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Post by chainlink on Aug 29, 2020 23:34:36 GMT
Just use the animals in the druid grove that's exactly how they work
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Post by jelricle on Sept 2, 2020 20:47:37 GMT
Yeah, but they are rather OP, as well (even if presently sub-Oltum)
Also, I do feel bad "dominating" the poor things repeatedly. :-D
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2020 21:10:31 GMT
Then don't use them.
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Post by zentraxius on Sept 5, 2020 22:14:43 GMT
they hit a point where they go from "OP" to breathtakingly useless very quickly, they're strong in the beginning because their AC is too high to get hit, around mid 30s at the latest (lammasu/fully buffed) is when that stops being useful. Same reason any of the "good" summons or dominations are also useless, NPC's have freakishly high AB but comparably low AC on top of not being immune to breach/mord. Even lammasu is unuseable trash once you get into an area where mobs either dispel or can hit its AC. Erego buffing the companions to be useable would have to take this into account, otherwise there's no point. Atm a level 60 druid CL has a bear with 2400 some hp but pretty low AC and its AB is literally worse than a sorcs (50 some ab? 60 with GMF) An idea would be - companions / familiars get the same properties their master has (from items) so if I'm mords immune/they are too. At that point they would just need a bit of an AB boost to actually reach mobs and they could be pretty decent. Fundamentally if they don't have immunities and/or dispel protection they just don't have the potential to be good, and that's ignoring the glaring issue of KB. Another fun idea would be to give familiars weapons, eg give pixie a sling shot.
For reference, at level 50 my pixie has.. 1600 hp, 64 ab with a +15 weapon and 1d10 magic dmg. Imm to mind spells. 83 ac.
Will die to anything in seconds, doesn't hit that hard and most importantly - I can't improve their AB at all because they already have +15 enhancement. Sure I can squeeze maybe +1 from cleric epic and another +6 from +12 bulls strength, but thats still going to be poor.
at 48 my bear has 82 ac, 1633 hp, and.. 41 ab(lul) with peak performance I can buff him using GMF to 51 ab, and 57 with +12 bulls strength. He has no immunities and is going to die in 3 seconds, if he doesn't get me killed by using his massive girth to block up half the room as he lumbers in to melee. Also no weapon so can't even buff that.
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Post by woqued on Sept 6, 2020 9:27:45 GMT
they hit a point where they go from "OP" to breathtakingly useless very quickly, they're strong in the beginning because their AC is too high to get hit, around mid 30s at the latest (lammasu/fully buffed) is when that stops being useful. Same reason any of the "good" summons or dominations are also useless, NPC's have freakishly high AB but comparably low AC on top of not being immune to breach/mord. Even lammasu is unuseable trash once you get into an area where mobs either dispel or can hit its AC. Erego buffing the companions to be useable would have to take this into account, otherwise there's no point. Atm a level 60 druid CL has a bear with 2400 some hp but pretty low AC and its AB is literally worse than a sorcs (50 some ab? 60 with GMF) An idea would be - companions / familiars get the same properties their master has (from items) so if I'm mords immune/they are too. At that point they would just need a bit of an AB boost to actually reach mobs and they could be pretty decent. Fundamentally if they don't have immunities and/or dispel protection they just don't have the potential to be good, and that's ignoring the glaring issue of KB. Another fun idea would be to give familiars weapons, eg give pixie a sling shot.
For reference, at level 50 my pixie has.. 1600 hp, 64 ab with a +15 weapon and 1d10 magic dmg. Imm to mind spells. 83 ac.
Will die to anything in seconds, doesn't hit that hard and most importantly - I can't improve their AB at all because they already have +15 enhancement. Sure I can squeeze maybe +1 from cleric epic and another +6 from +12 bulls strength, but thats still going to be poor.
at 48 my bear has 82 ac, 1633 hp, and.. 41 ab(lul) with peak performance I can buff him using GMF to 51 ab, and 57 with +12 bulls strength. He has no immunities and is going to die in 3 seconds, if he doesn't get me killed by using his massive girth to block up half the room as he lumbers in to melee. Also no weapon so can't even buff that.
I don't disagree with any of this, but you seem to not mention the defensive fundamentals from buffing them; that is, AoV + UEF for Dodge AC, Stats, Neg imm and Mass Camo / Displacement for concealment (all previously mentioned buffs are attainable from aug buffers/set items in the 40-55 range, even earlier if you're sneaky) - Regen/MRegen if you have them for just that - these are the primary defensive buffs that make animal companions borderline survivable. Actual summons and epic summon with conj foci and princes/demicount can be useful, though still having issues with both damage and buff retention. Shelgarn's Blade is a nice example of a non-op situationally very useful summon, though a big part of it is that it is a lvl 1 spell so it doesn't drain resources elsewhere to make use of. Your pixie is also a utility rogue familiar, not a combat familiar. Pixie is by far the best familiar in the game and nobody cares about her combat stats. I would bandaid grant animal companions and familiars baseline undispellable concealment to make them able to avoid at least some attacks (some fairly modest but decent amount, like 40%). AC has a higher chance if buffed by devs, and subsequently by player buffs to reach "nigh unkillable" -status. Concealment is just a nice flat non-scaling survivability boost when provided. Not sure how to explain a concealed bear lore-wise though. They could also receive mord/breach/dispel immunity given that the character has Conjuration focuses or something. I will note that both of these things - concealment and buff protection - are mandatory to keep players alive and we still die with vastly higher defenses. Animal Companions having these should not be too much to ask. Also, since the numbers are that low, they could receive a minor buff flat out to AC/AB and damage as well but there needs to be caution with those numbers understandably. Bit of a sidetrack, but more complete fixes to animal companions, familiars, conjured summons and epic/paragon summons is a tricky one. The numbers between - Useless no matter what - Useful if invested into with feats and buffs, otherwise useless but still useless if enemies can deal with buffs - Usable unbuffed, broken when invested and buffed into .. can be tricky to tiptoe around, especially when it comes to ab/ac/hp/damage numbers, and their situational use - case in point, Bard Army. Situationally it was incredibly OP before, often useless such as against banishing mobs; now it seems quite weak again. I think utility based summons are a good approach, where they are incredibly strong for a limited time but you still need to do "the work" by yourself - case in point, Healing Spirit. Being able to specialize into summons and grant them some limited utility on a pet-feat basis or some other way would be glorious but also very time-consuming to implement, I'd imagine. For sake of imagination, pets with access to one or two of - (minor, up to maybe 8% on a single specialized type, or 4/- DR) vulnerability infliction capabilities - knockdown / disarm / silence / breach/mord/dispel on hit/aura - running around with healing circle, camo aura, aura of negative immunity, ranged concealment aura - SR/Save drops, PM pet with a harming / aura of mass moderate negative infliction ticks Would be interesting I'd imagine, but also goes potentially somewhat counter to "party server, team up with other goons to have access to party spell/class goodies!" - and maybe there are bigger fish to fry, and classes/items in need of such abilities before pets, and then balancing these to be interesting and useful but not completely op, and then scripting them... Yep yep. But would make sense that when the mages power up their animal companions and familiars would too, in such a high magic environment full of treasure, riches and danger.
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Post by chainlink on Sept 6, 2020 10:34:01 GMT
I remember the early days of the 'improved' summons a couple of arcanes could do just about everywhere using GPB and/or Caligrosto and didn't need assistance from humble tanks, the scales tip real easy Summons can be situationally useful but they are not nor should be a crutch.
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Post by jelricle on Sept 13, 2020 3:50:52 GMT
Yes! Ditto with dominated animals, via empathy, and animal companions. But, at the moment, unless you stick with druid all the way through, animal companions aren't even useful. If they used Shifter and Ranger levels, they could stay useful without being a crutch.
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Post by zentraxius on Sept 19, 2020 1:27:00 GMT
Not quite, pure druid the companions are still terrible, even if you ignore their complete lack of defense, they don't have enough AB to hit things and if they roll a 20 to land a hit anyways it's a big shock if it actually does *any* damage. Buffing them isn't worth it because they're still terrible with full buffs, and they just get dispelled immediately and die anyways. For summons/companions, dispel imm would go along ways, but for animal companions/familiars they'd need a larger buff to be functional for anything, only really use them for a very brief distraction when trying to res from GS.
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