Most of that these changes would kill even the rest of their usefulness...
The only good thing would be the "utility" abilities, that could give them some tactical use.
The cooldown could be ok, but is quite troublesome with the way intelligence works right now.
Or phrased differently: 5 rounds recharge at int...?
With low int it would be useless with high int it would still cause no cooldown.
And I'm very much aware of all the "upsides" mentioned here. Sadly these change almost nothing.
A lvl 22 elemental summon deals roughly 150 dmg max (with all debuffs possible critting for maybe 300-400). At that point a good craftable melee weapon has up to 700 damage, and not only that, damage increases come from a variety of sources: the weapon talent up to +70%~+80% commonly, rage +50%, oath +50% (not stackable anymore), bully +50% and finally direct skills that double the BASEVALUE.
At said level thats roughly 4k-6k dmg per single crit. More than any summon can deal in its whole lifetime (assuming it ONLY crits!).
But ok... lets say their offense is subpar. They still have their defense.
As most here should know in the later encounters elementals are most commonly instantkills with their 1k life and their almost non existant resists/armor. (except "their" element)
So thats 1 hit they can provide shelter for.
Ya know what my warrior says to that? ... "BLOCK" - Cost: 0 AP
But lets assume there's no shield warrior around only standard mages.
Ya know what my mages says? ... "fire/water/earth/air shield" - Cost 5 AP
These more than double the current life as shield-HP. A normal mage at that point has roughly 1k-2k HP, and roughly 100-200 armor with probably maxed resists (80%) from proper gear. So he takes never more than half damage (ca 100 amor provide 50% physical attack damage reduction)
So the mage itself can stand more than (at least!) 3x more damage with less AP and no way to bypass the "tank".
Edit:
Only decapitators last a bit longer with their 1800 HP and armor. So these CAN tank a bit. Nonetheless solely exploiting the AI feels a bit cheesy.
This said... They lack, they seriously lack.
But don't get me wrong, I really LOVE summoning. Having a ranger like Bairdottr summon a wolf or my witch summon a spider feels great. I do that myself just for the fluff. But thats it basically. Sadly.
Last edited by Seelenernter; 08/01/15 01:33 PM.
