Summoner profession--how i would like it to work.

okay, i came up with this a while ago, put it away cause i can see too many exploits. heres what i have so far, if i can get comments and suggestions on improving it...

Quoted posts: (from my guilds forum)

Original, basic, boring as hell idea: have 4 lvls of summoned monster for each type of dmg, 4th being elite, and have them work like enchants, cept you can only have x points worth or summons out at once. the primary attribute would allow you to expand the # of points. better summon:higher point cost. all of skills could fall into these attbs: elemental summon , Physical summon , Neutral Summon, (holy, dark, chaos) and, the actual Summoning.


Improved, Spiffily Fancy Idea:
Attbutes:

Netherwold Power (Primary Attribute): Slows the heath degeneration of your summoned creatures. Affects some related skills.
Summoning Magic: Decreases the casting time of your summons by .2 seconds for each point. Affects related skills.
Physical Summoning: Stregthens your physical summons. Affects related skills.
Elemental Summoning: Strengthens your elemental summons. Affects related skills.
Neutral Summoning: Strengthens your neutral summons. Affects related skills.

Armor: Mid, about necro/ele lvl
Energy: 30, 4 regen
Weapons: Modded wands/staves (i/e new skins, new req)

Sample Skill Bar:
Summon: Ashura
Summon: Guardian
Chaos Rain
Conjure Disorder
Shield of the Protector
Sacrifice [E]
Summoners Blessing: Neutral
Rez Sig

Okay, when i get hyped about something, i get super hyped, so heres the lowdown as i see it.

A summoner uses magic to touch the "netherworld", in which summonable creatures live. (who knows why) Because summoning requires powerful magic, you must put attribute points into Netherworld Summoning simply so you can summon. Once you touch a summonable creature, (i need some kind of a name here) you cast a spell enabling it to touch this world, and to bind it to you. Thus summoning spells have long cast time. When the creture emerges from the "portal" (whatever) you must maintain a flow of magic to it to ensure that it remains in this world. (works like an enchantment. a simple -1 energy regen)

When you engage in combat, the summoned creature will aid you. how it does this depends upon the creture. in the sample skills i placed in the above bar, ashura (a neutral, chaos, summon) acts in an offencive manner, attacking the enemy directly and dealing chaos damage. (duh) guardian is a physical, bashing, summon that is much more defencive and adheres to you, staying close, and attacking enemys assaulting you (directly, so like tanks or archers doing dmg). as the attributes show, putting points into certain attributes makes certain summons stronger, but they can only grow so strong. there are 4 levels of summons for each type of damage (slashing, bashing, piercing, fire, water, earth, air, chaos, light, dark), and level 4's are always elites. as summons get stronger, the energy cost and casting time rises, due to the higher strength of the summon. Summoned creatures have health as well, and when they die, a simple rez spell is not able to rez them. you must have a certain rez spell, one for each dmg area (neutral, elemental, physical) which allows you to revive a "dead" creature. you can dismiss them any time they are alive, just like a normal enchantment.

The primary attribute makes it so that summoner secondaries will lose their summons faster, as the degen doesnt slow down. how to make it so that this is a disadvantage to those with secondry, but wont kill off summons of characters at level 1-5 is unknown. skills available besides the actual Summon:??????, are skills that have your summons either cast spells, or perform attacks, or gain buffs, or act in certain ways, etc. the sample are Chaos Rain, Shield of the Protector, and Sacrifice. Chaos Rain allows you to channel this spell through your summon, but it must be a chaos type summon. Shield of the protector is a defencive manuver that any bashing type summon can preform, in which they place an immoble shield in front of you, giving you -x dmg reduction. Sacrifice has the bashing summon act as a sheild itself, which means that all damage you would recieve is transfered directly to this summon, and you cannot be damaged while it is in effect. the downside being that the summon takes 1.5x the dmg. Conjure disorder is the chaos equivelent of cojure flame, air, water, etc. and Summoners blessing:neutral is a summon rez skill that is neutral summon specific.

ah, i pulled the names out of nowhere, so if they sound like something from another game, they probably are and i just dont know it. some words stick with me and i dont know from where. those were both quotes, so there are some errors in there, and maybe its a little unlcear, but i love this idea. FFXI had a summoner, and from what i remember when i played it a year or so ago, the summoner rocked. i think that about sums up my initial description, but i want to know what the masses think.

Feeback, Comments, Flaws. I would love to improve this idea, if only for my own hopes that it will actually show up in like chapter 3. so thats that.

One. Huge. Paragraph.

I like the idea of a summoner class, but I don't think your design will work very well within the scope of guild wars metagame. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when Ritualists start making themselves known though, since most of their skills revolve around "summoning" spirits and using them. I like the idea of an enchantment summons too; maybe add that to the Faction class instead of making a whole new one?

Also, from what I understand, you want attribute points to allocate the level of the summoned creature, which then acts as a pet/henchmen/minion. Wouldn't that mean that a summoner can only create a max level summon of level 16? In later parts of the game, that might end up being pretty weak, and four "jumps" in levels make summoners in certain missions "uber" as opposed to other equal level characters

The idea here was that each summon is unique, it hurts you if it dies, just like it would hurt you if all of a sudden, your tank dropped. the ritualists spirits are to boring. their appearances are all the same, and each only has one purpose. this would a creature that could do multiple things. so, say there was a lvl 3 summon ifrit (yes, i stole the name from ff. dont yell at me) when you summon him/her/it, it could then move around freely, and would use fire attacks and cast basic fire spells. (fireball, meteor, fire storm, maybe 1 more, say pheonix) from there, it would be almost entirly independant from you. it would do its own thing, follow your targets, but mix up the spells, get sorta complex. you could then carry skills in your skill bar that would let the two of you cast a more powerful spell together, like the chaos rain spell in the sample. you and your summon stop attacking and you cast the spell, say for fire, its a hyped up AoE elite that rends the ground with eruptions of pillars of flame from random places within a set area around the target. i wanted something that is highly unique and that leaves a lasting impression. i mean, i think you'd remember if you got killed by a giant flame demon that summoned eruptions of fire all around you. thats the kind of thing that lasts.

I think in underline ideas are good (whatever underline mean). It is close to how I picutre summoning as well, where it would take a pip of energy regen per summon. However, I see it more as a duration base, that they will only last for short while before need to be resummon. And no disadvantage if they die.

The combo skill idea that you can have with a summon is a very intersting one (granted most of beast mastery skill a similar to that). Would be interesting to see it being develop better.

One thing I have about a summoner class suggestion is always that the skill seem to limited. It would be a great line of attribute, but yet to see a better way to make it into a whole class. Give me some more summoning class skills to change my mind.

and yes, cut your paragraph up too.

I managed to read both posts. Nice idea, many Summoner/Druid/Specific Summons Classes have been floated in the past. For some reason people just aren't really into reviewing classes. I guess it takes to much thinking for their liking. ^_^

However, I love to help out and see creativity in action.

-Summons causing -1>e regen = Good.
-Seperate skills for seperate summons = Good.
-Different levels of summons based on attributes = Good

Suggestions I would like to make:

View Portals: Summon a TYPE of creature, Elemental, Physical, Neutral. A part of the field transforms into a "window" into the netherworld. Within the portal you can see, and subsequently pick 1 of 3 Versions of your summoned Type.

Version 1: Has a little more hps then the rest and gets +1 health regen.
Version 2: Has a little more energy then the rest and gets and extra +1 energy regen.
Version 3: Moves, Casts, and recharges Skills a little faster.

Now you have a more heirarchal but flexible structure.

For instance you might want an Elemental with a little more casting speed
Or a Physical with a little more energy, etc.

Perpetual Portal:
Costs the Summoner 2 or 3 pips of energy to remain up. A more perminant portal is summoned to the feild, with maybe 1000 health, or modulated amounts of health based on primary attribute level, it also has 2 pips of health regen. Every 60...30s a random summon apears on the feild of a level associating with the players attibute level for that type of summon. The summon is free of charge and costs the Summoner no energy to maintain.

Only 1 portal per summoner is allowed on the feild.

That's my 2 cents/suggestions.

thanks a ton for the feedback thats showed up so far, there are a couple things i'd like to comment on.

Actionjack, i like the duration idea from a practicality standpoint, not a freaking awesomeness standpoint, but practicality is what really matters. so in adjusting things, make the primary attb slow the degen, and the individual attbs increase health, both of which will increase summon durations long enough to be effective, not too long to be unfair. in this case, remove the death disadvantage makes sence, but i still think that there should be some kind of penalty, even if its just that you have to cast a "summon rez spell" in order to get that particular summon back up

im working on a broader skill line right now, theres really isnt a TON to work with, but theres enough ther that i can pump a list out. there will be 40 actual summons, 10 elite 30 normal, most of the remaining will be dmg attb specific, but theres enough room in there for creativity. also, thanks for the paragraph comment, i just looked back at it and saw how freaking huge it really is. so thats in process as well.

love the idea and i think i understand what you're talking about, but this is what i had in mind when i wanted 1 summon per lvl for each dmg type. (life-stealing excluded) for instance, bashing dmg is going to be slower, but heavier, these summons being direct-attack and with a defencive approach. a holy summon on the other hand, will be enitirly casting, with "wand" attacks, but those even less effective than the normal wands. the whole point of this summon will be to buff the team. heals, protections, and the occasional smiting type skill. another defencive approach, but done through spells instead of attacks. Move on to sayyyy chaos summons. a combination between attacks and spells, this does both and neither. the spells are no where near as high dmg as those of a fire summon, and the attacks dont hit high lvls either, but this one is more in the middle. a fast attacker though, with mainly offencive spells and attacks.

on a side note, if you continue to go with the 10 elements and 4 levels, 120 summons are far too many to skin. not to mention that there would be plenty that got overlooked. and on the other hand, if you use 4 lvls, 3 dmg types, and 3 summons for each, i suppose you could do that, but 32 seems just a few short.

ill update my original post with paragraph breaks, along with some edits. i dont know when the skill list will be done, but it is in progress.

Not saying you are wrong in the way you do you summon, but I will just point out to my idea on one of the possible ways to do summons. Maybe it will be inspiring. (this was posted before in another thread too, but with some modifations)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Flame Dijinni
Description: You summon a Flame Dijinni that last for 12...36 seconds that strike for 5...24 flame damage per strike. This spell causes Exhaustion.
Energy Cost: 20.
Casting Time: 4 seconds.
Recharge Time: 45 seconds.
Linked Attribute: Increases damage and time duration.
Skill Type: Summon.

Flame Dijinni will have slow attack speed (that of hammer), and has its own hp (similar to that of Ranger Sprit). They are also pretty small in size (smaller than pets) and float in air and follow you and attack to your target.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

But I am more intersting to see skills that is not of summons, but Related to summons and would be differnt from Ranger's beast mastery line, or Necro's MM line, or Rituralist's spirit thing. Show me something creative.

4 second cast? Ouch, a Summon would have to be way more powerful to warrent 4 seconds of casting, otherwise it's not worth the 80%+ chance of getting interrupted.

Thoughts on that skill, reduce the casting time to 2s or 3s increase recharge to 60s. The energy is fine, so is exhaustion. However, most skills use 5,10,15,25 energy values, so dunno.

As for my idea with the 3 versions, good observation, I concur that it limits the number of possible summons to much.

I still like the Perpetual Portals though.

I can imagine the panic.

"Oh god! The Summoner got his portal up!"
"What's that coming out of it!"
"Kill it! Kill it!"
"Kill which?!"
"The portal!"
"Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!"
*Silence*

P.S. I fought a Flame Dijinni, the one in Sorrow's Furnce. IT IS MEAN! 5/8 henchies dead in 25 seconds. And since it wouldn't go away, I had to drag it down the halls till I pulled it into a group of about 25-30 Stone Summit Mermsers and Necros. It still killed half of them before it died.

actionjack, nice sample summon, but at hammer attack speed (2.5 sec) at max attbs, you get 14 attacks. it just doesnt seem like too great. i do need a way to link the time alive to something, and degen just seems kinda wierd. maybe i could just steep the level of degen to the level of summon, thus, a level 1 summon would have base, say 2 pips degen, and the level 4 would have max maybe, 10. this way, secondaries lose access to the high level summons, and primaries can keep the degen down to minimal even at first level.

ken, the portal idea works just fine, even with my version of summoning. just make it an elite, and say that every 60-45 seconds, a new lvl 1-3 summon appears. i can still see chaos insuing. and to avoid making this too powerful, have a delay between the time the portal pops up and when the first summon comes out. so sayyyy

Netherworld Portal -- Elite Summoning Spell
15 Energy
4 Cast Time
90 Recharge

Create a summoning portal at your location. This portal has 200...600 Health.15...5 seconds after summoning, and every 60...45 seconds following, a level 1-3 summon bound to the portal's creator is created at the portal's location.

just a rough draft, i should probably have put more time into it, but i like the idea sooo much, i just wanted to throw out a skill. i could make the level dependant upon the attb too, to avoid overuse in the low level arenas. everyone's run into those lvl 9-10 rangers with poison arrow, or the mesmers with IW. i did want to avoid making too many things attb dependant though. 3 is plenty as it is.

I like the idea of a Summoner. Congratulations.

I imagine the creatures of the Summoner as being similar to the djins of Sorrow Furnace. That is, not inmovil spirits like those of the Ritualist, and not permanent creatures like are the pets.

So I imagine that the summoner has some power to bring spirits like djins and the like to this world, for a given time, either unconditionaly, like a djin with elemental powers, or given some conditions; given some condition like, whilst being hexed... may bring a necrotic djin of ... and gets free of the hex, whilst being enchanted may bring a healing djin of ... and loses the enchantment. So that, this djins might have elemental powers, or necrotic powers or ...

I hope this is pertinent for the Summoner.

I read this thread:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...=1#post1118106

and though that Familiars might fit well as a kind of summoned creature. My view, is that it could be the name of the protective or healing spirits which would fly around the target or targets for whom are summoned.

There would exist some skills, or some conditions under which they would go away. For example, the spirit for some fixed time, could last until the protection effect has taken effect, or similar things.

There are many pve mob types in GW that can integrated into a summoner's summoning lists, e.g. mergoyles, wind riders, ettins, spiders etc. The elite summons would be those found in higher missions, e.g. mursaat?

In addition to the summoning skills, the summoners can have other skills that assist their summons in some way - healing, prot, enhance damage etc.

This is a MM without the corpses. Or a ritualist without the chaining. Or a beastmaster without the one pet restriction. NTY, I like those classes having disabilities. A team of 20 some people (8 humans, 2 critters per, some support classes too) would be WAY unbalanced.

@Ken Dei: And most people don't read this section because of the spelling, not because it is mentally taxing.

summoner is a great class, good idea. it would work well with necro, but also the other classes

here are some spell ideas for summoner, the summoner should be able to summon other things besides monsters, inate objects for instance

summoned monsters will often be friendly until attacked, summons do not give drops or xp (some monsters will be hostile when summoned) . If summoning a scarab against scarabs, it will probably not fight the scarbs, but rather help them.

Homonuculus
trait:Neutral Summoning
Summons a companion creature to gather your treasure from the battlefield. when creature dies or spell ends, the gathered treasure is released instead of corpse. (idea dungeon siege)

Material Golem
trait:Neutral Summoning
exploit nearest pile of your goods, a Material golem is created, with effects & appearance is influenced depending on what treasure it was created from. (idea diablo2)

Alchemist stone
trait:Neutral Summoning
Transforms your objects on the ground into gold with some loss in value. Move the pointer over an item and cast spell. (idea dungeon sige)

Acid Cloud
trait:Physical Summoning
Surrounds the Target with a cloud of acid, damaging nearby Enemies.(idea dungeon sige)

Mist
trait:Elemental Summoning
summons a cloud of mist, obscuring sight (effect similar to snow mist in snake dance area)

Rocks
trait:Elemental Summoning
summons a huge rock, that will act as a obstacle for duration x seconds, can be destroyed (idea bonewall diablo2)

dieased water
trait:Physical Summoning
summons a pool of water, enemies entering water gets diseased,

holy water
trait:Elemental Summoning
summons a pool of water, allies entering water gets mending -while in water

Firewall
cost 10
trait:Elemental Summoning
summons a wall of fire, for duration X seconds . Enemies in touch with firewall becomes burning for y seconds
(idea diablo1)

Return Summoned
cost 5
trait :Netherwold
Removes a summoned creature from the physical plane. extra Mana is lost dependent on power of the Target. (idea dungeon sige)

Return Ritual
cost 15
trait :Netherwold
Removes a ritual or well effect from the physical plane. extra Mana is lost dependent on power of the Target. (idea dungeon sige)-extra Mana is lost dependent on power of the Target. (idea dungeon sige)

Good Idea. I am new to this forum and posted something similar on gamespot. GW can make a better Summoner/Warlock than WOW's, because every thing GW does that WOW does is better than WOW's attempt.

Summoner:
Summoning (Primary):
Decreases the energy cost and cast time required to summon a demon. (Each demon is summoned via skill which must be equipped to summon it. Only one demon can be active.)
Demonology:
Increase the damage and effectiveness of the summoned demon and demon skills.
Drain:
Skills which drain health or energy from foes and give to player, allow the player to give energy or health to an ally, allow the player to give/drain health to/from summoned demon.
Chaos:
Chaos attribute direct and area of effect damage spells.
Hexes:
Negative effect to be placed foes.

Demon types:
Tank, Assassin, Vampire, healer, mesmer, and Ranged.

This looks pretty balanced to me.

Summoner is my favorite class idea. Ever. No exceptions.

Attributes/Skills Idea

Prolonging (Main Attibute)

For every attribute point put into Prolonging, your summoned creature cost 1 less energy to cast and last 1 second longer.

Ex. Skills:

Exepmlify - 5 energy - 2 cast time - 20 recharge - Summoned Creature has +49-129 health for 15 seconds.

Shield Signet - 1 cast time - 30 recharge - For 10 seconds, target summoned creature has 5-12 base damage reduction.

Creature Transfer - 15 Energy, 1.25 cast time, 20 recharge - The targetted summoned creature is returned by your side.

Physical Attributes

Colossus - 30 energy, 3 cast time, 60 second recharge. Summon a level 1-24colossus creature by your side whose physical attacks deal 6-32 damage(Based on skill level). This creature dies after 30 seconds.

Dwarven Demon - 25 energy, 2 cast time, 45 second recharge. Summon a level 1-32 Dwarven Demon who deals 8-38 blunt damage per attack. There is a 10% chance that targetted foe will be knocked down. This creature dies after 20 seconds.

Physical Endurance - 5 energy, 1 cast time, 15 second recharge. Targetted creature or ally recieves +15-70 AL for 10 seconds.

Elemental Summoning (Attribute)

Phoenix - 30 energy, 3 cast time, 60 second recharge. Summon a lvl 1-24 phoenix by your side whose attacks deal 8-36 fire damage. This creature has a weakness to water damage and dies after 30 seconds.

Shiva - 20 Energy, 2 cast time, 30 second recharge. Summon a level 1-20 Shiva Goddess by your side whose attacks deal 3-28 cold damage per hit. This creature has a weakness to lightning and dies after 15 seconds.

Lightning Exuberance - 5 energy, 1 cast time, 15 second recharge. For 15 seconds, target ally's weapon deals an extra 3-9 lightning damage per hit.

Defensive Summoning (Attribute)

Guardian Master - 20 energy, 3 cast time, 40 second recharge - Summon a level 1-24 Guardian Master who gives nearby party members +20-80 AL.

Stamina Alter - 15 energy, 1 cast time, 50 second recharge. Summon a Stamina Altering creature that slows all nearby enemies by 20% and speeds up allies 20%. This creature dies after 15-35 seconds.

Healthy Living - 10 energy, 2 cast time, 30 second recharge. All party members recieve +20-100 health for 20 seconds.



Something like that is how I would view summoning. I know it has flaws but I just whipped it up kind of quickly.

Could be an interesting prof. But...remember...we already got a spirit summoner (rt) and not to mention that a ranger can summon. Annddddddd what about the necromancer? This might give problems all together.

Rit is a useless class IMO.

Summoner would be more offensive person, with moveable demons kinda like how WOW does a warlock.

What i would like to see is either lvl 15 or lower casters floatin around that were summoned and have 14 in ONE attribute, like 300 some health and 3 pips of regen with 30 energy. I think this is fair, giving them mobility and all. would like them to last longer than the recharge, but fairly easy to kill as 300 hp isnt all to hard to deplete. The primary att. should be something to do with their duration and living times, more health, energy etc. because we dont want eles running around with ether prodigy and 8 lil guys runnin around The -1 degen for energy is always accepted, but i would prefer them not to have health degen, to similar to a necro, and you would need counterskills like verata's sacrifice as different. This would also allow 4 summons. with 4 lvl 15 guys running around i think might tip the inbalance scale, especially if they can use combos and whatnot.

Rit can do 100+ spike damage very fast (after spirits are set up...), in channeling AND communing. How is that useless 0_o

PS~There should not be dark, chaos and holy damage because those do damage despite opponents armor lvl. An ele summon would be doing what, 15-22 damage, maybe less, and that would be hittin a war for 13ish i would say, while a holy damage would be 18+ how is that fair? Why do you think there isnt a sword hilt of light!?