Vulkoors Avatar Duration Too Short.

[AestorTheKnight]

Pets in an MMO are an undoubtedly great idea. Not for everyone, but some people really like the idea of having a Familar or an NPC companion specific to their character.

As far as I know there are Two enhancment lines that allow a character to Summon a Pet to aid them.
These are:

Vulkoors Avatar - available to Cleric, Paladin, and Favoured Soul, level 6.
and
Iron Companion, Steel Companion, Mithril Companion and Adamantine Companion.

Anyways, both the Vulkoors Avatar and the Iron Companion summon ability has a fixed duration of 5 minutes.
That mean you summon the monster and it automatically dies after 5 minutes, regardless of wether it has been damaged or not.

Not only are both these summoned creatures pretty weak, relative to the mobs in the game. But they only last 5 minutes, which makes taking these enhancments a waste of Action Points, apart from the "cool factor" of having a Pet.

Considering the fact that the Aspect of Earth Tier 2 Shroud clicky, summoned Dense Stone Earth Elemental lasts considerably longer than 5 minutes, and is available to anyone willing to grind The Shroud a few times, wouldnt it be fair to make the duration of both Vulkoors Avatar and Iron Defender permenant?

Please Turbine make the duration of the summoned Drow Scorrow and Iron Companion permenant. That is after they are summoned they remain with you until they die. That would be a way to genuinely balance these enhancment lines and make them worthwhile.

So thats my suggestion.

[Uska]

Sure why not its not like they are uber pets might as well make the investment in them worth at least a little something.

[Perspicacity]

Sure why not its not like they are uber pets might as well make the investment in them worth at least a little something.

Agreed, but making them permanent instead of temporary only makes them permanently lame in stead of temporarily lame. I say give them a little juice you know, make them not useless past level 12 and have the duration scale with character level like any other summon, O and to the devs. spamming grease is just a bad strategy. Lets do something about the defender line's AI. How about just 1 grease followed by like 30 seconds of some kind of useful behavior like, I don't know, how about attacking the enemy? I know it sounds weird but I swear it works, I've seen it.

As for familiars or pets, they would be a great idea accept that it would lag the server. Think about it. 12 character in a rade + 12 familiars + say 3-4 summons (Not uncommon) and you have 27-28 friendly's in your party which causes lag and, now follow me here, lag = bad. If they do introduce familiars it should be for Wizards only and it should give them something like a bonus to spell points or a bonus to a skill check. nothing more. The serves can handle 1-2 familiars in a party, creating pets doubles the number of "players" on the server, you think zerging causes lag? Imagin the lag from instantly doubling the population of the game. There is a reason that you can only have one summon at a time. I could b e wrong and if they test the server capasity and find it can handel pets, sweet lets get on it but if not I'd rather not get pets than get pets followed by constant disconnect messages.

Case and point I use to play D2 and there was a build called a lag-frag summon necro. You summoned so many skeletons that the other players lagged so bad they couldn't do anything accept stand there and get wailed on till they died. that was with only 8 players and one necromancer's summoning power. I've been in instances with 3+ summon necros in it and they crashed the instance. You really want the server to drop while your running veil? I don't.

[Uska]

Agreed, but making them permanent instead of temporary only makes them permanently lame in stead of temporarily lame. I say give them a little juice you know, make them not useless past level 12 and have the duration scale with character level like any other summon, O and to the devs. spamming grease is just a bad strategy. Lets do something about the defender line's AI. How about just 1 grease followed by like 30 seconds of some kind of useful behavior like, I don't know, how about attacking the enemy? I know it sounds weird but I swear it works, I've seen it.

As for familiars or pets, they would be a great idea accept that it would lag the server. Think about it. 12 character in a rade + 12 familiars + say 3-4 summons (Not uncommon) and you have 27-28 friendly's in your party which causes lag and, now follow me here, lag = bad. If they do introduce familiars it should be for Wizards only and it should give them something like a bonus to spell points or a bonus to a skill check. nothing more. The serves can handle 1-2 familiars in a party, creating pets doubles the number of "players" on the server, you think zerging causes lag? Imagin the lag from instantly doubling the population of the game. There is a reason that you can only have one summon at a time. I could b e wrong and if they test the server capasity and find it can handel pets, sweet lets get on it but if not I'd rather not get pets than get pets followed by constant disconnect messages.

Case and point I use to play D2 and there was a build called a lag-frag summon necro. You summoned so many skeletons that the other players lagged so bad they couldn't do anything accept stand there and get wailed on till they died. that was with only 8 players and one necromancer's summoning power. I've been in instances with 3+ summon necros in it and they crashed the instance. You really want the server to drop while your running veil? I don't.

Not all people have pets or can summon and not all who can do I dont with my wiz and I hate charming almost as much as I do hirelings but I see your point. but it wouldnt double the pop of the game as some think like I do even if they upped the duraation most of these pets are so dumb and ineffectual why bother with them.

[Trillea]

Not all people have pets or can summon and not all who can do I dont with my wiz and I hate charming almost as much as I do hirelings but I see your point. but it wouldnt double the pop of the game as some think like I do even if they upped the duraation most of these pets are so dumb and ineffectual why bother with them.

Because just removing the timers would be an easy change that would make people happy. As said before, these pets are far from gamebreaking, having them just disappear is pretty lame.

[Catholicon]

There is a reason that you can only have one summon at a time.

The reason being you're not a Sorcerer, who can have 2 summons active at the same time.

[Kaervas]

Update 3 preview notes from Lama:

Summoned Monster changes

* Summon Monster spells no longer have exceptionally long cooldown timers.
* Summoned creatures now persist for 10 minutes and will teleport to their master if they are not currently in combat and their master is distant from them.
* Summoning a second creature will banish your first creature back to its home plane.

I don't know how this works with regard to metal dog and Vulkoor scorpion summons.

[Perspicacity]

The reason being you're not a Sorcerer, who can have 2 summons active at the same time.

I guess I must have missed that part, please explain to us how a sorc gets 2 summons... this should be interesting.

[Kaervas]

I guess I must have missed that part, please explain to us how a sorc gets 2 summons... this should be good.

Halved cooldowns, but the summon still lasts the same.

So a hezrou with a 5min cooldown for a wiz/sorc/fvs would be ready to resummon in 2min30sec for a sorcerer.
Therefore you can keep 2 summons 'rolling' over one another, when you cast the 2nd, the first one is still at half duration, and on and on and on.

With the new system in update 3, sorcs will lose this benefit.

[Perspicacity]

Halved cooldowns, but the summon still lasts the same.

So a hezrou with a 5min cooldown for a wiz/sorc/fvs would be ready to resummon in 2min30sec for a sorcerer.
Therefore you can keep 2 summons 'rolling' over one another, when you cast the 2nd, the first one is still at half duration, and on and on and on.

With the new system in update 3, sorcs will lose this benefit.

When you summon a new monster the previous one disappears even if the duration for the first summon has not finished. It is not possible to have 2 summons.

[Kaervas]

When you summon a new monster the previous one disappears even if the duration for the first summon has not finished. It is not possible to have 2 summons.

Nope.
I just went to confirm it on my sorcerer and it still works fine.
Cast Summon Monster, wait until it's cooled down (the current summon is now at half duration) and cast it again - you have 2 summons out.


The way you are saying will be the case in update 3, but not now.

[Perspicacity]

Nope.
I just went to confirm it on my sorcerer and it still works fine.
Cast Summon Monster, wait until it's cooled down (the current summon is now at half duration) and cast it again - you have 2 summons out.


The way you are saying will be the case in update 3, but not now.

Well in any case my point is still valid, they are making it so you can only have one summon out regardless of class. Why? Lag, which is why we will never be allowed to have pets... that and the fact that this is DDO, not WoW. That's all I'm saying.

[Kaervas]

Well in any case my point is still valid, they are making it so you can only have one summon out regardless of class. Why? Lag, which is why we will never be allowed to have pets... that and the fact that this is DDO, not WoW. That's all I'm saying.

While you may be correct about excessive lag from tons of pets out at once, the points I am contesting are not valid as they are currently wrong. In particular these two points:

I guess I must have missed that part, please explain to us how a sorc gets 2 summons... this should be interesting.

When you summon a new monster the previous one disappears even if the duration for the first summon has not finished. It is not possible to have 2 summons.

What will happen on Lamannia will happen eventually on live (assuming nothing causes a reversion), but it doesn't change that you stated something to be impossible when it was not. Currently on live servers a sorcerer can get 2 summon monster spells active at one time - that is a fact.


Edit:
I just want to clear something up - I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm just clarifying one point is all.
As you can see the first time I quoted you in this thread was only regarding the 2x summons for sorcerer.
I'm in agreement with the rest of the points you made in the 3rd post of this thread.

[Perspicacity]

While you may be correct about excessive lag from tons of pets out at once, the points I am contesting are not valid as they are currently wrong. In particular these two points:


What will happen on Lamannia will happen eventually on live (assuming nothing causes a reversion), but it doesn't change that you stated something to be impossible when it was not. Currently on live servers a sorcerer can get 2 summon monster spells active at one time - that is a fact.


Edit:
I just want to clear something up - I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm just clarifying one point is all.
As you can see the first time I quoted you in this thread was only regarding the 2x summons for sorcerer.
I'm in agreement with the rest of the points you made in the 3rd post of this thread.

Yes but weather or not 2 summons is or is not possible is not my over all point, it was a minor oversight about which I could care less. I gladly concede the point as it dose not matter and has little if anything to do with the topic of this thread or the point I was trying to make. It does so bother me when people go of topic just so that can be right about something.

And to be clear my point was not "you only get one summon" my point was that you DON'T get five or ten." Perhaps the wording left something to be desired but weather you get one or two you still have a limit, that was my point and that is still valid because it evidences the developers belief that the server can't handle more summons and, logically dictates, pets which was my overall point.

You made it a point to "clear up" a trivial detail that had no bearing on the case I was making opposing pets and given time I will eventually be right anyway. There was no need to say anything, I don't even know why you bothered.

[Catholicon]

I guess I must have missed that part, please explain to us how a sorc gets 2 summons... this should be interesting.

Yes, it was interesting wasn't it?

[Perspicacity]

Yes, it was interesting wasn't it?

Meh, it was kind of mundane actually. Would have been nicer if there where some special effects in it. Call George Lucas.

[Duskslayer]

Will Pale Master be able to have a skeleton and summoned pet or mithril companion out? Or are they also restricted to just the skeleton (which would mean the wiz summon pet spells are wasted if skelly is out?)?