Thinking about Summoner
Iniar
Australia
First of all, thank you @Garryn for a really challenging class. Thank you too to the beta testers, you know who you are.
I'm posting this because some people have mentioned that they don't know where to start with summoner offense (and some have quit class)
Thinking about a summoner offense can be fairly complicated;
Fo a start, you have three basic forms of attacks;
(1) Spell
(2) Card
(3) Demon
Additionally, you may have access to;
(4) Instant spell
(5) Infused card
This gives us ~18 possible combinations of attacks, most of which are accessible only at certain thresholds.
Add in a maximum of 3 options per Spell and this blows out quite spectacularly.
The two straightest approaches are;
(a) taint guided queue
(b) queue guided taint use
In your traditional (b) (i.e toxin) queue, you simply 'chose' the next affliction on your queue that wasn't on your opponent, the assumption being higher ranked toxins were
(1) blocking cures
(2) blocking aggression
and as you progressed,
(3) provide a buffer to higher toxins
(correct me if I'm wrong)
In a summoner enlighten queue, you need to work backwards;
Start by looking at the conditions of enlighten
(a) whisperingmadness
(b) conditional number of required afflictions
So the very top of your queue/offence logic (well, you) needs to work out (as an example)
i) given (the target has) whisperingmadness,
a) given the target's health, (or guess at 100% maxhp)
i) do they have sufficient (eligible) afflictions?
a) yes -> enlighten
b) no -> how many (eligible) afflictions more do I need? x number.
i) given sufficient (>70%) taint, can a double affliction instant spell + demon meet that number?
a) yes -> enlighten with the chosen combination spell & demon
b) no -> if the double affliction instant spell sufficient to meet this number?
i) yes -> enlighten
ii) no -> is there a demon I can unleash to meet this requirement? if yes, enlighten, if no, -> terminate this line of enquiry
ii) given -not- whisperingmadness,
-> (figure out what cures whisperingmadness: focus and smoke)
a) can I give whisperingmadness without it being cured instantly? i.e.
i) does the target have both (a) asthma? (b) impatience?
ii) if yes, what combination can I cast with the most number of afflictions along with whisperingmadness? -> cast it
iii) if no, and the missing affliction is impatience, is the target off focus balance? if yes, how long away is that balance?
a) > your ping +- safety margin -> cast most potent combination of afflictions with whisperingmadness
b) < your ping +- safety margin, do I have sufficient (>60%) taint to deliver impatience (with an instant spell)?
iv) if no, and the missing affliction is asthma, do I have sufficient (>70%) taint to deliver asthma (with an instant spell)? -> if yes, cast it, if no -> terminate this line of enquiry
iii) now, given unable to deliver whisperingmadness reliably, you can start the appropriate toxin queue with the similar sort of logic
the basic pattern is, I need aff(A), which skill gives it? Given my resources (taint), can I deliver aff(A) with something else? Are there any benefits to using a certain affliction with aff(A)? Are there any benefits to using a certain demon with aff(A)?
I know there're simpler ways but if you're having trouble thinking about it, lay down each step you want to achieve first, then figure out the best way to do it, then the auxiliary things.
Kindly share if you have any insights/thoughts on how you write your offense.
re:Lionas's post below -> agreed, it's just a starting point for thinking. (insert druid joke)
wit beyond measure is a Sidhe's greatest treasure
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Comments
the claims are stated - it's the world I've created
I always defer to Iluv and Kryss when it comes to toiling away on overly complex affliction delta schemes. I am the dude with the big stick who likes to figure out the best way to kill people with it, especially since fancy combos do you little good when AM's simple damage machine (with on-demand CC) can kill you in 4-5 seconds (Iluv has been playing the role of Mena in the latest production of Shardfall: The Musical).
A damage-caster build (INT with Hecate and Rixil summons) has a lot more damage potential than Summoner 1.0 -and- is tankier than his predecessor (drop the extra 4% damage from Rixil for +15% sipping (no penalty anymore for statpack), +2 CON (on top of 13 base), and arctar/pyradius serving as a perma simulacrum). Your base damage attack is a whole second faster, which is a big deal both offensively and defensively, and probably translates to roughly a 50% increase in DPS using quicken over 1.0 warp (little incentive to use fire-based damage attacks here for the majority of situations and quicken is the fastest route to taint).
Damage success relies on consistent pressure with burst potential. Timewarp + taint + timely use of unleash serves the latter purpose nicely (timewarp should be central in most damage scenarios). Duplicate and Incinerate (which you can keep fueled with quicken unless they turtle up) can keep good pressure on the target. The biggest problem, unlike classes that can dole out damage and control the pace of the fight through afflictions, is that the INT summoner does not have that sort of ability to manage the pace (short of forcing the target to shield). Tarot is very slow for the benefit (it is really a secondary/support tree in this build) and by nature infusion is not going to put the same sort of damage pressure on a target. The net result is that an INT Summoner is going to be very effective in teams, and potentially struggle in 1x1...perhaps even moreso than 1.0 because of the change to aeon.
The other wildcard is the impact/necessity of sash collar for the INT build. Lacking either probably puts your DPS somewhere in the realm of 1.0 warp -with- a sash/collar (yes, it was pretty bad). Unleash is a better, approximate substitute for the 1.0 passive demon effects, but once again aeon as an inhibitor has been changed (not saying this is bad), and this is going to make for tough sledding for a pure damage perspective in a number of scenarios.
Summary: The class is as complex as you make it. The consensus is that it is worlds better than where it was, due to variety and potential. It still suffers from an identity crisis in that at first blush you have two distinct roads (damage and affliction), and an artifact INT build that is much stronger than 1.0, but at the end of the day the class is still a hybrid built around being able to effectively incorporate tarot and has a higher learning bar for maximizing this. If there is a tragic flaw, it's that you still don't have the singular affliction/damage/statpack synergy that many AM (or to a lesser extent, magic) profs have, but one man's perception of a flaw is another man's interpretation of variety/flavor. Clever is also more viable than it was with 1.0.
You also briefly mentioned managing the pace of the fight. How would Aurashift play a part in that, if any, and how would you set it up?
Lastly, if you were to try and set up a devil burst chain, what would you choose as your starting point?
If unleash available then
if buul available then
unleash buul;give hellsight infuse aeon
elseif not buul available
unleash something else;give hellsight infuse fool
end
end
That's something you can use to stack smoke after asthma stuck.
For devil, I would just stick:
If target physical + mental afflictions >= high number then
fling devil
end
At the top of your queue.
For enlighten/aff routes, I would always start with noctu/infuse queues like impatience/paralyse/justice/butisol/sunallergy. From there, the queue would differentiate depending on spark available as then usually some spark effects like intensify are required.
Taint (I hate this term btw) management is the sort of "class complexity" that is good for the game: the need for experience, common sense/strategy, and basic client work to manage a limited resource where getting to 100% isn't necessarily the best outcome (a power counter on status bar, or even highlighting taint messages to help you keep track of progress in spam). People tend to freak out (shield/run) when their health suddenly drops from green to red. That would favor instant or duplicate where the burst puts them in a bad spot by the time they realize what's happening (since cleanseaura is awesome at low health levels). Heave generates the same amount of taint as quicken but is even faster (and annoying). Maybe you stall with heave then punch them with pyradius and begin the assault with 100% taint in short order. Or maybe you simply strengthen every other aura attack with the goal of getting to them to 60% threshold for timewarp. Most people will also have one hangedman (w/ eerion) and one danaeus attack per minute to play with to help manage momentum too.
I am personally not a fan of being able to "pre-load" aurashift (but Garryn felt it wasn't a big issue in beta), and I don't know if I prefer to go all Rocky IV (let myself get beaten close to death) so I can unleash hell in Round 10 (chained auras can be sort of funny), but aurashift is a unique situational skill that someone will complain about eventually. I haven't had time to use it because when I am low enough to make it a viable attack, I am also prone six ways to Sunday and have 4 people hitting me.
An INT Summoner is going to have a hard time building up more than 3 affs at any given point, and devil doesn't really gain momentum until you hit the 5+ range (and if I can pump out good damage via an aura spell at 2.32 with diadem, why would I use a 3.2 balance devil attack?), so I would have to defer to a Fast representative on devil feasibility.
Pretty much what we made here was a more versatile deathknight. You have a damage build that's decent in teams, good at bashing and is a wash 1v1. Then there's the affliction build which hinges on an instakill(s) that's the bomb. Affliction > Damage. Not gonna lie, this sucks. We've effectively forced players into picking a "role" for combat that effectively closes a lot of doors for them down the road. It's also pretty fantastic that we've doomed the remaining 1/6 of demonic into the fast stat pack, because it's working out so well for the rest of the circle.
What on earth gave you that idea?
Aside from Druid, every class has a division between its "Tanky Teamer" statpack and its "This is what you will actually need to overwhelm somebody decent in 1v1" statpack, and there's no real way around that unless we just want to remove statpacks entirely.
Druid manages it only by having such overwhelming power that nothing can stand up to a full out damagefest, and nobody thinks that's even close to balanced.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
The concept of damage soundly bored some of the testers who were invested in the outcome of the class on a personal level.
I would have preferred we largely ignored the cute Enlighten nonsense and gave Demonic a powerful spellflinging DPS caster. Demonic didn't need another affliction class and Magick didn't need one either. Especially one that is ultra squishy.
It's a little too early post-release to make assumptions (after all, some enterprising Summoner might figure something cool out that makes 1v1 DPS Summoner incredibly viable), but I guess my point is that employing a team of beta testers mostly comprised of dudes who think affliction classes are totally sweet, cool, and interesting is probably not the best way to provide a circle chock full of those things with something new (like a straight DPS class).
Incinerate is pretty strange, yes.
You can't use instant on aurashift. Or timewarp for that matter.
The problem you run into, is that right now, Demonic would be the only circle with "Your teammate can devastate your set up."
If Eldreth is pushing for a nuke from on high, Kryss can screw up by hitting what someone told her was 'the win button.' There's no other mechanic in the game that does that. The flip side of this argument is with pyradius spamming, you could almost set up a perpetual nuke on someone and burn them down like an ant under a magnifying class, which is just another version of silly.
I'm kind of on the fence about this, but Demonic really requires a higher 'coding' investment because all of our classes have some toxin tracking mechanic. Summoner takes an even higher degree to really milk the awesome. If you don't want to invest effort, you can always quit circle and play anything in AM, any knight, or druid...most likely druid.
EDIT: As for "moves intended as finishers", that isn't really how the class works. It would let you front-load some combos (probably through duplicate), but that's a bit of burst and not so much a finisher. Taint is balanced around the ability to generate it and use it throughout the fight. Just saving it until you hit 100 is the worst way to handle it.
the claims are stated - it's the world I've created
A problem you'll run into is that Eldreth is pushing damage. He wants to boost a spell's damage or relapse a damage burst on a victim or he's letting incinerate tick on someone. This is going to cost between 40-50% taint and 15% every incinerate tick. He can barely maintain enough taint to keep this going. Enter Doing-it-wrong who is spamming the same spell over and over because he just came over from Druid. He just blew 50-70% taint and Eldreth is crap out of luck.
Your limb damage example is also wrong. With 1/3 and 2/3 messages you can track limbs pretty accurately, despite your team sucking. Let's be honest, one, maybe two people in AM actually count limbs. The rest of them just blindly attack with no care for parry, hits or cures. With limb damage everyone still gets the benefit of shrivel/break damage. With noctu, if doing-it-wrong wastes all of the taint on a target ever other summoner is stuck in "Well, back to square one...build more taint" just in time for doing-it-wrong to waste it again.