I don't quite get Summoners

[danr]

I've never played summoners much because they seem to be such one-trick ponies. Need to kill something? Summon some allies. Need to escape / protect yourself? Summon some meat shields.

In addition, I don't get the huge range of summoning spells available. How many do you really need? I see the need for different power levels e.g. spammals / canine familiar / hydra, but how many L5 summoning spells does one need?

I'm guessing that I'm missing something. What do summoners typically do other than summon stuff? Do they go Vehumet for the summoning books and then pick up conjurations as a back-up?

[palin]

You're missing how ridiculously broken summoning is. There is no need to do something other than summoning stuff.

I agree. Brother in arms from Trog is so useful that sometimes it seems broken.

[danr]

Well, this is kind of what I was seeing. But my guess is, even with just three or four summoning spells, that's probably all you need.

It just seems so boring, because you don't even do anything after you cast your summons. Is there something about it that I'm missing that makes a summoner more fun / varied than it seems like it would be?

[danr]

Are they popular i.e. do they get a lot of play?

On a related note, why does Vehumet give you summoning books after giving conjurations? I'd sooner just have guaranteed access to every conjuration spell. Sif Muna is for having access to a "diversified portfolio".

[crate]

Veh actually gives the summoning books first if your summoning skill is higher than your conjurations skill.

[JeffQyzt]

RE: Vehumet - the gift order is based on your skills, so summoners get the summoning books first, then conjurations, and conjurors vice versa.

If you want something to do while your summons are slaughtering the dungeon, popular pastimes include

* Channeling back your mana for more summons.
* Casting buffs on yourself and/or your summons, e.g. hasted dragons are fun.
* Casting smite targeted spells and other spells your summons are immune to, e.g meph. cloud and imps, to make the whole process somewhat faster.
* Leaning on the keyboard (this is suboptimal )

Note that if you can produce more summons at a sufficient rate and the opponents can't attack you through them, this is all optional; eventually a cloud of summons will chew through almost anything.

They're pretty popular, but I don't imagine that a lot of people repeat them after trying them a few times.

[palin]

It just seems so boring, because you don't even do anything after you cast your summons. Is there something about it that I'm missing that makes a summoner more fun / varied than it seems like it would be?

Branch into melee and get a polearm or a reaching weapon for more fun. Or learn portal projectile.

[Deimos]

Summoning is extremely powerful until you get bored. You will get bored.

[XuaXua]

You want to know why you get bored?

There is no investment in the summons beyond temporary MP. Ally management is weak at best, and a stronger ally management system would do summoning wonders.

The two stands on this are "More ally managment, fuck ally management, just get rid of it", which is a mistake in my opinion, and "improve ally management", which is what should be done. There are ideas on the DEV wiki in the ally management section.

[BlackSheep]

Or we could just leave summoning in as Crawl's pudding farming.

[igor]

Are they popular i.e. do they get a lot of play?

On a related note, why does Vehumet give you summoning books after giving conjurations? I'd sooner just have guaranteed access to every conjuration spell. Sif Muna is for having access to a "diversified portfolio".

Tengus have great melee skills, so weaker creatures should be vanquished by hand-to-hand, missile, or conjurations (esp. electrical) before relying on Summoning. There is a danger of draining out the MP and being unable to Summon anything in time, so alternative forms of attack and defense--or escape--must be acquired in order for a Summoner to prevail in the worst situations. Monsters in the latest release always prefer to attack the player rather than the summoned creatures, so a bit of planning and foresight is necessary in order to interpose the summoned creatures between you and the monsters, although this is not always possible. Some creatures can smite, abjure, torment, cast bolts or clouds of draining, fire, cold, electricity, and other things that defeat the careful plans of a Summoner. Many Summoners do die.

I never did understand why Vehumet gifts Summoning books, since Summoning causes indirect slaughter of monsters, similar to Charms/Hexes. I also feel like Vehumet far overpowers Sif Muna, and that Sif Muna only represents a decent choice for Drow Elves or Demonspawn, if any, although I think I'd prefer Vehumet for any caster that intends to cast Conjurations as a primary part of his attack. Vehumet has so many obvious nice features. Sif Muna allows forgetting a spell, which is no big deal with so many amnesia scrolls around nowadays, and the Invocation that lets one recover MP starts out weak and stays weak until Invocation skill increases (at a cost of other skills' development), and it costs a turn to use anyway.

The best Summoning spell of all is Shadow Creatures, which seems overpowered compared to its fifth and sixth level competitors. I think that's about the highest level spell a Summoner needs to know before breaking into a different school of magic. Summoning Demons can be a risky affair.

[Konebred]

I don't play many casters, but the one I did get to zot was an Octopode FE. I basically leveled him like normal using firestorm on later levels. Then when I got comfortable with that I just dumped all the XP I got in zot to summoning for dragons. It worked pretty decent. The few summoners I have played were frustrating and tedious at low levels. I am pretty noobish, so take this all with a grain of salt.

[igor]

I don't play many casters, but the one I did get to zot was an Octopode FE. I basically leveled him like normal using firestorm on later levels. Then when I got comfortable with that I just dumped all the XP I got in zot to summoning for dragons. It worked pretty decent. The few summoners I have played were frustrating and tedious at low levels. I am pretty noobish, so take this all with a grain of salt.

Octopodes are a wonderful new species. I love them for any class of spellcaster. They make good Stalkers.