Effigy of Martyr PSA

[Chibbix]

So, I like to help out. Most of my hours in the game are as a summon. Now, I see a bunch of people running through the fog doors immediately after summoning 1 phantom. Which I really don't like.

The stakes are going to send out our signs to all areas we've discovered. Not just your boss. Give a minute for the summon to change gear accordingly, unless you see them just running around in circles or rollspamming, they'll probably want to change gear in accordance with the boss you're dealing with.

If you're going to be summoning someone, summon 2. Summon an NPC, or another player. If you use a multiplayer summon, the boss is going to receive a buff, regardless of if you only have 1 or 2, it'll be the same buff, so get 2 summons.

You may think the NPCs are useless, but their tanky-ness alone makes them fantastic if you and the other player both need to heal.

Remember that all players are seeing all signs, so just try to be patient and get a second summon.

[Chris1]

The buff to the boss is different between 1 or 2 summons. In many cases it is actually much easier to just use 1 summon since the buff is much smaller and the poise buff makes a large impact on your potential damage (bosses get huge poise buffs with 2 summons to account for more landed hits).

You don't have to go through the fog gate with the player who summoned you until you are ready. If the player dies before you can even change equipment, chances are you would not have made much of a difference anyway.

You can also control where your summon sign goes. Players don't really want to wait around for you to mess around with your equipment. If you are going to put your summon sign everywhere, then make sure you use a general build which will work in most cases.

Also, the summoning pools aren't called "stakes of Marika", they are called "Effigy of the Martyr".

[Chibbix]

Originally posted by Chris1:

The buff to the boss is different between 1 or 2 summons. In many cases it is actually much easier to just use 1 summon since the buff is much smaller and the poise buff makes a large impact on your potential damage (bosses get huge poise buffs with 2 summons to account for more landed hits).

You don't have to go through the fog gate with the player who summoned you until you are ready. If the player dies before you can even change equipment, chances are you would not have made much of a difference anyway.

You can also control where your summon sign goes. Players don't really want to wait around for you to mess around with your equipment. If you are going to put your summon sign everywhere, then make sure you use a general build which will work in most cases.

Also, the summoning pools aren't called "stakes of Marika", they are called "Effigy of the Martyr".

I know you can use the effigy to only put out to local summon pools, and I get that people don't want to wait 10 seconds for me to put the greatsword and Trina's torch on instead of the giant killer for the Godskin duo, but it would seriously help the host's chances of they would be just a little, ten seconds, more patient. The slash ("standard", whatever, lol) vs crushing on them is a difference of 500 damage per swing, which is huge for 2h weapons. I'm not saying they need to wait while I go to Renalla and pop a larval tear.

There's also bosses who are just objectively easier with more (two summons) players, like Melenia.

Also ty on that correction, I always mix up the terms, sorry.

[Chris1]

I would actually argue Malenia is easier with just one summon. Not only do bosses get a huge health buff with an extra summon, but their poise resistance until a critical hit also goes through the roof. For a boss like Malenia who has significant weakness to poise damage and the ability to almost stun lock her with critical, having one less summon can make all the difference. Combine the extra critical damage you can dish out with the smaller health bar, and having only one summon 9 times out of 10 makes the fight much quicker.

I would also argue that having 2 summons in most cases in most DLC bosses is a huge disadvantage because the health buffs are absolutely enormous. Even having one single summon in the DLC feels like it makes it harder.