Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Improved ideas for Summoning

I've been playing for a while with the new summoning and polymorphing skills and I do think they could've done a much better job with this stuff. I came up with some new ideas I wanted to share.
First off, Summoning:

- When spawning totems, they should be able to take up more than 2 surfaces, so if the totem is spawned on electrified blood, it should deal has of its damage as physical and the other half has magical. This could allow for some really cool combinations I think.

- However incarnates can only take up 1 surface since they have slightly higher health. I think they should also spawn with both physical and magical armour because since they take 3 AP instead of 2 (with totems) they aren't as worth it sometimes. I much prefer spawning totems everywhere and use the rest of the AP with other attacks than waste it all on incarnates. They need to be buffed a little tbh.

- NEW SKILL:
The changing surface skill. I invented this skill to be able to change a certain surface to its direct opposite. You can make it random like dimensional bolt is but it's more tactical if you know what it's going to turn into. Keep in mind this will only work for water, fire, oil and poison, so water turns into fire and oil into poison or the other way round. Maybe takes 3AP.

- I think the dimensional bolt is good as it is.

- NEW SKILL:
This is to replace the current *farsight infusion* and *power infusion*.
With this new skill, you chose to power up one of your incarnates into either a soldier, archer or assassin (This time it's random tho but it doesn't have to be...).
Soldier:
Gives a close range weapon (more damage) with shield that boosts both magics and physical armour. + Battering Ram and Whirlwind.
Archer:
Long range weapon (more damage) + Tactical Retreat and Marksman's Fang.
Assassin:
Doublewielding daggers (can backstab) + Throwing Knife and Vault.
Takes maybe 3AP.

- NEW SKILL:
Totem Protection. Spawns a bunch of non-lethal (don't attack but also can't be destroyed) totems around any character to either protect a teammate or keep and enemy away from your teammates. They disappear after 1 turn and you can't use any skill on the character inside it, including healing.
Takes 2AP.

- [s]NEW SKILL: (SCRAPPED for a better suggestion that I got)
Total mayhem. Destroys all current totems and incarnates on the field and grants your next attack to deal all the damage of your totems and incarnates combined + the damage of your current weapon + a extra boost from intelligence/summoning skill.
e.g. for every extra totem or incarnate there is it does 1% more damage X your current intelligence level
OR
5% more damage X your current summoning skill level.[/s]

IMPROVED SKILL:
Instead of "Total Mayhem", Seelenernter suggested that to better replace "supercharger", the skill should take 2 rounds to release a really powerful attack (300% > damage) but the round after the skill was activated, the totems can't attack so they are able to be destroyed before the totems can release this attack. Also if they only have 1 turn left to live, using the skill will keep it from disappearing unless it's destroyed and after they released this powerful attack, they sort of explode or just die instantly.
It's powerful but risky.


I haven't had the time to do the same for the polymorphing skills but anyone can leave suggestions below and expand this thread and hopefully get the Devs to read this and improve the skills.
Thanks.

Those are really cool ideas (the new skills)

Totems double-dipping on surfaces is cool may be a bit much, though I think they maybe already do something like cursed-fire totems. Not sure how that works.

I find the 3 AP incarnate cost pretty hefty for a fairly lackluster summon, though I haven't played with it too much. Probably could spawn with a small amount of magical armor.

Reversing surface skill is a cool idea, though I don't want to make it so summoning needs virtually no synergy with other ability trees to get the surfaces it wants. Could be fun enough to be worth adding though. Don't think it needs to be 3 AP, but probably a 3-4 turn cooldown.

I don't think the infusions need to be merged. Maybe a separate skill that grants a completely random skill (within reason) and/or buff to the incarnate would be neato.

Totem Protection could be a versatile cc/protection tool that locks a character into a circle of totems (maybe Totem Prison would be a better name). Should make them destroyable, but good health. Probably could ground the character as well so it can't just teleport out.

Total Mayhem sounds fun, only it could allow for a lot of pre-combat set up abuse. Good concept nontheless.

I agree that summoners could definately need some afterthoughts. Especially addressing their dynamic problems.
But most of these ideas are actually a patchwork to fix things that shouldn't be a problem in the first place.

So I can just say what I said in "skills are broken" thread. I think it's best to scrap totems completely, but therefor give the "incarnates" an overhaul.
More distinct aspects for the different kinds of elementals like speed, damage, and so on (including a better visualisation for them than these little goatmen or whatever it is meant to be) and let them fill the role of the totems to some extend without all the problems the totem design brings. (like the "warm up" time, AP efficiency, lacking dynamics and so on)
Slightly better customization with infusions or skill crafting. (if the latter is still planned)
Additionally add a perk and/or skill to increase the summon limit, like they said in the beginning of the KS campaign.
(maybe a perk with fewer downsides that gives +1 and a skill like the stances of DOS1 with HP/stat loss per round for another +1 (the "stance" could be necro), just an example)

Also regarding "total mayhem"...
If they would implement the already existing "overcharge" skill in a way Sven described it in the KS update (explosion in the end), it would be already quite close.
Something like: "Summon deals 50% increased damage for the next round. This bonus is doubled in the 2nd round. After the 2nd round the summon explodes dealing X damage in a radius of Y m according to it's kind."
And regarding "change surface"...
Totally against it. With bless/curse there already exist skills that are shaping surfaces, let alone the many skills directly adding them. This would just make things even easier than they already are. All the nice surface interactions would become meaningless. Why dousing a fire with water if you can just transform it? Also it introduces a lot of balancing problems.
So definately a "Holy hell, please not!" from my side.

If they do keep the totems, it might help if they make status effects not work on them (with a few exceptions). Currently, trying to summon a totem on an area with two elements is a bad idea, as it will only be immune to the ground surface. Summoning a totem on a fire surface with poison in the air will make it instantly be poisoned, and sometimes die almost immediately, even if not attacked. And, since poison explodes, this can happen a lot.

The incarnate could definitely do with a visual rework, and I like the idea of having specialized infusions, or just more in general. Currently, it can only get a ranged attack or some melee skills. Perhaps the infusions could be made more powerful, diverse and possibly exclusive. (IDK if they are right now)

I also agree that Overcharge would be way more interesting if they blew up at the end.

I've got to admit, having played 15 hours with the summoning skills, I've always ever spawned totems, incarnates just don't feel as powerful for some reason. I like the idea of the totems in general and I don't really want to scrap them tbh (but that's my opinion) but maybe they should be nerfed so:

if you have only one point in summoning, you can only spawn 2 totems and the more you increase your summoning level the more totems you can spawn (but keeping the fact that they disappear after 3 turns) while also increasing general stats, same goes for incarnates.

I agree that the incarnates need better sort of "power ups" like *farsight infusion* and *power infusion* because they're just not interesting and not very useful.

I have to agree that intentionally changing surfaces can be a little too strong so maybe make it a source point ability thing, I just like the idea to be even more in control of the battle. e.g. you can use the rain skill and then use the changing surface ability to burn everyone soaked in water.
I was thinking that this ability could only be used on surfaces like water, fire, oil and poison (not blood) so water turns into fire and oil into poison, or the other way round. It's not as op as you would think actually. A 4 turn cooldown is good but I think 3 AP is appropriate since as you say, it means that synergies might not be as important.

Regarding "Total Mayhem", I like the idea that you have 2 rounds to release a really powerful attack because the enemy can destroy those totems and so on before it can happen so it's risky. But maybe to make it more balanced, the totems don't attack the round after you activated the skill but instead attack for 300% of their original damage on the second turn (also if they only have 1 turn left to live, using the skill will keep it from disappearing unless it's destroyed and after the they released the powerful attack, they sort of explode or just die instantly.)

I hope this cleared a few things.

Regarding "overcharge":
I guess you misunderstood what I meant. I just wanted to make overcharge a bit more viable than it is right now. Providing 50% damage when it is applied (like it is right now), 100% one round later, and then the summon explodes. (also better symbolizing the "overcharging" idea... more... more... boom!)
But... that misunderstood idea also isn't too bad I'd say. I just would decrease the damage bonus and simply give the summon 2 rounds to "release the charge", without any immobility time. If not released or it's killed meanwhile it also explodes.

Regarding the totems:
Why would you make the amount of totems grow if the duration caps it? 3 turns = 3 totems.
The only way this would not be redundant is with no cooldown at all, or higher duration.
No coolddown could help reducing the "warm up" problem, but then a high or missing cap would mean a possible OP power accumulation. So there needs to be a cap to prevent that, but still a way to build it up fast enough to take pace with other professions/skill sets that can unfold their power way faster.
The best way to do that would be either more attacks per round or higher damage, and this would already bring it really close to "standard" summons. So according to occams parsimony, why reducing the significance by introducing redundant aspects?
(an improved version of the lackluster farsight infuse could verywell take on the ranged needs, for example, or a skill craft like a "summon elemental" spell combined with a spell like the DOS1 "farseer" skill)

TBH, the only way I could see totems added as both
a) a viable as well as
b) distinct yet not redundant aspect
is to give them a makeover similar to a trap, a mix between summon and trap.
Similar to sentry/spring guns in real life, they could trigger an attack similar to attacks of opportunity, but ranged, simply by having an enemy enter a certain range. The amount of these attacks could be limited, for example by visible stacks of a certain buff, that's decreased by 1 whenever the totem shoots, and destroys the totem when reaching 0. So the totem could act as a form of single target multi use trap, instead of the one charge aoe a mine for example would present.
A limit for their numbers would be needed to balance them in this case aswell. (2-3 I'd say with maybe 3 shots each)

edit regarding surface changing:
Even that way the removed need to use the surface interactions with that change surface spell would make a whole aspect a lot less meaningful/needed, a bad thing to do IMHO. No matter the cost. But again, that's MHO.

I'll leave overcharge for now and lets try and sort this totem thing out;
If I'm understanding this right, you want the totems to be able to see only see a certain area in front of them (like a turret that can't move its head) and whenever someone goes through that path the turret will immediately attack. They will still appear in the bar where you can see whoever is attacking next (whatever it's called) but if someone who isn't already in the turret's sight moves into the turret's sight, a sort of "Attack of Opportunity" will activate.
This sounds really cool I have to admit, It means that they can be avoided and not so op anymore and also will make the incarnates more meaningful. The area the turrets (that's what I'll call them now) see can either be a small circle around their body so they have to be in the middle of the action a lot more (bigger chance of being destroyed) or a cone in front of them so they'll attack anyone who passes in front of them but probably won't attack as often. You see this circle or cone whenever putting a new turret down. Also if an enemy moved into the sight of a turret one turn (so it gets attacked) and stays there the next turn, the turret will still attack it.
The turrets can attack a max of 3 times, including the sort of attack of opportunities, they last 5 turns and have a cooldown of 1 turn. Finally the amount of turrets increase with every 2 points put into summoning. starting with a base of 2.
e.g. Summoning level 1 = 2 turrets ; Summoning level 2 = 3 turrets ; Summoning level 4 = 4 turrets
Summoning level 6 = 5 turrets

At the moment incarnates won't have a limit but will also be much more viable with these slightly nerfed turrets.

Pretty much yes, but I wouldn't restrict the angle, full 360° should be ok. Especially as there is no mechanic right now that allows making an entity face in a specific direction when summoned.

The general difference of this change would be that it makes totems reactive instead of active like the "incarnate"/elementals.

If then there is a way added, like described for example, to have more "normal" summons, a summoner could finally REALLY decide what to do, and not forced to do always the same. Because after summoning the "incarnate" there is prettymuch nothing else to do but spam totems right now... Not really a decision... feels too much like gap filling instead of a notable decision.

It would, for balancing reasons, even be possible to think about making totems and other summons share the same pool of creature max amount.
The definate amount is hard to determine, as there is no info on further content. I also wouldn't bind the numbers to the summoning level, because that squares the progression, as the damage already scales with it. (few totems with low damage <-> many totems with high damage) That makes balancing quite a bit harder.

Just manged to finish the campaign and even though I don't think the totems are op anymore, only at the beginning of the game, they definitely need some tactical rework.

Maybe make them traps or something but I totally agree that Summoning is just a spam of Totems, Incarnates (kinda) and Dimensional Bolt.

just finished with summoner as a start character.
and I'd like to say that it's not awesome at all. all of the gameplay is to put the totem and cast that spell (with random school of damage - don't remember the title). + sometimes summon, when you are an elf and could use self-bleeding (race ability)

I have to agree with the impression that summoning isn't particularly dynamic right now. There's just not enough active skills. The summon buffs aren't very interesting.

I wonder if they should just make the incarnate stay around permanently. Right now it feels like a summoner has to waste a turn just to summon his incarnate, or tediously summon one before every combat and enter combat before too much time has passed. Maybe just dropping down the incarnate summon to 2 AP would make a big difference.

Either you could just summon a different one if you want a different type of summon, or there could be a new skill that for 1-2 AP infuses the summon with whatever element its standing on. Maybe the skills the summon starts with would be on a 1-2 turn CD, so it's not so easy to just cycle between fire/earth/water/blood for the different skills. Not sure if that'd be a huge deal anyway though.

There's definitely more active skills coming, but specifically I'd like to see skills like: swap positions with your summon or maybe totem (0 AP), give all statuses you have to your summon (positive and negative), Damage sharing, heal sharing.

Ways to convert all existing totems to one type, ways to target totems to attack someone, totem auras, incapacitating oneself to empower summon or totem, various ways to sacrifice summons and totems.

A skill that lets you damage characters inbetween you and your summon, a skill that makes your summon use the same (non or self/targeted, like self-invis or contamination) skill that you use next, summon buffs that take into account your build (like buffing a summon with +fire damage if you are a pyro).

And of course some more summon types (hard to control demons, flying summons, utility summons, etc.)

Nice ideas.

I think the Incarnate sticking around permanently might be a good idea. There could be a "Change Form" spell (1 AP, 1 Turn Cooldown) which changes the Incarnate to the type of surface it is standing on. If it attacks something, that is considered an attack by the Summoner. A permanent Incarnate might also create another potential trade-off: it would allow the Summoner to forget the Summon Incarnate spell out of combat to make room for another slot, but that will mean you can't re-summon it in combat if it dies.


A "Totem Mark" spell might be a good idea too. Let's say 2 AP, it lasts for 2-3 turns, and all Totems will try to hit the enemy. Maybe as an additional effect, there will be some kind of damage buff for the totems OR it will damage enemy armor (physical and magical) for some amount).

A downside can be that the totems won't care if the enemy is in line of sight or not, and they certainly won't care if teammates are in the path.

I'd love to see more Summoning abilities.

Removing the duration on Incarnates sounds like a great idea. As-is nothing stops you from Summoning and Infusing before a fight, and the 10-turn duration is so generous that even doing this, you'll rarely have a summon time-out before it dies. Removing the duration would just help with the tedium.

I loved the new Incarnate and Totem skills. I found the amount of utility and tactics that Summons brought to a fight was immense.
Incarnates are great for initiating fights, excellent tanks (with some investment in Summoning and Infusions), and are very flexible thanks to the choice of element and options for AoE and Ranged abilities. Due to their innate Opportunist, they can do a lot of extra damage by standing near many enemies and getting off free attacks as they try to run. They are also great for breaking open doors and chests, can assassinate NPCs without ever pulling your party into the fight, and are a great way to check for traps. Because you can cast and double-infuse the summon outside of the fight, even a skill point investment can be very beneficial, for practically any class.
If you also use totems you can get stellar zone control and keep enemies so busy trying to keep your totems from building up that they don't have time to also chase after your summoners.

Even if you're spending 2 AP each turn adding a new totem, you still have a couple more AP to get off some attacks or utility.

A few caveats:
1. The Elemental Totems/Incarnates are almost always worse than the Physical Blood/Wood versions. Blood Totems get about 50% more health, and do the most damage, so sticking with Blood helps a lot, with wood as the 2nd best.
2. Dimensional Bolt is mostly crap. It's unreliable, so often ends up ruining whatever you were trying to do with it, and is also low damage. It is preferable to just have a source of blood, such as the elf racial Flesh Sacrifice, to gain access to the better Incarnate/Totem options. Bolt is also the only Summoning ability that scales off of Int (or any Stat, for that matter), which often gives people the impression that Summoning is an Intellect supported Skill tree, when in-fact Incarnates and Totems do just as well for a build using any other Stat.
3. If heavily using totems, be sure to spread them out to avoid enemy AoE. They are very good about killing grouped-up totems. A high Summoning skill with Blood totems helps a lot, as the Totems often become too bulky to one-shot.
4. Stay away from Supercharger. The 50% damage bonus is only additive with the other Incarnate bonuses, so it mostly just gets your Summon killed fast without a significant bump in damage, and wastes an AP and memory slot. E.g. my lvl 8 Blood Incarnate does 35 avg sheet damage with both Infusions and 7 points in Summoning. Adding Supercharger only increases the damage to 43.5, a measly ~24% increase, for its own untimely death. If you must use it, try to cast it before the Summon would die anyway.

I would agree that the Summoner abilities aren't very Dynamic, in the sense that you mostly use the same abilities, but there is a lot of decision making behind how you choose to use the abilities.

Super Charger might have WAAAAY more purpose once other summons are in the game.

Giving it to a Fire Elemental who is on their last turn, for example, or is about to die... Would be quite helpful, especially with the explosive finish.

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Also I think I know why there is a duration on the incarnate.

It lasts 8 turns and has a 4 turn cooldown.

8 turns is MOSTLY long enough to last an entire fight... only particularly long ones would this timer run out.

However! summoning it before a fight at MOST you can have it ready to resummon but have 4 turns... or 5 turns and 1 turn before you can summon it.

THAT is why it is the way it is.

This is ignoring, of course, that the summoner can super buff their incarnate. Which also requires a summoning limit.

Whatever you were trying to do with it? Well if you were trying to change a surface or hit an enemy with a specific damage type, or deal direct damage to an enemy then yes, it probably is wrong for the job.

That is because you are trying to use a wrench to hammer in a nail.

Dimensional Bolt is very good for its specific purpose, which is to provide a way for the summoner to create a surface to place a summon on. If you place that surface off to the side, it won't interfere with existing surfaces.

Elemental totems being worse than blood ones sounds more like a problem with elemental damage totems than with Dimensional Bolt. Bolt is a magical attack, so it scaling off of INT is fine. Especially because it is intentionally not best used as a direct damage attack.




It lasts 10 turns and has a 6 turn cooldown.

Bolt has a non-intuitive and narrow use-case, but that doesn't make it a good ability.

In combat, for actually hitting an enemy, it is unreliable and weak.
In combat, for getting a side-surface, 2 AP is over-costed for a random and tiny surface.

In my opinion, Bolt is not good even for the narrow purpose of making surfaces. Wands, grenades, elemental arrows, and other surface-creating abilities are good for creating surfaces, because they actually give you the surface you want and do something strong and useful at the same time.

Bolt is good for stunning your party and totems when it randomly creates a stun surface just large enough to connect with your blood pools.
Bolt is good for healing the zombies you're fighting when it picks poison.
Bolt is good when you want to create a small amount of damage on a target and a surface that may be too small to even fit a Totem/Incarnate into.

So unless bolt is your only surface-creating ability and you spam it before combat until it finally picks the pool you need, then it's a hard pass.
This would be a bigger use-case if Blood wasn't the only good surface to create on at the moment and Flesh Sacrifice wasn't already the best racial and better for that purpose.

The Int scaling is fine, except that Bolt is the only Int ability Summoning has, so it may just not be relevant to the user a lot of the time.

Well... It isn't...

Oil, Fire, Poison, and Electrified water are all clear good uses. (Fossil strike, Fireball, Acid Arrow, and Electric Discharge)

Water is conditional (healing)... and I've never gotten an Ice Incarnate yet (If it is the Hail skill... then it is very solid).

All the while Blood gets the weakest damaging skill. Which is essentially a trade off.

I'm not saying elemental summons are in-viable, and there are certainly some situational cases where using them can be more helpful, but Physical damage sources are just doing more damage than elemental right now. Using elemental is mostly just a damage loss.

Unless your party is primarily Magic damage, using elemental summons will just cause them to weakly ping away enemy magic armor without getting their statuses applied.

If your party is primarily magic damage then you are probably performing more poorly than a Physical party would be, Magic damage numbers are just lower across the board this patch.

I don't think the Blood Incarnate skill is worse than the others. It's got high single-target damage, applies bleeding, and heals the Incarnate to full.

Physical Damage summoners also have the advantage that their Incarnates can Knockdown enemies with Battering Ram (skill available to all Incarnates via Power Infusion), as they will have stripped off enemy Physical Armor.

The huge health boost to Blood Totems (~50%) means enemies won't have as easy of a time getting rid of them too.

Oil and Poison totems are just asking for someone to use fire to insta-kill the entire set.

There's also the disadvantage that enemies tend to be around/produce a lot of the element they are immune or resistant to. This means often the only convenient non-physical element around may be one that would be ineffective against the enemies you're fighting anyway.

Being able to default to normal/wood Incarnate/totems while still maintaining damage to the same armor-type you've been hitting the entire fight is very convenient.
Elemental totems can tend to get stacked closely on the few patches of element leaving them very vulnerable to AoE, but with Physical you have much more options with the positioning.

Fossil Strike is always useful due to it having the only CC that penetrates armor (that and slow is a great status effect in general)

As well some enemies have much higher physical defense than magic defense (and Vise Versa). Which is where having a magic assist comes in handy.

As for Totem on Oil... GOODNESS man... a source of slow? Worth it! Yeah of course don't continuously stack them, that would be stupid. The fact that you can be a dummy doesn't mean it is bad.

Not to mention you can lay down an enemy's weakness and then summon that... Or a incarnate/totem that is immune to the opponent.

Blood is the best "General use" (I'd put Oil in second place... if not in first), you usually can't go wrong doing blood.

But there is a difference between "best general use" and "Best, and all the rest suck"

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As for Dimension Bolt

Yeah it isn't that great... but I understand why it exists. I wouldn't want to increase its damage...

You would DEFINITELY sack it if you had another source of elemental surfaces. It is a emergency button.