I simply think DB streamlines things too much. Overly handholding in my book, and with that, imho, a bit too boring.
As for the totems... their design actually has even another problem. It's again something that actually tightens the extremes instead of mitigating it.
You need several rounds to build up a notable amount of them, unless you exploit the games AI routines by delaying conversation before fights for example. And even then you can't use that to full extend, as the engine doesn't allow for simultaneous casting of multiple player characters.
So you don't have them when you need them (beginning) and have them when you don't need them anymore (end of battle).
And all that doesn't even count in the fact that they mostly are killed by collateral damage not even offering real protection, as a lot of, especially indoor, areas are smaller than the AoE offered by skills.
Or that new summoned entities only act one round later, delaying their use even further. Multiplying these issues with the collateral damage aspect, as they often are destroyed before they can act at all.
I also don't want to even start talkin about dynamic fights, that shift into different rooms by fleeing enemies for example... so all of this starts twice.. or even more.
So far I played both a 1/4 summoner party and a 4/4 summoner one. And in the "balanced" party my summoner almost offered nothing notable. Enemies mostly prefer player characters to attack and the damage the summoner can dish out after 1-2 rounds when especially melee characters often kill the first enemies is prettymuch negligible.
(maybe 2-3 x 15 dmg (+ about 25 dmg from their skill) from lvl6 incarnate in the first round where a single whirlwind attack of my fighter easily dealt up to 150+ dmg, often more. Let's even add in a precast totem for ~25 dmg a round at that level. So we are looking at ~90-95 dmg single target, against 150 AoE... and that was just 1! attack of the fighter)
Similar scene compared to rangers and mages, just slightly less drastic.
So to make the summoner contribute something notable at least, the time he needs to unfold it's potential needs to be shortened while capping it. The best way to do that would be to lower their numbers and increase the values (damage and so on). More class instead of time consuming mass.
And with that we are already there ("normal summons" with, as said, a tad more adaptability).
So why burning down the forest if there is farmland left?
Last edited by Seelenernter; 31/03/17 07:00 PM.
