Here's everything wrong with Summoner

[RedEssence]

With 1.4 and now 1.4.1 Summoner received some great benefits, But it still sucks and heres why

Here is everything wrong with summoner in terraria (I might have missed some but this is everything I can think of)

Its impossible to go true summoner without the help of RNG, as the only summoning weapon you can find spawns in living wood trees which aren't a guarantee on world generation

You have to buy the first whip, let us build a crappy one out of wood like the wooden yoyo

There is no summoner item from shadow chests in hell

pre-hardmode feels pretty good otherwise

You cannot craft summoning armor/items with hardmode ores, only with spider parts and obscure drops

The summoning weapons in hardmode are extremely limited when compared with the options other classes have

There is no clorophyte summoner armor

There is no summoning drops from normal mimics, ice mimics, or super mimics

Dungeon drop options are super limited in post plantera dungeon with there only being 1

Whips only gain the benefit of melee speed from gauntlet items and up, meaning upgrading from feral claw is not only useless but is a downgrade due to how the stats scale down

Only a select few post mechanical bosses drop summoner items, while all of them drop something for all the other classes

Moon lord drops 2 sentries as his summoning drops (why)

The best summoning staff in the game drops from an enraged boss, which some consider to be harder than moon lord

They are by far the lowest dps class when compared with other classes, and yet they also have the lowest defense as well

There is only 9 whips in the game, compared to the weapons the other classes have access to that is extremely limited

At the end of the day it comes down to options, The other classes have a large amount to pick from when it comes to the selection of how they want to play, obviously there is the meta choices but there is no real options for summoner

If I missed something or got something wrong feel free to correct me

[Desmit]

Seems like it's class for those who likes harder version of the game, especially if played solo.

[Bobucles]

The early game summoner is pretty weak, but all classes kind of are. The biggest hump I found was just starting hard mode. Enemies get a big defense boost and there's not a lot of summoner options at that time. The pre-hard summons struggle to scratch most enemies and are woefully inadequate for the mechanical bosses.

Spiders are a nice upgrade, but they are miserable against flying targets, such as most bosses. The queen slime's summon is the first serious hard mode summon. High speed, high aggression and good DPS output. It's HUGE. After killing queen slime the summoner really takes off.

Ichor helps a LOT with summon players. They tend to have a heavy stream of small damage values, so defense reduction gives them a BIG boost. Ichor plus queen slime summon is fantastic. Corruption players may have more trouble in this area, they may need something to compete.

There are very few summon options that just "drop in the wild". If you run around randomly you'll come across heaps of melee, magic and ranged weapons. They're not great but they definitely help prehard and early hard mode. The main class armor upgrades are also a fairly easy "look for the next ore". For the summoner, basically all their gear needs to be crafted. The gear also needs unusual parts, so it's hard to find them using the guide. There's a lot of wiki hunting involved.

It would be nice to have a few more easy access summons and whips to wrap up prehard. Imp could probably a slower, heavier attack to help out. A crimson and corruption type summon would be fantastic. Bonus points if the summons use ores, making them easy to discover. I'm thinking the corruption type should be a stacking worm like the stardust dragon. That way it scales up some good hits and fire can help it breach high defense. The crimson type might go for a lighter attack that deals many small hits, letting it combo with ichor.

[GladiatorDragon]

Summoner is not supposed to be an "easy" class. The difficulty for Summoner has to come from somewhere.

Melee has to tank, as many of their armors make them more likely to be targeted by foes. In later portions of the game, once the True Night's Edge/True Excalibur are obtainable, they also have to worry about aim for some time.

Ranger and Mage are similar. They both require aim and resource management. They have an arsenal that can be configured to any given situation, as Ranger can change ammo, and Mage can cast different spells to inflict debuffs and/or deal damage

Summoner does not function like these other classes. It's likely that, in a heavily organized party, the Summoner will actually take the support role with spells such as Ichor shower, as most of their gear will be focused on improving the power of their summons, with only the Whips to deal extra damage with, and even then, they use many melee-focused buffs like melee speed.

The Whips lack variety as they are (to me, I'm only returning after a while) one of the most recent weapon type additions.

I don't think summoner should be an easy class - there's a reason that their associated armor is quite terrible in terms of defense. Using summon damage pretty much puts a time limit on the fight, which creates an interesting situation where you pretty much have to participate in bullet-hell-esque gameplay, as you wait for your minions to defeat the boss. THAT is where the difficulty comes in, Summoner has to avoid the boss more than the other classes due to its low defenses.

However, I do agree that Summoner should definitely obtain more options. Perhaps add a few staffs that are more debuff focused, allowing you the option to spend a Minion slot to keep the boss in a state of near-constant Ichor or Cursed Flames.

[The Knowledge Seeker]

I just want to say, this is the proper way to complain about something, so A+ for the topic! These type of posts have a better chance of fixing a complaint instead of just saying "I don't like this, fix it" and never offering a suggestion to fix something.

I am very interested in a pure summon class to play, but like you stated, it can be improved with more options, like melee, ranged and magic. Thank you for taking the time to post this.

[RedEssence]

I realize that this post is pretty heavy handed against summoner, but I want say that it really feels like a complete class since the 1.4 and 1.4.1 additions

Some of the great that they added which I feel that can be expanded upon is the idea that obsidian armor vs bee armor brought

bee armor is more minion focused
and obsidian armor is more aggressive and whip focused

I feel like there could be more armor options later on that does something similar, where the user can decide between a more aggressive style with whip focused builds, or a more passive focus with minion focused builds

[10K]

this is literally just complaining that summoner doesn't get as much content as all the other classes, but trust me that summoner in 1.4.1 (with the whip changes and various minion buffs and removing/nerfing rng on summoner weapons) is 100% viable. Depending on the situation it might as well perform better than the rest

[MP]

That's no melee, tho, that's La Chancla Mama

[NovasGoSuper2]

Me: well I already beat skeletron as a summoner only. It was on master mode.

[RedEssence]

Originally posted by NovasGoSuper2:

Me: well I already beat skeletron as a summoner only. It was on master mode.

I beat all bosses in for the worthy master mode as summoner only, so thats not really an argument, there is an extreme lack of summoner content and that needs to be resolved

[MP]

I, too, beat Skeletron as a summoner with a Zenith I got from someone. /s

[MP]

Also...
> the only summoning weapon you can find

This is false. There's also slime staff, which drops off slimes (Pinky has better chance).

There's also the craftable Flinx Staff: find the ice biome (underground tundra/snow), build a hut there and go farming Snow Flinxes for 6 Flinx Fur. Then you just need 10 platinum/gold bars.

Easy peachy.

[Mirrabean]

Summoner is a back line support class like mage so you have to play safe

[RedEssence]

Originally posted by MihaP:

Also...
> the only summoning weapon you can find

This is false. There's also slime staff, which drops off slimes (Pinky has better chance).

No its not false, its the ONLY staff you can FIND. Slime and flinx staff require killing enemies which I don't count as finding