Dunno why people say Summoner is "Bad"

[Jack The Ripper]

Me and a friend went Summoner Pyro and Summoner Geo and destroyed literally everything on For Honor difficulty.

Also this was on Xbox so its Vanilla. No we did not use Gift Bags mods.

Having an extra teammate that can tank damage for you for a simple 2 AP is amazing. In terms of turn economy Incarnates can make you feel like a party of 4 with a party of 2.

[Senki]

It's not bad it's just the worst build compared to everything else.Still easy to win using it though so it doesn't matter.

[Chaoslink]

It isn’t bad. It’s just bad relative to everything else. It has the lowest potential damage output per AP compared to any other given build in the game. Everything summoning has as a “pro” doesn’t outweigh the cons. You can get more out of the summoner themselves if you go lone wolf, making the build seem stronger, but the reality is that it’s even worse on lone wolf since you’re using your lone wolf buffed AP to summon something that lacks that same buff.

I think the thing that bothers me the most (besides the long ass infusion spell animations) is that other than a few spells they get, all magic based incarnates primarily attack using physical based attacks that deal magic damage. This means they’re dodgable while also having their damage mitigated by resistances. It’s the worst type of attacks you can use if you can’t guarantee the enemy dodge is mitigated and you have a + accuracy effect to mitigate base miss chance.

If summoning feels strong to you, then you’ve never made another build that realized it’s full potential.

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

Good thing about summoning is it's flexibility, adaptability and supportive potential which most classes lack. Every other build almost has to be the same, but summoning can go with anything, any strategy or team build.

People ignore this though, their only focus is damage and finishing the fight in 1 turn. Doesn't help that the game was designed for this since your characters can barely tank through most of the game and the AI is smart sometimes.

[BigRockWall]

Summoning helps create balance. Because (mid game on) it is objectively weaker than anything else. It gives the player this illusion of utility and ap economy, and power because of how quickly it scales in act 1 and 2. But mid act 2 onward it is an objective nerf to party damage output. Doubly so on non lone wolves.

Its fun, it removes some boredom of 1 shot builds. The buff animation times are mildly annoying, but some players are not as offended by them as others. Its also perfectly viable all game. I personally find using it act 1 makes the game easier, then drop it midway act 2 to be the most efficient.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Godwoken Dovahkiin:

Good thing about summoning is it's flexibility, adaptability and supportive potential which most classes lack. Every other build almost has to be the same, but summoning can go with anything, any strategy or team build.

People ignore this though, their only focus is damage and finishing the fight in 1 turn. Doesn't help that the game was designed for this since your characters can barely tank through most of the game and the AI is smart sometimes.

That and the flexibility doesn’t really come in all that handy. If you’re running a fire mage, summoning a water incarnate isn’t necessarily helpful. If you’re a Geo mage, a fire incarnate might light the oil or poison you’re trying to get elemental affinity from. Not to mention the benefits of running a fire incarnate when a fire mage already has enemies burning for that extra damage. If you’re not running mages, a blood incarnate is likely the only one you’ll want to summon anyway, making the magic ones useless most of the time anyway. The flexibility it has isn’t really all that useful. Also, in a 4 man team if you’re looking to have everything that summoning offers, including all the source infusions and all that, the memory cost and the skill point cost leaves very little to build something on the side with as is. Memory is summoning’s attribute in practice. Anything you can build alongside summoning also comes online so late in the game and still can never truly reach similar potential of a focused build. If you’re comparing them at maximum efficiency, nothing you can do with the summoner’s extra points can match what it lacks given the incarnate’s natural inferiority to a standard build. Talents and gear and all that make too much of a difference that the incarnate can’t make up for.

Again, it’s still a solid and viable build. It’s just inferior to most everything else by comparison.

[Senki]

The flexibility argument for summoner only really matters when the enemies are weak to a certain element that you don't have access to already with your current build. So for example if an enemy has -60% poison resistance you can use a poison flask and summon a poison incarnate to deal good damage but that's pretty much where the flexibility's usefulness ends.

You should usually have everything a team needs covered with 4-man parties,like cc,armor restoration,magic/physical damage so a summoner's flexibility isn't needed at all. And for lone wolf summoning is a straight up waste of points after act 1 because there's no difference between a lone wolf incarnate and a normal one, you could be maxing a second element on a mage instead of that and be way stronger.

[BigRockWall]

Originally posted by Senki:

The flexibility argument for summoner only really matters when the enemies are weak to a certain element that you don't have access to already with your current build. So for example if an enemy has -60% poison resistance you can use a poison flask and summon a poison incarnate to deal good damage but that's pretty much where the flexibility's usefulness ends.

Its an extra body to take hits and make attacks of opportunity and has some CC depending on infusions, and deals damage every turn using its own AP (early game, this matters). Its extremely flexible. Its also the weakest straight alpha strike build (mid game on, this matters more)

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Senki:

The flexibility argument for summoner only really matters when the enemies are weak to a certain element that you don't have access to already with your current build. So for example if an enemy has -60% poison resistance you can use a poison flask and summon a poison incarnate to deal good damage but that's pretty much where the flexibility's usefulness ends.

True, but my point there is that your team would typically have a means of dealing with that type of enemy without exploiting that weakness, like just having the mages focus their resisted elements elsewhere and have physical take on that weakness enemy. That value itself only existing when that enemy is both weak to poison and resistant to the other elements you’re using. If the only resistance effects an enemy has is the large negative, you could still de more damage without a weakness than the incarnate can with one just through AP economy from elemental affinity. The amount of niche cases where a team can really use the versatility factor summoning offers just isn’t high enough to justify it being a competitively useful trait when comparing it to another build. Summoning has that versatility, but that doesn’t mean the versatility itself is all that valuable as a trait. I mean, even in the above example you’d have to be spending AP to make the poison surface (because fights with enemies being weak to an element don’t usually also have that element all over to start) and that action costs AP as well. You can mitigate that cost with ambidextrous other something 1AP, but that might itself require taking specific talents just for niche moments.

Some might argue the versatility lies in the summoner itself being able to build whatever on the side, but that has many limitations of its own that just doesn’t make it compete.

There are worse builds than summoning for sure, the default battlemage concept for instance, but in terms of overall strength relative to other builds, summoning is pretty low.

[Senki]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by Senki:

The flexibility argument for summoner only really matters when the enemies are weak to a certain element that you don't have access to already with your current build. So for example if an enemy has -60% poison resistance you can use a poison flask and summon a poison incarnate to deal good damage but that's pretty much where the flexibility's usefulness ends.

True, but my point there is that your team would typically have a means of dealing with that type of enemy without exploiting that weakness, like just having the mages focus their resisted elements elsewhere and have physical take on that weakness enemy. That value itself only existing when that enemy is both weak to poison and resistant to the other elements you’re using. If the only resistance effects an enemy has is the large negative, you could still de more damage without a weakness than the incarnate can with one just through AP economy from elemental affinity. The amount of niche cases where a team can really use the versatility factor summoning offers just isn’t high enough to justify it being a competitively useful trait when comparing it to another build. Summoning has that versatility, but that doesn’t mean the versatility itself is all that valuable as a trait. I mean, even in the above example you’d have to be spending AP to make the poison surface (because fights with enemies being weak to an element don’t usually also have that element all over to start) and that action costs AP as well. You can mitigate that cost with ambidextrous other something 1AP, but that might itself require taking specific talents just for niche moments.

Some might argue the versatility lies in the summoner itself being able to build whatever on the side, but that has many limitations of its own that just doesn’t make it compete.

There are worse builds than summoning for sure, the default battlemage concept for instance, but in terms of overall strength relative to other builds, summoning is pretty low.

Yeah I agree completely, edited my post to make my point clearer.Also if you're building a pure summoner you can afford any stat or talents because they won't be needing any of it themselves so getting stuff like all skilled up and ambidextrous is usually what you should be getting anyway to help you do your job as a summoner. Supercharger is also an important factor when it comes to enemies having a weakness to an element so the damage is good but like you said it's not enough to make summoner compete with most other builds.

[Senki]

Originally posted by BigRockWall:

Originally posted by Senki:

The flexibility argument for summoner only really matters when the enemies are weak to a certain element that you don't have access to already with your current build. So for example if an enemy has -60% poison resistance you can use a poison flask and summon a poison incarnate to deal good damage but that's pretty much where the flexibility's usefulness ends.

Its an extra body to take hits and make attacks of opportunity and has some CC depending on infusions, and deals damage every turn using its own AP (early game, this matters). Its extremely flexible. Its also the weakest straight alpha strike build (mid game on, this matters more)

I mean if you need an extra body to take hits that badly just take sir lora with you and he'll tank stuff for free. I've seen bosses cast a whole hailstorm on the poor squirrel.

Summoning is really strong early but the game is about building something and making it scale well all the way to act 4 so summoning is at the bottom in that regard,all they do is copy other spells with their infusions and actual mages make better use of those spells. The class would've been better off with original spells but they probably didnt have enough time or budget to make it something interesting.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Senki:

Originally posted by BigRockWall:

Its an extra body to take hits and make attacks of opportunity and has some CC depending on infusions, and deals damage every turn using its own AP (early game, this matters). Its extremely flexible. Its also the weakest straight alpha strike build (mid game on, this matters more)

I mean if you need an extra body to take hits that badly just take sir lora with you and he'll tank stuff for free. I've seen bosses cast a whole hailstorm on the poor squirrel.

Summoning is really strong early but the game is about building something and making it scale well all the way to act 4 so summoning is at the bottom in that regard,all they do is copy other spells with their infusions and actual mages make better use of those spells. The class would've been better off with original spells but they probably didnt have enough time or budget to make it something interesting.

I’d argue that simply removing that lack of attribute scaling and altering the scaling to work with an attribute (like memory) would do summoning far better than more original spells. It’d make having summons on non-summoners feel better too as you’d naturally have memory on other characters and it’d potentially boost their random summons enough to make them more viable even without having summoning stacked. Though I don’t think it’d really make them all that much better than they are now.

It’s just a really weird skill that doesn’t follow the basic systems the others do and it suffers for it.

[Aetrion]

Somehow I can't help but feel like if all the extra hitpoints summoning brings to the field are completely disregarded as an advantage the game is just too easy. The biggest advantage of summoning is the fact that it throws a whole bunch of disposable hitpoints into the field on top of dealing some damage. It's a tank, not a damage dealer.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Aetrion:

Somehow I can't help but feel like if all the extra hitpoints summoning brings to the field are completely disregarded as an advantage the game is just too easy. The biggest advantage of summoning is the fact that it throws a whole bunch of disposable hitpoints into the field on top of dealing some damage. It's a tank, not a damage dealer.

For a well built team using all the tools at your disposal, that isn’t a benefit to begin with. I often do things like fighting through Bloodmoon Isle in act two at level 10, 5 levels before I’m supposed to be there. In order to survive those areas, you can’t allow yourself to take damage to begin with as pretty much any attack will one shot you. This requires you to be able to mitigate, evade or prevent ALL incoming damage to stay alive. These tactics can be employed by most any team at any time from heavy use of uncanny evasion and its aura version, large resistance potions and things like invisibility other armor piercing CC (like worm tremor/torturer and smoke). If played properly, and with enough burst damage potential, you can take enough AP from your enemy that you don’t have to worry about absorbing damage. The only team builds that need to tank damage are the ones built without enough damage and CC to stop the enemy from attacking in the first place. Tanking is only valuable in teams that build for tanking over damage. Otherwise it isn’t an important factor.

There’s a reason that veteran players will advise new players not to follow the traditional tank/healer/DPS setup. Of that setup, the least useful build is the tank, partially because tank builds and healer builds are effectively the same build. To build a truly tanky character in Divinity, you need to have all the armor healing and buffing spells. You’ll probably want to just build a pure Geomage with some Hydro support at that point, using a bit of summoning for the soul mate spell. Then you just spam those spells so that you’re beefy as hell. Tanks definitely want INT armor and a shield too, as shields already give more physical armor than magic and physical armor is the lesser in terms of usefulness anyways. However, when built this way, a tank is hard to distinguish from a healer because they’re ultimately the same thing. A good one is also still a strong damage dealer too.

[Senki]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by Senki:

I mean if you need an extra body to take hits that badly just take sir lora with you and he'll tank stuff for free. I've seen bosses cast a whole hailstorm on the poor squirrel.

Summoning is really strong early but the game is about building something and making it scale well all the way to act 4 so summoning is at the bottom in that regard,all they do is copy other spells with their infusions and actual mages make better use of those spells. The class would've been better off with original spells but they probably didnt have enough time or budget to make it something interesting.

I’d argue that simply removing that lack of attribute scaling and altering the scaling to work with an attribute (like memory) would do summoning far better than more original spells. It’d make having summons on non-summoners feel better too as you’d naturally have memory on other characters and it’d potentially boost their random summons enough to make them more viable even without having summoning stacked. Though I don’t think it’d really make them all that much better than they are now.

It’s just a really weird skill that doesn’t follow the basic systems the others do and it suffers for it.

Well they don't necessarily need completely new spells but I feel like if they had new effects to the already existing spells they would've been good or at least more fun to play. Like a buff that makes the next spell they cast shoot twice, and some source spell that applies flaming crescendo to all enemies around the summon etc. stuff like that. Could've made them worth playing instead of a mage with the exact same spells that do more damage.

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

Originally posted by Senki:

The flexibility argument for summoner only really matters when the enemies are weak to a certain element that you don't have access to already with your current build. So for example if an enemy has -60% poison resistance you can use a poison flask and summon a poison incarnate to deal good damage but that's pretty much where the flexibility's usefulness ends.

You should usually have everything a team needs covered with 4-man parties,like cc,armor restoration,magic/physical damage so a summoner's flexibility isn't needed at all. And for lone wolf summoning is a straight up waste of points after act 1 because there's no difference between a lone wolf incarnate and a normal one, you could be maxing a second element on a mage instead of that and be way stronger.

I'm not talking about damage adaptability though, it's the build flexibility summoners have since they can deal damage while supporting the team in the same round.

Example you can take torturer and use worm tremor, summoners don't really need much talents to work effectively, all they need is all skilled up early and glass cannon anyway, everything else is just pure flexibility for the teams needs or the summoners need to perform the role you chose better.

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Ever thought summoning is just another kind of CC? If an enemy hits your summon he puts his skills on CD while they wasted their turn hurting something that can be easily replaced. The only time this doesn't apply is when the enemy uses AOE. But, people don't argue that summoning deals the most damage here, just that everyone calls summoning bad when it really isn't. It's like saying pyro is bad because it has no CC and therefore hydro and aero are better or saying Hydro is bad because it doesn't deal enough damage. I still stand by my point that summoning isn't bad tbh, it offers a lot, builds can adapt (not just damage) and can play multiple roles. But I guess it's just playstyle, I don't build my teams to OHKO enemies, if they OHKO eventually then sure why not. But most of the time I have supporting in mind and sustainability so I get to play strategically rather than end the fight in 1 turn.