Summoning needs a buff

[Fenekku Kitsune]

Summoner gameplay needs some serious help.

I haven't finished the game yet, but I just beat Cryrdra, and my experience with summons has been such a massively mixed bag, and mostly negative.

For starters, the summon variety as of right now is abysmal. Three different summoning books, with the "strongest" one being "mid-game", and arguably weaker than both the first and second books. You've got ranged, low damage high attack speed bats. Melee high damage low attack speed skeletons, and orbital mid damage high attack speed jellies. There's no stronger alternatives to any of them, and from my experience I think the bats - the first book you ever get - are the strongest summon because they're ranged! The orbital jellies aren't even anything to consider because they orbit so closely they're not worth it unless you're tanky enough to take hits and that point just go melee.

As a second point, the summon AI is so bad. You need to be in combat with something for the summons to attack it, but if you're being attacked - sometimes even if you're hit - the summons will just sit there and let it happen. Sometimes - particularly with certain bosses such as the wild titans and Ommoroth - even if you hit the enemy, the summons still won't do anything! The orbital summons don't have this issue by virtue of being "dum fire", but the skeletons are significantly worse than the bats in that they need to be able to run up to their targets, and they generally won't if their target is over gaps or liquids even though they float!

As a third point, the stats on the summons just... don't make sense. I said at the start that the stats for the three books are weird in their scaling, but... Why does the summon mana cost go up every time the book is upgraded? The books are already expensive in mana - and the gear doesn't give max mana a lot of the time might I add! - so why increase that by such a large amount? In addition, a lot of the minion stats just aren't shown, only percentage increases in the stat section, and the minion damage is EXTREMELY low compared to literally any other weapon past the wall! The amount of summons and the attack speed does not make up the damage due to the issues with their AI! All this alongside the fact that the summons just don't last very long, even with all the stat increases I can get at this point. They're not worth summoning!

Summoner really, really needs help! Between the summons not doing anything in combat, to tanking your mana bar just to summon 2-3 weak summons then fiddling around until you can summon 2-3 more... To the summon variety being basically nil... It's just...

I love summoning, my favourite class in most games, but the summoning in Core Keeper is just... what is happening? I can't do summoner in the content I'm on now even with the best available gear and upgrades, it's impossible. There's just not enough DPS or consistency.

[General Glitch]

I agree with you. Classes in Core Keeper demonstrates massive imbalance due to power discrepancy. Range class is hands down the best class, let's keep it that way and to buff other classes is necessary.

One thing I disagree solely based on having nothing to do with the class. You can farm for levels since it is fairly new to the aspect of game. Take advantage when leveling on easiest weapon doing the mob farm. Do this before further updates that may cause some tweaks or changes.

I doubt there will be another development until within two to three months where there should be an expansion on magic and summoner classes. Also buffing the melee category as well.

[parent child bowl]

Summoning doesn't compete with melee, ranged and magic because you can use it on top of all of them.

[Lorska]

Publicado originalmente por parent child bowl:

Summoning doesn't compete with melee, ranged and magic because you can use it on top of all of them.

It does because gear and time invested to skill up exist.

The best summoning build right now is using a lvl 2 book, max minion amount, get all non-summoning perks from the skill tree and just use the passives to super buff magic damage.
That's just bad.

[Vindicit]

Yea the summoner feels pretty lack luster. The best weapon feels like the first one, the bats, and the bats are not even that good. Theres only 3 weapons in total and none of them have any direct upgrade. You look at all the other weapons, most of them are kind of lack luster themselves as every sword is just another sword that does more damage but theres still more of them to upgrade to. The summoner you spawn in with the bats and you'll end the game with bats. Its dumb, rushed and does not feel like a separate class. You cant use summons exclusively the AI is too bad, it feels like a supplemental class.

[Firephoenixx456]

summoner on it's own is kinda bad (mostly due to the minion AI being too passive) but mixed with ranger it's a perfect match.

Ranger in general is good high damage long range but it's always had a flaw. the best ranger weapon is the musket and it shoots too slow to be effective against large hordes of enemies.

this is where summoning comes in. full grim armorset maxed out + rings/ necklaces to boost minion DPS + maxed out bat tome and musket is the single best loadout I've ever fielded. I made easy work of late game challenges I struggled with in the past. For off hand you can use anything but I recommend either the blue tome (helps with getting minions out faster) or a dash feather of some kind (you kinda need the latter for ra-akar).

in summation summoning on it's own won't be good but summoning+something else is another story.

[Fenekku Kitsune]

Publicado originalmente por parent child bowl:

Summoning doesn't compete with melee, ranged and magic because you can use it on top of all of them.

I know summoning is generally supposed to be supplemental when it comes to multi-class games like Core Keeper, but that doesn't excuse summoning being *bad*

Publicado originalmente por General Glitch:

One thing I disagree solely based on having nothing to do with the class. You can farm for levels since it is fairly new to the aspect of game. Take advantage when leveling on easiest weapon doing the mob farm. Do this before further updates that may cause some tweaks or changes.

Summoning is painful to farm. It's not like melee or ranged or vitality or what-have-you where you can just sit in one place and hit things. With Summoning you have to ensure the summons get to hit things, which means you yourself need to hit things... without killing those things, because the summons will otherwise refuse to attack things 9 times out of 10. This is an extremely laborious process for this singular class.

Publicado originalmente por Harazu:

summoner on it's own is kinda bad (mostly due to the minion AI being too passive) but mixed with ranger it's a perfect match.

A game like Core Keeper you should be able to play any combination of skill trees together. With Summoner; you can't. The mana cost is way too high for you to be able to play magic + summons, the summons themselves are so useless you can't play summons solo, ranger + summons and melee + summons, the former is a given with ranged being so strong and the latter isn't even worth it because why would you spend the time backing up every few seconds to resummon everything, especially when the stats will be low due to having to be tanky for melee.

Summoning should be able to hold its own to some degree, just like every other class. It's too weak.

[WorldWhisper IV]

EZ solution, turn summoning into totems after you combine all 3 books which shoots shadow bolts at enemy lowering their movement speed for minor damage + increased damage over time effects

[Fenekku Kitsune]

Publicado originalmente por WorldWhisper IV:

EZ solution, turn summoning into totems after you combine all 3 books which shoots shadow bolts at enemy lowering their movement speed for minor damage + increased damage over time effects

That's... not a solution. That just makes summoning even more pointless by removing the entire point of the class.

[Yasahi]

Publicado originalmente por Fenekku Kitsune:

Summoning is painful to farm. It's not like melee or ranged or vitality or what-have-you where you can just sit in one place and hit things. With Summoning you have to ensure the summons get to hit things, which means you yourself need to hit things... without killing those things, because the summons will otherwise refuse to attack things 9 times out of 10. This is an extremely laborious process for this singular class.

Make small islands with moats and cover them with the fungus growth. Wait for one of the big shroomies to spawn (do other things and check on the islands in your base from time to time). It won't be able to hit any walls or enemies with the rush so it'll stay in the defensive stance and only take 1 damage per hit.

Put on your summoning gear, summon your little bats and watch them whack it. You can pretty much macro it if you have a keyboard or a mouse that can record macros. Then you just watch something else on a second screen. Just leave a bit of a delay between resummoning so it starts health regen between the rounds. Add one shot with a ranged weapon to make sure they start attacking after being summoned.

[OrangeBoxCat]

I farm summoner (and other) with hive mother just make gap around boss and make sure you out of acid drop range (recomend left or right side of the boss) when everything set hit the boss with range until 50% and enjoy farming
CAUTION : it's have a bug that boss minion will push each other to coming for you and push some across the gap

[TorinuxCthulhu]

Summons are here to buff ranged classes and to deal SUPPORT damage. Minions + Magic are broken beyond belief. We don't even have legendary items for Magic nor Warlock and these two classes are performing better than any build using Rune Song or Phantom Spark.
P.S. Don't max lvl your books leave them as is. You'll be able to summon your max minions with a single mana bar.

[DoEFotGS]

They need to make minions lifespan infinite while book of respectative minion in your hands and redo mana cost to something like (BaseManaCost + ItemLvl) * MaxMinionCount to alter mana cost for all differend builds at once as well as allow summon maximum possible minions on each cast for it.

Has one maximum minion?
Spend less mana to maintain it.

Has five maximum minions?
Spend much more mana, but get all minions at once.

Want pure summoner?
Hold the book and your boys stay with you as long as you hold the book without switching to something else, otherwise - resummon to get infinite lifespan again.

Want complement your build with minion?
Stick with your precious battle axe and resummon your bat from time to time.

Also, would be nice to change LKM book functional to something tied to minions - command to attack nearest enemies for cost of some mana, for example. I don't want just hit something with book itself.

[sanguinae666]

Most people don't seem to understand the OP point, summoning should be good on it's own, it's ok if it buff other builds but we should be able to do pure summoning builds. I get that right now it's used to buff other builds but that's not the point.

I think that the summon's base damage should be increased, make them more agressive with a bigger range of action and instead of costing that insane ammounts of mana for temporal summons, it should RESERVE mana for permanent ones, that way it has a drawback for combination builds with mage and at the same time a QoL improvement for everyone.

It also need more variety.

[Fenekku Kitsune]

Publicado originalmente por TorinuxCthulhu:

Summons are here to buff ranged classes and to deal SUPPORT damage. Minions + Magic are broken beyond belief. We don't even have legendary items for Magic nor Warlock and these two classes are performing better than any build using Rune Song or Phantom Spark.
P.S. Don't max lvl your books leave them as is. You'll be able to summon your max minions with a single mana bar.

Then summoner has no point. Why use summons at all when the other classes will do better on their own? Why have summon items and stuff when summons can't hold their own and have to rely on other classes?

Why have it that EVERY CLASS EXCEPT SUMMONER can be played ON THEIR OWN.

In addition, having a system where upgrading is BAD is just in and of itself stupid!

Publicado originalmente por sanguinae666:

Most people don't seem to understand the OP point, summoning should be good on it's own, it's ok if it buff other builds but we should be able to do pure summoning builds. I get that right now it's used to buff other builds but that's not the point.

See this! Summoner should be able to be played with no support, just like every other class. Even Melee performs better than summoner, just requires a bit more fenagling!

[Sophie]

the jellyfish are easily your best dps option. summon a bunch of jellies, then run counterclockwise around an enemy to rack up lots of hits

that being said.. why dont the bat (and i assume skeleton) summons target the hydras once their armor is depleted..?