How good is Incarnate late game?

[Eldrin]

How good is it on Tactician late game? Early mid levels i know it is powerful but i am wondering if it falls off late, since it only scales with summoning? Obviously talking about summoning being level 10.

Does it scale with player level too? Or just summoning and thats it, a lvl 5 player with summoning 10 summons an exact same incarnate that a level 20 with summoning 10 would?

[Elikir]

Since i always play with lone wolf talent, i can't say if its the same in 4 character group, anyway...

(summon scale with player lvl and summoning skill level, where typical damaging spell scale with player lvl+ appropriate skill lvl+intelligence or strength or dex)

With lone wolf early lvl 10 summoning is quite good, the incarnate become so strong either for tanking and for damage, he can solo every non boss enemies, his spells does extreme damage, so going for lvl 10 summoning for act 1 will make every encounter like a piece of cake,

When you reach ACT 2, it still effective but at lvl 13 or 14 the incarnate begin to really fall behind the potential of a lone wolf warrior or lone wolf mage. you begin to do more damage with your fireball than the incarnate fireball because the 10 point in summoning got transfered into pyrokinetic which really boost your own fireball.

And since the IA is pretty good (or bad? depend of opinion/point of view) the enemies will attack the incarnate ONLY if they can't hit a character, and if they have the choice between full damage to incarnate or spend 2/3 of their AP to move and get the range to hit even if its to throw only one spell/attack to the character they will,

even if its something like use a cloak and dagger or phoenix dive and walk 4-6 meters to finally have you in range, they will do that instead of hitting your incarnate, which cancel half of the utility a incarnate could do (i mean we could also just put 3-4 totems which will do the exact same job as a incarnate since the incarnate can only DPS and not tanking)

[LukanGamer]

its plenty good. (assuming you also do things like infusion and are not 100% relient on it some how)

[Lorska]

Incarnate can handle most threats with ease. The main advantage from summoning is something else though. There are no stats you need to scale so you can lean into tons of memory and get skills that don't scale either, like healing and buffs.

The common usage is sending it in, doing a bunch of AoE damage with his cool down skills and then using the corpses you created for some supercharged bloated corpse explosions (or other explosives but it's the most natural summonyou can get for that purpose).

The more optimal usage is starting with a big explosion and then using your incarnate to clean up. At summoning 10 your incarnate will do as much damage as any other source cost summon as long as you provide it sufficient access to abilities via infusions. Considering there are no "bad" summons apart from the very questionable oil blob that's pretty good.

Just be aware that you trade the overwhelming damage from other classes for unrivaled utility and diversity. Think of your summoner as a support that can do any type of damage and utility in any kind of situation. The incarnate is just a solid tool in his toolbox.

[Elikir]

Originally posted by Lorska:

Considering there are no "bad" summons apart from the very questionable oil blob that's pretty good.

Just be aware that you trade the overwhelming damage from other classes for unrivaled utility and diversity.

There are bad summons, while the incarnate is one of the best because you can give him a lot of spell and armors and bonus dmg trough infusion, other summon begin to fall behind because you don't have a lot of buff to give them without spending some buff which should have been cast on other characters instead of summons

And some summons become really bad either because their stats are pretty bad or they are mostly used for utility but still sucks because they still take the only one slot your character have for summoning (totems aren't included meaning you can summon a ton of them), you can't have one incarnate and one cat at the same time for exemple.

For exemple the cat can only switch places with your character or jump to "teleport" himself to the targeted area,the whole process can be done instanttly for only one AP with skill like tactical retreat or phoenix dive etc without ever use your summoning slot

The bone widow have zero magical armor, yes this summon have only physical armor, meaning it can be stunned or frozen instantly after being summoned, also it spend 3/4 AP to attack while his teleport spell cost 2AP, meaning the widow must been near his target all the time or he will become useless for one or multiple turns because he need to move to get the opponent at his "short" range (and it last for 5 turns so you want to maximize his utility/damage)

More or less same problem with the source summons like the plant or the slug : while they have some ranged spells, they will be on CD and they have limited duration (3 to 5 turns) so you want to spend the least amount of time/AP for moving which can be hard beause the IA will always try to beat the character and so always moving to your weakest character

Finally the only worth summons are the incarnate, bloated corpse and the bird,(the one you find at the cemetery in ACT 2, usefull for its piercing damage and its blind spell) i can miss some summons

[Chaoslink]

Thing is, due to the scaling, they don't really perform well. Not compared to other builds. They start to fall off around level 12-14 where their power starts becoming similar to other builds. They still work. They're just inferior to other builds. They're the strongest thing early game but they're weak late. You can summon them before battle and buff them, but having to summon and buff them in combat is inefficient.

[Lorska]

I didn't count the quest summons because those are obviously conditional. summoning a bone widow and not giving her armor is kinda... well... sometimes it's not the summon that's bad, but the summoner instead...
The fact you can immediately act with the summon afterwards makes pretty much all summons usable in some way. The most efficient thing damage wise will always be cycling through summons to use all their cool down skills. Now is that needed? No.

OBVIOUSLY your damage will be lower compared to other classes and builds. A summoner is not supposed to be a damage build because you lack a scaling attribute. The incarnate is simple the most efficient and most versatile long term DPS choice. Infusions aren't too AP friendly either unless you intend to use that guy for multiple turns.

[Dixon Sider]

There is a huge jump in stats when you go from 9 to 10, so id say its incredible late game. Useful early game too. Just broken AF late game. Between the incarnate and the 3 source lightning bolt skill Summoning is a beast

[Pyromus]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

...You can summon them before battle and buff them, but having to summon and buff them in combat is inefficient.

This is part of the reason people suffer through summoning. Make sure to summon and buff the incarnate before battle if you know combat is coming up. Fully buffing him with infusions is like 8 AP so doing that in combat is a terrible idea.

Originally posted by Dixon Sider:

There is a huge jump in stats when you go from 9 to 10, so id say its incredible late game. Useful early game too. Just broken AF late game. Between the incarnate and the 3 source lightning bolt skill Summoning is a beast

You seem to have an odd idea of what late game is here. Most people who build a summoner will (rightfully so) rush it to 10 as soon as they can, typically at character level 8 or 9, or if lone wolf, at 3 or 4. Level 9 is not end game. And when you actually get to the end game, incarnates are rather weak compared to other damage sources. Now that doesn't mean they are pointless or unusable, just not the optimal choice and claiming them to be "broken AF" is just wrong.

Now, what is "broken AF" is the ability to summon and exit combat in the same turn, allowing for an infinite loop of incarnate attacks. Adrenaline or Glass cannon help with this, as well as a teammate on the outside of combat to teleport you away from battle. I once took down alexandar by turn delaying a character, having a 2nd with tp gloves right above the staircase by the shriekers out of combat, and a summoner. The summoner would pull up the incarnate, give power+ranged infusion (on blood so it got mosquito swarm) and then haste (ring gave me +1 scoundrel to throw in adrenaline for haste, and boots granted haste). After the summon, I had 1 ap and was still the summoners turn, then the tp gloves character, out of combat, would tp me out of there by the seeker camp. Incarnate uses ranged attack and mosquito swarm, then summoner sneaks in and resummons and repeat until group is dead. It's slow and boring and repetitive, but I wanted to see how it would go. OP as hell, but boring.

[Plasmicell]

I usually pair my incarnate with my fire mage or warrior, so either blood or fire infusion. It works quite well but I don't use it that often unless the fight will go on for a while. I also enjoy the plant on rare occasions that there are enemies weak to poison. It's a pretty flexible summon. I don't find the warp infusion that useful, it provides no armor and the swap ability is very limited in range. It also only gives tactical retreat not teleport. Just remember 90% of things are pretty situational so having diversity will prepare you well and incarnate is a good choice.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Dixon Sider:

There is a huge jump in stats when you go from 9 to 10, so id say its incredible late game. Useful early game too. Just broken AF late game. Between the incarnate and the 3 source lightning bolt skill Summoning is a beast

Eh, Summoning definitely isn't broken AF late game. Early game yes, it scales too much, but late it is outperformed by quite literally anything.

[Dragon]

Incarnate is amazing late game on Tactician. My Incarnate is way more powerful than any of my player characters, who are extremely gimpy in comparison to my Incarnate.

[Dixon Sider]

why would someone rush one stat to 10? RP reasons? Its going to be a far less efficient build

My incarnate was meleing for 1k (0% resistance) at the end of the game on honor

[Pyromus]

Originally posted by Dragon:

Incarnate is amazing late game on Tactician. My Incarnate is way more powerful than any of my player characters, who are extremely gimpy in comparison to my Incarnate.

Sounds like your team could be built better. Maybe update the gear, because incarnates don't keep up after mid game, and not at all once you leave act 2.

Originally posted by Dixon Sider:

why would someone rush one stat to 10? RP reasons? Its going to be a far less efficient build

My incarnate was meleing for 1k (0% resistance) at the end of the game on honor

They would rush the stat to 10 so they get that buff you just said is "broken AF." They don't need any other powers when dimension bolt and totem are up every single turn, and equipping vipers fang early game allows bouncing shield every other turn, and migo's ring/gloves of teleportation allow for some support to be thrown in. Branching out past that comes secondary to a max level incarnate on the first island. The argument that it would be a "far less efficient build" is very much in conflict with your stated opinion that a level 10 incarnate is broken.

[Dixon Sider]

Originally posted by davemytnick33:

They would rush the stat to 10 so they get that buff you just said is "broken AF." They don't need any other powers when dimension bolt and totem are up every single turn, and equipping vipers fang early game allows bouncing shield every other turn, and migo's ring/gloves of teleportation allow for some support to be thrown in. Branching out past that comes secondary to a max level incarnate on the first island. The argument that it would be a "far less efficient build" is very much in conflict with your stated opinion that a level 10 incarnate is broken.

a level 10 incarnate is very broken. But then you would be screwing over other characters becasue they would all have to take the 2 schools your summoner skipped on. a lvl 10 incarnate is NOT better than a mele build character. I could see it being fun, but the lack of diversity would be a detriment to your overall team capability. I just would rather meta game. to each their own though. This game doesnt require meta gaming to win by any means

[Pyromus]

Originally posted by Dixon Sider:

Originally posted by davemytnick33:

They would rush the stat to 10 so they get that buff you just said is "broken AF." They don't need any other powers when dimension bolt and totem are up every single turn, and equipping vipers fang early game allows bouncing shield every other turn, and migo's ring/gloves of teleportation allow for some support to be thrown in. Branching out past that comes secondary to a max level incarnate on the first island. The argument that it would be a "far less efficient build" is very much in conflict with your stated opinion that a level 10 incarnate is broken.

a level 10 incarnate is very broken. But then you would be screwing over other characters becasue they would all have to take the 2 schools your summoner skipped on. a lvl 10 incarnate is NOT better than a mele build character. I could see it being fun, but the lack of diversity would be a detriment to your overall team capability. I just would rather meta game. to each their own though. This game doesnt require meta gaming to win by any means

You seem to be under the impression a party needs all magic schools in order to play, why is that? A summoner rushing to 10 does not in any way affect what the other characters need to get during the leveling process.

I've been saying a summoning build is inferior to other builds, so you're right, a melee build is better, that's kind of my point. But you can very well grab +warfare weapons to get skillbooks and have your summoner also be a melee build in act 1 with minimal loss in effectiveness, since act 1 is the one place where a capped stat incarnate would be better.