[Chaos]

As of late, Summoners (or Grand Summoners, more specifically) seem to be boiled down to the following formula:

1. Install for major boosts
2. Spam Evoke-Actives/Passives from other Youkai

Summoning almost rarely occurs here, instead turning the class into some kind of buff/toolbox class that practically never needs to have Youkai on the field. How can you really need to summon when you're sporting a Drowned Woman install, healing yourself for 40-50 a pop w/ 80-100 damage Parretas and the occasional 30 HP drain on anything within 3 tiles of you? (That's only scraping the bottom of the barrel, mind you)

It's quite limiting to the Summoner's playstyle, when your best bet is to couple up and abuse everything that isn't summoning a Youkai. (See: Not summoning when the class' name is literally 'Summoner') In order to adjust this, I propose this:

Sync-Mind is disabled while Installed; while the Installed Youkai's skills can be used (as per the description), no other Youkai skills are available at the time.

This would effectively split up Evoking and Installing, not only shutting down a lot of jacked-up shenanigans that resulted from having 25% Pierce/Slash/Blunt resistance and potent healing methods mixed together, but also puts Summoner into playstyles that don't result in 'one size beats all'; Do you want to forgo Install and summons for a large toolset? Take an install boost for yourself? Rely on your youkai? It would be much more likely to see Summoner used in different ways through this adjustment.

[Soapy]

Sure, let's ignore the weaknesses and completely remove the one thing that makes Summoner good at the moment, based on the whims of a guy that not only doesn't even play the game on a weekly basis, but adamantly refuses to change his opinion on something, even if such a thing would be to his own benefit after being unable to find a way to counter it after a full ten fights (see: Spirit Pain).

While we're at it, let's just completely ignore the better skills that other classes have, such as:

Stalemate/Negation
Blowback/Buster Cannon
Fleur
Rising Game double turn/Ether Invitation
Tekagen double turn/Absolute Fear
Double Parraeta/Slow-Ingrain
Medibot (Upgrade/Repair for mechs)
Sonic Shell/One Overcharge
Cutthroat/Deadly Arms
Nothing from LB
Overload/Slow-Sear
God Rod/Holy Spark
Kip-up
Body of Isesip
Rising/Axe Kick combo
Volley Formation/Enemy Evaluation
Wretched Oil/Spirit Pain/Fallcall/Fellel's Fumble/..
Fast Offense/Fight As One
Reaver/Cobra/Matador

Summoning multiple Youkai is bad because three or more will drop your FP faster than a statue in free fall (yes, even with 17+ regen per round), especially once people realize they can just walk in circles until you lose.

[Neus]

Let's keep our arguments based on the topic being discussed. Ad hominem has no purpose in this forum and just makes you look childish.

[Soapy]

Soapy » Wed Oct 07, 2015 12:20 am[/url]"]Sure, let's ignore the weaknesses and completely remove the one thing that makes Summoner good at the moment.

While we're at it, let's just completely ignore the better skills that other classes have, such as:

Stalemate/Negation
Blowback/Buster Cannon
Fleur
Rising Game double turn/Ether Invitation
Tekagen double turn/Absolute Fear
Double Parraeta/Slow-Ingrain
Medibot (Upgrade/Repair for mechs)
Sonic Shell/One Overcharge
Cutthroat/Deadly Arms
Nothing from LB
Overload/Slow-Sear
God Rod/Holy Spark
Kip-up
Body of Isesip
Rising/Axe Kick combo
Volley Formation/Enemy Evaluation
Wretched Oil/Spirit Pain/Fallcall/Fellel's Fumble/..
Fast Offense/Fight As One
Reaver/Cobra/Matador

Summoning multiple Youkai is bad because three or more will drop your FP faster than a statue in free fall (yes, even with 17+ regen per round), especially once people realize they can just walk in circles until you lose.

There, is my argument more relevant now?

[Neus]

Much better, thank you.

[Mivereous]

I think it would make sense, that if you are allowing more of one youkai into your soul/whatever then it would probably block out the others; heck, maybe removing Youkai LV from the damage formula when not Installed with that youkai would help, and finding some other formula for that, and use the current formula for when you are Installed.

Another idea is Friendship over 60% decreases FP cost 1 per 10%; this should help alleviate new player Summoner FP drain, and also later drain, assuming youkai and humanoid can get along. Also maybe an 'Astral Mirror' item (or maybe a new armor/accessory Enchantment?) to decrease summoning related FP cost / regen more FP than Witch's Hat / recover X% of FP lost in the last round.

[Chaos]

Soapy » Wed Oct 07, 2015 12:20 am[/url]"]Sure, let's ignore the weaknesses and completely remove the one thing that makes Summoner good at the moment, (Salt removed)

While we're at it, let's just completely ignore the better skills that other classes have, such as:

Stalemate/Negation
Blowback/Buster Cannon
Fleur
Rising Game double turn/Ether Invitation
Tekagen double turn/Absolute Fear
Double Parraeta/Slow-Ingrain
Medibot (Upgrade/Repair for mechs)
Sonic Shell/One Overcharge
Cutthroat/Deadly Arms
Nothing from LB
Overload/Slow-Sear
God Rod/Holy Spark
Kip-up
Body of Isesip
Rising/Axe Kick combo
Volley Formation/Enemy Evaluation
Wretched Oil/Spirit Pain/Fallcall/Fellel's Fumble/..
Fast Offense/Fight As One
Reaver/Cobra/Matador

Summoning multiple Youkai is bad because three or more will drop your FP faster than a statue in free fall (yes, even with 17+ regen per round), especially once people realize they can just walk in circles until you lose.

Install right now is literally a superbuff; You get new base stats (which are incredibly solid across the board), the Affinity bonus (+5 to all stats without any drawback), and a shiny new skill (which can range from decent to ridiculous). This is all for 10 FP and 3M, without any way to counteract the status effect-- and even if there was, you can just slap it back on, no problem. Drawbacks are also minimal, if not entirely non-existant. One Youkai you can't summon? You've got more where that came from (and that's not including Bonder's buffs for using a single Bonded Youkai). Stats can get overloaded? Not only is this a problem for practically everyone, but there is plenty of Lightning resistance (And an Evoke Passive that will literally throw you Lightning Resistance as you need it), and Invocations are much more easily broken nowadays. To top it all off, Sync-Mind (which is a requirement for Install) still gives you unrestricted access to all the dumb skills that your Youkai offer, which often inflict more secondary effects than Hexer could ever inflict.

This isn't 'good', this is 'broken'. Not even Death Knighting offers all of this. Sure, it gives a +10 stat boost, but it requires a truckload of FP and it's an invocation on top of it, and the only solid skill it offers is Hellspike. (Fallcall relies on an easily-countered status effect and setup is incredibly obvious, if not sluggish. The other skill relies on Hellspike anyways)

Moving on, this isn't 'ignoring better skills'; this is about making Sync-Mind unable to work while Install is being used, not the ungodly amount of solid skills that aren't related to this topic. Sure, Wretched Oil and Ether Invitation are dumb. But they aren't the focus of this topic. Why are you bringing them in when at least 90% of the skills you've listed have absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand?

Somewhat similarly, while Parreta and Youkai Summoning do have issues, they do not tie into what this topic deals with. Parreta will still be dumb regardless of whether or not you can use it while Installed with DW or Wawa. No matter where this idea goes, Youkai will still be absolutely terrible to summon while dungeon diving and cost plenty of FP per turn if you want to summon more than two level 60 killing machines. The kiting issue isn't even restricted to Youkai, and if a recent topic about Movement is any indication, this will dealt with before too long. But for the rest of it, deal with them on their own grounds.

....And no, Summoner will not suddenly be a complete failure if Install got nerfed like this. You'll still get your powerful evokes. Summoned youkai will still work for what they're worth. You just don't get a completely safe buff button anymore.

[Soapy]

Chaos » Wed Oct 07, 2015 10:55 am[/url]"]Drawbacks are also minimal, if not entirely non-existant.

You just don't get a completely safe buff button anymore.

Null Shell removes Install on a Charge.

Judgement Blade does ridiculous damage.

Holy does ridiculous damage, entirely passively.

Overload still gets at least 120 (over 200 with Daisangen) damage just from install.

Mythslayer and Spirit Hunter are both great weapons on their own that get increased damage.


These are just the offensive options.

The only classes that can't benefit from these are Hexer (which beats Summoner regardless), Priest and Lantern Bearer.


You can't expect to beat everything if you're prepared for nothing.

[Slydria]

This is all for 10 FP and 3M, without any way to counteract the status effect--

You are ignoring the fact that Null Shell and Soul Chains exist. And those are just what outright remove or prevent Installing, there are weapons and spells that punish Installing.

And even if there was, you can just slap it back on.

You can make this same argument about so many other things, "Fortune Wind gives me a huge boost to Evade and even if you could get rid of it, you can just use it again!"

Even then, you are overlooking the fact that this is actually a problem, the fact is that now you do have to set it back up, which takes more Momentum to do, Momentum you aren't using to do other things with.

Stats can get overloaded? Not only is this a problem for practically everyone, but there is plenty of Lightning resistance (And an Evoke Passive that will literally throw you Lightning Resistance as you need it)

Even though the Installer will be hit with at least an additional 130 damage (before resistances) from Overload just for Installing? Sounds like a good reason to not Install to me.

As for Elemental Resistances being an issue, that's really something better left for a different topic because it's a much broader issue that honestly doesn't have much bearing on Install.

To top it all off, Sync-Mind (which is a requirement for Install) still gives you unrestricted access to all the dumb skills that your Youkai offer, which often inflict more secondary effects than Hexer could ever inflict.

And this is the ability that makes Grand Summoner worth using because it sure isn't summoning. It's the Evoke Skills and Installing. But even so, I don't see why they should lose the benefits of Sync Mind when Installing.

Does a Hexer lose access to their Hexer Skills when they use Death Knighting?
Does a Mechanation Engineer lose access to their Engineer Skills when they use Upgrade?

Of course not. Nobody would want to use them if you did that. If you have an issue with the effectiveness of the Skills themselves, then you should address those instead of trying to make an unnecessary flaw that will result in another facet of the class being mostly ignored by Grand Summoners.

Then there's the other side of this. This is almost irrelevant to a Bonder since they only have a small pool of 1-3 Youkai in the first place.


[Insert off topic discussion about Death Knighting and how Chaos is downplaying it.]

This isn't 'good', this is 'broken'. Not even Death Knighting offers all of this. Sure, it gives a +10 stat boost, but it requires a truckload of FP and it's an invocation on top of it, and the only solid skill it offers is Hellspike." (Fallcall relies on an easily-countered status effect and setup is incredibly obvious, if not sluggish. The other skill relies on Hellspike anyways.)

Well, since you brought up Death Knighting, let's talk about it. Nobody uses Death Knighting just for Hellspike. The FP cost is not a big deal because you're only going to be using this once per fight, the fact that it's an invocation does not mean much at the start of the fight unless you happen to be put nice and close to each other.

Fear is not as easily countered as you are implying and Fear is very easy to inflict.

Here's the methods to dealing with Fear:

A: Be a Shaitan, Death Knighting is not a threat to you.
B: Use Recklessness. It removes and gives Immunity to Fear for 3 Rounds.
C: Use Steel Mind or Cleanse Body. It removes Fear. Of course, you'll be slapped with it again easily but at least it's something.
D: Equip a Red Cape. It'll give you Immunity to Fear but not before getting your ass kicked.

Out of these, A and B are the hard counters that will actually keep you safe from Fallcall. Which require you to either be Shaitan or a Gunner. So when you say Fear is an easily countered status, I disagree.

In summary, I don't like this idea and feel it only serves to further limit the playstyle options for Grand Summoner. I'd prefer some other kind of limitation.

For example; an idea such as Installing requiring a FP Upkeep. Say 5-10FP each Round after Installing.

And if you think this won't make a difference and that FP costs are irrelevant to a Grand Summoner, just because they have Absorb Ether, you are mistaken. Trained Youkai skills get expensive quickly. Nobody summons that many Youkai because they are expensive to maintain. FP is important to a GS.

[Ranylyn]

If you want to make the summoner less about installs and more about actually summoning, the only way to start is looking at why summoning is -literally- garbage right now, easily the worst thing in the game.

- Even if you get to level 60 before slapping Summoner on, it's a frustrating climb. While it's not too hard to get to 40 if the youkai co-operate, the friendship system has made them disobedient little shits. You absolutely have to summon right before you land the final blow, or else they'll unsummon themselves with infuriating consistency, or perform a braindead suicide run if you try to summon more than one if solo. (I'm not joking, I've had youkai at about the 50% mark unsummon themselves or refuse to install.) Also, the FP cost scaling, holy hell.

- It's infinitely worse if you have the gall to LEVEL as a summoner. "The Contract" is required. Levelling a Youkai without their affinity skill will make them absolutely terrible. You can't actualy keep up with Youkai FP costs without Cracked Mirror. If Summoner is your main class, you basically can't summon much before level 8 (Contract, 5 Affinity, 3 Cracked Mirror, only ummoning once the enemy is close) without running out of FP almost instantly, by which point your Youkai is still level 1. And if Summoner ISN'T your main class, it takes even longer. And the issue is further compounded by every noncombat experience gain being applied only to the character, leaving your Youkai further behind and unable to be helpful. Also, they will not become bonded until after level 30, so prepare for a lot of self-unsummoning.

- Even at level 60, Youkai aren't anything too special. I had a Lich drop 12 level 60 Youkai on me. I eliminated the last of them by the time the Lich's FP was running low. The Lich had over 700 FP, spending 17x12 FP per turn, and still couldn't eliminate one person in several turns with 12 youkai. The lich apparently was quite butthurt after that, and with good reason, considering how much grinding that took, to get 12 level 60 Youkai!


Installing is literally the only thing keeping summoners viable. If any change to weaken Install is made, Summoner would be the worst class in the game if forced to rely on summons.


My proposed changes:

- Reduce cost scaling. Grand Summoner could get a multiplicative rate that increases per summon (Ex: 5/10/15/20/25/30 = 40 FP per turn with 4 out, 95 per turn with 6 out, as opposed to the 17 each they get now, for 51 per turn just for 3, or 102 for 6) while Bonder, with an emphasis on fewer Youkai and boosts like Synchro Summon and Fight As One, and also lacking Absorb Ether, could pay a flat 10 FP per youkai per turn.

- Tweak Friendship. Maybe only make them disobey if it drops below the starting point? I mean, do youkai even understand what a "contract" is? Do they not have any form of judicial system or consequences for breaking the terms of a contract? They disopey far too much until bonded, which makes them a downright liability (and this applies to installs, too!)

- Then, and only then, after the above two are addressed, then and only then can we discuss nerfing installs.