Useless Summoning Item like Bottled Efreet/Air Elemental Fan

[petzl]

Useless summoning items like Bottled Efreet/Air Elemental Fan/Lamp of Fire/Stone of Earth Elementals are useless. They're kind of like a trap for noobs. If you are powerful enough to operate one successfully and/or safely defend against it if it's hostile, then you don't need it. It's like the bank only lending you money if you're rich. These objects litter the dungeons like so much trash. I guess I have a vendetta against them because the flavour descriptions (to a n00b) sound so cool, and when you see a { you are thinking you're getting some cool relic, and then you find out all you get this lump of coal in your stocking. And very probably a lump of coal that gave you a YASD.

They're limited duration summons to begin with. You can't count on them to last the whole level. Why not make them uniformly friendly (subject to certain gods either getting mad at you or causing the summons to be uniformly hostile). Then, a weak, starting player would actually like to find such an object and carry it around, saving it for a difficult level or emergency situation.

If you have a problem with nerfing their danger factor, make them rarer and/or nerf their strength, but as they are, what are they? I can't see how they are of any use.

[XuaXua]

Efreet are not limited; they are one use and work great against cold and hydra opponents and act as the a free flame-branded scimitar at the coat of a potentially hostile opponent and/or friendly flame clouds taking out your dumber allies.

Elemental stones are great in that they consume walls acting as a poor man's dig spell, assuming you can kill the elemental. IMHO, if notI killed, that elemental should reform as a wall instead of vanishing when it expires (or turn into rocks when killed).

In this sense, fans should consume a portion of tornados if one is active, and a water elemental generator should exist that drains puddles from the ground.

[Eaki Godsbane]

Duh? Those aren't useless.

Efreet Bottles are guaranteed anti-cold/hydra weapons. Plus, if the efreet is friendly, he lasts as a bodyguard indefinitely(one that floats and leaves trails of fire).

Earth stones can be used to dig, and even if you summon hostile elementals, you can just run and wait for them to go poof.
The other stones can be a good backup for an elementalist who doesn't want to waste exp. on the summoning school.

[Tiber]

Efreets also work awesomely with silence, since they're immune. Use a lamp of fire with them for extra fun times.

Until I got overconfident, I had an amazing time in tomb with 4 efreets, silence, ring of flames, and a lamp of fire. Once they were silenced, I didn't have to do anything.

[Grimm]

Revamping the misc items is on the devs' to-do list.