I am not a total newbie on summoners as I party a lot with the PS from our clan, as well as the WL (Although less then I would want to), but my experience towards ES is pretty much non-existant.
Now, as a summoner does appeal me to choose as subclass I'd like to have a bit more in depth info about them, and I'm sure some of you are more then capable of giving me an explanation about them.
So how good do they manor? PvP 1 on 1 or mass gank/siege? How expensive are those crystals in the long run? What kind of armour you use and why (seen a lot in NM Light and I actually wonder why)? Do you mainly engage in combat PvE or are you just assisting your summon? How well can you solo? Are there specific mobs that you look for that your summon has an advantage upon? What's your biggest fear in PvP and what is not? Etc...
I appreciate any breakdown info about WL-PS-ES can give me, if those questions seem a bit too much :)
Are there specific mobs that you look for that your summon has an advantage upon?
I'm not a "true" summoner (just a Warsmith), but I can see a lot of them grinding on the hand-to-hand weapon weak golems in the Pavel Ruins and Archaic Laboratory. It looks like the summon's damage is classified as "hand-to-hand", and if so, look for those mobs (unless you have a primarily nuking summon, of course).
Can't answer you questoin about the manor system, but I don't think it should be any problem. If anything we may be better able for it since we solo very well. Summoners are probably one of the best, if not the best, at soloing. We wear Light Armor for the benefits we get from it with our LA masteries. NM LA isn't a bad choice as we do bang on the mobs along with our servitors and the vr in NM LA helps if we're taking AOE damage. A lot of us wear BW LA though as we get pretty much the best benefits stat wise from it, some of us continue to wear it at A-grade and beyond. I wear DC robes actually and they work out well for me, but I still have my BW LA in the warehouse ready for me when I need it.
PvP? Solo against anyone around our level, we are a force to contend with and have an excellent chance to win against a lot of classes. I PVP'd with a WC a few days ago, he was 3 levels above me and quite well armed. I owned him!
Mass PVP? We suck! or we're pretty bad at it anyway. The problem is, well you asked what we fear, 2 skills! Erase and Betray.
Erase> poof! your servitor is gone and you are going to die before you can re-summon him.
Betray> You better get the beast shots turned off quick and hit your healing pots, cause your servitor is about to beat the living crap out of you! at least until the spell wears off, and providing that you are still alive when it does.
Fear can be a problem as well, and there is some skill that the OL has that will make your servitor run off and do something somewhere else for a while.
The crystals? Not really as bad as you would think. You learn to look for good deals on low end C and D weapons/armor/jewels. People get drops on low end stuff that no one really wants and they sell it. Many times you can even find items at or below standard crystal cost. Then you get a artisan friend to crush the stuff for you. Because we can solo well, you can grind for a while when you need to make some extra adena. Don't use shots and go up against green/light blue mobs, not much xp but they still drop full adena and they won't hurt you much. Remember, as a true summoner you have the ability to heal and buff your servitor. The heals are Bishop level in strength.
Endgame PVP is not bad at all, the main advantage being that you have a limitless supply of tough, dangerous, and very expendible minions. In 1V1 summoner can excell at killing all sorts of fighters in mass PVP you'll rarely be 1 on 1 and despite TP and light armor you have barely any more HP than a nuker so 9 arrow in your chest drops you pretty much instantly. The main problem with most summoners in PVP is that they try and behave the same as they would in 1v1 and 1V9 doesn't work out so hot. A good melee group is your best guess unless you're an ES. Main focus in a siege is killing healers. Sure they have erase but if you're in a group you should be able to take down several before you're erased and honestly it doesn't work that often. Betray doesn't work that well on our servitors which is nice.
Biggest fear in PVP is nukers as a PS. Not because they have anything spetacular to fight me with (other than fear) but because as a PS i don't have anything to counter their abilities. PS is very melee centric and so against mages literally all i can do is hit them and hope they die.
lol, I like that! it's true though, I do have a slight advantage over the PS as a WLC. My binding cubic does seem to have a habit of going off on one hit in PVP and if it lands, their dead. I don't think there is any class that I can't kill in 30 seconds if they can't hit me back or use pots, at least if they're anywhere close to my level. If it's a nuker I can also use Arcane disruption to kill their casting speed, so I actually stand a fair chance against a nuker as well, though I could be fooling myself. Kai and Mew both hit pretty hard and nukers don't have a lot of cp/hp, to top it off I can hit fairly hard with my +7 Dama/focus so......
ES is the Light Elf, If I am not mistaken it is generally more of a magic using summoner. The Walrock is human and can do either Magic or Melee well(and the binding cubic is exteremly nice). PS is more of a melee summoner.
i am rolling a PS from scratch, need info on what summons are good for what. i understand that generally the 90% exp summon is a PVP summon but how does it go from there?
No offense to anyone but i abhor L2pets. Gecklar however made a good breakdown.
See, each summoner is basically diferentiated only by a single different buff, some of the servitors, and cubics. There are more differences at higher levels but i'll talk about those later
PS unique buff is might, in addition our main solo pet has vamp rage as a passive rather than any active abilities this means we're generally wading into combat with out pet. Since we cast slower and have worse mp regen than other summoners this is actually very effective since it means we don't have to heal out pet as much and we can use CLD extensively. We get windshackle as a debuffs which is devestating when used on any fighter. Additionally we get a phantom cubic which casts a variety of physical debuffs. Spark cubic is fantastic against anyone but the landrate doesn't allow you to depend on it in PVP though in PVE it is excellent. At higher levels we DO get mage bane. But that's higher level than most people concentrate on but it does mean that a PS of sufficiently high level can cripple a mage.
Warlocks have the unique buff of wind walk. I always thought this was lame but in unbuffed pvp (where summoners excell) this means your cats are far faster than anyone else on the field. Warlocks do not get windshackle but they get a magical equivalent which i'm not familiar with enough to comment on. They have a lot more HP than a PS or ES which is nice and the para cubic lands fairly well. When it lands though it is devestating. Warlocks also have access to both mage and warrior bane giving them a good rounded set of abilities.
ES has the unique buff of empower, it's no surprise that they are very dangerouos in unbuffed PVP and even in regular PVP. Though all summoners can melee very well ES is the only one that has the option of nuking to level (via pet of course) because they have the most important buff for mages and servitor recharge is very effective. I honestly have never been impressed with their cubics but both help. They have windshackle which is as i said fantastic against fighters and at higher levels they get warrior bane. I have had this used against my servitor in PVP and it was like a slap to the face. At higher levels they also get Prophecy of water which is another fantastic mage buff.
Queen of cat has two party buffs, one is like song of hunter and dance of fire, second is like dance of warrior and inspiration (that is, one adds crit chance and power, other patk and accuracy).
ES get Unicorn seraphim. It has 2 party buffs. One shortens magic reuse timer (means you can shoot spells back to back with bsps, instead of having to wait), the other increases mp regen.
Phantom Summoner I think get a party summon that can heal and do some debuff. Not entirely sure tho.
ES get Unicorn seraphim. It has 2 party buffs. One shortens magic reuse timer (means you can shoot spells back to back with bsps, instead of having to wait), the other increases mp regen.
And there is the cure! Even though it starts with 40% up to effect 3 it's still nice..
Cures stun, root, para, silence and sleep... ^_^
Queen of cat has two party buffs, one is like song of hunter and dance of fire, second is like dance of warrior and inspiration (that is, one adds crit chance and power, other patk and accuracy).
ES get Unicorn seraphim. It has 2 party buffs. One shortens magic reuse timer (means you can shoot spells back to back with bsps, instead of having to wait), the other increases mp regen.
Phantom Summoner I think get a party summon that can heal and do some debuff. Not entirely sure tho.
Party summons use c-crys and only steal 5% xp :)
if my understanding is correct, the Nightshade summon can act as a healer and has quite powerful heals except that it sacrifices its own HP to heal. so the summon heals your party member, while the summoner heals the summon .... >.<
Spudnik you're understanding is correct. PS got the big shaft when they handed out partybuffs to summoners.
From what I can see our PS does great jobs in party's, but does that mean that when played in party most of the time, the PS might be not the best choice after all?
Not talking about ideal archer party's here, just clannies getting together and going for it.
Indeed, that's pretty good even. Ok, I can't think of any other questions anymore, the choice hasn't been made easier, but at the least I know more then before :)
PS 4th summon is the strongest 1 target healer in game, yes even stronger then a bishop. The weakness of it is that it can't heal groups, just one target at a time, but it can heal insane fast.
In a buffed group i can drain nightshade's hp in a matter of seconds. If i bring along casting gear i can refill it in the same time as well. Aslo makes us the only healer with B2M. A WC or an OL in group really works well with nightshade because you can take care of the main tanking person and the HoT skills take care of everyone else.
take a PS+bishop+WC+EE+Tank+DD/SE+DD+DD and youve got an UNSTOPPABLE pvp and pve group.
the PS is the key. with nightshade, the tank can do his job and the DD's have an alternate 2 healers (bish and WC), with Soulless you have a solid aoe group if the 3 DD and tank are polers. with shadow, no fear. with silhouette, YOU ALL IS TEH DAED BISHES! LOLBBQCOPTER!