Summon Shade (any use for this)

orangeman57ub17_ESO

I was looking forward to unlocking summon shade on my magicka based range bar for the nightblade. I was liking the idea of summoning a shade (or 2 if you morph it that way) to go out, attack enemies, take some aggro, and decrease the enemies weapon damage by 15%. I unlocked the ability and cast it on an enemy. The enemy came to attack me and my shade followed him dishing out some attacks. I soon learned that the shade cannot hold any aggro and deals pitiful damage. This skill seems like it has a lot of potential, but falls short of anything useful.

There are alot of skills that you obtain at the end of the skill trees that just arent that useful. Snipe is great for pvp or an opener, but only if you are a stamina build. Summon Shade is a dissapointment. I didnt see any improvement using Haste (bugged?). Most of the time i find myself using the first 2 skills in a tree, and ignoring alot of the later skills.

Elad13

That's the story of this game....sounds good...but the higher you go the more useless things are. Even some skills are pointless to morph...The game lacks any real power feeling...so like you said the first few things seem ok....but anything else seems such a waste.

D2player87

Summon shade is essentially a 15% damage reduction for yourself and when morped into the archer version of it, you can activate the skill a second time to teleport to where u place the shade. Useful for soloing bosses. If you do not know how to use it, doesnt mean its useless.

D2player87

Correction, for everyone. It is essentially a curse, if you want a summon go play a sorcerer or something.

forthewinn2

Summon shade does terrible damage, and no it won't hold aggro,
but the 15% damage debuff is good against solo bosses.
The Shadow image morph is also good for kiting melee elites/bosses.
Is Summon Shade useful in some situations? Yes.
Did I expect more from from the last skill in the tree? Yes.

Overall it is Very circumstantial and feels somewhat lackluster, on the plus side it's way better than haste.......

amm7sb14_ESO

I'll still get it if for no other reason than for roleplay.

PBpsy

Summon Shade Is great for magicka NB W&S tanking. Before the nerf it was almost essential if you wanted to solo. Storm Atronachs, Gargoyles and World bosses. The 15% damage reduction is very very nice in dungeons especially paired with Veiled of Blades. The only problem is that the Shades steals healing from the Funnel health ally hits.and Regeneration (Resto) just like some of the stupid pets . This is why I prefer Shadow image . It can stay out of the way and can give me a quick retreat also.

If you want a pet tank for your archer this is not the skill for you though. Since they don't have agro or taunts..

IxSTALKERxI

The two shades are good when used with quick siphon. Everytime they hit the enemy you get heals. Also the shadow image morph is fun to troll with and kiting bosses.

orangeman57ub17_ESO

I'll have to play with that morph. I like to kite enemies and out maneuver them. I didn't expect anything in the level of the sorcs summons but maybe able to aggro enemies for a hit or 2. I'm glad to see some ppl use this skill and it's not useless, just maybe not that great for being at the end of that skill tree

Spottswoode

Dark shades has its DOT and debuff uses, but there a number of other skills that perform better for either of those roles. (Shadow silk and degeneration would be preferable for DoT's.) If the damage was increased or it caused a DoT effect/bleed it would be worth considerably more.
Shadow image has been a fairly used skill whenever I need to get close to an enemy without aggroing it. It makes a decent "healer" teleport too. If shadow image could aggro the overall usefulness of it would substantially increase. Overall, neither morph is particularly good, but they do have some uses if you need a generalized skill.

niocwy

One of the most useful spell for a solo NB and for tanking. Agree it was better (and somewhat glitchy) when they could hold aggro. But :
- 15% damage reduction is awesome. Stacks with Deep Slash in the S&S skill line for a 30% damage reduction
- you can heal them = your heals can crit = more ultimate generation
- in PvP, the two shades depletes the stamina of a blocking target quite rapidly
- the teleport with the one shade is very nice for a kiting NB
- they deal some damage, yes it is low, but it is a "fire and forget"

If you expected some real pets with aggro/big damage, I understand that you're disappointed. But the skill has definitely some uses.

Jaxom

Group of 4 NB popping shades on the same player in PvP and watching 8 shades chase a player around is priceless. You don't use it for damage but for the debuff and in pvp deplete stamina on your opponent

joshisanonymous

If you're just talking about PvE, I can see why you'd be disappointed. Neither morph is very useful in PvE. The shade not only doesn't hold aggro, but currently seems to reset mobs when you try to use Shadow Cloak after sending a Dark Shades at them (really hope I'm not the only one who sent in a /bug report for that).

For PvP, Dark Shades is pretty awesome, though. It not only drains stamina from chronic blockers, it also seems to confuse the hell out of people, which is priceless. Cast them on someone then throw up Dark Cloak and a lot of players won't know what the hell to do, and now you have the upper hand. Even just using Evasion from the medium armor line with the shades is fun because that skill gives you a translucent look similar to your shades.

(I've had some success with the teleport morph in PvP (i.e. dropping it on a cliff then using Teleport Strike to get into melee, then using the teleport to get out of dodge if things go bad, or just to get away quick after the fight), but it's awfully buggy. Half the time the teleport wouldn't work or my shade would actually teleport to a different location itself when I would teleport to it, often a location much closer to my enemy. Weee, bugs!)

ThisOnePosts

The shades are also good for lowering boss damage output.... so basically your healer and tank vs tougher bosses can have damage mitigated for a few seconds until you summon them again! That is the main use I have for them, other than showing off to people who haven't seen them in lower level zones.

Geremias

I've been using Shadow Image on pvp, and its great for my build (glass cannon).

Examples:

- I summon my shade, teleport strike on the target, kill it (or not), and when his allies start hitting me, I teleport back to the shadow and hide. 90% of the time they dont even know what happened.

- When defending keeps, I summon it over the wall, teleport strike the targets below, if things get bad, I can teleport back to the safety of walls.

- A group of enemy players, summon my shadow to distract them and go to the other side (you need sneak speed to do that). Most of the time they will rush to the shadow, looking for an easy kill, and (always) someone gets left behind: he is dead.

- Like Mark Target, its an awesome troll skill to distract ppl and have some fun.

Remember to stay in the shadow range, or your teleport will fail.

Shadow image takes you out of hidden status for some seconds when you summon, so use it and cloak right after.