Summoning

[dire horizon]

This thread is for summoning discussions maybe some general help, and overall thoughts on it, I feel this might help not flood other topics or possibly suggestion as well XD

Some general tips for new summoners, is to use shields and preferably a magic weapon in your set up ( arcane staff would be best but any works )

Shields will help tremendously for survival

Leveling magic as you level summoning will help you overall wither you focus on summons as your dps or your staff, the two skills go hand in hand and overall buffs your selected playstyle

Any questions regarding summoning feel free to ask, and any topics about summoning feel free to share, what do you like about it? How would you change it? And is the playstyle fun overall?

Also some extra tips you can treat grenades like mana potions if you level your explosion tree enough

Progression wise tomes I would recommend

Pre-wall- dark and ashes
Wall- ashes till pestilence(sprouts), then pestilence(sprouts) till you get grim armor then you can comfortably switch to tome of the deep

When upgrading tomes and when you reach to that point be careful before upgrading them as you want to make sure you can maintain the mana costs they go up in as they upgrade, if you can't maintain the mana costs then you may cause problems for your build overall ( this also applies to any mana costing weapon )

Also if you are wondering about food buffs I'll send a food chart in here and I'd use any buffs that can help your survival or dmg source,

Minions don't benefit from anything that doesn't say specifically minion ( magic effects them later but that's as you get to know your skill tree more and unlock more you will notice this )

Also regarding any questions about where to obtain tomes
https://core-keeper.fandom.com/wiki/Summon_weapons

This can tell you all sources your tomes can come from and you can look at gear ect relating to the topic ^

[narrow bloom]

Tons of useful info here, thank you!

I just got a Tome of Sprouts, figured I'd use it for a ranged option

[dire horizon]

@jagged lotus here

@oak delta here's the thread, might help with your summoning/magic playstyle too for some general tips above ^

[oak delta]

As I said my favorite all time summoner is the Necromancer on Diablo 2. Minions able to be targeted with life bars and armor stats. Since hit chance isn't a thing in this. Summon some melee minions to tank and ranged ones for dps on top. When minions die you summon more. Could use some complimenting debuffs too like something that increases physical, magic, ranged damage. Some food for thought. I'm fairly new to this game so I've not played end game. Also on hard world so the struggle will be real I'm sure. Thanks for the tips. I'll be sure to keep my mana in mind. I'm already struggling with it and I'm pre-wall still.

[dire horizon]

It's fine to struggle with mana, we all do at first lol, and that's some valid points, we'd have to change summons completely for this method but it's honestly a valid point, necromancer in D2 was very fun to play, even in D4 it's pretty fun for the most part, idk how balancing would exactly work here or anything but thank you for sharing your feedback

[toxic yoke]

@jagged lotus @dire horizon Going to move here so its easiers to read back later if needed instead of scrolling up for part of the discussion/conversation.

[jagged lotus]

Essentially I'd like to write up an overhaul doc for the devs to read that's based based on fundamental flaws that community members can come to an agreement on

[toxic yoke]

So I'm going to approach this as I would for a game I'd develop. Before even trying to figure out what to add or change. Lets identify the main points where summoning is lacking. Most importantly ignoring obvious things that are super simple to fix like damage. Its mechanics that are important here imo.

[jagged lotus]

Yes

[toxic yoke]

Just gunna rant here a bit, but I feel like their approach to minions was to address the common issue with summoning in other games where you just summon them and then its just passive and non-interactive or non-engaging playstyle. I believe the nature of having AI be able to target and attack independent of the players actions tends to lead towards this. The fact that minions are temporary and on release, wouldn't aggro without a player action, this really makes me thing they want the playstyle to be active similar to existing combat styles. So I think anything we try to settle on 100% need to emphasize this design choice because whether we'd like it or not its mostly likely one that they won't stray too far from.

So rather than try to make summoning as unique as possible by introducing unique mechanics to make it stand out, designing things in a way to feel like you are just using your minions as if they were a sword or bow, if that makes sense, is probably the way to go.

[jagged lotus]

Agreed. I'd prefer them encourage a more active sort of playstyle with them anyways than something like, say, pre-1.4 terraria summoner

[toxic yoke]

Like i think that was the goal but i feel they landed somewhere in the middle where its too active for a passive summoning approach but not active enough for the opposite, so no ones happy. Normally trying to be in the middle to roughly please everyone would be fine, but I think what actually is causing issue is that this game isn't purely a combat focused one. So the mechanics they've introduced make summoning lean towards a passive playstyle but the temporary nature of them makes it hard for general use when exploring and mining having to remember to summon like every 10-20s to remain at max minion count gets old quick. Especially because durability is only like 100-200 and that other combat styles don't have this similar issue so it feels so out of place.

[jagged lotus]

I liked your idea of largely making summons lean more towards cheaper mana cost but lower lifetime but also having ones that last indefinitely but taking a chunk of your mana bar. The latter leaves room for people that just want to use summons as passive protection while doing other things

[toxic yoke]

Ya even if permanent minion isn't something they'd like... extending the lifetime to 5 minutes or something really long is effectively the same imo. Basically taking off the high management minigame(if you'd call it that lol) demand, and let the player have the uptime they should have for general exploring. I think its also perfectly acceptable and clear that minions with this benefit would have less effective dps you know?

[jagged lotus]

Right, though I think at that point you could probably remove the lifetime entirely since it just becomes an ocassional bit of tedium

[toxic yoke]

Sure... but again if its part of their design philosophy or w/e. Honestly any reason i think its perfectly fine to not completely remove the tedium.

[jagged lotus]

Like I said in the other post though I think low damage super long lifetime minions should probably be saved for new summons. Besides the fact it gives summoner more options I'd be a bit miffed if some of the current minions got turned into what are essentially afk farming tools

[toxic yoke]

Like look at the ways can deal damage without doing anything, they are all terrible amounts of damage. At least this way as well they don't have to treat the minions differently base on their behavior. Ik it sounds crazy but every quark or different behavior likely is 10x more work than you'd think it is under the hood. Like each behavior needs to be its own class, whether it extends another class or not(class in programing terms).

As of right now basically guarenteed theres 3 classes right now. You got ranged minion, melee minion, and idk probs called like orbiting minion or something like that.

And honestly as much as you guys wouldn't like it, I think having the permanent or less temporary minions having the old AI is just about the only way we are getting them lmfao unless of course they just give up on them. Also thing this creates a lot better of choices/options for the player. Cause if one is just significantly better or if the behavior is the same it just becomes a numbers game.

[jagged lotus]

I would think the long lasting ones would be more intended for passive usage during other tasks though? It's not really about numbers in that case, it's about their role being to protect you while being focused on other tasks.

[toxic yoke]

This is one of the reasons why i recommended each minion providing a buff to all your minions cause then using a mix or focusing on one for minmaxing a certain aspect becomes an interesting choice.

[jagged lotus]

Personally I liked that one guy's idea to give the jellies slippery movement and knockback. Would make them more of a defense minion you'd use alongside something else like fire mites

[toxic yoke]

Nah you fail to understand how players play. They do not care or understand the intended purpose of a thing, only what they can benefit from it. So if a minion does more dps, even if its not good for how they are using it, they will still use it because they will take the more damage option every time if thats what they want.

Like melee minions aren't good for moving targets because they move around a lot and end up dealing less than optimal damage but if they deal 10% more damage to non-moving target they won't adapt more than half the time.

[jagged lotus]

Right but what I mean is the revamped short duration minions would be antithetical to passive usage. Their other mechanics would make them infeasible for that role, and having something that does last for 5 minutes or indefinitely or whatever would become the defacto choice for passive protection (assuming no nerfed AI)

[toxic yoke]

I fail to see how that makes them infeasible.

[jagged lotus]

Well not infeasible but like, not ideal, since you have to switch back to the summon tome a lot to sic your dudes on whatever shrooman or whatever is pestering you

Hence why making the passive ones use old AI would kinda defeat the purpose since they mostly wouldn't start attacking till the other enemy has started attacking you

[toxic yoke]

Okay lemme explain cause i think you're missing some understanding of the minion AI

[jagged lotus]

Probably lol

I'm not inherently opposed to dumber AI for the long lasting ones

[toxic yoke]

The old AI would aggro enemies that target you or hit you, and being close to you makes them able to respond quicker since they are acting defensively like this.
The new AI would aggro any nearby enemies they have LOS of so they would run to them, when theres only 1 or 2 enemies this is probably better BUT with a bunch of enemies what tends to happen is that minions are busy fighting won't aggro whats next to you UNLESS you get hit first which will take priority over their current target.

[jagged lotus]

Ah I see

[toxic yoke]

So old AI is defensive and reactive. New AI is aggressive, with defensive tendencies. 😄

[jagged lotus]

I kinda remembered the old ones being bad at actually keeping you safe unless you hit the enemy first

But I barely used them then

[toxic yoke]

I mean don't get me wrong, the old AI was slow to react to the aggro of enemies and i think there was some distance limitations as well.

[jagged lotus]

In that case though I'd be fine with the old behavior for passive minions

[toxic yoke]

If they can improve the reaction time of the minions to the player taking aggro then I really like the difference between their behaviors.

[jagged lotus]

Side note but I'd love an automatic turret style minion type that encourages smart placement and requires resummoning to reposition them, I think it'd be cool to encourage some more tactical style of play

[toxic yoke]

Imo this would work better as like an engineer influenced approach since we have traps and turrets, those can be included in the skill.

[jagged lotus]

Constant autoturrets for a trapper style would also be nice

I just know I enjoyed using this thing in terraria a lot and it'd be nice to have a similar choice for summoners in ck
https://terraria.wiki.gg/wiki/Queen_Spider_Staff

[toxic yoke]

Ya i've played tons of terraria, but i think its important to remember that CK is its own game.

Mechanics can be inpsired but copy/pasting from one game to another is a good way to make a boring copy cat.

[jagged lotus]

I mean, it's not the same since they'd still have lifetime and such, mainly they'd differ from existing minions because they couldn't move

[toxic yoke]

Well... ik its not official but theres many minions that are temporary with mods.

[jagged lotus]

This is getting a tad offtopic lol

So besides the summons themselves

The skill trees also need addressed desperately

Most mana restoration talents are in the magic tree and much of summoner's skill tree is full of mage synergy talents like power in numbers, group effort and even tough gang to a lesser extent

[toxic yoke]

I will say i think its weird that theres such a heavily influenced hybrid between magic and summoning

[jagged lotus]

It makes it very hard for summoner to be its own thing, by not using those synergy talents you're leaving a large amount of potential damage and mana restoration on the table

[toxic yoke]

Not uncommon of them to have skills talent tree with mixed effects to incentivize people to mess with all the skills but as they add new skills i think its harder and harder for them to include even more crossovers with all the skills.

[jagged lotus]

I think having one or two like trickle down arcana is fine but it's closer to 3 or 4 talents if you count tough gang.

It doesn't leave much room for straight summoner builds

[toxic yoke]

Ya i feel like they are too busy

Like ranged and melee have slight crossover but then you get mining seems to be a pair with melee, and fishing with ranged. I think they wanted summoning to be a pair with magic. However the problem is their too much dependence between the two

[jagged lotus]

Summoner is also a combat style of its own while fishing and mining mostly aren't.

[toxic yoke]

Like you need not only to support the main skills, you also need to support magic barrier, mana, and any hybrid shenanigans... so its definitely overcooked lol

[toxic yoke]

Ya for sure.

[jagged lotus]

I think it would make sense to separate them by giving mana and magic barrier a separate skill tree that mage and summoner could level independently, and some of the synergy talents could be replaced with things more focused directly on summoning. It would also open up mage to have more interesting talents that aren't just for making mana not awful lol

Like, magic tree currently has a total of only 3 talents that directly affect magic attacks specifically. The rest are either general things like true sight or focused on mana or magic barrier restoration

[toxic yoke]

Ya idk whos suggestion that is but it makes a lot of sense

[jagged lotus]

I think it's been suggested a few times by different people

[toxic yoke]

Kind of rough though that the solution to summoning is starting be a huge demand though

[jagged lotus]

I mean alternatively mana could just be made less sucky in general lmao

[toxic yoke]

more tomes, a new skill, likely more stats to address the issues as well.

https://core-keeper.fandom.com/wiki/Condition_IDs

Just for reference

new condition called Superman lmfao

Wonder what that is

[jagged lotus]

There's a suffocating condition??

[toxic yoke]

ya it happens when you get stuck in a wall

[jagged lotus]

I wasn't even aware that could happen lol

[toxic yoke]

I think also might be when the player stuck on water without a place to put the player.

It only happens from buggy behavior likely from lag

i think more importantly it happens to enemies

Like you know the bug that enemies could glitch through walls?

[jagged lotus]

Vaguely

There's an unused chance to spawn minion on explosion effect

Wonder if that was planned for a new weapon or something

[toxic yoke]

Okay well theres a chance the player loads the area while the enemies were in the wall, and if that happens they are stuck in the wall and die without dropping items

[jagged lotus]

Makes sense

[toxic yoke]

Sounds like a talent they were thinking of adding where it explosives could spawn a fire mite lol

[jagged lotus]

Ugghhh the explosives skill tree frustrates me so bad but that's a whole other can of worms

[toxic yoke]

I mean If i was game design on CK i would rework every single talent

lmfao

[jagged lotus]

Most of them are terribly designed yeah

[toxic yoke]

Theres a few bangers, but most are pretty mid, especially since gear often offers similar or same effects and sadly with higher values

[jagged lotus]

That was kinda the reason I wanted to make a document to send the devs cuz writing individual feedback posts isn't likey to make much impact

[toxic yoke]

ya but big overhauls are expensive dev wise

[jagged lotus]

It'd be too many disjointed posts

Right

[toxic yoke]

Ngl its a bit of a rough spot for both us and the devs

[jagged lotus]

Though I think the skill tree thing could be mitigated with general mana improvements rather than adding a whole extra skill tree

[toxic yoke]

Responses gunna be slow for a bit... just letting you know

[jagged lotus]

Like the default mana recharge delay could stand to be reduced by a good bit as an example

[jagged lotus]

Ngl it's late af for me and I got a headache so I'm gonna try to sleep

[toxic yoke]

I'll yap a bit more probs otherwise we can continue soonTM

[jagged lotus]

Feel free I'll respond when I can

[dire horizon]

I fell asleep XD

[dire horizon]

The old AI makes melee minions so bad, ranged mid, and we'd probably use orbital as it was, reverting to the old AI we'd need to improve that AI so melee minions are useable at least XD, also as the player moved ranged minions would lose target pretty easy which meant losing dmg potential unintentionally, same can be said with any minion on the old AI, but I wouldn't mind it for jellyfish I guess, nothing would change there 🤣

But if there's a barrier between straight up bad minions for perma, and good minions for timers, I feel as if the exploration part of summoning issue isn't solved, nor is the complaint about it being time management as a build, it just divides it up into a mess unless we are talking a whole much of overhauls

I get the intention of minions right now, and honestly they are just free passives for everyone, it's just confusing why we even have progressive gear when the build itself has so many issues but also minions are meant to just be said passives, we do have an armor set to eventually maximize our summons dps alongside ourselves doing even more dps, but magic and summoning are so glued together why not just combine that playstyle with armors the entire game? So it's less confusing overall whether minions are a proper build or not

But also I feel as if the approach overall to summoning is pretty bad if it's meant to be viable throughout the game just as melee and ranged are, even if we make no changes and make minions permanent right now, since they don't benefit from anything, they still have low dps, they really don't shine till grim set, and maxing out skills alongside foodbuffs

But the same argument can be said that it's only a difficulty issue as causal mode and standard summons can do the entire game fine dmg wise, it's only the timers that hold them back from being convenient

So overall summary, I think summoning needs some massive identity as a whole, is it just support? Or is it meant for combat as a build? The common conundrum

Some general thoughts, even when summoning is the easiest to max out, many many people haven't done so because once they realize the mechanics of it, they go grab a more convenient playstyle XD, it's just inconvenience as a build throughout all of it's main mechanics rn

Here are the achievements by both steam and xbox, both being near the lowest of the low in achievements, mining and vitality have higher achievable rates than summoning and magic XD

[toxic yoke]

The old AI makes melee minions so bad
I don't actually think the AI is why melee minions failed so hard before. I'm pretty sure they buffed melee minion movespeed with the AI change so you might have a false bias there. Hard to tell since its not like we can compare(gotta skim some summoner gameplay videos with the right minions and compare them fighting to confirm this if it wasn't explictly in the patch notes)

But if there's a barrier between straight up bad minions for perma, and good minions for timers, I feel as if the exploration part of summoning issue isn't solved, nor is the complaint about it being time management as a build, it just divides it up into a mess unless we are talking a whole much of overhauls
Gunna need to explain what you're trying to say here cause idk what your point is.

I get the intention of minions right now, and honestly they are just free passives for everyone
Not really summoning requires significant opportunity cost investment so the only builds that really work well that aren't pure summoner focus are ones that have significant synergy via talents with crossover, most obviously ranged-magic synergy(basically just arcane staff tbh, but could easily change with another fast ranged magic weapon).

I think summoning needs some massive identity as a whole
Ya but this isn't particularly a problem if summoning wasn't so weak on average. Like I'm sure we all know summoning can be strong but its only a few edge cases that synergize well with other mechanics. Im confident in saying that no matter the way its implemented as long as its relative power is roughly equal to the options, the identity doesn't matter much since most will still align with it regardless.

Also lemme reemphasize, we know the dps is lacking but its a non-issue imo. Its easy to just increase a value. So what we should focus on despite the low damage what else is lacking. and If increasing damage fixing any issues then imo those aren't issues.

[toxic yoke]

Meant to reply to this xd

[toxic yoke]

Summoning is definitely not the easiest to max out if thats what you think.

[dire horizon]

Compared to the other combat styles it is, just materializers and jellyfish it's the fastest XD

[toxic yoke]

materializers
More than half of the way through the game

Though tbh you don't need that, since you could easily use fungal soil even if that requires a bit of technical understanding to be efficient

But if we are talking about optimized stuff ranged and magic are also extremely fast with the right weapons.

[dire horizon]

I played a lot with the old AI, and honestly melee minions suffered the most for it, mainly cause of the leash they had, if an enemy was 3 blocks away they would lose aggro or not even gain aggro, some enemies could hit you 2-3 times and your minions would just stand there looking at you funny, I've seen a lot with the old AI, and I think much of that would need improvement overall if we were to make minions passive again IMO

Second point, summarized is basically if perma minions gain old AI they will just be bad again tbh and not helpful in exploration in which case defeats the purpose of perma minions cause that's the main issue at hand with current minions, minions rn are ideal for bossing and do fine as such, buffing that aspect but debuffing exploration aspect just puts us in a awkward place

3rd point (idk how to quote like you do XD ) the Not really part, but they really are kinda a passive buff, tomes can apply free poison or burning for melee or ranged, you can use them as a minor healing source, extra dmg income, or buffs for magic overall, they are kinda just built as free passive something with timers

Final point being yea idk summoning needs some identity at least, I feel the summons themselves should be classified either as a combat type or as a passives for your combat type of playstyle, atm they definitely do better as passives than as a combat type, with much effort ofc they can be used as a combat weapon but by no means in a convenient way XD

[dire horizon]

I don't see many people maxing out skills before materializers if at all but hive mother works as well just takes significantly longer

[toxic yoke]

i do often, it takes way less time using fungal soil than getting to materializers

But people who just farm xp with optimized setups are not the norm, and should mostly ignored unless they extreme outliars for some reason

[dire horizon]

True, naturally I can see how most any skill is pretty hard to level up without extreme measures

[jagged lotus]

Xp system needs reworked in general

[toxic yoke]

ya xp is different problem, has nothing to do with summoning imo

[jagged lotus]

Mfw using hand mortar for mining doesn't level explosives or mining

[toxic yoke]

I did full runs with both AI's, and geniunely if you understand the exact nuance for the AI and are willing to adjust your playstyle for it, both work fine. My main complaint with the old AI is that it was quite slow to react to its triggers. ie. when an enemy aggros you there was a noticable delay before they would aggro back, they didn't need you to hit the enemy or get hit to aggro. If they manage to fix the slow reaction time for aggroing from being targeted old AI would be insanely good for passive minions to be defensive.

[dire horizon]

Yea the old AI would need fixing though IMO just slapping the same exact old AI back on minions I can almost guarantee melee minions will be buried again, ranged and orbital would be ideal, but most preferably orbital, and that's even if the majority of the player base can deal with the old AI XD it definitely was changed for good reasons

[toxic yoke]

3rd point (idk how to quote like you do XD ) the Not really part, but they really are kinda a passive buff, tomes can apply free poison or burning for melee or ranged, you can use them as a minor healing source, extra dmg income, or buffs for magic overall, they are kinda just built as free passive something with timers
I mean sure but this isn't free. At best you get 90s between resummons you only get 1, so uptime and reliability is questionable. And often this debuff is often not required but helps since things like the Druidra Ring already gives chance to poison, but the minion just has higher chance if not guarenteed(idk the change tbh). Mana costs, demands player to keep it up similar to the short duration of buffing potions, plenty of other reasons that its not free imo

[jagged lotus]

https://tenor.com/view/duck-season-rabbit-season-gif-13823200

[toxic yoke]

Im telling you bro, im almost positive melee minions got a movespeed buff and the ai isn't a major factor here. But yes improvements to the speed their ai updates would need to happen imo to make it not suck in general, if they happen though i also think old AI would go hard for defensive minions.

[dire horizon]

That's true it isn't completely free, but I do see them as potions basically in creature form XD

[toxic yoke]

For bosses you can always just slap down poison slime ground and ggez permanently poisoned

now that is free

😄

[dire horizon]

Yea if the changes apply and it isn't EXACTLY like the old AI and the minions actually functioned as defensive then I'd agree for sure XD

[toxic yoke]

I mean they did this, they were just slow

[jagged lotus]

We also need to talk about the mana issue

[dire horizon]

I mean it's technically material cost

[toxic yoke]

go to ivy with slime crown set bonus, hold right click on him afk over night xd

jk your hoe would run out of durability before that

[dire horizon]

I actually don't think they were slow, ashes always seemed to move faster than skeletons, skeletons feel slow even currently still? But that may be my eyes playing tricks on me, the leash range definitely killed them for the sunken sea biome, and the wilds, once you got to the desert they weren't so bad but why run them when you have consistency as a whole with jellyfish XD, pestilence wasn't bad either but it definitely gained a dmg buff with current AI

Tome of decay though is a yucky joke of a summon, I don't know what they were cooking with that tome XD

[toxic yoke]

I don't mind that theres a mana cost, but i don't know why it scales so high. It pretty much exclusively is causing the ramping issue. And because of this you can't react as quickly to enemies when they are down like you can with other classes. And subsequently make summoning excessively demanding to keep your minion count, maybe not at max, but at least having like 3-4 out minimum to deal with the occasional threat just walking around, mining, p much doing whateve. This obviously means nothing for bosses because you have a clear expected fight, you know precisely where and when you're going to fight and can prep accordingly, but all other times its super rough.

[toxic yoke]

Not movespeed slow, slow to react

[jagged lotus]

Mana cost just shouldn't scale tbh

[dire horizon]

Oh yea, that was for all minions, they definitely react a lot faster now but idk if I can tell cause it's more they kill everything on sight XD

[toxic yoke]

I think having 20 or 25 static mana cost, and changing the tome cd to 0.5s would be massive.

[jagged lotus]

Yea

[jagged lotus]

Same also applies for magic weapons but this is about summons

[toxic yoke]

Ik people have suggested summoning to summon up to your max and summoning at max refreshing CD of all minions but these are bad options that actually remove valuable strategies. ie. summoning while at max when an enemy is close to make it target that enemy if its otherwise distracted or being able to have a mix of minions.

[jagged lotus]

With how magic regen delay works there's no real reason to punish the player for leveling up their weapons to get more value out of their larger mana pools with later armors and such

Besides mana channeling you're still going to be blowing through your whole mana pool and then waiting for it to regen, the time where you're waiting around for it to refill just becomes less

[toxic yoke]

I think without mana regen getting interrupted by spending mana, they could get away with higher mana costs, but ya this is again another issue that doesn't necesarry fix anything if we just change another thing that would also extend to magic which who knows if thats good or not 🤷‍♂️ A lot of busy work for the QA testers and tweaking to rebalance everything if this was changed.

[dire horizon]

Tbh we need more max mana in general rn but tbh balancing would be the next issue, it just ramps magic/hybrid, I justify their dmg potential because of all the inconvenience, take that away we need to separate magic and summoning for sure XD

[jagged lotus]

If there was no cost scaling it wouldn't be as much of an issue

[toxic yoke]

Mana is just in a bad spot in general and no matter what any solution might need readdressed if they make an overhaul in the future like the mana/magic barrier skill

[toxic yoke]

this is probably the easiest approach and i quite like simple solutions when the impact is low and doesn't affect the identity of the mechanic.

[jagged lotus]

I think if you take away the regen interruption it would likely just become a race to outpace mana expenditure with mana regeneration. I think at most I'd reduce the regen delay so the time between when you stop attacking and when it starts to regen is much shorter. Maybe make fast recharge talent default

[jagged lotus]

Yeah I don't think a dedicated skill tree would be required if they fixed the issues with mana expenditure rn

[toxic yoke]

I think the one talent in magic does this, but its terrible

[jagged lotus]

Yes mana recharge is the talent I'm referring to

[toxic yoke]

Mana recharge - Mana regeneration delay reduced by 6–30%

[jagged lotus]

Yea

[toxic yoke]

1s lemme open the code, iirc the delay was in there somewhere

  public const float kManaRegenDelay = 1f;```
for context, f means the number is a float(number that uses decimal places), and the 1 is technically arbitrary but looking at similar known values for time, its safe to assume 1 is 1 second given the context

[dire horizon]

Main things at hand for summoning at least, assuming we want it to be an actual playstyle for all to enjoy

Exploration to be just as convenient as melee and ranged

Maybe increase the base dmg of all tomes for more convenient bossing IMO without maxing out summoning and also magic it's not that great, and if I have to max out skills for decent numbers it's just inconvenient XD

Some balance changes more so buffs to current summoning based armors and tomes like guardian set, and corrupt warden, tome of decay, tome of undead..

It just needs a lot of work overall for it to be more of a fun viable playstyle, along the lines of more unique approaches to summoning like guardian set but also for that unique approach to actually function in a viable setting without all the inconvenience we face as minion based builds

[toxic yoke]

So If the talent is just 1-0.3, then 0.7 second delay has nearly 0 impact.

Just for the giggles going to overexplain here... the game runs at 20 ticks/sec, meaning that 0.7 seconds is 14 ticks, so you gain 6 ticks of regen back when you spend mana...

Like how is this not like 80% reduction at the least lol

But anyways getting side tracked

[jagged lotus]

Yeah I'd probably just reduce that delay by a ton, that extra second after you stop shooting makes mana regen feel super awkward

[jagged lotus]

Dude what the hell are you typing

[toxic yoke]

Lowkey falling asleep typing so i can't really finish my point but essentially trying to understand where you all are with the issues.

Summoning identity
Minion lifetime
Minion Ai
Tome mana cost
Summoning talents

What am I missing?

Can go into detail later

[jagged lotus]

Only other thing I'd add is making it so summons count as player attacks, so stuff like burn stat or crits apply to them instead of having separate stats for making summons crit

[toxic yoke]

Type one sentence, don't like it remove half of it, nod off, repeat...

[toxic yoke]

Ehh I think having specific ways for player and minion stats interact but I think its important to keep them separated

[jagged lotus]

It'd only be specific things like that, so fire mites aren't overwriting your main burn dot, and cuz having a separate crit stat for minions is just stat bloat

[toxic yoke]

I think this issue arises due to minions not having diverse enough gear to be able to scale minions as high as player builds. This is why i think discussing basically just damage is pointless. Also burn not stacking with other entities is bad regardless of minions since two players can't stack together.

It has less to do with minions themselves than the way the mechanic is handled on the enemies side afaik

[jagged lotus]

Incorporating minion crits into existing crit equipment would also improve equipment diversity for summoners

[toxic yoke]

I mean its not stat bloat either, its imo a much needed limiting factor to hybrid or else pure summoners would never exist

[jagged lotus]

Besides that the only other thing I can think of off the top of my head is global %damage boosts not applying to summon damage

[jagged lotus]

How so?

[toxic yoke]

Not saying that pure summoner needs to exist, but it wouldn't if there was no distinction between minion and player stats.

[toxic yoke]

For the same reason ranged and melee damage types exist

[jagged lotus]

I mean it'd still count as summon damage. It'd mainly just make it so global stuff like crits or burn applies to your minions

[toxic yoke]

If all gear was generic, its purely a number game and everything that isn't the best is irrelevant and you remove a lot of actual player choices and only false choices remain

[jagged lotus]

It'd allow for the same kind of diversification of summon builds as others without needing a massive pile of new summoner specific equipment

[jagged lotus]

That is not what I'm asking for

[toxic yoke]

You kind of are tbf

[jagged lotus]

How? I'm not saying minions should be affected by something like omoroth's beak

Outside of summoner, crit boosts and burn application and damage% are already global to all attack types, if you want to make a minion crit build that's going to take a different set of equipment than doing so on ranged or melee

[toxic yoke]

Summoning isn't really attacking tho

[jagged lotus]

You're attacking through your minions, and with the other changes we want to make it'd make summoning more active and aggressive as a playstyle

[toxic yoke]

And allowing crit to also apply to minions 1) doesn't make a lot of sense(not that it has to) but 2) gives hybrid builds too much power. You'd have people in assassin set, with puppet rings and everythign else giving crit damage.

Then they'd be using some weapon ontop of that and it would be strong af ontop of minions as well

pure summoner would never exist

unless the bonuses for pure summoner gear are insurmountable and at that point summoner would have to be the best class in the game

[jagged lotus]

Do you mean ninja armor?

[toxic yoke]

ya that

[jagged lotus]

idk you're losing out on 2 rings plus you'd have totally crap mana regen for keeping summons active

That only leaves you with a necklace and offhand slot

[toxic yoke]

you say that, but we are suggesting short lifetime minions with high dps outputs, some only being able to hit once, others possibly permanent so lifetime means nothing

that with static mana costs and you don't really lose anything

[jagged lotus]

Dunno how much damage would have to be increased with the changes tho, except for single hit minions. It's mainly so summoning them is more snappy and active I thought

[toxic yoke]

Well lets say have 100 players play for 1 hour, tracking how many total attacks from every minion and over how much time they were summoned. You'd likely want to extrapolate the number of hits per summon, and the number of hits per time. This way you can scale the damage proportional based on those metrics.. then also factor in somehow the fact that you can abuse the desert guardian set for extra damage, and slso factor in that you can constantly summon since you would hardly be limited by minion count. So if the average minion summoned would hit say 15 times for 80-120 damage per hit, you get like 1500 avg damage per summon with a lifetime of 30s. I would say you'd end up with some thing along the lines of 300 ish damage with a 2s CD, but this is guestimation of what might work well

Because 1, you are working with an average so dps can obviously be way higher, in the same way its likely that a 1 hit minion gets waste or does nothing somehow like hitting the same frame as another when either would have killed it, so now they both die. Lots of other nuances to consider but ya... idk getting off topic again... my b im tired af

[jagged lotus]

You're good bro, sleep if you have to

[toxic yoke]

Well i have to be up for 1h20m then i can sleep but ya just know i be yapping rn

[jagged lotus]

Lmao

[toxic yoke]

Not getting my quality thinky brain

Assuming i have one inthe first place

xd

[jagged lotus]

But yeah idk if a ninja crit summoner build would necessarily be the best version of summoner, grim set at the very least would give it a run for its money, and they're both obtained at similar points in the game. You'd only get 3 summons active at a time with puppet rings and you're losing out on other attack speed or crit focused stuff for your other weapons. Not sure what necklace would be the best choice. But honestly I think it's cooler if there are more hybrid builds like that which can use summons as a supplement while pure summoner is also more viable

[toxic yoke]

But ya anyways i still stand on what i said before, I think allowing crit and similar "global" effects apply to minions is too ambigious. They aren't really global either btw, they just apply to the player. Just so happens that the other combat styles are all performed by the player. Explosives also makes this distinction clear imo.

[jagged lotus]

Damage% applies to explosives iirc

And I'd still consider those player attacks

In terms of balance I think crits, damage% and burn at least would be fine. Where it'd start getting way too nutty is if you start letting, for example, ranged minions apply weakness detection's crit buff

[toxic yoke]

Question then for the giggles... If bombs could crit, do you think if place a bomb, then switch to a octarine axe before it blows up, should your bombs crit chance increase or not?

[jagged lotus]

I'd say it should copy the stats you had when you placed it. Same could apply to minions.

So even if your stats update after summoning or placing a bomb they retain the stats you had at the time of use

[toxic yoke]

Then all temporary buffs would be ignored, including food buffs.

[jagged lotus]

How so?

[toxic yoke]

summon minion > eat food > minion already snapshotted so its stats wouldn't be affected.

[jagged lotus]

That is a conundrum

Actually that begs the question how minion buffs applied to the player work currently? If I eat lunacorn meal what's happening on the minions end?

[toxic yoke]

I mean this wasn't really even my point but ya... lol The point i wanted to make was abuse cases where you can actively swap gear when actions have a duration. When you have the distinction for a stat to only apply with a certain combat skill, then you have the freedom to balance each independently.

If you don't have the distinction then one can benefit significantly more and must be balanced accordingly and/or you get major benefit from things that aren't intended

that is not english i just wrote i appologize

[jagged lotus]

You're good but I am struggling to read this yeah lmao

[toxic yoke]

fixed it... i just completely didn't finish a sentence

brb quick

[jagged lotus]

I think it working like a snapshot of stats when you used the item would mostly avoid that issue. For minions, you can technically already kinda cheese it by switching from a lifetime build when summoning them to a pure damage output build to get the best of both worlds, and this would negate that problem. I'm not actually certain how damage buffs you get are applied to them as-is since for most other purposes they count as separate entities.

[toxic yoke]

I just think most things update, lifetime is the exception here since its likely just a property of the minion and didn't think or care if it got changed post summoning. But for damage things it makes sense to actively check the players stats since theres a delay between the summon and the hit unlike melee. I would assume ranged also doesn't snap shot so if you throw a chakram and then took off ranged gear it would do less dmg.

[jagged lotus]

Having it be a snapshot would avoid certain cheesy strats with weapons held-in-hand stats which I think would be better. For minions in particular, temporary buffs like potions or food could probably still be applied to your minions even if they were summoned before consumption. So if you have 5 minions active and then pop a summon potion, the potion damage buff gets transferred to them, but switching to an octarine axe doesn't suddenly boost their crit chance.

And when the potion is consumed before summoning the minion, the minion simply copies the potion buff over, including its duration, so it still ends at the same time as when it ends on the player's end

[toxic yoke]

Is this really your hill to die on tho? If im being honest this is one of your worst takes, having the same sources of crit, burn, triple hit im assuming too?, etc. apply to minions means that players are going to just never going to not use minions with every build and makes them more hybrid builds than ever before.

Pure wouldn't just be in the ground it would be deeper than the mariana's trench

[dire horizon]

We would have to assume a lot for minions to benefit from all players stats currently, and honestly it's a numbers situation then and honestly idk, minions benefiting from everything would make pure summon better, but hybrid absolutely better

[jagged lotus]

I dunno, with minions having much shorter lifetimes I would think most players wouldn't bother using them unless they plan to at least partially build around them. Even now if I'm using a regular physical build I don't really ever bother with calling in the freebie minion even though it basically costs nothing.

[dire horizon]

I use pestilence tome for poison all the time for most my builds, freebie poison basically XD

[toxic yoke]

I mean sure if ALL minions are shorter, i personally think a mix of longer/perma summons with some mid/short duration ones and then special 1 hit minions is the best fit

[toxic yoke]

Ya but are you also using druidras ring?

[jagged lotus]

Well okay, assuming you got this perma minion following you around, (which would happen regardless of minions being able to use other stats) what's it doing besides a bit of free extra damage? You might get your burn status applied more constantly but if you're using a ranged weapon the uptime on that is pretty much 100% anyways.

[toxic yoke]

Do you also want melee damage to apply to melee summons? Just wondering

[dire horizon]

No I'm not, I use the gardening skill tree for dmg against poisoned most the time with it, and hits to apply poison as well, but both my melee and ranged set ups hardly ever need or use druidras ring, but I've used it in some builds like with the scythe weapon ect, it really depends on the situation for the ring

[jagged lotus]

I think if players want to make a hybrid summoner/crit/burn/whatever build I see no reason to discourage that, as long as pure summoner also feels and performs much better

[jagged lotus]

No. I said already that melee/ranged/magic specific buffs and talents wouldn't apply

[toxic yoke]

ye for sure but you might not know this but "damage against" modifiers are multiplicative unlike other modifiers, so the ring is really good and then if you are using the ring then you're basically using the minion for uptime, but not needed as you could poision yourself. could easily put down poison slime too for bosses

[jagged lotus]

I think in an ideal world it'd be cool if you could use stuff like bats in a hybrid ranger build but too many of the talents in the skill trees are too powerful with high proc rates already (weakness detection, mana channeling, etc.)

[dire horizon]

Pestilence is just easier uptime and kinda free for all builds regardless, even helps cheese all slime bosses with any ranged set up, it's probably the best utility summon overall that people use actively, otherwise maybe ashes for burning? But we really don't have much overall use for burning atm, but the rest of the summons only reason to use them is for very minimal help in dmg output, probably not even worth using them XD but sometimes people just like how they look

[jagged lotus]

I think the only exception I could see here is if minions only activated the talents for themselves, so if a bat procs weakness detection it doesn't apply to you and that bat is the only one that gets those free crits

[dire horizon]

Here's another hot take for summoning I have always thought about, maybe we keep summoning as is, everything stays temporary

But we buff wildwarden to have 3 pet slots and make it the perma passive (summoning style) build most players want? Since all pets have talents and actively are more interesting to build it would be the most fun minion experience for most

We get the best of two worlds but keep them separate between summoning for temp, and wildwarden as perma

[jagged lotus]

https://tenor.com/view/slap-rip-rhino-toy-gif-23656797

[toxic yoke]

I just don't see generic crit ever being good. The likely outcome is that minions would get balanced around access to crit and all non-crit builds become non-existent and because your crit which gives decent access to generic power i get a lot more power that the current situation. Which if i want to ranged hybrid with summoner im either opting into a sub optimal ranged and summoning build where 1 of 2 situations exist, either 1) The total damage between ranged and minions is more than both pure ranged or pure summon making those pure irrelevant, or 2) The damage is less and hybrid becomes irrelevant. Basically impossible to find the middle ground with the amount of gear combinations exist

Perhaps option 3 people don't care and will suffer because hybrid is cool

[toxic yoke]

I mean i did want this tbh and mentioned it a few times only issue is that they have even less scaling vectors and even 3 pets could be out dpsed by 3 summons. p sure

Although I could see dogs going hard af if you have like 3+ of them, 1 as a stun bot and 2 with the extra dmg against stunned enemies

[jagged lotus]

I think it really just depends on the power difference tbh. If there's not a super huge gap in strength between any of the three options it doesn't really matter for the average player. Most crit boost sources are going to have some oppurtunity cost for either number of minions you can have out, their damage, or your mana, and that's not even getting into trying to improve something like your other weapon's attack speed. Even pure summoner could swap out one of their other pieces of kit for a crit boosting item like the concealed blade and still perform decently well.

I think making summoning more of a sliding scale in how hard you can specialize in it is interesting and it doesn't necessarily make pure summoner redundant if you allow summons to utilize other stats

[dire horizon]

It really depends on what pets you use but prince slime with hungry fang X5 scales to 5k, 8k on crit, but also I think it's justified for being weak if technically pets are perma minions, takes some investment to get them to decent efficiency, but it's also really interactive and fun to build your pets differently cause it's just minions with rng skill trees, they wouldn't need food buffs besides what we have rn, maybe add 1 crop to the list and a gold variant just for pet attack speed? But I think the solution is there the most tbh, at least for me

Wildwarden could be the perma summons we want with having 3 pets ( I don't wanna go above 3 simply because I don't want it to be too broken ) and it may deal slightly less than a 8 minion build but it also doesn't have to deal with timers XD

[toxic yoke]

Ya but the problem is crit is a damage multiplier and minion count is effectively a damage multiplier as well. So people will use which is better which honestly... is likely going to be 1-2 puppet rings with grim helm, and rest crit gear, thats 4-5 minions and free to go w/e you'd like after

what is the REAL problem with minion crit?

lemme ask the real questions

I don't see any issues

[dire horizon]

Tbh minion crit chance isn't bad without crits your dps does indeed fall XD but since they hit so often your gonna crit a lot, I don't feel minions crit is bad personally

[jagged lotus]

I mean besides the fact there's no real way to build around it currently, I don't see the point in adding a bunch of summoner specific crit items. It just seems redundant when we have a ton of crit stuff already that would encourage plenty of equipment diversity with the other summoner changes

[toxic yoke]

ya but they could just as easily just remove crit chance entirely and buff an assumed like... 30-50% base damage to account for it

[jagged lotus]

But that's boring, and removes a good deal of potential equipment and build diversity

[toxic yoke]

and imo its both boring and adds too much ambigious power to legit every build

Like you aren't just saying "Lets buff minions by giving free access to crit" you allso buff all existing builds by making minions more effective if they use them as supplementary or utitlity

[oak delta]

Finnaly caught up read.... Think I need a nap now 😵‍💫

[toxic yoke]

If im a ranged crit build it wouldn't be a crazy thought to one maybe even 2 with a puppet ring for the 10% attack speed per minion. As attack speed is a damage multiplier as well and without any other sources of attack speed getting 10% for free or 20% for a ring slot, which would now also benefit from my ranged crit build, would be pretty big ngl

[dire horizon]

I mean minions already have access to crit, with food buffs and everything I think it goes to 46%? Which adds a lot of extra dmg depending on the minion build ofc

[toxic yoke]

Also means minions now benefit from my crit buff food

xd

[jagged lotus]

What rings would this ranged crit build normally be running btw?

[toxic yoke]

Not sure tbh, but morphas or druidra's rings are pretty high on the list im sure

really depends on the weapon tho

Also... weakness detection exists

[jagged lotus]

All my homies hate weakness detection

[toxic yoke]

I love it, its broken af

[dire horizon]

Minions benefiting from crit dmg buff food would be near 100% crit dmg?, but that's not factoring a lot probably

But would be nice to have minion crit dmg food buffs for extra dmg output, but access to our stats would probably scale minions either okay? Or high

[jagged lotus]

Yes, it is indeed broken af which is kinda the whole problem 😭

Makes crit chance much less necessary

[toxic yoke]

Go 9 minion summoner, use chakram for procing weakness detection. 100% crit chance ez

why does crit need to apply to summoner again?

🙂

[jagged lotus]

Funi

Actual reasoning for me was more build diversity mainly

[toxic yoke]

I think it actually limits you more

[jagged lotus]

Summoners can start doing things like viable hybrid builds, taking supplemental crit equipment, more food options, etc.

[toxic yoke]

Because existing crit options force you into being a hybrid summoner

pure summoner disappears from the game the moment crit applies to minions

[jagged lotus]

The example of taking a range crit build with a couple puppet rings just sounds cool tbh?

I mean personally I think weakness detection needs a rework of some kind

[toxic yoke]

Not really

[jagged lotus]

That new quill rifle is going to be even more broken for it than anything else we have rn

4 shots per second

[toxic yoke]

i mean you already can keep near 100% uptime with some weapons its not revolutionary tbh

[dire horizon]

Arcane staff would be more ideal still plus more dmg output for a summoner hybrid, I really don't think summons do much for anything else but magic XD, just as free debuffs or tiny bit of extra dmg

[jagged lotus]

we're talking about theoretically being able to use weakness detection to give minions crits

[toxic yoke]

ya hybrid with ranged itself would work, but magic is ranged so it can also synergize with the same stuff

[dire horizon]

Ah I mean if they don't proc the mana gain on crits then it wouldn't change that much minions comfortably reach 30-40% crit chance

Currently minion crits don't give you mana so I'd assume the same rules apply there

[jagged lotus]

The thing is you can pair your minions with a ranged weapon like chakram or the new quill rifle to keep weakness detection up nearly 100%. It'd be insane for summon damage output and it wouldn't even cost you anything

[toxic yoke]

I still think this whole tanget is pointless. IMO this discussion should first and foremost the least changes possible to get summoning to a good spot.

And allowing crit apply to minions forces them to do a balance pass on all items with crit chance and damage, as well any any other effect you also want, ontop of balancing the minions accordingly

[dire horizon]

Weakness detection already can be kept up near 100% of time tbh XD but I do see that point to an extent, but pestilence would probably go crazy on it ig, you'd only need 1 pestilence summon so I can see that, it would have to only apply to the summon and not us to be balanced ig

That's assuming summons benefit from all stats we do then yea pure summoner would be insanely dead, we are basically buffing all builds but minion based ones XD they would still fall very short

[jagged lotus]

Weakness detection shenanigans aside I just don't think it'd be that crazy of a change. Other builds need to sacrifice their primary damage output with their other slots to get any real benefit out of minions. What will happen regardless is physical builds will all be running at least their one cruddy permanent freebie minion as a second pet, so at baseline with the overhaul minions would still be used a lot more anyways.

[toxic yoke]

It is, pure summoner deader than dead

theres no exception

Actually theres 1

[jagged lotus]

Just specifically damage%, crits and chance, and burn. No talents

And like, poison I guess?

[toxic yoke]

and its that crit for summoning is objectively worse than pure summoner, so hybrid is pointless 🤣

[jagged lotus]

Wdym?

[dire horizon]

Minions would be just bigger passive buffs than they already are if they can proc any of the other skill trees

I think overall just buffing minion base dmg would be the easiest solution to dmg output, and allow minion sets to make more sense ( but that also buffs magic/summoning so idk what to say there )

Minion builds are pretty much time management builds, instead of watching for your buffs to end, your watching your dmg source of choice to end XD, ideally here we could focus pure on timers ect but it wouldn't solve the core complaint

But I'm okay with minions staying temp ect, passives for your build all that, if they change wildwarden to be the creature build most of us want as in perma minion build basically we get two different worlds solved, everyone who likes current summoning can keep it, and those who want a relaxed perma minion build can go wildwarden

[jagged lotus]

I think you're a bit lost on the topic. We're not saying minions could proc other talents or buffs. They'd just be able to benefit from crits like other classes

[toxic yoke]

"and other effects like burn" never specified what all might be included

[jagged lotus]

Well lets think

There's druidra's ring for poison

[toxic yoke]

I don't want to think about it cause i think its bad

[dire horizon]

Weakness detection is a other talent proc? But even so minions have good crit chance honestly, maybe give them increased base dmg and it's a solved solution

[jagged lotus]

The minions themselves would not proc weakness detection

[toxic yoke]

Minions have bad access to crit chance is failure on gear not on the way the stats interact

[jagged lotus]

Yes but you wanted to know what other sources there would be

[toxic yoke]

imho i still don't want to know, because i think its bad 🤣

[jagged lotus]

Yes but solving that would require a ton of new items which you said we wanted to avoid

[toxic yoke]

Ya but no change is perfectly fine option if we are trying to be minimalist

[dire horizon]

Ohhh okay, but if they gain access to buffs like 100% crit chance it wouldn't make them significantly better, crit dmg may have to draw a line along with many other talents that would be a lot of overhaul my brain doesn't wanna think about

[jagged lotus]

So the only other thing I can think of off the top of my head besides those things is triple damage from the hydra tooth and owlux since they're also supposedly global.

[dire horizon]

But if every build is about crit chance and crit dmg that kinda suffocates diversity, I'd rather minions simply just gain base dmg increase, they already scale high when min maxed

[toxic yoke]

To me it sounds like he wants to include like every on-hit effect that doesn't specific its own combat style

Even just crit is bad

[jagged lotus]

Titan souls require ranged or melee hits so those would be out

Scarab armor is also the same way so also out

[toxic yoke]

how do you draw the line for clarity?

if my crit applies to minions, and tomes specify melee and ranged damage how am i supposed to know?

Why doesn't melee and ranged apply to minions that deal melee and ranged?

[jagged lotus]

Anything that's otherwise global, like burn on hit, crits, damage% like from marble meat or generic ore armors, triple damage, and druidra's poison chance I guess. Can't think of anything else off the top of my head.

[toxic yoke]

But no where never did they ever specify any of these stats are global

Its not like crit applies to pets

or explosives

[dire horizon]

We have like 40% crit chance, 100% would be maybe a little dmg increase but idk about all the rest of the effects XD too much to think about rn

[toxic yoke]

My aura damage from set bonues don't crit

my burn damage doesn't crit

[jagged lotus]

I said before that it would open a whole can of worms for balancing that I think would be much harder to determine the scope of

[toxic yoke]

And you can avoid the can of worms by just not doing it

[jagged lotus]

Global in the sense magic or physical, ranged or melee can apply them without any other specification. Pets in particular don't benefit from any of your stats besides wildwarden equipment so they're different in that sense

[jagged lotus]

(Personally I'd like explosion crits but that's a whole different topic lmao)

[toxic yoke]

theres no reason to let base crit apply to minions other than your stubborn opinion that "its for build diversity", but ngl chief it would shrink diversity

It becomes meta

everyone goes hybrid

its better than pure

Where diversity?

Or... its bad and no one does it ever

[jagged lotus]

Hold up a sec

What do you consider hybrid? We should probably clarify that

[dire horizon]

Grim armor XD

[toxic yoke]

Summon # minions, using legit any other weapon because why not

[dire horizon]

Jkjk but it is hybrid for sure

[jagged lotus]

Okay so hybrid does not just mean a pure summoner using crit equipment then?

[toxic yoke]

If im not using another weapon how am i hybrid?

[jagged lotus]

It means a summoner that's using equipment to boost two different attack types yes?

[dire horizon]

But yea hybrid is more so using 2 different weapons and mixing and matching 2 different skill trees ig?

[toxic yoke]

🤔

[jagged lotus]

Right so specifically a ranger/summoner build is a hybrid, not a crit summoner?

[dire horizon]

Problem lies with summoner dies being a pure summoner with grim armor cause it utilizes 2 dmg types regardless

But that's also the peak of summons for dps^

Summons gaining access to crits doesn't change much, we already have 30-40% pretty easy, you can add crit chance on stuff ig? But I'd rather just increase base dmg as the most solid and simple solution

[jagged lotus]

Okay so when talking about hybrids, I think generally due to oppurtunity cost by taking some minion equipment, you'd be keeping the general power balance the same. You'd be losing out on the major crit damage boost of morpha's ring for example by running a puppet ring. And that's just to let you have 2 minions worth of damage alongside your primary attack which has now lost a decent chunk of crit damage. This gets more extreme the more minion equipment you add on. Hence why I said summoner would become more of a sliding bar in terms of how much you'd want to specialize in it.

I think what you also have to consider is it'd be a major buff for pure summoner as well because now you can also multiply the crit damage your summons are doing fairly consistently with stuff like morpha's rings or polished golden spike rings.

[dire horizon]

Would that really be enough to sacrifice a minion slot for though? I really think this only buffs hybrids XD at most it might benefit pestilence? But you're losing out on a lot of other things, and now it's even more hybrid cause you'd be using other combat trees to apply buffs to your summons still facing the forced hybrid scenario we face with grim set just a different tone

[jagged lotus]

High minion slot count isn't as necessary with lower lifetime minions. Buffing your minions crit damage by 40% is going to be a lot more than just taking another minion slot when you already have 6-7 minions out at a time

[toxic yoke]

Ya but again assuming other changes we make also go through theres very little opportunity cost. Like i said before you'd do like Grim helm, and 1 or 2 puppet rings, and likely use full crit damage for weakness detection abuse. And even without that you'd be free to go w/e other crit items you'd want as both minions and ANY weapon would benefit.

Including weapons which have crit chance/damage on them

Almost guarenteed to be a ranged weapon though since this exists:

Power in numbers +2–10% range attack speed per active minion

[dire horizon]

Like let's take into account we have rings such as viscous ring for 36% dmg, lifetime rings for 67% minion lifespan, and puppet ring for +1 minion and 45% attack speed, all accessories that are are better than crit chance, even better than crit dmg depending how much they benefit from us, but this seems like it would barely take play into summoning builds as a whole, and more so into gripping hybrid and going all the way XD

[jagged lotus]

But you're losing slots to grim helm and the puppet rings. The minions have to be of similar value to what you're replacing them with to be a good tradeoff. It'd also require more actively switching from your main weapon to your tomes to resummon them fairly often, it'd be a more demanding playstyle gameplay-wise than either regular summoner or ranger, and for consumeables you have to be taking even more than a non-hybrid to buff your minions and your main weapon.

[toxic yoke]

Not losing slots if they are most effective wdym?

[dire horizon]

It's basically enabling magic/summoning into ranger/summoning XD

50% attack speed on a ranged weapon is huge

[jagged lotus]

That's assuming they're more effective than focusing equipment on your main weapon though, which is not a guarantee.

[jagged lotus]

Didn't we say before we'd be ditching most of the synergy talents besides like trickle down?

[dire horizon]

My brain

[toxic yoke]

I said i'd change every talent in the game if i was on the design team, but im suggesting a thing to have the highest chance to fix summoning with the least work so no i probs wouldn't rework that.

[jagged lotus]

The talent tree is part of the issue with summoning though. Too reliant on hybrid builds

[toxic yoke]

I'm quite positive they would be, puppet rings are disgustingly op honestly especially at lower minion counts.

[oak delta]

Definitely will need to write up a friendly document for devs afterwards. This thread is a lot to read and there's a lot of back and forth. Maybe get some approval poll going so other players can chime in with a simple click whether the changes would be widely appreciated. 🤷
"goes back to licking the bathroom mirror"

[jagged lotus]

Most players still just want lifetime removed

[toxic yoke]

i mean that was the premise of the thread

This type of conversation has been happening in suggestions posts before this xd

poor devs

[oak delta]

I agree. I don't like the lifetime but I think it would be good for certain minions for burst damage options.
I really like the idea of making the minions targetable so they can tank and what have you. When they die you just have to resummon them. Also some debuff's to compliment a pure summoner. Instead of sending out magic attacks you'll be doing debuff's and what have you on the side. More like summoner based magic attacks I guess. Thing is this would require a lot of work under the hood for the devs.

Bless em!

[toxic yoke]

minions targetable just leads to even more chaos and cheese

[oak delta]

Yeah a lot would have to be changed for it.

[toxic yoke]

imagine fighting CC that does % max hp damage that killed you in just a few seconds of ticks.

[dire horizon]

CC doesn't fight fairly XD

[toxic yoke]

you need to be able to control your minions to be able to make that not cancer af

and most people who play CK aren't not skilled enough to be able to do that effectively

[dire horizon]

Minion detonator, just blow up your minions for pea shooter dmg

[toxic yoke]

Anyways can be go back to ignoring the details with a gross overview of whats wrong? We are legit getting no where since you brought up this crit meme ngl

[jagged lotus]

@toxic yoke what's the attack speed of individual minions?

[oak delta]

My issue with offering my opinion in this though is I've not the experience in the game like yall have. I still have a long way to go but I am playing a pure summon/magic build. The magic just seems a bit meh to compliment summons. Is why I thought maybe special spells for summon specific builds like debuff mobs and blessing minions. Spells that would compliment just the summons and potentially players in a way.

[toxic yoke]

I think your opinion is more valuable then you think

[dire horizon]

Ik bats are 1.6 seconds?

[toxic yoke]

Im not sure

I don't have the tools to look at the stats like that, I don't want to set up Unity

The wiki says though no?

The Bat attacks nearby enemies by shooting small projectiles every 1.66 seconds.

[dire horizon]

The rest I have no idea on the top of my head but bats are 1.6 at least since 1.0

[toxic yoke]

again the whole game runs on 20 ticks/sec

And because of this attack speed works is only effective upon reaching certain thresholds

[dire horizon]

Your opinion is valid regardless, more opinions we get the more we can see from the majority of the player base ect, so thank you for sharing

[oak delta]

Honestly reminds me a lot of D2 where it used frames. 25/s so increase attack speed/run speed would only actually increase at certain thresholds.

[toxic yoke]

More importantly we can't access the game from a new player perspective so his opinion is something we don't have and can't have 🙂

[toxic yoke]

Its exactly like this tbh

[oak delta]

Not meaning to bring D2 up so much but I've literally over 10k, maybe even more hours playing it since it released in 2000. I've played all the mods in it too and dug into how the guts work. There's similarities I've noticed between CK and D2.

[toxic yoke]

I have quite some time in D2 but no clue how long... this is proof i like the arpg genre xd

[oak delta]

Nice! Haha

[toxic yoke]

I remember owning like 3 CD keys for mules for the giggles

[dire horizon]

My main issue is minion timers but overall the real issue tbh from a stand point and keeping everything as is without any change, is the tomes base dmg, increase that and summoning as a whole requires less min max tbh, that's the simplest solution, but it doesn't solve the overall complaints only it's viability, it's a different playstyle and with timers it's not a friendly or convenient one, but it's hard to truly say what the main issue is, that summon timers don't work in CK that greatly, or players don't wanna have to play summoner as an active build but a more passive one

[jagged lotus]

Let's break the math down with this. One puppet ring increases your minion count by 1, and then multiplies their total dps again by the attack speed increase (45%). That sounds like a lot, but individual minions are still going to have low individual damage. If we're lowering and making mana cost static and lifetime as 30s as a baseline and then balancing from there, I don't think minions that are kept at that baseline would need their damage to change from how it is now. A single bat does roughly 139 dps, so 2 bats is 278 dps, and then increasing their attack speed by 45% gives us roughly 404 damage per second give or take. So that's a lot of extra minion damage for one puppet ring. For two puppet rings it's now roughly 795 DPS in total for three bats. Add the bonuses from the grim hood in and you're at roughly 1400 dps if the bats are all firing on the same target.

[oak delta]

I also thought about maybe setting minions max # of attacks before despawning. That way when they're not fighting they stay out until they attack X amount of times.

[jagged lotus]

Then include the crit damage bonus from ninja chest and legs and you get +45% more crit damage. Not totally sure how to calculate that but it's a lot of extra damage

[oak delta]

Or pause the timer when not in combat.

[jagged lotus]

(This is all assuming level 19 gear)

[toxic yoke]

ya i've mentioned 1 hit, before but no reason it has to be 1. But limiting their max hits means you can be more generous with their damage values since the variance of damage between one that hits liek 3 times vs one thats out for 90s and could be hitting every second or so for 90 total hits.

[jagged lotus]

@toxic yoke chakram would probably be the ranged weapon of choice right?

[toxic yoke]

Depends on a few things but its one of the options

[jagged lotus]

Okay

So it has a baseline 400 DPS

At level 19

[toxic yoke]

chakram has a really high potential but you can't really assume every bounce is hitting an enemy

[jagged lotus]

Well let's just assume it's only hitting once per hit cuz you're fighting a boss out in the open for simplicity

I'm not sure what necklace you'd be using in this build, soul medallion gets you an extra minion and higher minion crit chance but Nomad necklace boosts your crit damage by a sizeable chunk

[toxic yoke]

Would minion attack speed be removed in favor of letting generic attack speed apply to minions?

[jagged lotus]

I wanna say probably not

For my own sanity

[toxic yoke]

why not tho?

[jagged lotus]

Is there a generic attack speed stat?

Or would it be using the ranged/melee thing

[toxic yoke]

I mean.. "melee & ranged" basically is,

[jagged lotus]

Technically those give you two separate attack speed buffs iirc

[toxic yoke]

the only exception is that pickaxes and drills rely on mining speed

which is just mining weapon attack speed

[jagged lotus]

Yea

[toxic yoke]

Its still bad btw

🙂

[jagged lotus]

What is

[toxic yoke]

I still don't know why we are wasting time debating such a pointless change. But...
Can you give me the 1 sentence pitch for why letting crit apply to minions is good again? What makes it different from explicitly minion crit?

[jagged lotus]

It is saving tons of dev time on new items that are specifically for minion crits, and it allows for more summoner to use a wider variety of equipment in their loadouts. Damage% I think is just a no-brainer cuz it's literally designed to affect everything and it already affects explosions as well

[toxic yoke]

Do you not think that dev time is required to address the existing items if this change is made?

Seems unavoidable & necessary since you could just not do it.

[jagged lotus]

Not inherently. I think the general opourtunity cost when swapping items out would mostly keep different items balanced. And if it ends up being too strong in testing it wouldn't be hard to revert it. The other summoner changes would still make the class feel much more playable

[toxic yoke]

Weakness detection

[jagged lotus]

I think what the doc needs to focus on is rebalancing lifetime, mana cost, mana regen delay, and the magic and summon skill trees

[jagged lotus]

I got no argument for that, I think that talent has needed nerfed for a while

[toxic yoke]

While its really good i don't think its particularly overtuned outside of this hypothetical minion use case because in normal use you can't abuse it with some extended duration effect.

You'd have to proc it and switch weapons for like the couple sections its up, and then switch back to proc it again. Minions theres no need to switch other than resummoning your minions

like you wouldn't even have to change gear, just switch to ranged weapon once minions are up but you would because it'd just be better to be hybrid using crit damage gear since crit is a multiplicative multiplier vs just more minion damage which is an additive multiplier.

[jagged lotus]

I would say it is. It largely leans into the imbalanced preference towards fast attack weapons like arcane staff and largely negates the crit chance stat. It's also kind of an insane buff in comparison to its version on the melee tree when you consider range is supposed to have lower dps on average than melee

[toxic yoke]

🤷‍♂️ i'm over it we've wasted like 3 hours

[jagged lotus]

Fair enough. It's not necessary like I said

I got some stuff to do atm but I'll get started on the doc in a few hours. I can give you access to edit it as well once I do

[toxic yoke]

GL with the post ig not sure if willing to continue discussing if we just gunna get stuck on things like this. You just keep dancing around the fact the idea is dog water. I know i'm stubborn af, but im open to entertain the idea and think about wheree things would go.. Even assuming it creates the "build diversity" that you keep saying, theres SOOOOO many downsides when all of it could be avoided doing nothing, and better supporting summoning by adding gear to provide the diversity you want.

||And you wonder why they don't change summoning xd||

[oak delta]

Summons should have their own crit and not share with the player's crit. Having a summoner running around in ninja gear load swap would be rather silly. Having summons as their own thing is where summoning should shine. When you dual class you lose in both classes otherwise there'd be no point in going single class.

[jagged lotus]

Summons would retain stats they got from player when first summoned

[dense terrace]

Reminder to keep this chat friendly. 😉

[jagged lotus]

:(

[toxic yoke]

I shouldn't assume but i think we are fine just all quite a stubborn bunch. If not please lemme know Chipper, Baldweeb, or anyone(dms or otherwise). I know can be excessively blunt and be a bit inflammatory but I truly mean no harm. Thanks for the reminder to keep things within the servers rules though 😅

No excuses but i've been up for like 26 hours or something for whatever reason so some things slip my mind.

[jagged lotus]

You're good I think you're just being a bit harsh just because we have differing viewpoints on something

[dense terrace]

It's usually the same group of people discussing summoning, and I totally understand the passion behind it. However, when a discussion goes over 400 messages it can be challenging for us devs to sift through everything and identify the key issues and suggestions for improvements. From my perspective, these discussions often end up with me focusing more on resolving disagreements rather than on the feedback itself.

If you're open to it, I'd recommend you guys put together a clear, concise list of what you think needs reworking or adding to summoning. That way, I can easily share your thoughts with the team and we can work from there

[jagged lotus]

The plan is to write up an overhaul doc with some key changes summoning needs. This is just a discussion post to establish what to include

[toxic yoke]

Thats the goal here, and not in the suggestion threads to add the bloat we've done for the 100th time 😄

So once we finally settle on something a suggestion post was going to follow.

[jagged lotus]

Nah I was gonna write up a whole MS word doc bro

[toxic yoke]

oooooo

I would not 😄

[dense terrace]

Awesome, I really appreciate you all taking the time to put that together. Feel free to share it with me when you’re done and I’ll make sure it gets to the team so we can take a closer look. Genuinely looking forward to seeing your suggestions! ❤️

[toxic yoke]

@dense terrace Hey... random question just for the giggles and say nothing if it breaks nda. But was the arm interaction with tables intentional and/or a slip up from the future 1.2 update?

Just found it weird it wasn't in the patch notes

[dense terrace]

If I’m recalling correctly I think it’s a bug but I’d have to check in on Monday with the team

[jagged lotus]

Arm interaction?

[toxic yoke]

If you do ask/check with the team, I'd appreciate confirmation but no pressure. 😄

[dense terrace]

Oh wait with tables? I only know about the interaction with incubators, what’s going on with the arms interaction with tables? Same thing?

[toxic yoke]

It happens with any and every inventory with slots of max stack size of 1

But yes same behavior

[jagged lotus]

What is this behavior

[toxic yoke]

Essentially arms placing into inventories with a stack size of 1, they will indefinitely wait/try to place items without dropping them to the ground.

[jagged lotus]

Oh interesting

[dense terrace]

Definitely doesn’t sound intentional so I’ll check in Monday and see what’s up

[jagged lotus]

@toxic yoke dude go to bed before you have a heart attack

[toxic yoke]

I see... Welp to provide as much information as possible to help with the fix, given the testing i've done... I'd bet that the issue is caused by when the arm tries to place items into max stack size 1 inventories, it places 1 as normal then the arm is stuck trying to stack the remaining items with the 1 stack but it can't because max stack of 1 and aborts the attempt. Then repeats this behavior until the arm is empty to behavior like normal again.

Additionally, if the inventory is full of non-matching items the arm drops the items to the ground like the normal behavior. Also non-stackable items don't affect the arm behavior.

[dire horizon]

I missed a lot huh? Lol I just got home from work but let's just kinda come down to the simple changes that would make summoning appealing, while not changing summoning entirely, I think I can make a solution for a different build type for a kinda perma summon laid back style that doesn't involve summoning whatsoever in a different thread or suggestion

So from everyone's thoughts here I think some simple solutions are

1.Tomes base dmg to go up

2.More gear for more build diversity

3. Lessen timers and mana costs to make the build more active

4. Some mana income rework ( this could be complicated ask )

5. Minions possibly getting a new food for their own crit dmg to go up?

Think I kinda hit the major points

[jagged lotus]

Sorta

[jagged lotus]

@dire horizon Do minions benefit from stuff like bonus damage to burning enemies from stuff like smithing glove?

[toxic yoke]

After some sleep i wrote up a more concise list of bare minimum changes for the main issues, avoiding over explaining. Obviously we'd like more but we should be realistic with the core of the changes. Any additional changes we suggest should be bonus. Its mostly just a shorten list of these(#1285144276900118574 message) suggestions. If you guys think theres any main issues with summoning that should be added feel free to explain.

Rebalance existing tomes/minions:

• Adjust each minion lifespan independently ranging from 15s to 5m.
• Tweak minion stats according to their lifespan. Lower lifespans featuring more aggressive minion AI(current AI), higher effective damage, at the cost of a more active playstyle. Longer lifespans feature defensive/passive AI(Old minion AI Note below).
  Address mana cost and ramping issue:
• Adjust mana costs according to lifespan. Overall they should be static or flatter scaling, letting the player summon more minion from a full mana bar at once.
• Adjust tome cooldown according to lifespan. Overall balanced around the purpose of the minion, short lifespan minions having shorter cooldown(0.5-1s), and mid/long lifespan having longer cooldowns(1-5s).
  Build diversity:
• Increase base minion count, to lower the demand for this stat on gear.
• Naturally the lifespan changes will make a wider range of use cases for summoning.
• Consider adding more minion exclusive damage stats for more interesting build options. Could include minion triple damage chance, minion crit damage, minion damage against {status effected} enemy, etc. In being restricted to minions, values can be larger and more impactful without giving excessive power to hybrid or non-summoning builds.
• Adjust existing gear, and add new gear with all these changes in mind.

Note: Old AI being that minions don't passively aggro, but instead defensively respond to enemies targeting you. But reaction speed needs improved.

Any of these core changes should avoid adding or change things unnecessarily. So keep that in mind if you have anything to include.

Perhaps i should actually make and share a google doc... 2000 character limit is rough lol

[dire horizon]

They don't I just tested it with tome of ashes, minions don't benefit from anything like "dmg against X status" ( was curious if dmg against poisoned would work too but it also doesn't apply to minions ) and the 50% extra burning doesn't apply to their burning dmg, only your own

[dire horizon]

This basically sums it up 👍

We do technically have mana potions if you grab the skill from the explosion tree, you can pop grenades for mana, or even summons when they explode, but they usually cost more than you gain via that way, but with the changes we've kinda come up on that can even itself out better

Also sorry for late response I fell asleep @jagged lotus

[jagged lotus]

I'm in the middle of writing an MS word doc. If you'd like I could transfer it to google docs and give you editing access

[toxic yoke]

I'm also typing a google doc lul

[jagged lotus]

Mf

[toxic yoke]

no worries

lol

[jagged lotus]

Some of this stuff I don't really agree with. Base minion count for example I don't think needs changed. With lower lifetime minions, getting a super high minion count isn't exactly super important to begin with and even now I wouldn't really say it's an issue with summoner as a whole.

[toxic yoke]

To explain this, i don't actually want the max minion count to increase. The issue I see is that minion count is such a valuable stat that it drowns out more interesting gear choices due to how effective minion count itself is.

[jagged lotus]

I mean does it though? Most minion armors set your minion count to 4-5. Puppet rings in particular also have an insanely high attack speed increase which I'd argue is more valuable than the 1 extra minion.

[toxic yoke]

Also i don't really care how its added... I would agree having 3 minion count from doing nothing is too good of a change. Instead i was thinking maybe at level 50 and 100 you get +1 minion count. Or finding a good way to add it to a talent because if its +1/point, the total +5 is too op. Both options i would personally balance by lowering how much you can get on gear.

[toxic yoke]

Ya but you'd remove value from gear to match imo. And ya puppet rings are disgusting lol

[dire horizon]

I mean tbh minion count is very valuable for orbital minions and abusing boss hitboxes XD

[toxic yoke]

Shift power from gear increase to the baseline power of summoner and lessen the value of that stats to make other options more viable.

[jagged lotus]

I just don't really see what this is actually solving. The only other notable minion count increase is from the soul medallion which has a much smaller added bonus than the puppet rings so things like skull necklace are still a perfectly viable alternative

[dire horizon]

But tbh I feel minion count only really matters for orbital, the rest of the minions you can be flexible with, and with guardian set attack speed and minion count really aren't worth anything compared to just grabbing minion dmg%

[toxic yoke]

Build diversity

[jagged lotus]

Lower lifetime minions also wouldn't need a high minion count stat anyways

[toxic yoke]

separate issue imo

Lemme break it down with an example 1s

[dire horizon]

But yea having base 3 minions would add much more build diversity tbh, so you could grab other rings besides puppet rings lol

Only thing is jellyfish would be buffed to probably meta breaking stuff especially min maxed but idk I think a lot of what @toxic yoke typed made sense for the most simple changes for summoning

[dire horizon]

[jagged lotus]

The issue with puppet rings seems more like that giant attack speed bonus to me

It's a proportionally much larger bonus than then minion count

[dire horizon]

That's not the case entirely though, especially for orbital minions, but since puppet rings give both attack speed and minion count they will probably always be the best to go for on most summoning builds

[jagged lotus]

It's even more extreme for orbital minions since you're compounding their attack rate with both stats

[dire horizon]

But for regular minions, minion count matters kinda? But 45%attack speed would be a lot better, but since we get both of best worlds there it kinda kills diversity, if I could have +2 minion count and the base +1, we could probably implement gear like guardian set where attack speed really doesn't matter much anyway, and have more minions to explode, so it's kinda a more fair off-trade and offers more diversity overall

[toxic yoke]

We have two rings one gives +1 minion count, and the other gives +25% minion crit chance.

If we have 1 base minion, +1 minion count is a 100% increase to damage. Where as if crits are 2x damage, 20% crit chance only gives 25% more damage on average.

If we consider the same with 3 base minions, we now only have a 33% increase to damage from +1 minion count, and still 25% more damage on average from crit. A lot closer.

If we are assuming base count + armor set gets us to 5 minion count (no matter the distribution), then +1 minion count gives 20% and crit chance provides 25% increases. Leading towards a break point and genuine choice based on other gear.

The real benefit here is if base is 3, builds with armor sets that don't get increases to minion count would benefit more from minion count, but ones with more minions can either min max minion count which would deal with many enemies easier or lean towards crit chance for single target minmax of dps.

[dire horizon]

More minions to explode the more mana we'll get

[jagged lotus]

What non-minion armor set builds would there even be? You already said you dont want summoner using non-minion specific armors. This solves nothing and overcomplicates the minion count stat.

[toxic yoke]

Some of this is caused by an actual lack of gear in the first place which makes diversity even harder when some stats are excessively impactful compared to others.

[toxic yoke]

? I'm not refering to non-minion armor sets

[jagged lotus]

"Builds with armor sets that dont get increases to minion count"

Nearly every summoner armor gets you to at least 4 minions by default

[toxic yoke]

Sure, but this is by necessity

with increase to base minion count this becomes more flexible making builds more diverse

which is the whole point

[jagged lotus]

This just seems like what you gave me crap for earlier, overcomplicating rebalances for reasons that aren't particularly beneficial

[toxic yoke]

Also because of this you actually have the option to take defensive armor set and still have like 4ish minions

Which tank + summoner is non-existant right now

lmfao

[toxic yoke]

Not at all wdym?

This is isolated to summoning and wouldn't affect having to rebalance crit values for summoning but affecting ALL builds

[jagged lotus]

Why implement this weird passive minion count upgrade system when all minion armors by default give greater minion count? So you want to remove the stat from most minion armors which, again doesn't solve anything to me

[toxic yoke]

Build diversity

[dire horizon]

Wait remove minion count from armor? Idk about that XD

[toxic yoke]

Im not saying remove it, i'm saying lower it to match the same/similar minion count values

[dire horizon]

Oh okay yea then that's fine

[jagged lotus]

That'd just mean everything besides helmets would have no minion count stat

[dire horizon]

Right be we could fit other stats into those builds like minion crit dmg% ect

[toxic yoke]

I'm not against that tbh, but i can see the argument

[jagged lotus]

Otherwise you'd just start cobbling different armor sets together to pump up minion count

Like I said before this seems like overcomplicating things for no reason. It's fine as it is. If you want a defensively focused minion build then add an armor set centered around magic barrier

[dire horizon]

Technically we already have that with magic skill tree, but I mean I don't think armors would naturally have like what? 500+ magic barrier XD

[toxic yoke]

Lets assume remove +1 from puppet ring, and limit each armor piece to giving +1 max. Set bonuses can still provide for increasing higher. We would sit at 3 base 3 from armor 1 from medallion and possibly more from set bonuses looking at 7-9 ish range still.

actually you know

removing +1 from puppet ring is not neccessary

[jagged lotus]

The actual issue with puppet ring is that attack speed stat

That is way more value than that +1 minion count

[toxic yoke]

+1 at 7 is already only 14% increase which isn't that crazy anymore

so 9-11 assuming people are cobbling builds to minmax count i think is fine

[jagged lotus]

Or like

We just don't do any of this because it's shuffling around summon build balance just cause

[toxic yoke]

I mean sure, but how would you suggest increasing build diversity with minimal impact

[jagged lotus]

Not like that

[toxic yoke]

Its simplest way i can see imo

[jagged lotus]

What armor set would you be taking instead of summoner armor if you did this?

[toxic yoke]

Actually having minion count and being able to using tanky armor like paladin would be sick

Or i'd try to cobble together a hybrid build 😄

[dire horizon]

Build diversity would be increased if we did remove minion count from the puppet rings though, and added base 3 minion count, it would be easier to have rings that offer just minion count with minion crit chance like medallion as the endgame rings or something

[toxic yoke]

Glad im not the only one that sees it

[dire horizon]

Because minion attack speed is great but for orbital minions, minion count is far more important

[toxic yoke]

Add a new ring to split the puppet ring between +1 count ring and minion attack speed ring imo

[jagged lotus]

The value of puppet rings is overinflated because taking two maxed rings gives you +90% attack speed

[dire horizon]

The rest of the minions can focus respectively on minion dmg, minion attack speed depending on build

[dire horizon]

If they remove minion count from it though it changes a lot, attack speed doesn't do to much if you don't have the minion count to match it, and for guardian set minion attack speed is worthless

[toxic yoke]

Would you be okay with that? If we split the puppet ring into two different ring types, one with the +1 count, and one with the attack speed. And then adding the 3 base minion count? No changes to anything else

Then hybrid or tanky summoners can have the minion count where pure summons which already have the count from other items can take the attack speed one or minmax their minion count at the cost of lower dps.

[jagged lotus]

I'd just not do any of that nonsense with base minion count for one, and just heavily reduce the base value and scaling of puppet rings to something closer to 10-15% at most. There's still value in the extra minion count but you'd still need a scaling value for leveling up the ring, if only slightly.

[toxic yoke]

But that doesn't improve build diversity

I'd just do nothing if we aren't going to address build diversity

[dire horizon]

That just makes all of us use puppet ring while severely nerfed it would still be the best ring XD

[jagged lotus]

I don't think running paladin armor is really "improving build diversity". You'd be better off just using a physical weapon at that point

[toxic yoke]

but physical weapon isn't tanky summoner?

[dire horizon]

Guardian set is tanky summoner 😭 ☝️

[toxic yoke]

Cope

[dire horizon]

It's tanky 👉👈 you just need to eat some foods

[jagged lotus]

Just using paladin armor is not tanky summoner, that's "non summoner guy pretending to be a summoner by using puppet rings"

[dire horizon]

Well let's separate from the Paladin idea for rn, and focus on the minion count and puppet rings/ build diversity

Build diversity is basically just builds not requiring to use the same accessories to be viable, in which case even debuffed puppet rings with minion count and attack speed would be viable for almost any build besides 1 rn

[jagged lotus]

Honestly the point of puppet rings should be so that you can get a decent summon count of at least 3 without a dedicated summon build, essentially the way hybrid builds would get their minion count stat. Just kneecap that attack speed buff and put one more like the current value on a different ring

[toxic yoke]

Sure but i still think its valid gaining access to use all the existing tanky sets, since you aren't omega punished for not using summoning armor even if every other piece of your gear is summoning. This is more diverse than only being able to use summoning gear for summoning because without it you have like 3 minions.

[jagged lotus]

The point is so there's other viable options for rings besides puppet rings. What makes them so strong even for builds that already have 4-5 minions is that attack speed buff since the ring is increasing all of your minions attack speeds by 45%. It's a free massive damage multiplier that even without that minion count stat basically makes all other summoner rings pointless right now

[dire horizon]

I mean yea I think paladin summoner would be cool, maybe even being able to use possessed weapons as minions ect sounds awesome, but I wanna take the topic off that rn, I agree cool summoner type of builds would be cool, no different than how guardian set is basically only +4 minion count

[toxic yoke]

But this increase that makes them so good, it could be a choice IF minion count isn't also such a huge increase by itself

[dire horizon]

Okay let's remove minion attack speed, minion count would still be better than any other ring right now

[toxic yoke]

Theres no contest

[dire horizon]

But with ONLY minion attack speed that only applies to melee and ranged minions, barely effects how we use orbital minions

[toxic yoke]

Also you ain't getting tanky with two defensive rings, necklace and offhand. Significant defensive power comes from armor itself. Sorry for keep bringing this tanky summoner vision up but I think its paramount to actually have the flexibility to do this in the first place.

[jagged lotus]

The minion count is the smaller increase with current minion builds. Two level 19 rings gets you a 90% attack rate increase from your summons, even without the minion count buffs. Grim set doesn't have any boosts to minion attack speed, so it's an extremely high boost to your damage output. 2 extra minions when you're already at 5 (or 6 when using the soul medallion) is a much smaller boost in comparison

[toxic yoke]

Ehh im not so sure about that... lemme check somethings

With desert guardian set we already have 46% attack speed so with 5 minions you are at a damage factor of 7.3; With +1 count you get 8.76; with 45% attack speed you get 9.55. So its not as significant as you'd assume.

[jagged lotus]

But then you're using desert guardian

[toxic yoke]

I think one of the other sets gives a big amount of attack speed

[toxic yoke]

And i mean it is 1 of 2 end game summoning sets.

[jagged lotus]

Grim does not and that's currently head of the pack in terms of summon armor performance

[dire horizon]

I don't think you understand the diversity part so much XD but basically minion attack speed doesn't do much for orbital minions as it does melee and ranged minions,

Orbital and any hybrid build would care about minion count far more than minion attack speed

Melee and ranged minion set ups could have diversity between minion dmg% and attack speed% depending on gear, guardian requires dmg%, grim set would prefer more minion count because of current synergies but I'll humor attack speed in some scenarios

[toxic yoke]

Ya i think hes missing the diversity part pretty heavily.

[jagged lotus]

Orbital moves faster with higher attack speed do they not? You need them to rotate faster to dish out more damage

[dire horizon]

Currently more minions you have the more magic% you have, the more magic% you have the more minion% you get from grim set

[toxic yoke]

irrelevant for bosses where you can stand in the middle of the boss to just nuke it since no matter where they are they are hitting non-stop

[dire horizon]

They do but not insanely faster, also you want to stand in the middle of the boss so all 8 minions are dealing dmg without I-frames jellyfish abuse is better with more minion count

[jagged lotus]

Your only example so far of this improving diversity is running defensive armor sets that give you nothing in terms of minion damage or mana regen. What would be the point?

[toxic yoke]

I mean i could recommend the countless hybrid sets you could run

But theres so many its hard to give any options. Defense is something so obviously lacking from summoner builds i thought it was the most valid

[jagged lotus]

You already said no to minions being affected by damage%

[toxic yoke]

You can have hybrid builds that don't scale with the same stats you know?

[dire horizon]

In terms of diversity this would effect pure summoner and hybrid sets too, if anything it's nerfing the existing but also giving us more build diversity overall

[jagged lotus]

It's almost like the build with the most passive playstyle should have the lowest armor or something, dunno

[toxic yoke]

But theres no option to be tanky, hence increasing build diversity AND its not free, you lose the scaling of being pure summoner gear

[jagged lotus]

Shields are right there, they're already the best thing for making you tanky lmao

[toxic yoke]

Bruh

I don't understand what you're missing

[dire horizon]

Look let's back off the build concepts, and look how this builds diversity

[toxic yoke]

I'ma let you cook. Don't disappoint me xd (going to go cook irl in the meantime)

[jagged lotus]

If you want to tank stuff as summoner shields are your best option. You can turtle while the summons attack for you. I don't see how running paladin armor improves much here beyond making your summons worse in exchange for just giving you a bigger safety net if you have skill issue

[dire horizon]

Look so this is how I see the diversity, this effects pure summoner as well with more interesting choices

+3 minion count base gives us a buff if anything but also makes it where you can pick minion dmg% or minion lifespan rings or minion attack speed or minion count accordingly

Assuming we separate the puppet ring into 2 rings,

1 ring gives minion count +5% minion crit at max

1 ring gives minion attack speed let's even reduce it to 30% if we want too

This makes all builds not require the same ring and adds diversity for them, whether it's QOL or dmg optimal it would open up more than the "meta" ring that give both of best worlds for all builds, progression we can even hybrid easier maybe even pick up max mana rings or something idk

It gives us more options than just going for 1 accessory and calling it a day basically, even if we nerf it's attack speed it literally does nothing for hybrid builds, summoner builds would still use it over our current choices simply because minion count does in fact matter for the synergies they provide in numbers ect

What @toxic yoke put in the simple fixes doesn't change anything about how magic and summoning skill trees synergies work as of current state, so magic% conversion to summoning% still applies as of rn unless we overhaul that, but we are simply just talking about SIMPLE changes rn, everything else will fall in the ladder

[dire horizon]

Referring to this^

[jagged lotus]

Nerfing the puppet ring already fixes the problem with build diversity. Skull necklace is already a strong competitor to soul medallion so no change is needed there. Again I don't think doing any of this base minion count nonsense solved anything which was my issue to begin with

[dire horizon]

Nerfing puppet ring to have no minion attack speed does not in fact change build diversity

[toxic yoke]

Gunna clarify some things on what I said...
+2 base minions so 3 is your base (again how this happens is tbd)

And when i said about splitting the puppet ring I meant...
Ring1 = +1 minion count
Ring2 = 45% minion attack speed
I was using the minion crit chance as a separate example. 🤣

[jagged lotus]

It does. Their value becomes more comparable to stuff like vicious ring

[dire horizon]

+1 minion count is far more than what vicious ring offers

The only case vicious ring is better is guardian set

[toxic yoke]

I agree but the point is when your baseline of minion count is 3, the +1 minion count has less impact. And honestly with the state of summoning i'm in favor of buffs to nerfs. So long as they are reasonable of course

[jagged lotus]

If you already have 5 minions, it's a flat 20% damage increase. Vicious ring gives +36% minion damage.

[toxic yoke]

Yes but 36% minion damage when you have already have 100% minion damage is only 18% increase to total damage

[jagged lotus]

Hence guardian set

[dire horizon]

Right but every 1 minion is + barrier+magic dmg+minion dmg+ranged attack speed ect ( conversion of magic% to summoning% )

Minion count is far more valuable

[jagged lotus]

Stacking two puppet rings is even worse, 6 to 7 is only a 16.6% damage increase

[toxic yoke]

And you already can get up to 50% from summoning levels alone so the remaining 50% is easily achieved from other gear.

[toxic yoke]

same with damage increases

[jagged lotus]

Talents need reworked. Not really in the mood to argue about how to deal with that right now

[dire horizon]

The more minions you have the far more you get out of it with current skill trees and we aren't talking about reworking them rn, we are talking simple summoning changes XD

[jagged lotus]

We're operating under the assumption of reworking talents. For simplicity's sake I'd rather we not get into a tangent about talents

[toxic yoke]

I am not

[dire horizon]

I wasn't either lmao

[toxic yoke]

Reworking talents is a BIG ask

[dire horizon]

100%

[toxic yoke]

especially from what it sounds like you want most or all of them reworked as opposed to just 1 or 2 problem ones

[dire horizon]

Under assumption we aren't you'd agree minion count is far more important now?

[jagged lotus]

In the summon tree mainly just axing the freebie magic arcane staff synergy nonsense ones

[toxic yoke]

I see this mostly as a non-issue imo, there is a singular outlier which can be addressed but other than that there is no other issues.

[dire horizon]

Magic dmg also increases minion dmg, so you'd also be nerfing minions XD

[jagged lotus]

Base minion count is a non issue as well then

[jagged lotus]

I recall us talking about separating summoner more from magic

[dire horizon]

That's a complicated ask though, I'm under full assumptions we are working with current state of skill trees

[toxic yoke]

I agree mostly to this as well but i think its super important to keep scope for the core suggestion low. We can go crazy afterwards

[jagged lotus]

The entire point of this is that it's an overhaul. Some stuff is just too tangled to be small scope changes

[toxic yoke]

Best solution to that is to also shift mana/mana barrier mostly to its own new skill as well among a few other key changes

[toxic yoke]

I get that, and completel overhauls are good but they don't have to go all in to fix main issues atm. IF we have to wait a full year for a change when we could get most issues solved by next patch would you not perfer that? This wouldn't make the overhaul not exist just less dire

[jagged lotus]

Breaking it down based on priority would be fine.

[toxic yoke]

Thats my current goal, settle on a core few changes to get summoning 70-80% there.

[dire horizon]

Without that tanglement minion count probably wouldn't matter so much I agree ( also summoning would lose an armada of buffs )

[jagged lotus]

Okay. Then I'd keep the base summon thing out of it since it screws with armor balance in ways that I don't think are necessary at all

[toxic yoke]

More fundamental and mechanical changes to systems takes a lot of time not only on the dev side, but also testing to work out bugs and make sure systems work.

[dire horizon]

Right so we can scrap diversity of builds for rn, and say maybe more gear sets will maybe solve that problem

[toxic yoke]

I'm willing to do so with sufficient reason, but i see this as addressing a major flaw with build diversity atm in the quickest and simplest way.

[dire horizon]

I would like a buff to tome of decay it's in a much sad state of things

[jagged lotus]

That's a whole different issue and I still have my own opinions on how summons interacting with existing equipment should be handled.

[dire horizon]

So overall can we put down a simple conclusion for the simple asks for rn? XD

[dire horizon]

I think like pets, summons should have everything in their own stats, that's the simplest solution, just add more foods to eat and buff them accordingly with other stats they may need or new gear can even solve that

[jagged lotus]

Unforeseen balance issues would be my main concern. You're adding in this extra summon count scaling system to levelups, and besides making early summoner more annoying by needing to get to level 25 or 50 or whatever for one extra summon, now you're also creating a much narrower balancing line where there has to be this unspoken rule of no chest or leg pieces with minion slots otherwise summon count gets bloated even more, which is an even bigger issue if we're not addressing the talent trees initially.

[jagged lotus]

This is why I called it stat bloat. You're adding a huge pile of new bits of equipment just so summoners can have basic things like +x% damage to bosses or +x% crit damage

[toxic yoke]

In my eyes we have 3 issues with summoning.

1. Minions are under tuned and fail to fit many playstyles
2. The lack of ability to react to immediate threats without actively managing minion count
3. Build diversity both from lack of gear, but also some stats outweigh more interesting player choices within our limited pool of items.
   I think it would be irresponsible to not address build diversity in some manner.

[toxic yoke]

Crit damage doesn't apply to minions at least i don't think so

[jagged lotus]

I didn't say it does

[toxic yoke]

You're adding a huge pile of new bits of equipment just so summoners can have basic things like +x% damage to bosses or +x% crit damage
?

[jagged lotus]

Yes. Neither of those things work for minions right now lol

[toxic yoke]

Does damage to bosses not?

[jagged lotus]

No

Neither does +% damage to burning enemies

Or damage%

[toxic yoke]

I mean those make sense to me at least

[jagged lotus]

You see why I wanted this changed?

[toxic yoke]

n

[dire horizon]

Yea but it would build diversity for summoner sets, you can build into a crit melee or you can hybrid with grim with orbital, ect, or go explosive with guardian, more sets for those stats could lead to more diversity, along the lines of having foods for those stats

[jagged lotus]

Wdym crit melee

[jagged lotus]

How is +% to enemies on fire any different from +% to bosses?

[toxic yoke]

Idk ask my brain 😄

[jagged lotus]

I JUST DID

[dire horizon]

Like if we got gear that gave crit dmg we'd use our highest dmg output minion which is melee for the most part, sprouts could also work

[jagged lotus]

That's not a hybrid build that's still just pure summoner

[dire horizon]

Right it gives diversity for summoners, if minions could interact with our stats we'd have no balance nor any pure summoner

[toxic yoke]

Guys pls

Not this again anything i beg of you

[jagged lotus]

I'm boutta crash out I stg

[toxic yoke]

They will not change this

lol

Trust me

[dire horizon]

XD right so I'd rather keep minion stats exclusively minion

[jagged lotus]

Stat bloat

That's what you'll get

[dire horizon]

Sure you can call it that ig lol

[toxic yoke]

Then remove all exclusive damage types, no point

[jagged lotus]

That's definitely how that works

Yeah I forgot omoroth's beak's melee damage will suddenly turn into global damage% cuz summoner can use spiked rings, mb

I want it to be known that I'd prefer we not talk about this for the time being

[toxic yoke]

The reason they exist is to have a SEPARATE axis of balance with other combat styles. You're asking for what seems likely nearly all offensive stats that don't explicitly specific a weapon type or damage type to apply to minions would be so impossible to balance.

[toxic yoke]

I was being hyperbolic and sarcastic sorry :X

[toxic yoke]

At least we can agree there

xd

[dire horizon]

Back on topic, so we can agree on something at least, while keeping skill trees the same ect, would this be enough? To me personally I think this makes summoning 100% better than current state

[toxic yoke]

I wrote it so i clearly agree xd

[dire horizon]

I agreed with it so I figured you'd disagree jkjk lmao imagine

[toxic yoke]

I believe hes still against the minion count. Be as honest as you want chipper 🙂

[toxic yoke]

would be been a great meme honestly, missed opportunity

[jagged lotus]

My opinion has not been swayed on extra base minion slots. My verdict is it goes in the "not right now" pile. Besides the annoying implications of tying your first few minion count increases to summon skill level it also becomes a balancing headache for the devs when it comes to armor sets. At the very least it would need to be done at the same time as talents are reworked.

[toxic yoke]

So whats the trip up? Why are you against it? Is it the issue with minion count scaling up the arcane staff build or more in a general sense?

I'm trying to figure out where you are on the idea to come to some compromise

[jagged lotus]

Talents are part of it yes. If you start having more armors that have minion count on things besides helmets you could get in the 9-10 max minions range which just further complicates the issue with the talent synergies. For early game I'd see it being very annoying for a new player because they'd be stuck with 1-2 minions till they level up their summoning skill by a large portion

If reworking talents isn't on the table right now then I certainly don't think this should be either since it is also messing with overall balance and progression of summoners in an area that I don't think is in dire need of changes.

[toxic yoke]

So... perhaps some compromise comes in the form of minor talent tweaks as opposed to reworks.

What about the follow adjustments to counter the 3 base minions:
Puppet ring is now just +1 minion count.
Additionally add a new ring with just the minion attack speed from the puppet ring.
Power in numbers talent nerfed to +2-8% range attack speed per active minion (1.5% per level)
Tough gang talent nerfed to +12–60 magic barrier per active minion

[jagged lotus]

I was already in favor of those changes in regards to puppet ring regardless (though the minion count one should also have a small extra stat so levelups still scale)

[toxic yoke]

Probably something utility/defense wise so we don't reintroduce the problem in a different flavor. So maybe max health, max mana, mana regen, armor, magic barrier or something like that. What do you think?

[jagged lotus]

Minion move speed

[toxic yoke]

I'm fine with that

[jagged lotus]

Yea idk just something to justify levelups

[toxic yoke]

Minion speed is definitely something that is lacking imo

[dire horizon]

Personally minion move speed doesn't effect orbitals or ranged much so I'm meh about that stat in general

But it's fine lol

[jagged lotus]

Womp

[toxic yoke]

i mean it definitely still positively affects ranged ones, but orbitals is mid, the melee minions definitely could use the help lol

[dire horizon]

Melee minions just fall so far in dmg output for most builds unfortunately, sprouts and jellyfish are just built different but like I said I'm meh about minion movement speed but I'm okay with it, it wouldn't effect much in the long term

[toxic yoke]

better than just +1 minion count, and if its actually as low impact as you think thats also fine, better than doing nothing with item levels

[jagged lotus]

Okay all that being said. If we're having something like one-hit or 15 second lifetime minions, is that extra 2 base minions really needed for a theoretical non-summon-armor summoner? Running puppet rings would get you there anyways and I think that's a good tradeoff for getting to be tanky or whatever

[toxic yoke]

Ya assuming the short lifetime limits you to only say like 3-4 naturally, you could spawn the other minions with longer lifetimes for your remaining summon count. I think its perfectly valid still, that is if you even opt into gear with minion count as theres some options without

Ahh lemme rewrite that... lol

[jagged lotus]

So what's the use in it? Only example I see is late game tanky armors. Early game has the same kind of armor diversity as mage or ranger or even demo gets

And again, summoner isn't supposed to be tanky, that's the point.

And if you still wanna be tanky...

https://tenor.com/view/the-wrld-tour-gif-14702468268550282905

[toxic yoke]

I'm all good and well for parrying but saying "just parry" is very much the opposite of build diversity

[dire horizon]

Ngl I think almost all minion builds use shields XD

[toxic yoke]

Dropping minion count and other minion buffs to be naturally tanky just doesn't exist

[toxic yoke]

I only use shields when playing hardcore, its a boring option ngl

[jagged lotus]

Using tanky stat stick armor isn't really build diversity either. You're just worse at summoning regardless of these changes, one's just slightly less terrible

[dire horizon]

I use shields so I can stand in the middle of the boss and abuse my jellyfish

[toxic yoke]

It is though, having the ability to do so is very much build diversity.

You don't even have the option to do this viably atm

[jagged lotus]

It's still not going to be viable with what you're asking. It's literally just summoner but for people who suck at dodging

There's no interaction created between minions and higher armor or dodge chance stats

[dire horizon]

I mean guardian set is tanky 👉👈

Early game yea shields for sure, unless we get new gear to be Tanky throughout the whole game

[jagged lotus]

Isn't guardian like, bugged?

[toxic yoke]

Not that im aware

But i didn't test the set bonus

[dire horizon]

It was I think they fixed it recent patch though

Even still that armor % is big

[jagged lotus]

Yeah I noticed that

[toxic yoke]

Armor is good and all but having access to dodge or reduced damage from bosses is big ngl

[jagged lotus]

So what use would paladin be then

[dire horizon]

We have foods for reduced dmg against bosses, dodge idk, could be okay, rift lens, and shields, and feather are better dodge mechanics to me than the stat itself

[toxic yoke]

armor is 1 defense mechanic limited to 75% max dmg reduction, dodge reduces damage up to 90% ontop of that, and reduced damage from bosses is damage reduction ontop of that.

With minion armor feels like youre limited to armor and magic barrier at best

[jagged lotus]

You referring to stone armor?

[dire horizon]

This armor scales crazy armor wise, the dmg output is doo doo rn though

[toxic yoke]

ye, undervalued af

[toxic yoke]

easy to address with other gear

[jagged lotus]

Imma be real with you chief I don't think there's a concievable world where this is ever more than a skill issue cope build for a summoner. You're worse at attacking in exchange for basically nothing besides a bigger safety net in boss fights

[dire horizon]

Atm not really, at least while focusing on the core mechanics of guardian set, but that's really more so a mana issue than anything else, using this not for its intended purpose is far worse than just keeping your grim set XD

[toxic yoke]

You clearly don't know how op defensive builds are

You can basically become immune to everything with the exception of CC aura move forget what its called

[jagged lotus]

But why would I need that?

[toxic yoke]

DIVERSITY

bruh

you don't get it do you?

[jagged lotus]

I like actually moving my character around lol idk

[dire horizon]

Yea but idk invincible summoner and slow dmg would kinda blow XD

But I get the diversity part, it would be a new build ig

[toxic yoke]

You couldn't become invincible as a summoner

its too niche

[jagged lotus]

So why the hell do you want it so bad

[dire horizon]

Diversity mainly

I get it, I'm not saying it would be fun lmao but it would open up possibilities for more builds

[jagged lotus]

Dude I can stick some random doodoo rings on a summoner build and call it diversity at that point

See guys I put septum rings on instead of puppet rings, this is diversity right?

[toxic yoke]

Whats the problem? What are you giving up as a pure offensive summoner by letting players play defensively? Like legit forcing players into any playstyle is so terrible for so many reasons.

Mind you im glass cannon any time im not playing hardcore, to give you perspective where im coming from

[jagged lotus]

I mean you can do it right now if you want, it's just garbage lol, and it's still going to be bad even with these changes which I have to reiterate have actual negative consequences for summoning as a whole

[dire horizon]

True even though a lot of current mechanics are avoided if you delete the boss fast enough, defensive summoner would probably be better for exploration

[toxic yoke]

then remove armor, health, and only die if you take 10 hits

No need for complex defensive stats

if players aren't meant to use them why keep them in the game

You have such cooked takes sometimes.

[jagged lotus]

https://tenor.com/view/right-yeah-right-yeah-oh-yeah-ohh-gif-14553729619893238098

[dire horizon]

True but overall the defensive not being diversity is invalid, it would be valid build, not saying it would be meta by no means XD but it would be possible and probably new player friendly

[toxic yoke]

increasing base summon count to 3 negatively affects summoning? how?

[jagged lotus]

I told you how already. You can go back and read it if you'd like

[toxic yoke]

No defensive build is meta, because people don't play that way

Only one people kind of ever care about is dodge and rarely do they do so at the cost of damage

[jagged lotus]

Half the blance of a summoner is you're not meant to be tanky. You're using the literal safest least offensive combat playstyle possible where you can sit back away from enemies and bosses and turtle with a shield while a crowd of underlings murder stuff for you. If you want to have a tanky build then I suggest you use playstyles designed for the physical combat classes

[toxic yoke]

Then the current balance of summoner suggests we should all be using arcane staff, whats your point?

[jagged lotus]

And all use arcane staff many do. General gameplay balance would dictate summoners should not be tanky

[toxic yoke]

I think you fail to separate the difference between how things are designed to be and how things can be played because the system allows it to be viable.

[jagged lotus]

Yes and I'm telling you it's possible already, it's just crap

[toxic yoke]

viable

I'd rather you just say you don't like the idea, then give me a ton of half baked reasons against it.

[jagged lotus]

Dawg you still haven't actually given a good counterargument for the original reasons I gave you why I didn't like it. You've gone off on this tangent about build diversity and defensive playstyles

[toxic yoke]

Defensive doesn't even scratch the surface, im just using it as an example.

[toxic yoke]

And what was the original reason?

[dire horizon]

Basically simple answer is more build diversity with defensive aspects for summoning, we currently have it but I think idoodler wants better access to it

[jagged lotus]

#1354589473295302788 message
start from here. My next couple messages are also it

[toxic yoke]

I said they don't have to rebalance any other gear, but we compromised on puppet ring

[jagged lotus]

So now we'd be at 10 summons basically for free?

[toxic yoke]

Ya kinda. Are you telling me summoning isn't undertuned right now and justifies the buff?

btw you could get 11 with a cobbled together build 😉

[toxic yoke]

We also seemed to agree on nerfs to the two talents that scale with minion count to address this as well

[jagged lotus]

I didn't address those at the time actually. That seems more like a bandaid fix to that issue which, why bother? Wait till talents are actually reworked

[toxic yoke]

8% * 10 = 80% ranged attack speed vs 10% * 8 = 80% ranged attack speed
60 * 10 = 600 magic barrier vs 75 * 8 = 600 magic barrier
Seems to work out just fine.

[dire horizon]

We'd be talking about skill trees though and I'd rather leave that can of worms alone XD

[toxic yoke]

Ya but thats exactly what it is meant to be.. a bandaid fix until talents are reworked. In the meantime we can address build diversity and do a small nerf for counter balance to overall buff summoner as a whole. If you actually don't think summoner is undertuned then idk what to say.

[jagged lotus]

The point of the main changes was so summons are more diversely powerful. I think giving out two freebie summons on top of that is unecessary if that's what it ultimately amounts to.

[dire horizon]

I think two freebie minion count not only scales better for us but also increases all minion builds as a whole

[jagged lotus]

It's muddying what we're trying to ask for with changes. Makes no sense to the devs for us to ask for two different changes to the same talents in separate rework passes

[toxic yoke]

You know and have pointed out that every additional minion from an existing count gives diminishing returns to overall damage. So you should understand that if the base line is higher, then minion counts value doesn't outweigh other options or rather is less likely

[jagged lotus]

It still does until those other talents are reworked or removed

Hence

[toxic yoke]

skills?

talents?

[jagged lotus]

Yes the problem with extra minions being broken is every extra minion gives you a fat pile of extra buffs

[toxic yoke]

Bro i gave you the math for the break even at these numbers with these very minor tweaks.

[jagged lotus]

Being a net neutral to those is not an improvement

[dire horizon]

Minions giving barrier+magic dmg= more minion dmg than what other options can provide us at least for grim set, maybe minion attack speed at 45% could possibly be better than 1 minion count but I don't think by much or if at all depending

[toxic yoke]

So you just omega biased against the one outliar build it seems?

No other explanation makes sense

[jagged lotus]

Fym outlier wdym outlier

[toxic yoke]

arcane staff is legit the only build that takes advantage of that synergy

[dire horizon]

Take arcane staff out the picture minions gain the most out of that synergy too

[toxic yoke]

Its the only place minions are even relevant compared to other combat styles

[jagged lotus]

Those are literally the only talents people use for summone right now regardless

[toxic yoke]

Without arcane staff what minion build is competing with other meta builds?

Afaik all are significantly lower in power

[jagged lotus]

Other builds aren't using the summon tree

[toxic yoke]

Other summoning builds aren't using the summon tree?

[jagged lotus]

??

Other meta builds aren't using summoning

[toxic yoke]

Without arcane staff what minion build is competing with other meta builds?

[toxic yoke]

not my question, but relevant. then why do we care about giving 3 base miniosn if non-summoner builds aren't using the minion count scaling nodes on the summon tree?

[jagged lotus]

They as in summon builds?

[toxic yoke]

clarified

[jagged lotus]

Because of how it affects summoner. Summoner is getting two extra minions for free which directly feeds into the main talents summoner uses rn

[toxic yoke]

Average strength of summoner builds are significantly lower, average other builds. Would you not agree?

[dire horizon]

I'm confused on the diversity part tbh, but more minion count is always best for grim set regardless ( not taking arcane staff into account ) and I'm solely talking about minions as dps, I can see how minion count just will outweigh any options for it with current skill trees, besides that? Then guardian is dmg% focused, everything else falls to the ladder till we see sets that take advantage of different mechanics

[jagged lotus]

Yeah? But they won't necessarily be with the other changes

[toxic yoke]

And we do the previously mentioned tweaks bringing them down to the same level how does this manage to make a difference?

[jagged lotus]

Extra pointless work for devs that has negative gameplay impacts instead of just not doing it until talents are overhauled. Simple as that.

[dire horizon]

I'm fine with more minion count it buffs summoner gameplay in general

[toxic yoke]

It is purely the changing a number.

As someone who has dabbled in game development and design this is the most trivial of changes.

[jagged lotus]

Which they then have to scrap and undo. Dawg what it comes down to is it's not worth doing till other changes are done first. If we're going down that road that's really all there is to it and I'm tired of going in circles with you over this.

[toxic yoke]

And once again, this is the bandaid change before they figure out everything...

You act like changing how game mechanics function fundamentally is the simplest thing.

[dire horizon]

Assuming they don't ever overhaul skill trees this fix would be enough of a game changer especially for pure summoner

[jagged lotus]

I'm literally arguing in favor of not wasting extra dev time on stuff that's being scrapped later

[toxic yoke]

Ya if it requires such a large overhaul why even change it in the first place if its too broken to think its fixable.

[jagged lotus]

At that point I'd say hell no because the rest of the rebalance stuff would ideally make it not needed

[toxic yoke]

I'm saying they could be like ehh summoning is kinda broken, but it works why overhaul it when its a gamble if it fixes things or not.

[jagged lotus]

You're asking for implementing literal bandaid fixes that they have to go back and change again later. This is stuff that you yourself are admitting will need to be changed at a later point

[dire horizon]

This overall buffs summoning gameplay I don't see the flaws for pure summoner

[jagged lotus]

Because it's a buff in an area it doesn't need buffed in

[toxic yoke]

If a small change garners a big change and players resonate with those tweaks its easy to see players are still invested enough for an overhaul to be work it. I've seen so many people say they like summoner but ditch it due to all the issues.

[toxic yoke]

Thats were me and @dire horizon disagree with you.

[jagged lotus]

Okay?

[toxic yoke]

Which is fine we clearly have our own point of views

Genuinely i just don't know how you don't see it

[dire horizon]

I disagree in general, making a wildwarden thread

Jkjk XD

[toxic yoke]

smh my head 🙂

ye

[jagged lotus]

Like sure I guess if you wanna lean harder into the magic damage synergy spiral thing we have right now be my guest I just thought we wanted to move away from that

[toxic yoke]

wildwarden set bonus: replace pouch slots with pet slots.

xddddddddddddddd

[dire horizon]

Hold up you're cooking

XD

[toxic yoke]

nahhhhhh its cooked don't do it

[dire horizon]

5 pets would be broken XD

[toxic yoke]

Talent

Minion damage is increased by +10–50% of your magic damage increase
Grim set
Minion damage is increased by +48% of your magic damage increase

Now question how does +2 minions change the synergy?

[dire horizon]

Atm I don't think skill trees will receive overhaul for at least a year or more, I'd rather have a band aid fix rn to fix summonings rep overall

[jagged lotus]

Tough gang and best offense

https://tenor.com/view/monkey-gif-18890916

[toxic yoke]

And we are nerfing tough gang so it provide the exact same value

[jagged lotus]

It doesn't fix anything it just makes arcane staff hybrid shenanigans better

[dire horizon]

But it also makes summons dps better throughout progression

[toxic yoke]

Okay lemme ask again with everything included....

[jagged lotus]

No. No free summon slot. Stop trying to shoehorn it in I'm sick of talking about this jesus christ

[dire horizon]

Okay maybe next thing, remove arcane staff XD

[jagged lotus]

https://tenor.com/view/celebrate-celebration-celebrations-curse-of-the-wererabbit-wererabbit-gif-597741576075957382

[dire horizon]

Take that out of the picture and meteorite staff takes it's place ngl XD, but overall adding base minion count really helps summoner as a whole provided not all summons are gonna be on short timers

[toxic yoke]

Power in numbers+2–8% range attack speed per active minion
Group effort +2–8% magic damage for every active minion
Tough gang +12–60 magic barrier per active minion

For those that are bad at math or fail to understand basic balance changes, if we are going from 8 minions to 10 minions the following changes occur:

From 10% * 8 = 80% attack speed or magic damage | To 8% * 10 = attack speed or magic barrier
From 75 * 8 = 600 magic barrier | To 60 * 10 = 600 magic barrier

For those that don't understand this will result is exactly 0 changes to the following:
Trickle down arcana Minion damage is increased by +10–50% of your magic damage increase
Grim armor set bonus - Minion damage is increased by +48% of your magic damage increase

[jagged lotus]

I'm losing my mind bro we went from not increasing minion count by removing it from armors to not affect balance to then jump the shark and now just add in extra free minions cuz why not summon buff teehee and muh stone armor

[toxic yoke]

Open the flood gates, ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL stats apply to minions this is clearly good why would it be bad

[jagged lotus]

https://tenor.com/view/squirrel-what-about-whataboutism-gif-21354591

[toxic yoke]

Oh you practice that? crazy

[dire horizon]

I just wanna buff summoning as a whole tbh even if it's a band aid fix

[toxic yoke]

Someone is greedy

[dire horizon]

Bro I'll even take +1 minion count as a buff to summoning, no other changes literally summons dps and gameplay is that bad XD it's the most unpopular for a reason, I've given up my perma minions idea for a bigger picture, all the changes on doodler put out make sense for the quickest implementation for summoning to have an actual impact on the game

[toxic yoke]

Mind you there is no perfect solutions, no overhaul is guaranteed to do anything. There's only better solutions, small steps are often needed first before a bigger better step is taken.

[dire horizon]

Literally my suggestion= make summoning better 👉👈

I'm not talking about huge overhauls or change everything blah blah, just simple summoner fixes, make it the build we want to play but also entertaining for the majority of players

[toxic yoke]

Suggest anything that would increase summoning build diversity as its an issues that absolute needs a small step towards, that doesn't require any reworks to any existing mechanics. Tweaks of values are acceptable.

[jagged lotus]

I'm done. I wanted the post to be stuff people could actually come to agreements on, that's why I dropped the request to allow summoner to use more kinds of equipment cuz you were so up in arms about it but now you're super insistent on this poorly thought out gimmick feature for no reason beyond build diversity and mindless buffs with no regards to balance

[toxic yoke]

Provide an alternative

Where i stand #1354589473295302788 message

Nothing has changed

[toxic yoke]

I mean i agree with bald just fine idk

Its only you at this point

Maybe its mean to point that out but its the truth

[jagged lotus]

The alternative was already discarded. You said no to allowing minions to utilize anything that's not specifically related to minions so anything from damage% like glass bead to boss% like spine ring are just straight up out of the question for minions to you because "muh hybrid"

[toxic yoke]

Ya but that doesn't increase build diversity.

It forces all summoners to be hybrid

[jagged lotus]

What the hell are you talking about?

[dire horizon]

Applying all of this would be enough of a band aid

[dire horizon]

Allowing minions to our stat bonuses is broken due to all current skill trees, how is that any more balanced than us adding +2 minion count?

[toxic yoke]

Allowing crit and other stats apply to minions makes summon not only ungodly flexible, but also extremely to the point that summoning gear would never be used outside of maybe the grim helmet and puppet rings. Everything else would be crit, and you'd have so much generic power you'd be irresponsible to not use a ranged weapon to give 100% crit with weakness detection so you can just focus crit damage for some insane crit multiplier to not only your own attacks but also the minions

Meaningwhile im asking for 2 more minions

25% increase on average

[jagged lotus]

{citation needed}

[toxic yoke]

Your idea

critation given

[jagged lotus]

yeah sorry I tried using full summoner with a crit ring but iDoodler said everyone is now required to run grim hood ninja armor sorry

[toxic yoke]

Why wouldn't they go full crit damage?

I don't get it

[jagged lotus]

What? Burn summon build? Build diversity? Nooo. More than two options for rings? Why would we want that?

[dire horizon]

That's a different issue with burn override XD

[toxic yoke]

This idea requires a massive rebalance that affects the balance of the whole game

and changes to the way many stats function

[jagged lotus]

It doesn't but hehe alright

[toxic yoke]

hehe when summoner invalidates all other builds in the game they will start to nerf the values of all the stats that make them good and in turn does in fact affect the whole game.

Why would i want 1 of me, when i can have 8 of me with the same stats

[jagged lotus]

Cuz they don't have the same stats, and you're not getting 8 of you. If you run crit equipment you're losing out on summon slots, if you're running ninja armor you're losing out on summon slots. You're losing out on attack speed, base damage, mana regen, etc.

[dire horizon]

I think we can just agree to disagree on minion count being added and minions being effected by all of our stats XD

So let's just compromise on those and leave them out for rn ig lol

[toxic yoke]

Where build diversity then?

[jagged lotus]

That's what I was saying to begin with

[jagged lotus]

https://core-keeper.fandom.com/wiki/Accessories?so=search

[toxic yoke]

Lemme know when any single one of those rings is ever better than puppet ring.

[jagged lotus]

Hey remember the time we talked about nerfing puppet ring? Twice?

[toxic yoke]

Nah you decided we'd do nothing

[jagged lotus]

I was in favor of that regardless of other equipment changes and the base minion count thing

[toxic yoke]

"why change it when we can overhaul everything"

[jagged lotus]

It's a broken ring and it's bad for balance

[dire horizon]

My brain

[toxic yoke]

If summoning is overall bad, because it is compared to other skills(except explosives cause thats pretty terrible now too), how would you suggest buff it? Buff base damage? Then how do we deal with the issue that minion count is so valuable a stat that almost always its a better option than any other stat?

Even if we let minions scale with our crit, minion count is STILL better in most caes.

[dire horizon]

My brains cells are diverse after this convo, I do think minion count is 100% better than any other stat in game as of rn for summoning in for all minion builds besides 1 and even then more minion count makes that build more consistent with less dmg

[toxic yoke]

Agreed, minimal flexibility because that +1 is just goated

[dire horizon]

Like I'm not asking for overhaul that's insanely complex to balance, we don't need a huge overhaul or deal with summoning being bad for years till that comes XD

[jagged lotus]

Remember the time when you said we weren't gonna talk about easy buffs like just straight buffing damage? When we were actually talking about reworking important things like mana cost and lifetime?

[toxic yoke]

Sure, but damage is your reason against +2 base minions

so you opened the door, i just walked in

[dire horizon]

I want more dmg

[jagged lotus]

That was not at all the only problem I had with it, but even then it's because it's not what the doc is supoosed to be about. We could jack up stats all day but that's not a good solution

[jagged lotus]

https://tenor.com/view/slap-gif-14589005100275319125

[toxic yoke]

Correct me if im wrong, but your main reasons were a generic "why do it at all", and that the magic dmg synergy that you brought up after we mentioned to nerf the way it scales would be too strong?

[dire horizon]

If we read every word for this, some minions are 15s and some are 5m

Overall everything on here looks pretty nice

[jagged lotus]

My initial concern was that removing the summon count from armors and moving it to levelups would be annoying and problematic for progression and would make balancing new equipment require a lot more care. You then proceeded to go straight to just having an extra two summons for free and ditching the equipment changes entirely for whatever reason

[toxic yoke]

Big range purely cause idk what they have in mind the important part is some would be short and some longer, actually tailor builds towards different playstyles accordingly

[jagged lotus]

To me it sounds like it stopped being about build diversity a while ago and now it's just "buff summoner" which wasn't the original point. Build diversity isn't being improved with this it's just shifting everything upward. Bottom tier loadouts are still gonna be bottom tier

[toxic yoke]

I mean... these summoner changes regardless of minion count would all be buffs

Its also still very much about build diversity

[jagged lotus]

Not straight up free global stat buffs

[toxic yoke]

Build diversity itself is a buff

[jagged lotus]

Give me one good example of a build you'd have with this that isn't just "summoner but I have skill issue and need extra health"

You said defensive builds is just scratching the surface

[toxic yoke]

If theres no flexibility in builds then the build that exists will have clear strengths and weakness and in turn there is absolutely no way to overcome that without viable diversity

[jagged lotus]

Also

[dire horizon]

3 sprouts summons for a pure melee build guarantees poison and overall buffs that build with more dps, along the lines every hybrid gets buffed but it also buffs summoner to more viable, we already talked about puppet ring reworks to make the minion count base added and I feel as if we've explained why it would add overall diversity

[jagged lotus]

How is having 3 summons for literally all players not going to make every build a hybrid? Now literally everyone can summon these 5 minute summons that are a complete non-issue to upkeep

[dire horizon]

Idk if they will be 5 minutes, but I can say that using a minion set would provide better gameplay

[jagged lotus]

It doesn't matter. The point of those is to be as near indefinite as possible

[toxic yoke]

Can't be defensive and can't be hybrid, idk what you want from me

[jagged lotus]

I want you to stop being a hypocrite and just drop this

Hybrid was such a huuuuuge frickin problem with my idea but now it's fine for yours? Get real dude. I'm sick of it

[toxic yoke]

You aren't even listening to what either of us are saying

[dire horizon]

Buffing summons will always buff hybrid I don't see a world that doesn't happen unless we completely box off summoning, but overall +2 base minion count does however buff minion gameplay

[toxic yoke]

Just because you don't understand the impact of what youre suggesting isn't my problem

[jagged lotus]

I know man. We know. We know you like all summon buffs.

[toxic yoke]

Any buff to summoner will buff hybrid builds

But we can't do that because someone wants to let all player stats giga buff summoner, but equally doesn't want to buff summoner in any other way, because it makes his way of buffing summoner seem overtuned and less of a reason to do it

[jagged lotus]

https://tenor.com/view/what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about-tim-robinson-i-think-you-should-leave-with-tim-robinson-what-are-you-saying-what-do-you-mean-gif-1936787145920797796

[toxic yoke]

The difference between the type of hybrid builds your solution and my solution is that yours will completely erase pure summoner, and for the cases where using minions for the utility for dps increase now just increases those minions damage far beyond reason. Alternatively, my solution while you could run 3 minions with anything, you are barely getting a dps increase without any minion scaling, which would come at the cost of damage to your own person damage. If we are talking about the differences between equal situations yours is boosting damage significantly more by allowing stats intended for just the player to now apply to each and every one of your minions.

[jagged lotus]

How does it erase pure summoner again? The rework is intended to make summoned minions function more like direct player attacks, especially with the single hit ones. Naturally that means more time spent focused on directly summoning minions and less time spent attacking with a different weapon. I'd argue pure summoner stands to gain the most by gaining all those different options for boosting the damage output of all their summons. And again, the stats you sacrifice by building for both a weapon and a summon tome in a hybrid build also negates some of that compounding value by requiring you to make sacrifices to certain aspects of both. A hybrid summoner gets nowhere near as many minions and significantly less mana regen, and slots dedicated to summoner means losses in damage output of your main weapon