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!?

Umm ya so much for the minion master. Bad idea. Let's just have a party with 8 summoners and have 10,000 little creatures running around everywhere. Think about it, it will totally be unbalanced. These seem even more powerful than a necro and they don't even require corpses.

Each summon must reduce energy pip like maintained enchantment. Some summons cause the summoner to lose energy/health or longer skill recharge penalty if the summons die/take damage/infilct damage etc.

Wow, been a while since i checked back here. plenty of new ideas going through peoples brains, some of which are similar to mine.

going back to my original concept, i like still like the whole idea of summons being divided into groups based upon the type of dmg/element they are based upon.
Primeval King, i love the way you think. pretty much everything you put down there fits with my idea, and works better, at the same time. a round of applause to you for being awesome. the one thing that i would add/change is to have some summons be spellcasters as opposed to direct damagers. that might fit in differently with certain attributes, or it could work something like this.
Lvl 1 Summon - Passive Effect. Spirit Type Effect that will effect enemies, allies, or both.
Lvl 2 Summon - Direct Damage. A physical attacker that Deals all Damage through direct attacks
Lvl 3 Summon - Spellcaster. A mobile summon that casts supporting/offencive spells as well as attacks physically, but deals less damage with attacks than the Lvl 2.
Lvl 4 Summon - Elite Skill - Unique - This summon has an effect that is unique to the summons associated attribute. For example, holy may be a spellcaster/passive cross that buffs and heals party members.

Trylo, not all neutral damage ignores armor. if you read the skill description of Judge's Insight, then you will notice that if specifies that "target allies attacks deal holy damage AND have +20% armor penetration"
as a result, assume that not all holy, dark and chaos damage ignore armor. that could be an effect, and as a result, the summon dealing holy/dark/chaos damage has less health, or less armor. something to balance the effect.

Sniper, as much as the idea sounds overpowered, there would be something that prevents it from being exploited. say that a summoner can have no more than 4 summons in effect at any time, no more than 3 1st level, 2 second, 1 third and 1 fourth, and in addition, as Nugzta suggests, there is a penalty. in order to summon a dark attribute summon, you are required to sacrifice health. There is then a continued health degen while the summon remains on the field. energy degen, summon health degen, set summon duration, and long cast times/recharge times are all more ways to offset the ability to have additional allies on the field. even so, there must be some way to prevent a party from bum rushing with 8 summoners and 24 lvl 1 summons. either use the above suggestion (lvl 1s are mobile rit/ranger spirit type effects) or say something like the following.

Lvl 1 summons range in level from 1-10
Lvl 2 summons range in level from 3-15
Lvl 3 summons range in level from 8-20
Lvl 4 summons range in level from 14-25

as a result, the most powerful summon party would consist of 8 summoners who each have only one summon fighting for them, and are paying some kind of a constant penalty. There are ways to balance this profession, even if they dont jump off the table at you.

What about organizing the Summoner's Attributes by attack type(melee, ranged, casting) instead of element type? Doing so would allow for adding Summon Enchant, Sheena in Tales of Symphonia has the ability to enchant the weapons of allies. I am taking the original idea, adding something, and changing the organization. I do think they should have only 1 Active Summon though. I agree that Lvl1-4 would increase in energy required, cast time, and skill recharge time with skill lvl. I say nuke the health degen on the Summon, if only one is allowed to be active, then it will not live long, no saftey in numbers for it. The MM's minions do not survive long by themselves. As ya'll noted, there should be a -1 energy degen when a Summon is active.

Say:
Types of Summoned Creatures:
Melee (Appearance style of Ice and Stone Golems and the Fire things in the final Ring of Fire mission), which do element melee damage. (Attack speed of Flesh Golems).
Ranged (Appearance style of Fire, Ice Imps), which do ranged elemental damage (normal attacks like Fiend).
Elemental (Appearance style of small Ice and Stone Golems.)

Classification of Elementals:
Fire
Earth
Ice
Air
Light
Dark

Summoner Attributes:
Primary: Pact Lord - reduces the time to use summoning skill and reduces energy cost of summoning.
Melee Summon - increases the level of a Melee Summon. Points also have an effect similar to beast mastery on Melee Summon skills. (attack Similar to Flesh golem but do x element melee damage
Ranged Summon - increases the level of a Ranged Summon. Points also have an effect similar to beast mastery on Ranged Summon skills. (attack Similar to Fiend but do x element ranged damage instead of piercing)
Elemental Summon – increases the level of a Elemental Summon. Points also have an effect similar to beast mastery on Elemental Summon skills. (Cast similar to Fire/Ice Imps).
Enchantment Summon - skills which summon enchantments for the weapons and armor of allies or provide a status effect around target ally.

Description:
Summoner would be able to only have one Summon active at a time and summoning skills using energy cost only (without requiring a corpse like a necro). Summons are not stationary like Ritualist’s spirits, they are mobile like the necro's minions. When the Summoner dies, the Summon pact breaks and the Summon fades. The Summon attacks like Flesh golem, Imp, or Fiend (depending on whether it is Melee, Elemental, or ranged), and does element damage, when the Summoner is not using an Attack skill. Since the Summoner can only have one active Summon, they do not threaten the MM.

Does this appear better arranged?

yes and no. the classification of melee, ranged, elemental is both excellent and meh at the same time. under this classification, you can broaden the damage types you work with, seeing as how all are in every category, but you lose attack type. i actually do like your classification better, but have it work again, with all 10 dmg types. i've listed them over and over, but here we go again. Slashing, Bashing, Piercing, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Dark, Holy, Chaos. the only problem with limiting to one summon per summoner is that there'll probably be fewer summon skills. im thinking 30 total, instead of 40.

however, as much as i would like weapon spells, (ala sheena from ToS. Loved that game) the ritualist already yoinked them. i suppose that we could ignore that, and make them more like the conjure spells that elementalists use, except maybe more available and with better effects. your arrangement is nicer, but i do prefer, the A) 10 Summon Types, and B) more unique skins. not just a blanket: This type looks like elemental golems, as much as i like the creativity.

The only thing that I'm worried about now is a party of 8 summoners. instead of a simple 8v8, its now 16v8. which is a little one-sided. solutions? the first one that comes to mind is to make summons one-time-cast, like a rez sig, and recharge with morale boost, but then the summoner is nulled in GvG unless he/she brings 2-3 summon skills. i suppose then, the summoner would need skills that heal summons based on certain circumstances. like if you're using a fire elemental, it could be something like: Heal Target Fire Summon for 20...75 points. For each foe within 33' (aggro circle. I think.....) that is on fire, heal that summon for an additional 30...54 points.

I'm just throwing things out now, and i've managed to stray farrrrrr from the original idea. the one thing that we always have to keep in mind is that b/c the game is highly PvP oriented, balancing the class is a MUST. we'll see how this works out though, eh?

Been a month since your last post, any more thoughts Ian?

If ANet decided not to create a summoning profession, and say putting the concept in this topic in Rit class. They could link Spawning Power (Primary) to the health and active time of the Summon and Communing to the attack and level ability of the Summon. Treating a summon as a type of spirit, and only one summon can be active at a time. The Rit might actually be worth using then. I would rather have a Summoner profession, but if it came to no summoner or the Summoner profession integrated into Rit, I would rather have it integrated then not exist.

Clearly, people want to see a summoning class that would be balanced.

Personally, I would like to see summons that do not die with time, and can be summoned ahead of combat (unlike the necro's).

The penalty is this: add a maintenance cost. I'm not thinking of pips of degen or long casting time (though long casting time is still a good idea), but rather a % of your max energy is removed while your summon is alive (could also be a fixed amount of energy instead). So after casting yourself a small army, you find yourself with little energy left for other purposes - thus you constantly have to choose between more minions and more energy for other uses.

Different summons would have different % of max energy removal based on their usefulness. The summon primary would reduce that maintenance cost to permit building a larger army or casting stronger summons, or alternatively to free up some energy for other purposes.

More ideas on balancing the summoner.

On the issue that the summoner would be unbalanced because of numerical superiority, you already have 3 other classes with different types of "summons": ranger, necro, and ritualist. The summoner's summons would actually be somewhere in between: lasts as long as a pet, but doesn't tank as well, can't have as many as the necro's but they require less maintenance, etc.

1) Energy maintenance cost. Again, as said above, your max energy is decreased by some amount, which remains removed as long as you have the summon alive.

2) Blood maintenance cost. Same as above, but some summons might share life, taking a % off when being cast.

3) Summoning attribute. Points determine the number of summons you can have.

The nice thing about ideas #1 & 2 is that summoning weakens your character, so that you can't cast other spells as often (or you're easier to kill).

Summons vary in strength but similarly in cost. You can have many weak summons or few stronger summons. Elite summons might use up most of your summoning power.

I also think that 1 or 2 attributes dedicated to summoning is enough, the other attribute(s) should be dedicated to support functions, attack spells, etc. Perhaps a tree for shape-shifting or symbiosis would be nice as well.

Honestly, didn't read all the posts regarding this build. But I'd like to post my opinion, whether or not someone posted it or not ><

Love the -1ep, limiting the summoner to about 4 summons at most. Don't know if this was stated before, but maybe if you had "stronger" monsters, they could take up 2pips instead?

So say like a Greater Demon of...Fire. yeah. fire. Standing beside that lil Ifrit of yours :P So that's 3pips gone, but only 2 summons. Say the Greater Demon carries an elite aswell, and is say, lvl 20+

Or, maybe that could be another thing? The higher the attribute, the more skills the summon gets? Maybe recieving its elite at maybe attribute 10+

Was also thinking if you were thinking of this from a FF view(you used Ifrit, so I guess you know what I'm talking about), maybe have like an elite that takes 2pips, but negates all summons after that?

So you have some super summon, but can only have one.

I don't know, but ritualist summons were a very big disappointment to me, they were more like a "ok, set down and hunker down around my spirits".

Bringing in a summoner like this would bring alot more diversity to this game I believe.

Good luck with this =D

Honestly, didn't read all the posts regarding this build. But I'd like to post my opinion, whether or not someone posted it or not ><

Love the -1ep, limiting the summoner to about 4 summons at most. Don't know if this was stated before, but maybe if you had "stronger" monsters, they could take up 2pips instead?

So say like a Greater Demon of...Fire. yeah. fire. Standing beside that lil Ifrit of yours :P So that's 3pips gone, but only 2 summons. Say the Greater Demon carries an elite aswell, and is say, lvl 20+

Or, maybe that could be another thing? The higher the attribute, the more skills the summon gets? Maybe recieving its elite at maybe attribute 10+

Was also thinking if you were thinking of this from a FF view(you used Ifrit, so I guess you know what I'm talking about), maybe have like an elite that takes 2pips, but negates all summons after that?

So you have some super summon, but can only have one.

I don't know, but ritualist summons were a very big disappointment to me, they were more like a "ok, set down and hunker down around my spirits".

Bringing in a summoner like this would bring alot more diversity to this game I believe.

Good luck with this =D