I am not aware if all themes are subject to the recent nerf nor the specific numbers involved, but I feel that it would be best to find some sort of middleground between the previous and current versions of the Summon Monster spell.
Recently my summons are getting veritably crushed by most things you can stumble across, and even though I may be biased, that seems like taking it a bit too far.
All summon themes will differ Canzah. :( I recall shadows don't even have drain attacks though, and that is just wrong.
Iseabella's level four summon hits harder than she does fully buffed, and she's nothing to scoff at.
I LOL at Harmaro's absurd statement. ^_^
( unless other theme's werent nerfed into lol 4 damage )
I ... I know why and can understand why they were nerfed. They were still useless in many situations, but in some they were invincible.
Really what ever advantage summons had over buffs just went out the window unless you were trolling around with maybe the most broken theme's under the sun, like DEMON. Maybe they suck now too, I dunno.
I think its sad.
I saw these elementals/insects/shadows have the AB of a level 8 fighter, the damage of a greatsword + 2d4 of elemental dmg, permanent 50% concealment, 100+ HP. And They stacked on top of eachothers! Meaning that Ghula or anywhere with a tight choke makes them absolutely absurd.
These summons were imbalanced, and they are currently rectified. It's possible they might be tweaked again in the future.
Thus why I mentioned the middleground. As long as it is looked into I am pleased!
That Ghula fight was a perfect storm. 1. Freshly rested 2. No reason to hold back any summons 3. Portal domain 4. Choke Point
The ab was that of a level 6 fighter maybe (+10 at summon IV) -- (except for bugs which was tiny and therefore even more buffed), and they can never get second attacks. The best damage they had was 1d8+1d8electric+0 it did not get impressive until summon V.
Under normal quest situations they are no where near that overwhelming. But yeah, Bugs and Air Elementals needed a power drop somewhere. Bugs and Demons were the two scariest summoning themes Ive ever seen. As for stacking summons... Sure they can pile on, but they also cannot stop anything from charging you, because anything can run right through them like they aren't there.
But now blur and endure elements makes something immune to them completely, and they cannot be effective against anything unless you have hordes of them. They were already weak in long quests or around anything that had resistance, damage shields or AoE spells.
I'm still recovering from the sucker punch the drop in power had. So I'm not definitely not seeing things clearly from a balance perspective. Until I have some time to adjust and re-evaluate everything I'm not going to know if this was too much or just enough.
Right! So maybe I did miss something. Last I checked, the level four water elemental was +11 with 1-8 + 1d8 cold.
Bear in mind that the character sheet is not accurate with summons statistics.
Certainly they may be tweaked further, we want them to be useful! But not overwhelmingly powerful.
I really don't bother with them anymore at higher tiers. 7 AB for a fourth circle spell? No, thank you. And I'm a GSF: Conjurer too. >.>
There's like... a 1 AB increment from third to fourth tier in one of my themes, which I thought made it unworthwhile to cast even for conjuration focused casters. Some particular circles might have been over-nerfed, is what I'm saying.
We can still solo Granary at level 4 with a swarm of first circle summons + support fire.
I really don't bother with them anymore at higher tiers. 7 AB for a fourth circle spell? No, thank you. And I'm a GSF: Conjurer too. >.>
Mort had a rather interesting idea involving a different idea and theme, but perhaps one that should be pursued in all themes. Rather than limit them by points or whatever, limit them by summoning level. As in, you can only have one fourth level summon out a time, one third, and so on. This would allow them to be a little strong and appear useful yet not be spammed in a horde that exponentially grows in power.
The problem would be that would then remove the whole point of a summoner sorc which is that you can make an army with a certain level of summon. You'd have to have a summon at every level. You could always put a cap on the maximum number of summons a PC can have to maybe five. So you could have a couple of elite summons or a wave of L2s, but not a completely ridiculous horde.
@Ebok Unless I'm mistaken, Magic Fang gets around blur, applies to everything you have out and there is loot with it.
You know... The reason the stackable summons are used are not because they dish out rapid damage from the same choke point. They are used because the summons don't kill your party. (the most common reason people HATE playing around corporal summoners.) They wont lock you into mortal combat with a enemy you cant run from, wont bump you into a trap or into a wall or placeable... And you can call them out of a fight without a traffic jam. (which sucks when you're trying to call them off a critter or PC)
What I garnered from Mort's point (beyond the needed HP reduction on things like bug swarms. Anything with improved invis that isn't balanced for improved invis should be considered to have 40% more hp then shown.) Was that they were capable of getting too many summons into too small a place, Overwhelming the opposition PC or NPC.
What was done has made the new standard balance assume mass mobs of them, vastly weakening their use by non-devoted summoners, and making them pathetically weak in time consuming events (or travel, mostly the travel). Why didn't we just increase the point cost for the summons up to the balance?
Air elemental are something like 10/17/25/35/45 for levels I - V. If the issue was too much damage at once... having them cost 20/30/40/50/65 would make it impossible to swarm with overwhelming force, but not cripple them when used individually.
At level 8 with 160 points you could have four level IV summons and one level II. That was 5 attacks at +13ab (flanking+bless) and about 2d8 damage per.
At level 8 with the more expensive summons you're looking at three level IV summons. That's 3(1) attacks at +13(+11) and 2d8 damage. This about halves the damage output, while not requiring 2-4 summons to handle a single panther.
Just food for thought.
Could also, if possible, give some casters on quests the ability to use dismissal/banishment on summon hoardes.
We can desummon them anyway. It just takes a minute. And removes any benefit from ever summoning them to begin with.
Quote from: Ebok;249970We can desummon them anyway. It just takes a minute. And removes any benefit from ever summoning them to begin with.
No i mean the things you are fighting. And if anyone cares to elaborate what exactly got nerfed?
I found the points in this thread to seem very valid so i am going to try to pull it back into discussion if possible. I use the fire summon theme and...well...my main problem is even though it can do higher dmg, it doesn't tend to survive long enough to make a hit at times even on common enemies. Ebok has a point, downing the dmg but allowing more summons really makes more problems than solutions, a single summon is pathetic, but a mass of them makes things far more difficult for players to handle, it just completely screwed up any balance in my opinion.
I played EFU before all these summon changes. Since they were implemented, wizards that once had to rely heavily on allies and shadow mastiff's now run around soloing random areas and the whole of the wilds. They also save up a burst of summons to solo hard bosses. What other school even comes -close- to conjuration in terms of utility and power.
It used to be people took GSF conjuration for mestil/evards/web and that was pretty balanced. Now? You can take it and at level 9 solo practically any monster on the server with no risk.
A rebalance was needed. Even at 7 AB your mob of summons is dangerous in a group. Stacking summons - even light sparks - was / is deadly. You can also buff your summons...
This was a needed change.
Relinquish -- all summons that stacked, I believe. Elementals, etc.
I'd also add that + tomes and other boosts have proliferated. Level 9 PCs summoning up summon VII is obtainable with no DM loot. It's like full plate for a fighter -- expected from those that work for it, and i'd think the server is balanced accordingly.
I should like to add that there are game breaking counters spells against summoners its just nobody ever seems to use it.
Dismissal: Wizard/Sorcerer (5) Bard/Cleric (4)
Colossal area of effect/Will save
"All summoned (//%22http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Summon%22) creatures, animal companions (//%22http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Animal_companion%22), and familiars (//%22http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Familiar%22) belonging to enemy spellcasters are unsummoned within the area of effect (//%22http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Area_of_effect%22)."
I should also like to add i've seen more then a couple pieces of loot with this particular spell on. Some summons required a nerf but i think thats always going to be the case, nothing i ever going to be perfectly balanced. As for the system as a whole its been in opperation now for some time and it actually made conjurers worth playing again (especially with the nerf to evards in terms of power). Rather then people claiming summons are impossible to beat perhaps they should explore the very very obvious counter to it which can easily devestate a caster.
Considering that swarms of summons are going to be using up a mages few spell slots that will generally leave them without other useful defensive/offensive spells which in itself balanaces each encounter out PvP/PvE. For PvE in general i can tell you that you're wrong about being able to solo everything as a mage who has focused on conjuratio/summoning, on a quest of equiavelent challenge to my level so like.. level 1-2 summons on granary, 4-5 on Kants etc.. In most of these cases the summons would serve as extra support against general mobs and proved mostly useless against sub-bosses/bosses (Mobs generally killing them swiftly).
Like all mages its about knowing when to use your spells/When the spell will be most effective/using spells sparingly to survive an entire encounter. (Summons don't last forever!) So to sum up:
1. Summons in PVE are not overpowered unless you expending rare reagents/ methods of summoning higher tier monsters (Which are certainly not commmon).
2. Summons in PVP can be brutal for the reciving end if they are unprepared the same as any mage really, except there are more then one counter.. i.e. Dismissal/Summon your own monsters to distract theirs/Darkness/Inivisibility? (in most cases) Lots more but cba to list everything.
3. Individual summons may need tweaking but the system as a whole i find to be a great addition to EFU and it has made conjurers a lot more fun to play allowing the caster to choose from a wide selection of custom summon themes (at the same time) and the system has been made so that unless you have actually focuses on conjuration your summons will mostly certainly not last long enough to be useful on a longer term basis.
So rather then hating on conjurers, maybe start using your noodles and finding ways to counter them. It would be nice in PvE to see the more powerful bossess use spells like dismissal if they detect a summon to save the classic; summon everything you have and try to nuke the boss before it can do much. (Maybe prioritise the spell somehow?)
Rant over.
Quote from: Calimport Smoke;294249I'd also add that + tomes and other boosts have proliferated. Level 9 PCs summoning up summon VII is obtainable with no DM loot. It's like full plate for a fighter -- expected from those that work for it, and i'd think the server is balanced accordingly.
I should also add + tomes are not common at all and while they can be obtained without DM support it is very difficult and very uncommon. People seem to make a lot of assumptions regarding this.
Holy thread-o-mancy!
As a summoner, I think the current system is well balanced and summons are where they need to be.