Most underwhelming summoner I've ever played

South_of_Heaven

Most unresponsive minion I've ever seen.

The minion (clanfear in my case) is mostly decorative. It doesn't even get to hit normal enemies before they die, it always stays behind, it's slow to react and sometimes it bugs completely and just watches me fight the enemy. I won't even describe it's level of usefulness when and IF it does attack.

There's a passive increasing his speed at 39 skill rank (1/2 for 10%) but I can't possibly imagine - even if I bother keeping the thing, how such small change can change anything. Not to mention it's in very far in the skill line.


Edit: Minions (and toggled skills) despawn when changing areas with loading, when teleporting etc. I also wish they didn't despawn all the time.


Throughout the game up until now I've seen very few summoners and when I changed skills I knew why. They are just not worth the slots.

Zargorius

South_of_Heaven wrote: »

Most unresponsive minion I've ever seen.

The minion (clanfear in my case) is mostly decorative. It doesn't even get to hit normal enemies before they die, it always stays behind, it's slow to react and sometimes it bugs completely and just watches me fight the enemy. I won't even describe it's level of usefulness when and IF it does attack.

There's a passive increasing his speed at 39 skill rank (1/2 for 10%) but I can't possibly imagine - even if I bother keeping the thing, how such small change can change anything. Not to mention it's in very far in the skill line.

According to comments from PTS the only worthwile "minion" is the Storm Atronach summoned through the Ultimate skill

South_of_Heaven

Zargorius wrote: »

According to comments from PTS the only worthwile "minion" is the Storm Atronach summoned through the Ultimate skill

I can't compare it to other ultimates but at least it *seems* useful, since it can keep agro and seems to do some damage, even if it lasts for very little time.

I played the beta too and I was confident that they would buff the minions by now. I wish I had never spent a point in them.

Nybling

South_of_Heaven wrote: »

Zargorius wrote: »

According to comments from PTS the only worthwile "minion" is the Storm Atronach summoned through the Ultimate skill

I played the beta too and I was confident that they would buff the minions by now. I wish I had never spent a point in them.

Hahaha. I don't know what will happen first - Minions get fixed or the broken Nightblade passives will get fixed.

South_of_Heaven

Nybling wrote: »

South_of_Heaven wrote: »

Zargorius wrote: »

According to comments from PTS the only worthwile "minion" is the Storm Atronach summoned through the Ultimate skill

I played the beta too and I was confident that they would buff the minions by now. I wish I had never spent a point in them.

Hahaha. I don't know what will happen first - Minions get fixed or the broken Nightblade passives will get fixed.

Or broken quests

infeareal

I have not had to much of an issue. Sure weak things I kill before he gets to them but not that big of a deal. What the Clanfear does do for me is let me pull 2-4 things at a time without much worry. He normally grabs 2-3 of them and I can kite around and pick them off without much of an issue.

elfindreams

I used the basic minion for a while and enjoyed it (it handled crowds well) but in the end the mana "reserve" ended up not making it worth my while. The ultimate however is awesomesauce and I will definitely be trying later summons once I level up to them.

Exarch

Zargorius wrote: »

According to comments from PTS the only worthwile "minion" is the Storm Atronach summoned through the Ultimate skill

...which doesn't move.

I tried using the summons all through the open beta weekends and found it very disappointing, they're not pets, they're DoTs you can't aim that can pull aggro; the clanfear was alright, but nowhere near worth having to lose one of only five action slots.

RustyBlades

You can't play a summoner very well in total cloth, yet. I've found wielding melee and going for at least a partial plate build a good route to go with a summoner. Leather might be good with a bow combo, but it will be another player to find out.. I only have a summoner to play with not two.

Mantiss

I'm pure melee and use a summon to great effect. Maybe its the fact that I'm always right next to the MoBs from the start but mine helps me a lot and I love that he seems to taunt occasionally. Its not something I use at all times, but when I engage with mixed groups of 4+ MoBs he makes a huge difference.

Personally I'm glad that the pets themselves are just simple DoTs or buffs and not a large part of the character. Especially in a game so focused on movement, blocking and dodging vs. the tab target derpyness of older MMOs. The last thing I want to see in PvP is some no skill summoner with 3 pets running around in circles while the pets do all the work.

ZiRM

I didn't enjoy summoning in beta, needs some luv.

Indii

I've had reasonable success with snare or knockdown effects.

Currently at summoning 11, I almost always pull with Crystal Shard because of the 2 second knockdown. By the time the mob gets back up my minion is right there on the scene.

I use the volatile familiar but I'm sure the concept would be the same.

Ironblaze

Personally, I use the clannfear mostly to try to take some agro, I'm probably not going to slot the regular summons again once I get to Bound Armor (which, from my beta experience, is very much so worth it, despite needing 30 Summoning)

Aureli

How is the Winged Twilight? I'm not in the game now so I can't look at stats for a comparison.

Also, I imagine the clannfear can be upgraded a second time at some point, likely beyond 15 if you get it there. Purely speculation though. Or perhaps wishful thinking.

South_of_Heaven

Aureli wrote: »

How is the Winged Twilight? I'm not in the game now so I can't look at stats for a comparison.

Also, I imagine the clannfear can be upgraded a second time at some point, likely beyond 15 if you get it there. Purely speculation though. Or perhaps wishful thinking.

I would say that it does an ok amount of damage but dies easily. It's not as bad as the clanfear since it's ranged.

My main beef with the clanfear is its terrible unresponsiveness. It is slow to start hitting the enemy, lags behind and he sometimes WATCHES me kill the enemy without deciding to hit at all.


Edit: I've changed skills and specced elsewhere too and the results were far more satisfying. I honestly don't believe they are worth the slots - especially clanfear.

Raice

I got into this for only one reason: I wanted the Atronarch. So, in order to do that - I have to level it up. But, you can bet I won't be putting any more skills into this than I need to. You have to unlock that first ability, at least until you respec.

My experience with the Summon has been... meh. Sometimes I've noticed it being useful. Most times, I'm too busy as a Melee build to worry about it. Still, that extra point will be put to better use when I respec.

JJDrakken

I find playing a Sorc Tank to be nice. The pets help my dps out & with the passive for every summoning slotted, I gain health regen is also nice.

Adicon

I used my summon Clannfear in beta, which helped me come to the conclusion that I'll be doing my best to not waste any skill points into that entire useless skill tree. Well except for the passive to reduce Ultimates and the Storm Atronach does pretty good damage and can be a god send when solo'ing exceptionally hard large pulls. As for the rest... garbage and they die in a few moments while running dungeons.

willowbreeze

I've found that the summons do help in keeping agro and sure do look nice.
In terms of overall usefulness though, they could really use a slight buff in terms of damage at least so that they aren't too much of a decorational pet and dish out more hurt.
In terms of responsiveness, so far my clannfear has been responsive and survived a few messy fights with me :P

horrorlion

I like summoun classes but this so far just feels meh. The only thing its good for is tanking in pve IF they dont focus you but in pvp i never know where that thing goes,

cjtignub17_ESO

Summons in this game are terrible they should really buff the winged and clanfear summon significantly.

Sometimes the mobs do nothing, other times they actually do some single target damage but its mediocre at best.

fosley_ESO

I've only put a point into the default guy, but he is pretty useless. The exploding debuff is far more useful. My scamp barely does any damage, takes forever to pull aggro, then dies before I have some breathing room again. It's also annoying how he keeps desummoning while I'm swimming and such (not such a big deal) then "POOF!", makes a huge sound resummoning right behind me when I hit dry land.

The bubble towards the end looks decent, so I'll probably leave me two skill points assigned just so I can level the skill for the bubble.

Baphomet

Summons are for PvE cruising and aggro. Nothing else, really. Though, I've seen the nighblade's summon bug people effectively in PvP.

Shunyakaruna

If I may add, the Winged Twilight will morph into a Restoring Twilight which will give off a buff of 10% magic regeneration. I'm a lvl 30 Sorcerer/healer, with Radiant Magelight and the now 18% buff on Spell Critical; it's a deadly combination. I only need three slotted healing spells, and I never run out of mana.

Just a thought.

sagesourceb16_ESO

If you're not getting anything out of the Winged Twilight and clannfear, you're misusing them.

Both will keep enemies busy until you can kill them. They make pile-on combats much easier since a lot of enemies seem as ADD as the dragons in Skyrim and being belted from behind by the clannfear, in particular, will cause them to break off attacking you and turn around. Enemies like Angof get so tangled up in the clannfear that you can more or less do with them what you please. They make some previously annoying encounters, such as Mannimarco's skeletons at the end of your rescue of Abnar Tharn, almost ridiculously simple. There's a big difference between being targeted by four or five skeletons and by only one or even none, especially since Lyris is so utterly useless in that battle.

danno8

sagesourceb16_ESO wrote: »

If you're not getting anything out of the Winged Twilight and clannfear, you're misusing them.

Both will keep enemies busy until you can kill them. They make pile-on combats much easier since a lot of enemies seem as ADD as the dragons in Skyrim and being belted from behind by the clannfear, in particular, will cause them to break off attacking you and turn around. Enemies like Angof get so tangled up in the clannfear that you can more or less do with them what you please. They make some previously annoying encounters, such as Mannimarco's skeletons at the end of your rescue of Abnar Tharn, almost ridiculously simple. There's a big difference between being targeted by four or five skeletons and by only one or even none, especially since Lyris is so utterly useless in that battle.

Weird necro.

I thought you would at least mention how you can now (1.2.3) send your summoned creatures to attack or something since the last post in this thread was April 2.

yelloweyedemon

sagesourceb16_ESO wrote: »

If you're not getting anything out of the Winged Twilight and clannfear, you're misusing them.

Both will keep enemies busy until you can kill them. They make pile-on combats much easier since a lot of enemies seem as ADD as the dragons in Skyrim and being belted from behind by the clannfear, in particular, will cause them to break off attacking you and turn around. Enemies like Angof get so tangled up in the clannfear that you can more or less do with them what you please. They make some previously annoying encounters, such as Mannimarco's skeletons at the end of your rescue of Abnar Tharn, almost ridiculously simple. There's a big difference between being targeted by four or five skeletons and by only one or even none, especially since Lyris is so utterly useless in that battle.

Necromancy increased to 82!

Brasseurfb16_ESO

My summoner is still low level but I went for the Volatile Familiar instead of the Clanfear and I do not regret my choice. Extra Tank + Dmg over time, and when I need some extra burst I just unsummon it to deal massive AoE dmg, get some magicka back and it even works while stuned!

MKLS

I know this post has come back from the dead but as its here I'll second the voice that says pets are actually useful in this game.

I love my pets - I use them both all the time when I'm playing solo or with a friend and switch between a resto staff and dest staff depending upon the number of mobs and how hard they hit.

2 or 3 vet mobs around my level (V3) ie V3 and V4's go down quite easily and its a fun build to play as they watch your back while you are gathering as well as keeping you alive when you are stunned.

SirAndy

I use my clannfear as cannon fodder. If you position yourself correctly it will almost always draw some attention which really helps with larger groups of mobs.

If it manages to get in a hit or two, all the better, but i don't count on that.

shiva7663

Upcoming in v1.3.0, "The Storm Atronach no longer taunts the target it is attacking." sigh.
PTS Patch Notes v1.3.0