Summons Limit in Infinite Archive

LouisaB75 · June 2025

I have been playing around with my new summoner in IA since it is the daily endeavour, and was surprised to find the failed to summon reached limit message popping up when it has not appeared anywhere else. Specifically it is when I had the verse for the phalanx.

Here is what I have:

1. Companion Mirri.
2. Warden Bear ultimate.
3. Twilight Tormenter.
4. Unstable Clannfear.
5. Necro skeletal mage.
6. Murder of Crows from unfathomable darkness set.
7. Shadowrend monster set clannfear.
8. Fabricant from the mad tinkerer set.

So by my count even if everything had activated at once with all the sets, which it has in other areas of PvE, it would only be at 8. So does the Phalanx count as more than 1 summon because as soon as I activate that, which does activate, I get the fail message pinging, presumably when a set item is trying to activate?

Jaimeh · June 2025

It counts as more than 1 that's why the message popped up. I also wanted to make a post about this because with the new limit in place, some verses and visions fail to work properly. One of this is the necrotic avatar transformation, which periodically prompts you to click the synergy and skeleton NPCs pop up and damage the enemies. I was running on my arc, without any pets on, and after a point the summon would fail, with the message 'you reached the maximum number of summons'. I understand there is a limit of pets with the new update, but now we have the unintended consequence that some of the buffs in the IA are either not working properly or not working at all. The necrotic avatar takes 3 visions to acquire, so it's not easy to get, and the cool thing about it, is that you can keep summoning the skeletons until they die and in longer fights in higher arcs you could basically have a pack of helpers. Also problematic is that we still get the prompt, even if the max limit is reached, and that's wasted a GCD to press, it might not be that important in lower arcs, but in high arc fights were there are many overlapping mechanics, the distraction of a failed synergy is not helping. I will ping @ZOS_Kevin if they could hopefully pass this on to the devs, and let us know if the devs are aware how the effects of the summon limit in IA now breaks certain visions and verses, as explained above.

LouisaB75 · June 2025

Thanks for confirming. I suspected that might be the case. I have never run a pure summons build before and usually do IA on my no pets arcanist. But I was eager to test my pets in IA so figured I would do an arc. Well, I died at boss 3 as it was one I didn't recognise whose AOE obliterated us all.

Since the update gives a different limit in PvE to PvP hopefully IA can also be treated differently to them both and revert to how it was.

SilverIce58 · June 2025

Didn't they change how Mad Tinkerer works so its not counted as a summoned pet anymore?

LouisaB75 · June 2025

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Didn't they change how Mad Tinkerer works so its not counted as a summoned pet anymore?

I have never used it before so don't know about that. Though if the phalanx is classed as 5 summons instead of 1, the mad tinkerer won't have made a difference to the fail messages.

In IA with all my summons running around it was a little hard to tell what was failing exactly. The messages don't specify unfortunately.

Since my companion, bear and sorcerer summons were still there and not gone/replaced the fails had to be for either my skeletal mage which has to be resummmoned of course or set summons. Since some of the fails were popping one after another without my pressing the key to summon the mage, I was guessing set items, though in a busy fight could have been the mage as well.

I got the same verse twice in my run and it happened both times. But kind of hard to thoroughly test it since the verses are, of course, random. And you never get the ones you want. I didn't any pet vision which I was eager to test and gets shoved at my arcanist every run.

SilverIce58 · June 2025

Phalanx is 5 summons? That's intense, yeah one wouldnt have mattered.

LouisaB75 · June 2025

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Phalanx is 5 summons? That's intense, yeah one wouldnt have mattered.

That is my guess since it summons 5 warriors. As you can see from my initial post, 1 more summons for a verse shouldn't have hit my limit, and if the mad tinkerer set doesn't count, I was actually lower than I thought anyway.

Jaimeh · June 2025

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Phalanx is 5 summons? That's intense, yeah one wouldnt have mattered.

The thing is summoned creatures in phalanx (as well as the necrotic avatar transform, which I mentioned above) come as a set, otherwise the vision doesn't work. It's a row of creatures that creates a barrier between what's behind and in front of them, and they are always summoned as a set (the same with the skeletons from the necrotic avatar transform), so with the new limit, we now have the issue that these visions/verses no longer work as intended, or even no longer work altogether.

tomofhyrule · June 2025

Mad tinkerer is no longer a summon, but you do say you have a Necro skill slotted, and corpses of enemies also seem to inexplicably count as pets as well.

That’s the genesis of the whole issue with Blastbones not working properly. They raised the pet cap in PvP, but Subclassing does allow hitting that cap easier.

Jaimeh · June 2025

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Mad tinkerer is no longer a summon, but you do say you have a Necro skill slotted, and corpses of enemies also seem to inexplicably count as pets as well.

That’s the genesis of the whole issue with Blastbones not working properly. They raised the pet cap in PvP, but Subclassing does allow hitting that cap easier.

The limit was placed because of subclassing but this problem still happens regardless of whether you have a pet build on, because some visions by virtue of how they work they can exceed the limit without you having extra summons up. As I mentioned, I was on a Arc without any other summons out, but the necrotic avatar synergy still failed, because of how the vision mechanic works: the skeletons persist until they die, and you can keep summoning them, so it's really easy for the new limit to be reached, and when that happens the synergy no longer works, and half the functionality of the vision is simply gone.

LouisaB75 · June 2025

The corpses count as pets? Didn't realise that. Not done much with the necro skills yet, just the flame skulls and the skeleton mage. Still figuring it out as summons are mostly new to me. It did seem to be that one verse that kept triggering the limit though.

jaws343 · June 2025

Even before getting to Phalanx, you can easily hit the pet cap:

Twilight
Scamp
Bear
Blastbones
Skeletal Archer
Companion
Eye of Infinite Watchling pet
Permanent Vision pet

That is 8 pets. But, you can also get temporary pets as verses. And, with portals and consumables, you can stack verses too. A round with Tomeshell and the Rat wouldn't be uncommon.

And this isn't even adding in pets that come from sets, which would easily push you over the cap on a common IA run.

LouisaB75 · June 2025

I did wonder about the tomeshell which I picked once but thankfully that one didn't cause an issue. Didn't get any of the permanent pet visions though I would definitely have picked them if I had as I do anyway.

I must have missed the watchling pet. Not heard of that one.

jaws343 · June 2025

LouisaB75 wrote: »

I did wonder about the tomeshell which I picked once but thankfully that one didn't cause an issue. Didn't get any of the permanent pet visions though I would definitely have picked them if I had as I do anyway.

I must have missed the watching pet. Not heard of that one.

It is one of the ones you can buy as an unlock for your account from one of the vendors. Summons a watchling that will do damage in the archive and stun enemies and such.

LouisaB75 · June 2025

Thanks. Been a while since I checked the vendors. Will take a look. Might be I have not unlocked it yet.

jaws343 · June 2025

LouisaB75 wrote: »

Thanks. Been a while since I checked the vendors. Will take a look. Might be I have not unlocked it yet.

Yeah, requires the Triumphant Curator achievement to unlock.

katanagirl1 · June 2025

Holy crap, I think I know why performance is so bad this patch, lol.

LouisaB75 · June 2025

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Holy crap, I think I know why performance is so bad this patch, lol.

LOL. Yep, the armies of pets probably have something to do with it.

But my warden needs her little army because she is such a rubbish fighter. Before this update, she was actually my sneaky assassin/thief/vampire and not built for fighting at all. Now she is cured of being a vampire, but switched to werewolf, where she summons two dire wolves to join her, and was pleased to find that the set summons still pop even in werewolf form. But she needs her back up when getting into scraps.

Though you will be pleased to know that I, at least, keep all my skill generated/permanent summons on one bar and switch to the other when I am towns.

katanagirl1 · June 2025

LouisaB75 wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Holy crap, I think I know why performance is so bad this patch, lol.

LOL. Yep, the armies of pets probably have something to do with it.

But my warden needs her little army because she is such a rubbish fighter. Before this update, she was actually my sneaky assassin/thief/vampire and not built for fighting at all. Now she is cured of being a vampire, but switched to werewolf, where she summons two dire wolves to join her, and was pleased to find that the set summons still pop even in werewolf form. But she needs her back up when getting into scraps.

Though you will be pleased to know that I, at least, keep all my skill generated/permanent summons on one bar and switch to the other when I am towns.

Oh I was mostly kidding. The players it would affect most would likely be the players who use all those pets. If the game lets you do that and you’re having fun then more power to you.

fizl101 · June 2025

I hit the limit last night playing with my companion by having flappy, eye of the infinite and necro avatar calling their adds

LouisaB75 · June 2025

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Oh I was mostly kidding. The players it would affect most would likely be the players who use all those pets. If the game lets you do that and you’re having fun then more power to you.

Don't worry, I could tell you were joking about it. But as a player who has been summoning as much as possible with that toon, there is some truth in it. Since subclassing I have been playing with various toons and this one with the summons has definitely seen lag than most of the others. In fact the only times I have seen lag with my other toons is when I have been in busy parts of Cyrodiil, which let's face it, outside of the Vengeance test, is par for the course.

But my new warden build sure is a lot of fun anyway. I may switch out a summons since when I went lead hunting I saw Depths of Malatar drops a summons set too, which looks like it may be fun too. But she definitely keeping her army close.