Warlocks!

[011775715]

Some more gritty details about Warlocks!

Feat Progression

Level	Feat	Eldritch Blast	Fey	Fiend	Great Old One
1	Eldritch Blast Pact Choice	1d6 Force	Pact Spell	PactSpell	Pact Spell
2	Deceive Item (UMD+5)	1d4 Pact bonus damage	Sonic Damage on EB	Fire damage on EB	Acid damage on EB
3		2d6 base damage
4		+1d4 Pact	Beguiling Defenses (+1 Reflex Saves)	Fiendish Resilience (+1 Fort Saves)	Thought Shield (+1 Will Saves)
5		3d6 base damage	Pact Spell	Pact Spell	Pact Spell
6		+1d4 Pact	Dark Delirium (Daze monster, % chance damage breaks)	Dark One's Luck (+2 to each Saving Throw)	Entropic Ward (+5 MRR, 25 Fortification)
7		4d6 base damage
8		+1d4 Pact	Beguiling Defenses	Fiendish Resilience	Thought Shield
9		5d6	Pact Spell	Pact Spell	Pact Spell
10		+1d4 Pact	Energy Resist (5)	Energy Resist (5)	Energy Resist (5)
11		6d6 base damage
12	Paragon's Aegis (+5 MRR)	+1d4 Pact	Beguiling Defenses	Fiendish Resilience	Thought Shield
13	Deceive Item (UMD+5)
14	Paragon's Aegis	7d6 base damage +1d4 Pact	Pact Spell	Pact Spell	Pact Spell
15			Misty Escape (Ethereal Abundant-Step)	Hurl Through Hell (Single Target EiN)	Create Thrall (Charm Monster variant)
16	Paragon's Aegis	+1d4 Pact	Beguiling Defenses	Fiendish Resilience	Thought Shield
17		8d6 base damage	Pact Spell	Pact Spell	Pact Spell
18	Paragon's Aegis	+1d4 Pact
19			Pact Spell	Pact Spell	Pact Spell
20	Paragon's Aegis	9d6 base damage +1d4 Pact	Beguiling Defenses	Fiendish Resilience	Thought Shield

how many feat that warlock can choose for anything do warlock get?

[Drathsiddh]

In PnP, warlocks are pretty much masters of UMD along with bards. They're supposed to use magical items without any sort of effort. Maxing UMD is extremely easy with a charisma-based class that gets +10 UMD just by having class levels. Why spend a ton of points in UMD, rather than just a few, when you know you're going to get a ton of UMD just by simply being a warlock? Even on a bard, maxing out every point you can put into UMD is often a waste of skill points.

Spellcraft is obvious, yes, I agree with you on that.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that warlocks have no spell points. I can reach 3000+ easily on a spellsinger with a little effort. Optimizing gear, feats, and enhancements, you should be able to easily reach 2.5-3k spell points on a warlock. Warlocks also only use spell points for crowd control and debuffing, not direct damage like a sorcerer or wizard would, so they're not constantly spamming nuke spells.

Eldritch blast using SP? No way, in no shape or form will that ever happen. Period. Eldritch blast is the most iconic ability a warlock has and it's always been free to use and able to be used whenever they want. Tampering with that mechanic is just asking for trouble. It's bad enough warlocks have an SP pool to begin with; don't play in the giant pit of lava when you get burned by a tiny match. I, for one, don't think quicken should work on eldritch blast, anyway, and in any event, this all needs testing on lammania, first.

Perform would be a no-brainer if you're a fey-pact warlock. Keep in mind that fey pact, currently, is the only pact that can multiclass with paladins, so it's a balancing act; a paladin/warlock hybrid is a very strong combination.

I never said Warlocks don't have SP. I simply said they don't have a lot of SP. Bards can get that much SP because they have access to Magical Training (SS enhancements, which also grants +100 SP). 'Locks on the other hand get only +90 SP through the Tainted Scholar line.

Yeah I guess the UMD part makes sense. 39 is all thats required for heal, so you don't need to max.

With you on the Quicken part.

[Drathsiddh]

By the way, has the price of the class been finalized?

[HastyPudding]

By the way, has the price of the class been finalized?

My guess is it will be the same price as the druid; 1495 points.

[Gondandur]

I would like to suggest a brand new idea about how warlock skills could work

What about if they work on will dice roll?

In your idea warlock can cast spell without movement reduction as a melee character swings his/her weapon. At the moment a melee charcater hits the target if he roll a d20 (higher than 1) the same way i think warlock should cast/use skills by rolling a dice on will.


This way would cut off the issue about spell points and would make warlock closer to the PnP and doesn't influence ED because we are plenty of classes which cast spells using just the sp given by ED cores and enhancements.

An other idea i'd like to see ( but too much work i fear) are warlock evocations working in the same way friends of nature works (from primal avatar ED first tier), for exemple a tainted scholar could evocate an Abishai (or an other fiend/demon) to enhance magic resistances / specific damage etc.

[BMurph]

I'm not sure if I missed it or not, but for EB, do enhancements/items that boost caster lvl boost the dmg of EB in that if it gets you to the next EB dmg lvl, would you then get that extra 1d6 dmg or even the 1d4 pact dmg as well? Just want some clarification on this as this may open up some more interesting builds if that's the case.

[Vargouille]

I don't see why warlocks should be limited to 6th level spells. I think they should get 9th level spells.

This is an abstraction of tabletops limited invocations in some editions.

Any chance warlocks can get a pet in one of their enhancement trees (like how the pale master gets a skeleton)? Having the option to get a fey/fiend/aberration pet would be awesome.

This isn't very likely; making even one line like Palemaster was fairly time intensive.

I agree with you fully! It's just if the developers are super dead set on including SP, which I personally think they shouldn't, that they should allow Warlocks to infinitely cast spells with limits.

We've looked at and examined many, many options. We've had serious discussions about making across the board changes where all Warlock spells very cheap or free but having x5 or x10 cooldowns (anything less seems not meaningful). This would make buffing very annoying, and it would be pretty hard to differentiate those spells from others, etc. We talked about using ability counters (like Action Boosts), one way of not having spell lists at all, etc.

Here's another thing in the class that doesn't add up. It's been mentioned before but I doubt any serious thought has gone into it. Warlocks get Bluff, Conc, Intim, Jump, Spellcraft (any abbreviations for that?) and UMD. So what skills is a Warlock gonna be looking at?

I'm not sure what the issue was in this thread, or how this is a different problem for Warlocks vs. other classes.

We certainly hope you don't have enough skill points to get everything you want.

Energy Resist (5): Will this stack with the spell? If not make it 2/level and specific to 2 energies or drop it.

Warlock Energy Resistance is expected to stack with everything.

how many feat that warlock can choose for anything do warlock get?

Warlocks get regular feats every 3 levels like all classes (with an extra for Humans as usual).

[HatsuharuZ]

This isn't very likely; making even one line like Palemaster was fairly time intensive.

If you were to add a copy of the PM skeleton enhancement (just the skele summon itself, not the rest of the line) to the Warlock spell list, along with "Lesser Death Aura" and "Death Aura", I'm sure that some players would use these.

We've looked at and examined many, many options. We've had serious discussions about making across the board changes where all Warlock spells very cheap or free but having x5 or x10 cooldowns (anything less seems not meaningful). This would make buffing very annoying, and it would be pretty hard to differentiate those spells from others, etc. We talked about using ability counters (like Action Boosts), one way of not having spell lists at all, etc.

No matter what action you all decide to take at Turbine, anything is better than simply leaving Warlocks with a only a subset of the arcane spell list. With many of the same spells, Warlocks will compare poorly in comparison to Sorcerers and Wizards in most respects. With new spells, or modified version of these spells (Like not needing spell pen, or not needing DCs, or better scaling) the Warlock will be able to stand on it's own merits.

Crazy idea: Let some penalties/benefits from their spells scale with spellcraft.

[Angelic-council]

I agree with you fully! It's just if the developers are super dead set on including SP, which I personally think they shouldn't, that they should allow Warlocks to infinitely cast spells with limits.

If they were able to, I, along with many others, would like to see many of the warlock's SLA put into play....but i'm not sure if spiderwalk is in game, and the dismembered hand could be hard to convert to ddo.

So I understand that they want to make a class like the warlock have spells instead of the SLA that are to hard to code into game, but if they could instead make the SP regen -OR- have the spells have cooldowns of 5 ~ 10 secs per lv of spell, then have enhancements that lowered spell cooldowns by 1/2/3 secs. Basically, make the limited spells they get BECOME the SLAs.

I said this before warlocks were even introduced like this, that, they should have the SP. Once you add spell pool into the class, it opens up many possibilities and make it easier to multi class. Good for the balance as well.

So, I don't think they are dead there. But, it's true that they are time intensive. Many things were copied because they have limited time.. now, I don't know how long developers work everyday or how many members working on a single project. But, I'm highly disappointed that many things are just copied... especially when it comes to a new class. I was hoping to see new spells etc. but..

[Failedlegend]

Hey Devs currently Warlocks can use the following shapes Ray (Base), Cone, Chain & Aura with the aura allowing for Melee weapons but there's no real support for ranged weapons any chance we can see another Shape for Ranged weapons or have the Aura proc on whoever your hitting with said ranged weapon (because if the aura procs on you it's not hitting anybody) or increase the aura size to PBS range (and/or allow PBS ranged increases to increase the Aura Size)

We've looked at and examined many, many options. We've had serious discussions about making across the board changes where all Warlock spells very cheap or free but having x5 or x10 cooldowns (anything less seems not meaningful). This would make buffing very annoying, and it would be pretty hard to differentiate those spells from others, etc. We talked about using ability counters (like Action Boosts), one way of not having spell lists at all, etc.

I don't get everyone's issue with SP to be honest, Sorcs & Wizards using spellpoints is a variation rule anyways...that said I quite like the "Improved Echoes of Power" idea people have been throwing around, it would help reflect Locks "Unlimited Spellcasting", what do you think?

[Madja]

We've looked at and examined many, many options. We've had serious discussions about making across the board changes where all Warlock spells very cheap or free but having x5 or x10 cooldowns (anything less seems not meaningful). This would make buffing very annoying, and it would be pretty hard to differentiate those spells from others, etc. We talked about using ability counters (like Action Boosts), one way of not having spell lists at all, etc.

Personally I don't see the problem with SP for warlocks. It's probably because I've never played PnP, so I'm not used to it being another way.
I'm not sure if the problem is the actual presence of a blue bar or if it's the fact that they are a limited resource, but it sounds to me like warlocks aren't even supposed to have spells like this so having SP seems like a good compromise to me.

I'm sure you've already considered this (and it's probably too late to change anything), but if a different mechanic was needed then how about something similar to the barbarian weapon bond?
An auto-granted feat that might regenate 1 per second up to a maximum that scales with the amount of warlock levels you have.
Because weapon bonds are kept through loading screens this mean you'd be able to fully buff up at the start of a quest.
Even though it seems that most of the spells are buffs (which you don't really need to cas that frequently) it would also prevent spamming spells as you'd quickly run out of this resource. There's a few insta-death spells which would be highly unbalanced if you were able to infinitely spam.
An advantage of this is that you'd also be able to use meta-magics without the added cost - similar to SLAs.

There'd still be the problem of having to reconstruct the spells to use this resource, but I think that problem would always be present with any regenerating resource used. You don't want people to multi-class a few warlock levels in order to get unlimited spell points.


If the problem isn't with the blue bar itself then I think that an echoes of power that scales with warlock levels is a fine idea.

Another suggestion might be to regenerate 1/2-1/4 warlock level of SP for every kill (lower chance on low CR mobs). Possibly with a debuff on hit similar to "No Remorse" in Divine Crusader in order to prevent the problem that plagued the previous Blitz.
This doesn't seem like it would be overpowered for multi-classing as you'd need to deep multi-class in order to get any useful spells from other cæasses. This which would in turn reduce the amount of SP received.
It also wouldn't be any good for boss monsters, which warlocks have no real useful spells for anyways.
Even at like 3-6 SP per kill it doesn't seem like it will amount to much for multi-classed casters. A lot of quests only have around 100 mobs and 300-600 SP doesn't feel like a huge amount in epic levels (keep in mind it would require heavy multi-classing in order to get even that much)

[Failedlegend]

Any chance warlocks can get a pet in one of their enhancement trees (like how the pale master gets a skeleton)? Having the option to get a fey/fiend/aberration pet would be awesome.

This isn't very likely; making even one line like Palemaster was fairly time intensive.

Which is a shame because very few people ever use the skele pet ESPECIALLY into epic, that said if there isn't going to be a dedicated pet the summon boosting enhancements are nigh useless, if you you want to boost the summons...boost the summons don't waste 3 tiers of enhancement slots on it in a class that doesn't have a strong summon to start with (Re-use the coding in the Druid & Arty Pet trees when you get around to updating them to the new style)

To clarify the only summons worth anything are the Druid & Arty pets and even they need to scale with character level, so epic levels can count and so a little splash won't kill their progression (their AP is Class based still) so unless you make a summoner class or a "Summoner" prestige tree that is Class neutral like Harper. Adding summon based enhancements to anything other than the Pet tree's is just a waste. (I don't even get why their is pet boosters in Druid and Arty trees when those could have gone in the pet trees themselves)

[btolson]

An idea for versatility in warlock spell casting:

-Make -all- the spells in their list available to them after a rest (e.g. all 21 level 1 spells, all 13 level 2 spells, etc), while retaining the limit on unique spells cast per level per day (e.g., 2 across the board at cap)
-When a warlock casts a spell, he gains a hidden buff to track which spell was cast. For instance, after casting "blur" he would gain the affect, "Level-2-warlock-spell-limit" with the value, "Blur" (or whatever unique identifier is used to refer to the "Blur" spell)
-After the hidden buff is applied, you check to see if the warlock has reached his limit of castable spells at that level. If he has reached his limit for spells at that level, then every spell of that level (except the 1 or 2 spells he cast to reach the limit) are locked out until he rests again. The remaining (previously cast) spells of that level are infinitely castable.

example:
Billy, a level 4 warlock, has a limit of 2x level 1 spells per day, and 1x level 2 spells per day.
-Initially, Billy has access to all 21 level 1 spells, and all 13 level 2 spells, and can cast whichever ones he wants to.
-When Billy casts "Jump" on himself, this is tracked via hidden buff, and no other changes are noticed because he is at 1/2 for his limit of level 1 spells.
-When Billy casts "Resist Energy" on himself, this is again tracked via hidden buff, and since he is now at his limit of 2/2 for level 1 spells, the other 19 level 1 spells are simultaneously made unavailable/locked out/grayed out on his hotbars.
-Likewise, as soon as he casts the spell "Blur" on himself, all 12 of the other level 2 spells are locked out for the rest of the day.
-Billy may continue to cast "Jump", "Resist Energy", and "Blur" as many times as he wants, with no limit (except running out of sp).
-When Billy rests at a shrine (or exits a finished quest, etc), his hidden buffs are cleared, resetting his spell level limits to 0, and every single spell becomes unlocked so that he regains his ability to cast any spell he wants.


Why should we do this?
Spellcasters in DDO have pretty much always gravitated to choosing the spells that are most useful in 90% of situations, and ignoring all the rest. This results in most characters of the same spec having spell books that are largely identical. With a limit of 2 spells per level, this will be even more pronounced in warlocks. By allowing them to pick their spells on the fly as above, it becomes more likely that some of the niche spells will actually see some use, instead of being universally discarded in preference of more generally useful spells. Beyond that, it distinguishes warlock casting from all other manner of spellcasting by making it extremely versatile.



With regard to spell-point usage, I probably prefer that they keep spellpoints because it works better with multiclassing and destinies (i.e., as spellpoints, this particular warlock resource can be spent on non-warlock things, including Cocoon).

[SisAmethyst]

Well you could have it work like sorc's increased item spell point boost and have it based on how many levels of the class they have 5% of the boost per class lvl

I am as well a bit wary about the SP regen, maybe a combination of several aspects could work. Including the higher SP regen be granted like the rogue extra feats on level 10, 13, 16, and 19 so you would actually need a very deep splash. Or each time you get a new tier of spells you get a % discount on SP for the previous tier of WL spells. Something like a level 20 WL could have lets say a 80-60% discount on the tier 1 spells (e.g. Expeditious Retreat, Resist Energy) and so on making them effectively like a SLA, while the highest level spells still cost normal.

Cool downs on spell the other hand would however probably play a bit against the idea of a spontaneous caster like a WL, that just snip in the fingers and has his effect. In other words a WL should be able to cast a limited subset of spells from what a Wizard can, as instant and spontaneous as a Sorc, but with only 30-50% of the firepower but instead as often as he want.

Dunno, maybe have to check if I can come up with a real pen and paper example of a scenario, comparing a WL, WIZ and SORC in an end fight and how they could use their magic tool set to make the difference between them a bit better visual. With the wizard having the biggest set of tools and spells, speak universality, the sorc has the highest burst power and the warlock having limited and lower burst but with the longest duration of all three, build for endurance.

As a simple comparison as far as I know the WL, except of the various blasts the highest damage 'spells' are Wall of Perilous Flame (1d6/1d6 magic/fire damage), Chilling Tentacles (grapple +2d6 cold damage AoE) and Tenacious plague (nauseated, 2d6 points of swarm damage, AoE) all of them more an AoE/DoT kind of spells. Compared to Wizard/Sorc damage spells like Delayed Blast Fireball (1d6 - 20d6), Disintegrate (2d6 - 40d6) or Finger of Death (death or 3d6+1 - 3d6+20 on save). So even the typical invocations are more designed for long term damage. In other words they should be cool for boss fights without the need to worry to save mana for this fight or have to shrine first. Like in Shroud where all casters shrine before phase 5, while the WL would just shrug and say "well I could take an other one like that..."

[SisAmethyst]

An idea for versatility in warlock spell casting:

-Make -all- the spells in their list available to them after a rest (e.g. all 21 level 1 spells, all 13 level 2 spells, etc), while retaining the limit on unique spells cast per level per day (e.g., 2 across the board at cap)
-When a warlock casts a spell, he gains a hidden buff to track which spell was cast. For instance, after casting "blur" he would gain the affect, "Level-2-warlock-spell-limit" with the value, "Blur" (or whatever unique identifier is used to refer to the "Blur" spell)
-After the hidden buff is applied, you check to see if the warlock has reached his limit of castable spells at that level. If he has reached his limit for spells at that level, then every spell of that level (except the 1 or 2 spells he cast to reach the limit) are locked out until he rests again. The remaining (previously cast) spells of that level are infinitely castable.

I can imagine that this would be difficult to code and need a lot of house keeping and resources on the server to track which spell was cast. Also while I not really want to lock down the Warlock into only 1 or 2 useful spells, for me personally the Warlock isn't the typical spell caster. A bit like the Bard and Artificer also only has a limited amount of spells but the Bard is either singing or swashbuckling and the Artificer using the repeater and rune arm while the spells are mainly of additional support. They both play significant different to a Wizard/Sorc (at least in heroic levels) and in my opinion the last we need is a castrated Wizard/Sorc copy with limited SP that plays exactly the same by using the right meta gaming.

So if I understood you correctly that a WL could use any Wizard/Sorc spell, you could for example use the two spells ottos and delayed blast firewall in combination, cluster the whole map with ottos and due to the unlimited SP hold monsters in place and bomb them down with quite a strong spell. I certainly would stop playing any wizard or sorc as the quests are predictable enough that with the right choices you never would need more then 2 spells anyway, especially with no cost involved.

[btolson]

I can imagine that this would be difficult to code and need a lot of house keeping and resources on the server to track which spell was cast.

It's one hidden buff per spell level (up to 6), each of which will contain 1 or 2 spell names/identifiers (short strings of text). After that it's simply setting which spells are available to cast and which aren't, handled identically as with unprepared wizard/cleric/druid spells. This shouldn't tax the servers in any meaningful way.

To rephrase the idea, compared to wizards/clerics/druids who choose which spells to prepare immediately after shrining, warlocks would essentially choose which spells are prepared at any time, on the fly, by casting the ones they want and allowing the rest to be locked.

So if I understood you correctly that a WL could use any Wizard/Sorc spell, you could for example use the two spells ottos and delayed blast firewall in combination, cluster the whole map with ottos and due to the unlimited SP hold monsters in place and bomb them down with quite a strong spell. I certainly would stop playing any wizard or sorc as the quests are predictable enough that with the right choices you never would need more then 2 spells anyway, especially with no cost involved.

No, I still intend for them to be limited by the proposed Warlock spell list. It's post #5 on the first page. I was also quite clear in the example and afterward that I prefer they continue to have/use spellpoints.

[Marten]

I agree with you fully! It's just if the developers are super dead set on including SP, which I personally think they shouldn't, that they should allow Warlocks to infinitely cast spells with limits.

We've looked at and examined many, many options. We've had serious discussions about making across the board changes where all Warlock spells very cheap or free but having x5 or x10 cooldowns (anything less seems not meaningful). This would make buffing very annoying, and it would be pretty hard to differentiate those spells from others, etc. We talked about using ability counters (like Action Boosts), one way of not having spell lists at all, etc.

In place of spell points, make their spells have really low DCs, a timer, and the ability to mash that spell button over and over and over and over... until it works!

[Deathdefy]

The control against warlocks being OP in Neverwinter Nights and the PnP I played was that their spells weren't as powerful. I agree the spell list and this issue are a single problem. Happy to post giant lists of the in-game spells / effects I'd choose, but it'll primarily be a rehash of 'no-mass hold', single target death spells only, probably no otto's dancing sphere.

The 12 x SLA sounds extremely enjoyable (even if you do throw in longer cooldowns, which again I'd submit were unnecessary in other forms of the game due to spell selection).

It being "more time consuming to buff" doesn't sound like a deal-breaker to me. I buffed enough people with the SLA 'Blur' as an Illusion Archmage to testify that while occasionally slightly annoying, I struggle with the idea that it's a significant enough irritation to factor into design decisions.

Similarly "differentiation from other spells" doesn't seem that problematic to me. The (super fun and unique to warlock) difference is they don't cost SP and there's 12 of them.
Alternatively, most people put them on the action bar and don't click them with the mouse so it doesn't matter, depending on the context of differentation (I'm potentially still failing basic reading comprehension here, but that's my problem).

I really struggle with them, even taken together, outweighing the actually significant fun potential of infinite casting.

TL;DR do the SLA thing - it sounds incredible!


EDIT: Side note that I hate the "Echoes of Power but more and faster" idea with the passion of a thousand burning suns.

Would just mean "Warlock is good for a while, dependant on initial SP pool, then has big drop off in power while waiting for SP to regen". Weird, gross mechanic total antithetic to infinite casting. Warlock should at least be uniform in casting effectiveness.

[Drathsiddh]

This isn't very likely; making even one line like Palemaster was fairly time intensive.

So no pets then. *Sniff* I was really looking forward to something cool. Maybe it could've been based on your Pacts.

We've looked at and examined many, many options. We've had serious discussions about making across the board changes where all Warlock spells very cheap or free but having x5 or x10 cooldowns (anything less seems not meaningful). This would make buffing very annoying, and it would be pretty hard to differentiate those spells from others, etc. We talked about using ability counters (like Action Boosts), one way of not having spell lists at all, etc.

Yeah Buffing would be a pain. Action Boosts? How does that support unlimited spell casting? No no and NO to action boosts instead of spells. So when are the new spells coming out?

I'm not sure what the issue was in this thread, or how this is a different problem for Warlocks vs. other classes.

We certainly hope you don't have enough skill points to get everything you want.

A Rouge with base Int (8) can still get all the main abilities he'll require to at least be decent. Same for the Bard. Even a Pally can get his Conc right up there. Intimi can be taken if the guy finds place for Quicken. But for a Warlock? Nope. 'Locks need much more skill points. A decent investment in UMD can allow them to use Heal. The rest will have to go into spellcraft. But what about Conc.? You guys have said that you don't want the class to have some "must-have-or-be-gimped" feats or enhancements, But without enough skill points, Quicken is a must. (Consider Fey Pact 'locks too. They need Perform in addition to the other three/two)

Warlock Energy Resistance is expected to stack with everything.

Cool.

Warlocks get regular feats every 3 levels like all classes (with an extra for Humans as usual).

Expected.

My guess is it will be the same price as the druid; 1495 points.

What? But that's too little for such a powerful class which brings so much more to the game! [/SARCASTIC]


(Sorry is it was a little negative at any point in time)

[Azarddoze]

Which is a shame because very few people ever use the skele pet ESPECIALLY into epic, that said if there isn't going to be a dedicated pet the summon boosting enhancements are nigh useless, if you you want to boost the summons...boost the summons don't waste 3 tiers of enhancement slots on it in a class that doesn't have a strong summon to start with (Re-use the coding in the Druid & Arty Pet trees when you get around to updating them to the new style)

To clarify the only summons worth anything are the Druid & Arty pets and even they need to scale with character level, so epic levels can count and so a little splash won't kill their progression (their AP is Class based still) so unless you make a summoner class or a "Summoner" prestige tree that is Class neutral like Harper. Adding summon based enhancements to anything other than the Pet tree's is just a waste. (I don't even get why their is pet boosters in Druid and Arty trees when those could have gone in the pet trees themselves)

Unless they would scale with difficulty, have you ever considered what would happen in EH and EN if a summon was viable in EEs? Now that's the extreme. But just how do you balance them I always wondered. It's not as easy as in an "tab target" MMO imo. Too many variables.

I'd like them to be viable as well... but given the difficulty gaps and no scaling mechanic, it just cannot happen maybe?

On warlock's pet: Maybe it's because of WoW and games with Necromancers, but I kinda always had that vision of warlock with summons as well (but there's Pale Masters already). Doesn't really matter in this game though... partialy because of the reasons you stated.