Real talk: Summons busted

[Rachet]

Not a complaint, just seeking second opinion. So far methinks that while you *can* do various different builds, summons just outperform everything else and thus there's never a real reason not to get at least a few.

Diff 7 or 8 so far.

[Radiowavehero]

I agree summons are very strong but I'm probably not playing them the same way you are.

Dragon , ghost , spears , scythes , Water gun. No thank you , give me batgun instead and that's all I need.

Since Batgun is better on the non-summoning characters like Abby (especially) , Scarlet , Spark , I end up never using the "actual" summons like dragon , ghost , spears , and I never use the summon characters.

Speaking of summon characters , they are pretty bad at their jobs , Hina only has +25% summon damage , Hastur is focused on the tentacles which are pretty mediocre and doesn't have any buffs for other summons, Raven is focused on her crows and even worse rather than scaling crows with summon damage they get a upgrade to match your bullet damage.

This leaves the only real summoner as Lilith , over all she adds 55% summon damage and 35% attack speed, but her other upgrades are not great, the spirits she summons are weak and the movespeed is not noticeable unless you have no movespeed upgrades at all. It might even cause you to take damage if you suddenly speed up or slow down while maneuvering.

All in all the summons themselves are pretty lacking and the summon characters are pretty boring , but the summon based upgrades are pretty great.

So take those great upgrades , grab bat gun (the best summon) , stick it on abby and spin to win.

[Ame-kun]

Raven is really more of a 'curse' character, yeah. Though you should probably get Magic Scythe on her still due to the skill that increases curse damage.

Dasher is /kind/ of a Summon Character. Her deer form scales off summon damage and move speed! And summons can keep attacking when you're transformed, too. but, well, the invincibility time on her deer form is kind of so high that you can really just pick options to keep yourself alive between transformations and focus on that instead. (it's still real satisfying to see the deer kill bosses in 3-4 rams.)

[Lavian]

Personally, I feel that summon builds take too long to ramp, compared to something like basic elemental/bullet builds, to be reliable.

Not that summons don't work, it's just I find it much harder to get past the first 10 minutes than going with more direct damage upgrades.

Triple Ghost or Triple Dragon or Sextuple Spear Shana is fun though.

[Mixed Herbs]

I mean, there is a lot of seriously busted ♥♥♥♥ in this game and that's the fun part. Elemental SMGs are hilarious.

[Hauptj]

At low to mid difficulties, EVERYTHING is busted. The game doesn't actually get hard until the double digits.

[SCamp]

Summon build just takes too long to get running. Also it pollutes the loot pool as when you spec into a summon, you suddenly have 2 additional upgrades trees (which becomes 2-4 upgrades in the pool).

In terms of scaling, a summon build starts with next to no power and ends up with a mid DPS build by the end.

Quirks:

- Dragon sucks if you don't get it and its scaling upgrades within the first several levels.
- Ghost Buddy's final upgrade can't shoot straight, so you either get a gimp upgrade or you leave it in to pollute the upgrade pool.

The only saving grace of summons is the Batgun and the passive upgrade trees, which just leaves huge DPS on the screen. But even then....

In comparison to gun/elemental builds (I consider them the same) the scalling from start to finish is much better. You're getting more earlier, and much, much more later on. Especially with the Batgun, which is only getting a single summon just so it can go into the passives to make it even more OP, and it scales so much better with gun upgrades.

Summon build is alright, because if you know what you are doing then the game is easy at darkness 15, but in comparison to everything else it is the weakest.

Really, the only thing weaker than a summon build is getting watergun to work. And I only consider it weaker since it's more difficult to get up and running due to the restrictions of the weapon requiring specific tree to make work in the early game and it's performance is even worse in the late game.

tldr:
Summons are weak early, mid later on. (Respective killing power = safety.)
Gun/elemental builds are much better in comparison.
Batgun is a better with a gun/elemental build than a summon build.
Summons are OK, but they are not OP.

[Rachet]

Originally posted by Hauptj:

At low to mid difficulties, EVERYTHING is busted. The game doesn't actually get hard until the double digits.

Well I'm at double digits now (12), and I'm yet to encounter a scenario, character, build or weapon where taking summons early to carry me to super-late game was a bad choice, and simultaineously every time I elect not to do that I regret the decision.

And I mean that even with chars and guns utterly non-summon oriented. Summons just have no downsides, no opportunity costs (except the egg I guess) and ramp up quicker and easier than any gun or element. It's bizzarre.

[Rachet]

Originally posted by SCamp:

In comparison to gun/elemental builds (I consider them the same) the scalling from start to finish is much better. You're getting more earlier, and much, much more later on. Especially with the Batgun, which is only getting a single summon just so it can go into the passives to make it even more OP, and it scales so much better with gun upgrades.

While yeah, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lightning all over the screen by the end makes the most damage I find the easiest way to get there is via early summons. Summon builds are never a be-all-end-all for me, but they're so far (regardless of char/weapon) by far the easiest way to get to whatever build I'm going for. And it's mostly being free of the blasted reload-walk hinderance.

[SCamp]

Originally posted by Rachet:

Originally posted by SCamp:

In comparison to gun/elemental builds (I consider them the same) the scalling from start to finish is much better. You're getting more earlier, and much, much more later on. Especially with the Batgun, which is only getting a single summon just so it can go into the passives to make it even more OP, and it scales so much better with gun upgrades.

While yeah, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lightning all over the screen by the end makes the most damage I find the easiest way to get there is via early summons. Summon builds are never a be-all-end-all for me, but they're so far (regardless of char/weapon) by far the easiest way to get to whatever build I'm going for. And it's mostly being free of the blasted reload-walk hinderance.

The easiest way to get the non-summon build you want is simply to not take summons (or things that do not contribute to your build, period).

1) Picking a summon upgrade makes it harder to get the upgrades you want because you suddenly add an initial 3 upgrades that are not a part of the build you want into the upgrade pool (in comparison: picking a non-summon upgrade from a tree that you do not want adds 1 upgrade to the pool). This increases the chance you get a levelup with a hand of upgrades you do not want, but you are forced to pick one of them, which means you at the very least got an upgrade you didn't care for or have opened up an upgrade tree which further pollutes the upgrade pool. Which then leads to...

2) Points spent on things you don't want are a points not spent on progressing a build you do want. Which means you get the build you want LATER in the short term and LATER in the long term since it will take much longer to level up to get to your full build due to XP scaling and you will have fewer levels available for your build. In short: Spending points that do not contribute to your build ruins the DPS scaling of your build. Which then leads to...

3) Anything that does not contribute to killing things faster means less XP on the floor. Killing enemies quickly makes enemies respawn quickly which leads to more XP. Basically, if something doesn't contribute to DPS then it's not speeding up leveling. This is important for levels Temple and Pumpkin Patch where killing enemies out of bounds automatically gives you the XP without needing to walk over it.

Summon builds are effectively self-creating because of all of the above points. Once you invest into summons, you have to stick with them. With Batgun being the exception, since it can just take whatever and do just fine since it scales off everything.

[Rachet]

Originally posted by SCamp:

2) Points spent on things you don't want are a points not spent on progressing a build you do want. Which means you get the build you want LATER in the short term and LATER in the long term since it will take much longer to level up to get to your full build due to XP scaling and you will have fewer levels available for your build. In short: Spending points that do not contribute to your build ruins the DPS scaling of your build. Which then leads to...

3) Anything that does not contribute to killing things faster means less XP on the floor. Killing enemies quickly makes enemies respawn quickly which leads to more XP. Basically, if something doesn't contribute to DPS then it's not speeding up leveling. This is important for levels Temple and Pumpkin Patch where killing enemies out of bounds automatically gives you the XP without needing to walk over it.

but that's my point, I've almost never been in the situation where I didn't want summons. They've never performed worse in early game than whatever is the alternative and no matter the char or gun, I've never even once regretted picking them up, and many a time I regretted not getting them.

Yeah, they slow whatever the endgame build I dreamt up, but they reliably get me there, while fishing for crucial gun/ele upgrades without summons and missing has killed me numerous times.

Which does lead to quite a repretitive experience all things considered, since every build devolve into some form of summons+ele.

[Creep Gnome]

It's very strange that you'd think picking summons "pollutes the pool" when the summon passives are exactly what you want, and adding more of them actively helps in making a summon build.

[ketamage]

I mean, sure, but I'm sick of the cycle this game has gone through where a new feature comes out, people develop broken builds with it, and it gets nerfed all the way to "sort of okay" in the next patch. I'd rather have summons stay kind of OP than do that constantly or have them nerfed without a replacement now that it's in 1.0.

[SCamp]

Originally posted by Creep Gnome:

It's very strange that you'd think picking summons "pollutes the pool" when the summon passives are exactly what you want, and adding more of them actively helps in making a summon build.

If you are going for a summon build, the passive trees don't pollute the upgrade pool.

If you are NOT going for a summon build, the passive trees pollute the upgrade pool.

[Radiowavehero]

Personally I'd say keep all the broken stuff , people can still die using a broken build because skill still matters at the early part of a run.

Instead make content to use those over powered builds in.

I'm thinking levels that start out normal but get insanely difficult in different ways, huge swarms of tanky monsters you would need crowd control to survive by knocking them back, freezing and shattering to turn their crazy high HP into damage instead.

Maybe waves of just bosses constantly spawning which would require a build that specialized in single target DPS to prevent yourself from being overrun.

Different levels that have different over powered modes , you could beat it normally on darkness 15 and then unlock a endless darkness mode for that level where after 20 minutes the game doesn't end , instead something new like the two examples above happens and you can see how far you can push your broken build.

Maybe that could be a DLC or something since it is asking a lot for a $4.99 game.

I think we have a good number of builds , characters , weapons , now we need somewhere that is challenging for those OP builds. Darkness 15 is a joke, I got there in the first day of playing and never left , it doesn't present a challenge or anything interesting for the over powered builds.

[Rachet]

Originally posted by Radiowavehero:

Personally I'd say keep all the broken stuff , people can still die using a broken build because skill still matters at the early part of a run.

I agree, my issue is that they are THE broken stuff and everything else is just alright, at least in my hands. Late game builds don't rely on just one thing anyway, at least on the difficulty I was last on (12), and you use more than one synergy anyway, so there's no reason not to go for the best one off the bat and see what follows after.