Epic Summoner Nerf

[NightHiker]

I could give 3 extremely fast solutions to hirelings to work.
It's rough, it's ugly but it could work
1)They generate less aggro
2)They are immune and don't trigger traps
3)They are immune to AoE, they get caught only by single target damage (so, if attacked directly)
It's bad, but it would work.

Please "no" on the "generating less aggro" thing. The fact they do generate enough aggro to keep mobs off of you if you have plenty of threat reduction is the main thing that makes them work on higher reapers as far as I'm concerned. The bit of extra damage they do with the Primal mantle on is cool, but not the main reason I use them - I want that extra layer of defenses - whenever a mob is hitting a hire it means they're not hitting me.

Cheers!

 

[NightHiker]

I'd want them to have faster movement speed. They're always playing catchup to me running around.

Grand Summoner's boost to run speed feels enough to me - have you tried it? - I can't fit wings on my build, just limited speed boosts, so it at least makes hires able to keep up with my regular bard running speed. And I can always teleport them to me if truly needed.

Cheers!

 

[rabidfox]

Grand Summoner's boost to run speed feels enough to me - have you tried it? - I can't fit wings on my build, just limited speed boosts, so it at least makes hires able to keep up with my regular bard running speed. And I can always teleport them to me if truly needed.

Cheers!

Yeah. But my thing is that I like hires at low levels and waiting until epics isn't what I want. I want them to copy my movement speed from lvl 1 onwards to feel good across the board.

 

[NightHiker]

Summon/pet/hireling's main issue is AI. They spend most of their life running around trying to get into position. They're all just slightly different versions of flaming spheres.

They can demand quite a bit of micromanaging to work on tougher content, but you can fine tune the way you play in order to fit the extra cognitive resources. I use macros atached to mouse buttons for all my main spell rotations, for example, so the fact I don't have to worry with different key presses for every single spell, nor cursor precise positioning to click on icons, allows me some more room to pay attention to the hire controls, like when I need to port them out of a venge circle or order them to attack a specific mob. It's all a matter of playing with all the tools you have at your disposal to make it all work as synergistically as possible.

Cheers!

 

[NightHiker]

Yeah. But my thing is that I like hires at low levels and waiting until epics isn't what I want. I want them to copy my movement speed from lvl 1 onwards to feel good across the board.

Oh, sure thing. It's just that when leveling thru r1s, after maybe the first 5 or 6 levels hires start to fall off so they end up being more trouble than it's worth, considering you can breeze thru the content anyways. I only find them needed/useful when soloing higher reaper legendaries.

But yeah, as far as being a fully supported playstyle goes, it needs a lot more love. But I'm glad to at least keep the small things we already have going for it.

Cheers!

 

[Raedier]

Similarly, having share the light and nullmagic strike become a multiselector feels like a nerf to builds that like to use summons aswell.

 

[timir78]

I would be very nice for summons like players, If Improved Augment Summoning epic feat, have prerequisity only 21 level, not level 24. There are too many need to have feats on 24 lvl an later, but only little usefull epic feat on level 21.

 

[NightHiker]

I would be very nice for summons like players, If Improved Augment Summoning epic feat, have prerequisity only 21 level, not level 24. There are too many need to have feats on 24 lvl an later, but only little usefull epic feat on level 21.

That feat is a trap anyways. In my view the buff to hires and summons from them is too small to justify spending feat slots with any of the augment summoning ones. You'll be better off using any other feat, really, even at level 21. No matter the kind of toon you're playing, you'll find something more useful DPS or utility wise.

As far as hire and summon viability goes, currently there's only two things worth spending resources on instead of something directly related to whatever build you're playing, and that's the Primal shared mantle plus Natural Shielding and the Grand Summoner enhancement from Magus. Nothing else really gives even close to the return over investment of those two, while freeing more important resources (like feats) to make the build functional outside of the hires/summons.

Cheers!

 

[l_remmie]

One way to buff summons and hires (however slightly) is to create some new mass spells.

mass resistance
Mass protection
mass barkskin
mass heal amp
mass blur

Non damage spells in ddo are still mostly based on 3.5 Pen and paper......

 

[JustHavingFunBro]

I could give 3 extremely fast solutions to hirelings to work.
It's rough, it's ugly but it could work
1)They generate less aggro
2)They are immune and don't trigger traps
3)They are immune to AoE, they get caught only by single target damage (so, if attacked directly)
It's bad, but it would work.

THey need a boost in to-hit. Pets never hit because of this, and hirelings still miss more than hit. Even with all augment summoning feats and everything else including buffs. The melee ones also need to do far more damage. They hit for like 50 at level 20.

 

[Jummby]

• Grand Summoner moves to multiselect with New Tier 4 Lunar Studies, and is now part of the Destiny Mantle
• New Tier 1 where Grand Summoner was: "Moontouched: +2/4/6 Magic Resistance Rating. Rank 3: +5 Negative, Cold, Force, and Universal Spell Power"

When I first read this I was confounded, confused and confuzzled on why. Strimtom said something about people taking this enhancements because they were kind of forced to progress the tree that way but this makes summoner WAY less viable then it already is in epics.

Summoners will mainly agree that we have two epic trees we must take, Primal Avatar and Magus of the Eclipse; the slight dip into magus is enough for a epic summon and the grand summoner enhancement, then you go into primal for their mantle. The Primal Avatar mantle is stupidly good for summons as it gave (or so it says) all YOUR spell power to the minions, in addition; they had a chance to blast the target on melee or spell similarly to how you do.

By forcing grand summoner into a mantle, the summons no longer are able to get this trigger from Primal Avatar's Mantle, in addition; they will be restricted to Cold and Negative spell power and not everything. This also locks summoners into certain playstyle that only benefit from magus, while since most of these summon enhancements were not even halfway thru the enhancement tree, this gave summoners themselves a much needed versatility to their kit where they choose what spell power they really want to go for; admittedly though, I think most went storm-like playstyle because of the nature of the Primal Avatar tree, but even then you could choose fire/light/positive, electric/cold/sonic, or acid /force/poison; and magus gave us that additional cold/negative/force combination. The magus mantle did not give force additionally to summons, nor does it provide a chance on melee or spell to deal additional damage based on those types.

I suggest, instead of tying grand summoner into the magus mantle, Give "Magus: Call Upon" and additional tier and it add Grand Summoner. I would solve the problem of people taking these enhancements, in addition keep the new enhancements you plan on adding. It also allows the versatility of summoners to continue on.

If it is something casters use, it can be nerfed. Doesn't matter how mundane it is?

 

[Jummby]

One way to buff summons and hires (however slightly) is to create some new mass spells.

mass resistance
Mass protection
mass barkskin
mass heal amp
mass blur

Non damage spells in ddo are still mostly based on 3.5 Pen and paper......

I have played games where pets and summoned creatures matter. DDO isn't one of them.

 

[NightHiker]

I have played games where pets and summoned creatures matter. DDO isn't one of them.

I beg to differ. They are niche, but there are builds which can make great use of hires and summons, even on higher reapers. But this game should not be balanced having high reapers into mind - If I can carry a whole team of hires thru a r10 quest without a single death among them, even a casual to average player should be able to make great use of them on up to r1s, for example. That would already likely cover the majority of the player base.

I even managed to just tag along a full team of hires in a r4 quest, only healing them as needed while they provided all the DPS (using the Primal mantle). The issue is you do need to be in Primal Mantle and have the hire boosts, but that's a pretty versatile mantle that can be used even by melee or ranged types, specialy on lower difficulties.

In case anyone is interested, this is the video of the r4 run where only the hires contributed to the DPS (on an elite or even r1 run it would be much easier - there was one death total, because I was not paying attention and didn't heal the hire in time on one occasion). This is from more than an year ago - now with the new(ish) level 30 healbots it's even easier, I probably wouldn't even need to keep healing them:

Cheers,
NH

P.S.: Oh, and in case anyone wonders, the dance CCs you see from the start came from the Muse - it spontaneusly casts them on reapers and such.

 

[Jummby]

I beg to differ. They are niche, but there are builds which can make great use of hires and summons, even on higher reapers. But this game should not be balanced having high reapers into mind - If I can carry a whole team of hires thru a r10 quest without a single death among them, even a casual to average player should be able to make great use of them on up to r1s, for example. That would already likely cover the majority of the player base.

I even managed to just tag along a full team of hires in a r4 quest, only healing them as needed while they provided all the DPS (using the Primal mantle). The issue is you do need to be in Primal Mantle and have the hire boosts, but that's a pretty versatile mantle that can be used even by melee or ranged types, specialy on lower difficulties.

In case anyone is interested, this is the video of the r4 run where only the hires contributed to the DPS (on an elite or even r1 run it would be much easier - there was one death total, because I was not paying attention and didn't heal the hire in time on one occasion). This is from more than an year ago - now with the new(ish) level 30 healbots it's even easier, I probably wouldn't even need to keep healing them:

Cheers,
NH

P.S.: Oh, and in case anyone wonders, the dance CCs you see from the start came from the Muse - it spontaneusly casts them on reapers and such.

If you are doing that for fun, it's cool. If your doing that to level for lives, you will be there a while taking 2 to 3 times longer to do a quest.

I do like it though. I had a summoner when I use to play Ultima Online YEARS ago. Was great fun.

 

[NightHiker]

If you are doing that for fun, it's cool. If your doing that to level for lives, you will be there a while taking 2 to 3 times longer to do a quest.

I do like it though. I had a summoner when I use to play Ultima Online YEARS ago. Was great fun.

Oh, it's certainly not for speed or leveling up, since this only really works for endgame/legendary, so not something one would run if not doing at least some reaper farming. But it's not just for fun/flavor either (even though I do find it fun) - it's a good alternative to maybe add a couple of reaper difficulties to what you might otherwise be able to run while solo farming for reaper points, without much trade-off or gimping your build while grouping. Like I said, it's niche.

Cheers,
NH

 

[timir78]

I noticed bug, that Grant Summoner buff disappear often after death and resurrection of my druid's wolf companion. Other buffs as Augment summoning, Druid's past lives and so on is remaining, only Grand Summoner buff is disappearing. I can renew it by unsummoning my wolf and summoning him back, but he will lost ship buff in this case.