Enslavery
Made a chart of what Enslavery does, trying to learn how to deal with Summoners.
Third column is unleash effects, which work as follows:
Enslavery offers the following abilities: Summoning The ability to bind demons. Unleash Unleash the power of bound demons. Skyrax Waterwalking AoE tentacle effect Rixil +1 int Amnesia on target Eerion Arrowcatch Prone on target Arctar +10% physical resists Shield self or ally Scrag 20% faster clot bal Causes significant bleeding Pyradius +10% elemental resists Gain 30% taint Dameron Unleash Dameron faster Unleash another demon, ignoring it's cooldown Palpatar 15% sip bonus Target's next health sip 50% weaker Nin'Kharsag Celerity effect Target moves as if over rubble for 10 sec Istria Pathfinder n/a Marduk +2 con 10 second instakill Belial faster unleash steal 15% of targets current health Buul Reckless immunity Remove speed defence Cadmus Tree tattoo clone, 15sec c/d Afflicts with hallucinations and addiction Piridon Doppleganger pet n/a Mask Hides doppie/pathfinder n/a Danaeus -2 dex, unleash more often The target is flung into the air and prevented from landing for 4 seconds. Other players can still bring the target back down. Lyncantha Alerts when other player enters/leaves area Damage and breaks two limbs. Big damage if all 4 limbs already broken. Tarotlink Doppie card throwing n/a Hecate +10% damage, works like a collar Forma, then forma again 5 sec later Golgotha -15% sip, but unleash more often Significant damage For more information, type AB ENSLAVERY <ability>. You have 23 unlearned abilities in Enslavery. AB ENSLAVERY FULL to see them.
Third column is unleash effects, which work as follows:
Unleash (Enslavery)
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Syntax: SUMMON <demon lord>
BANISH <demon lord>
PACTS
UNLEASH <demon lord> AT <target>
Details:
Once you have obtained a pact with a Demon Lord, you can make use of its power in two ways.
First, you can SUMMON the demon, causing it to possess you. This has two effects - the possession grants you a defensive effect (different for each
demon), and it also reduces the unleashing cooldown for that demon by 20 seconds.
You can be possessed by a maximum of FIVE demons at any time, which means that you will need to pick which defensive effects you want, or which
demons you want to be able to unleash more often. You can use BANISH <demon lord> to purge yourself of a possession, so you can obtain a different
one instead.
Second, you can UNLEASH the demon at a target, causing an effect different for each demon. This ability operates on its own balance, independent of
the regular equilibrium and balance. You can unleash a demon once every 5 seconds, and each demon has a cooldown before it may be unleashed again.
Unless stated otherwise, this cooldown is 40 seconds, reduced to 20 seconds if you are possessed by that demon.
The PACTS command notifies you about your current pacts, possessions, and cooldowns that are in effect.
NOTE: Istria and Piridon are used differently from other demons. They cannot be unleashed, and summoning them grants you an entity instead of a
defence. More details are in the respective AB help files.
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So that's five of the bonuses from the 2nd column, 6 with the artifact. Because of how unleash works, that's a 60% taint bonus early in the fight if they want it.
Notable problems I see with this:
- +2 con, +15% sip, +10% phys and elem resists possible on a class with scalemail armour.
- Large number of the possessions are niche, replicated by artifacts or somewhat specific in what they counter, leading to...
- No meaningful choice in possession options - the 15% sip boost, +2 con and certain other choices become no-brainers.
I'm aware that I might be missing some downside to the profession, or that there's some counter I'm unaware of, but it feels as if Summoner currently has some of the best tanking ability, one of the best aff healing skills, some of the best escape skills (pathfinder, hermit, universe), solid-to-good holding (Tentacles, rubble-effect unleash), the most flexible ranged attacks and some of the best damage output of any profession.
But even ignoring Noctu and Tarot, and looking just at Enslavery - it has incredible bonuses and they get to pick 6 of them out of a pool of 18, with a number of those being situational or replaceable with artifacts to further reduce the meaningful choice in the skill.
Even just the damage tanking combo of +2 con, +15% health sip and 10% resists is incredible. FOCUS CADMUS is something that no other class gets, as far as I can tell - the closest comparison is Bard therapeutics and songbird, which offer significantly less control.
What am I missing, if anything?
So that's five of the bonuses from the 2nd column, 6 with the artifact. Because of how unleash works, that's a 60% taint bonus early in the fight if they want it.
Notable problems I see with this:
- +2 con, +15% sip, +10% phys and elem resists possible on a class with scalemail armour.
- Large number of the possessions are niche, replicated by artifacts or somewhat specific in what they counter, leading to...
- No meaningful choice in possession options - the 15% sip boost, +2 con and certain other choices become no-brainers.
I'm aware that I might be missing some downside to the profession, or that there's some counter I'm unaware of, but it feels as if Summoner currently has some of the best tanking ability, one of the best aff healing skills, some of the best escape skills (pathfinder, hermit, universe), solid-to-good holding (Tentacles, rubble-effect unleash), the most flexible ranged attacks and some of the best damage output of any profession.
But even ignoring Noctu and Tarot, and looking just at Enslavery - it has incredible bonuses and they get to pick 6 of them out of a pool of 18, with a number of those being situational or replaceable with artifacts to further reduce the meaningful choice in the skill.
Even just the damage tanking combo of +2 con, +15% health sip and 10% resists is incredible. FOCUS CADMUS is something that no other class gets, as far as I can tell - the closest comparison is Bard therapeutics and songbird, which offer significantly less control.
What am I missing, if anything?
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Comments
so, in all honesty, I think summoner is in a good place. its the weaker classes that should get the love, and there's only really 1 profession I think needs a tiny tone-down, that being shaman. and my comparisons to bards, let it be known that I think they are in a decent place as well. Having started as one, I don't think people realize how tough it is without artifacts, and forget that they shouldn't use artied people as measuring sticks, just as I pointed out Zenigra for summoner.
There's really only one free spot without the artifact.
A voice combo with arinyu in costs me 3.17sec equi, as intelligent with a diadem. It also has a cooldown on use - A little over 15 seconds.
I'm not using Zenigra as the measuring stick, by the way - I'm just looking at the bonuses Summoner 'needs' and weighing those in isolation and against other classes similar bonuses. The closest comparable thing is Shaman runestone and bone images. That comes in at +10% sip, +2 con, and 20% to one element and 10% to physical assuming they use their entire runestone on defense. They can bump that up to four, but it's important to note that part of the bonus comes from a rune too, and that they don't have the upfront damage output, multiple escape skills or other tanking abilities that Summoner has.
Here's a chart for songs:
Since you're so keen to compare to bard, here's a quick list of comparisons about tanking:
- 418 max health in the wise statpack, with songs and a highfavour. Wise is the "default" for Bard. Int bumps this to 445.
- Ringmail. 38% armour to cut/blunt.
- 15% resists, physical only, from warding.
- Regen from restoration.
- Aff heal from therapeutics.
- 15 sec cooldown and equi cost on arinyu aff heal.
- fear/reckless immunity from battlemarch.
- Slow extra resto/thera ticks from songbird. Songbird always heals health first if you need it, iirc.
Now, compare that to Summoner using the tanking buffs:
- 512 max health in default statpack.
- 15% health sip boost
- Scalemail, for 5-10% better resists than ringmail
- 10% to phys or elem
- FOCUS CADMUS every 15 sec, no equi cost and full control of when it's used
- Hecate for +10% collar effect, or can be swapped for another tank buff/utility buff
You'll notice that Summoner not only trumps Bard in this regard, it does so thoroughly. This is even just assuming 5 possessions instead of the 6 possible with the artifact. What makes this comparison nigh-hilarious is that Bard is regarded as one of the strongest classes right now. This doesn't even bring other things in to the argument:
- Summoner has hands down the best selection of escape skills in game.
- Summoner has the best damage-based offense in the game, by a large margin, because...
- Summoner damage is largely tied to recurring effects or bonuses that ignore shield
- Summoner can do a flat 15% of your current health and heal themselves for it, and do that again 5 seconds later using Dameron
- The one resource Summoner has to manage is generated very, very quickly, and they can generate a flat 30% of it instantly, without a balance cost, using Enslavery
- That one resource has trivial costs when actually used, despite giving some very powerful effects
- If the target manages to leave, they can keep hitting with some of their best skills at range using the doppleganger.
- Summoner can knock a health sip down by 50% every 20 seconds or so, if using the right possession, every 40 if not.
- Holding skills. Summoner has the only portable piety-like effect in the game, on top of an unleash that gives a 10-sec rubble like effect on the target. I'll come back to this in a moment.
Yes, this post is primarily about Enslavery, but if you look at Summoner as a whole package - it's not just overpowered, it's ridiculous. It has no weakness. It's not missing anything but stealth. It has some of the best tanking abilities, the best selection of escape skills, the best version of one of most effective holding ability in game and on top of all this, it has the best damage-focused offense by a significant margin. It even has range and gets to use a chunk of the damage at range.
Now, back to tentacles and rubble/rubble-like effects: These two should not exist on one class, because unless something drastic changed, it's like a "room lock" for the victim.
TL;DR - Summoner is not merely strong, it's flat out ridiculous. It has arguably the most powerful offense in game right now, coupled with the best tanking buffs and escape skills, along with range and even some support skills. Hell, it even gets a trap-clone with the standing tarot trick.
I mean, really? 15% sipping bonus, +2 con, 10% resists and scalemail on one class? No. Just no. Even in the trifecta of very powerful classes - Bard, Shaman, Summoner - Summoner stands out by far.
I'd also like to see the Combat Council guys take a full inventory of, for example, each circle's holding abilities (including the neutral classes, of course), keeping in mind how popular each class is, how useful it is in a team overall, and then trying to balance things from that perspective. What are each ability's synergies with other holding abilities available to the circle? Is the skill all enemies, targettable, or does it hit allies and enemies alike (as all forms of rubble/reskinned rubble do)? They're the guys we're relying on to do that kind of stuff, but I do think that looking at it from that kind of perspective would be useful.
It was pretty despicable.
Anyways, Summoner needs nerfs and anybody claiming otherwise is kidding themselves. There's very little meaningful gameplay behind Flash Spam, there's very little meaningful choice behind what Pacts you select, and Taint comes up fairly fast IMO. Their damage values are frankly outrageous and the excuse at design was 'Demonic needs easy classes to play'. Easy should not imply the absence of choices that differentiate a skillful Summoner from an inexperienced or poorly played one.
Much like Bard and Shaman, Summoner is not far from properly scaled or balanced. People like to make a big stink about all three classes, but frankly the bar for average power level in a class should be just slightly lower than any of these three classes.
Enslavery nerfs are really not the best answer here and this thread is generating a huge smokescreen that might mean Summoners get away with less nerfs than they truly need. Do they need some tweaks to Enslavery? Yes. Non-pact unleash shouldn't exist. Cadmus needs an eq cost or a narrower curing table. Sorry, Demonic players of the Now, but your forefathers truly screwed you for their own gain and now it is time to fix that. That means nerfing my own class, but whatever. I also think this thread is going to be used as a platform to, in the future, create a false consensus that Bard doesn't need as many nerfs as one would think. Not trying to accuse anybody of anything here, but there's a lot of nonsense going on in this thread and y'all gotta get a grip.
As for Bard, it does need nerfs. I'm not even going to talk about it in this thread though, heh.
Summoner does not. FOCUS CADMUS is great. It's better than what almost any other class gets for aff healing. And yes, summoner is overpowered. So are Bard and Shaman, but Summoner is worse. The problem with Summoner is that is does damage really well, it's got some really great escape skills and it's got better tanking skills than other classes. +con and +15% sip together alone is huge, but Summoner also gets resists boost, scalemail, sizeable self-heals from an unleash and a heal from tarot.
1) ease of enlightenment in teams. Hand in hand with that, the near necessity to turn off rebounding, despite the presence of weapons classes
2) escape skills - a summoner who knows what he's doing can walk in and out of a room of Septus and 4 blockers, that is disruptor forked, at will.
3) holding skills/chasing down skills/ranged "holding" - demonic had the monopoly on piety/gravehands plus ansuz plus perma-prop totem until shaman went neutral. Now demonic and AM can do it. But demonic still has better holding as a whole, and a lot of that is thanks to summoner. It really depends on how strong you want crowd control in this game to be. But all of the circles should be on roughly equal footing there, however strong it is.
and as for number 3, summoner holding skills aren't great either. combine with others from other professions, sure, as it is with other circles. I'm not sure demonic has the best holding skills ever, but I do know that soulchain, which is what I guess you all are referring to, is no where near piety iirc. you can literally spam a direction against it, you don't lose balance, etc. its an easy thing to get out of, not to mention if the fight lasts long enough it can fall off. and the rubble thing I'm pretty sure exist in every circle. definitely magick, I'm not 100% sure about AM. but they get the mystical piety that works better than described(teehee, I kid, piety is fine, just annoying)
I don't want to make your class useless. I want to lower the buy in, in the form of other changes I constantly push for. You're upset with the wrong person if you think my goal is to make Summoner harder to get in to for low artifact players. Please understand that it is fairly well accepted at this point that Summoner has a little too much power in a few columns. I also concede that Shaman and Bard are in the same boat.
However, this is how basic class design works: you get certain strengths in exchange for certain weaknesses. Right now, the list of strengths that Summoner gets is much larger than any weaknesses they suffer. The class has a lot of useful tools, a lot of passive defensive bonuses, a very viable team insta, and great damage. In theory, your high defense should be weighed against your high offense in the form of opportunity cost. You give up some offense to be tankier, or some defense to be more powerful on the offense. My perception here is this: pactless unleash means that you can take all the defensive bonuses and still get access to the offensive spells, albeit at a slower unleash speed. It makes the skillset a list of non-choices for passive benefits at a low expense to your power, which is not OK. You get a wide breadth of options without having to 'give up' anything. I haven't thought on it enough and, because of that, haven't rushed to make a thread crowing about the virtues of your class. I firmly keep my mouth shut until I have a formulated opinion. I never want to make the wrong decision when it comes to the balance of a profession that more people than myself play. This is one of those cases where I don't know what to change yet and I am mostly wondering out loud what aspect is OK to take away. Make no mistakes, one aspect needs to take a hit. It is likely in Noctu, to be totally honest.
I think there's room to adjust Summoner class. It received a lot of love over the years due to perceived circle imbalance, a very hectic remake, and some interim reports. This was mostly by way of some admirably argued false equivalencies, in my opinion. This is, not surprisingly, also how Shaman ended up in the same state. Bard's power, as well, is born of misguided or straight up disingenuous classlead reports; the difference there is we tried to fix it and ended up breaking it in a different way.
Combat Council does not have a hidden agenda of making the game inaccessible. That would be like McDonalds getting together a council of vegans to redo their menu.
Piety and gravehands are the same. I still find this hard to believe, but they say it's true
I already said how I felt about the enlighten in teams. I don't really have anything to add for now, but well, acknowledged.
Basically, summoner doesn't seem to be an S-class 1 v. 1, but you're kind of an S-class in teams. The "core" is all there - tank, mana tank, and great damage. But in addition, you can simply escape ganks (or a fight gone south) better than almost anyone in the game. You can't gank particularly well individually, but you add additional, very useful holding abilities to an already very strong set of holding abilities. Your abilities there aren't redundant, but rather, stack. It's a little bit different in very small teams though, to be fair. Small teams (2-3 people) are sometimes the weird in-between of crowd control, and I don't really have anything better to say about that just now. But if you have a summoner, a deathknight, and shaman, for example, you have exactly one blocker, which is pretty dicey, especially for the initial engage. And we're seeing a lot of teams that size right now if we see fights at all.
EDIT: one easy improvement would be to make more holding abilities potentially redundant (can't stack in proper, large teams). Basically, look at the maximum number of "holds" that can be stacked, who they can hit, how strong they are, and how they interact with other holds, and break down the problem that way. Sort of how I think they unraveled some of the writhe stackings.
Soulchain does take balance. The unique message on madness means no call is necessary, and I'd say that team enlightenment is absolutely strong (fastest I've seen is 2v2 is 8s, 10-12 is more typical) but not too far from the 2v2 timings that are possible with things like Hunter+Shaman or Hunter+Assassin. Focus Cadmus is aggravating, but it's not as high on my nnnng list as fitness or messageless active cures. I'd probably put bard and summoner about equal in that regard since Bard gets an extra cure occasionally at the cost of reliability and timing choice. Holding a Summoner is about as hard as holding someone with Raido, which I guess is unfortunate since Demonic usually has Sukhder. If you can stop the ports though, they're stuck.
That's all beside the point of this thread titled Enslavery (read: SUMMONARGH) though. The only thing that makes damage summoner legitimately scary is when flash relapses start coming on top of a couple dupd flashes
If I did anything to the class, it would be to lower the flash threshold or reduce the relapse damage some (leaving it mostly untouched for enlighten routes). And doppies are cray. But just those things.
(Ring): Lartus says, "Then it exploded."
(Ring): Zsetsu says, "Everyone's playing checkers, but Theophilus is playing chess."