can. Also if you use a higher level summoning spell to summon a lower summoning level monster then you can summon more than one at once. The player doesn't usually have direct control over them though. I agree about you on the FF thing definitely. I can see why that would be disappointing if you NEVER get any sort of big special summons even as attacks in a game thats part of the series that popularized those kinds of summons.

Amusingly I only know as much about D&D summoning (well... ok... Pathfinder, but still) as I do right now because I was literally rolling/building a summoner/necromancer for fun last night. I don't know how it worked in 1ed.

And what I was suggesting was an adaptation of, what's her name... Lana? That OC creation in Hyrule Warriors. One of her weapon styles allows her to summon bosses as her main form of attack, and it was greatly satisfying. Find some way to distract enemies, dance for three seconds, and then a king dodongo appears and rolls over your enemies. I felt like it was a perfect real time adaptation of the turn based summon mechanic.

Well like I added in my other post I actually think something like that would be GREAT, and I actually do want it, but the lack of it so far doesn't really bother me much (I'm more bothered by the lack of autonomy).


And of course from a general point of view, it's totally fine in just the idea of summoning, since there's lots of stories of someone summing something or calling their god who then blows everyone up and promptly leaves.

EDIT: Let's just say I want a healthy mix of both. I think I would have preferred something like calling in claws and mouths of some giant creature for normal attacks/PA than just a weaker summon if they're not making them autonomous though...

maybe some people like the idea of commanding a summon to fight for them?

In a game like PSO2 it's not mechanically interesting though. I totally agree. I do like being able to take direct control, but I also like having the option for AI if I want a distraction, or for interesting gameplay setups. The datamining suggests that there IS some sort of AI related to it though, so if it's a tech casting class too that would work for me.

When it comes down to it I'll be fine no matter how the pets work because I'm dumb and love the idea of waving a wand around rhythmically to fight from a distance.

[yoshiblue]

Sounds like summoners are doing what they suppose to be doing. What you want is to categorize types of summoners. Lana just does what final fantasy summoners/evokers do but in 3D as far as I know, and is more satisfying because you're more involved with what comes out.

[Zorafim]

They last a specific number of rounds based on your level and can take (almost) any action they normally can. The player doesn't usually have direct control over them though.

That actually sounds pretty awesome. Exactly how I would want a summoner to work. If we were to put this into an action RPG, it would last a certain amount of time and kinda do its own thing. Skill in the class would involve knowing what summon to use where, and how to negate its drawbacks...
That still sounds like a photon blast to me. Can we just turn this into a class with spammable and selectable photon blasts?

I can see why that would be disappointing if you NEVER get any sort of big special summons even as attacks in a game that part of the series that popularized those kinds of summons.

We do get to use their ultimate attack every five minutes. At 5% the scale. So instead of Garuda summoning a tornado the size of a house, she summons one the size of a chair. Even White Mage has a more impressive wind spell.
I could rant about that class forever. Considering it has the best implementation of Dragoon I've seen (still waiting on invincibility frames on Jump), and every other class is at least a fair implementation of their original designs, Summoner never stops disappointing me.

In a game like PSO2 it's not mechanically interesting though. I totally agree. I do like being able to take direct control, but I also like having the option for AI if I want a distraction, or for interesting gameplay setups. The datamining suggests that there IS some sort of AI related to it though, so if it's a tech casting class too that would work for me.

I kind of prefer the idea of, you kinda expect how they're going to fight, and you can kind of control it. But all of your control is behind the scenes. You aren't directly involved, but you aren't just sitting it out either. Going back to Lana, she had a basic melee weapon to defend herself until she could get a summon off. Then once the summon was there, she could take advantage of the chaos it's causing to set up another summon.
That's why I like the idea of short summons, since it encourages constant switching and knowing which one to use when. If it's a perpetual summon, I can't think of what you would be doing while the summon is doing its own thing. Perhaps, set it up to auto-fight, and it will do specific attacks when you command it?

When it comes down to it I'll be fine no matter how the pets work because I'm dumb and love the idea of waving a wand around rhythmically to fight from a distance.

I have to admit, a baton is a fun weapon. And it suits summoner well, since you're conducting their movement. It cements the idea that you aren't a direct combatant, but are still controlling the battle.

[Maenara]

Kinda weird that a Summoner thread already exists even though the class hasn't been released, yet Hunter has been around from the start and it still doesn't have its own thread.

Yes it does. It's just not named properly.

[Kondibon]

That actually sounds pretty awesome. Exactly how I would want a summoner to work. If we were to put this into an action RPG, it would last a certain amount of time and kinda do its own thing. Skill in the class would involve knowing what summon to use where, and how to negate its drawbacks...
That still sounds like a photon blast to me. Can we just turn this into a class with spammable and selectable photon blasts?

Well I was thinking they could have multiple attacks or be a bit more spammable than PBs.

That last bit though goes back to what I said about hoping they get PB related skills.

We do get to use their ultimate attack every five minutes. At 5% the scale. So instead of Garuda summoning a tornado the size of a house, she summons one the size of a chair. Even White Mage has a more impressive wind spell.
I could rant about that class forever. Considering it has the best implementation of Dragoon I've seen (still waiting on invincibility frames on Jump), and every other class is at least a fair implementation of their original designs, Summoner never stops disappointing me.

I totally understand.

If it's a perpetual summon, I can't think of what you would be doing while the summon is doing its own thing. Perhaps, set it up to auto-fight, and it will do specific attacks when you command it?

That's how I kinda expected the summons in PSO2 to work before I saw the video. But that reminds me of summons from other games I played, specifically GW2. In GW2 almost every class (warriors and Revenents are the only exceptions I can think of) has some kind of summon, but they all functioned slightly differently and had different affects from traits associated with them.
Mesmer illusions just spam a single attack, and are used for distractions or as a resource for some other skills, but are very fragile, and only attack one target (If the target dies they do to).
Necro minions (mostly) last for ever if they didn't get killed, but some can be sacrificed for secondary effects, and they tend to not be particularly powerful individually, relying on swarming.
Guardians has spirit weapons, which are individually very specialized. Like necro minions they can be sacrificed for a secondary effect. There's a trait a guardian can choose that removes that weakness, but unlike necro minions, they always have a specific duration.
Ranger has their pet which had 4 skills, an auto attack, abd 2 specials that depended on the pet type (all bears shared them for instance), and a 3rd attack the ranger cand command them to use that was specific to the individual pet (brown bears remover conditions, polarbears chill enemies). they also have spirits that are basically stationary totems that pulse out buffs, nothing fancy.
Elementalist has elementals. They can only summon one lesser elemental and one normal elemental at a time, but the one they summon is based off their current elemental atunement, they have different active skills and stats depending on which element they are, but they don't last long.
Engi gets turrets that are completely immobile and attack stuff within their range, but also have secondary effects like the others. Because they can't move though, that means you have to put them on cool down if you want to reposition them, and because they count as structures you can't heal them normally like other summons. They also get Gyros with their elite spec, which are kinda specialized entities that do a specific function for a little while then blow up.

There's nothing super big and crazy though unfortunately (and technically no real "summoner" class unless you count mesmer.


And that's why I'm not allowed to talk about GW2

I have to admit, a baton is a fun weapon. And it suits summoner well, since you're conducting their movement. It cements the idea that you aren't a direct combatant, but are still controlling the battle.

Yeah, I'm actually fine with that, having them be controlable for when you need them to do something specific, or autonomous when you need them for a distraction while you do something else would be a good way to keep them from just being a long ranged attack.

[Kondibon]

@Kondibon

I think you meant to quote Zorafim instead of me?

Yes I did. I got confused when I was breaking up the quotes, sorry. orz

[Crevox]

I'm really looking forward to this. I would've preferred an actual Summoner (like, summon things that actually run around and fight) instead of this weird thing, but whatever I guess. The particle effects look a little underwhelming and the animation looks janky, but it's too early to judge it.

My only contribution to guesses on how it will function is:

-Wolf scales with S-ATK
-Bird scales with R-ATK
-Green thing scales with T-ATK

Shrug.

[Zorafim]

Uhg, having to get three different sets of gear just to use everyone one class has? That's just gross.
Having them do strike, ranged, and tech damage, which scales off of T-atk, makes more sense. As does each benefiting from a different playstyle.
Knowing the typical design of this game though, they're probably all almost exactly the same except in one specific way which makes one of them way better than the others. I'm going to call the tatk one doing as much damage as the melee one without the need to get in close.